Social networks & new mediaBane or boon for newsroom management?

Sanjana Hattotuwa

TEDGlobal Fellow 2010Editor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

what is social media?

• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. (Wikipedia)

what is new media?

• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies.

• New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)

• But increasingly, old media is leveraging the web, Internet and mobiles in generating and disseminating news and information.

new media and foundations

• Blogs

• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)

• Google Maps and mashups

• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video

• VoIP: Skype, Google Chat

• And making it all possible are ADSL, 3G wireless broadband

what’s new

• Ubiquity of two way communications

• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees

• Both news generation and dissemination leverages new media

• Disintermediated models vs. traditional media model

• Citizens as producers

• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

enduring challenges

• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain

• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.

• Veracity / Verifiability hard to determine

• Post-disaster communications can be unreliable and difficult. Eye-witness accounts are partial, subjective.

• New media / technology illiteracy even amongst journalists

• Apathy and animosity against citizen journalism

• Licensing and attribution of online content

What is out there?

bearing witness: Groundviews www.groundviews.org

online video: Vikalpa YouTube Channelwww.youtube.com/vikalpasl

kottu: blog aggregationwww.kottu.org

sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregationwww.sinhalabloggers.com

sinhala bloggers union: blog aggregationwww.sinhalabloggers.com

online video: Perambara YouTube Channelwww.youtube.com/internewslanka

alternative politics in Sinhala: Vikalpa www.vikalpa.org

news from provinces: Perambara www.perambara.org

twitter: new perspectives

flickr content on sri lankawww.flickr.com

Managing content: Pushing out

essential email: Gmail

essential sinhala unicode toolshttp://ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter

transliterating sinhala unicodehttp://www.google.com/transliterate/sinhalese

transliterating tamil unicodehttp://www.google.com/transliterate/tamil

wordpress.com: blogging

wordpress.com: blogginghttp://si.wordpress.com

wordpress.com: blogginghttp://ta.wordpress.com

ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

google maps: plot events

google maps: plot locations

Managing content: Pushing out

Investigative journalism

drop.io: reports through audio

whistleblowing & source protection: Moomeohttp://moomeo.com

whistleblowing & source protection: Moomeohttp://moomeo.com

Managing content: Pulling in

google search: Updates from social media

google news: thousands of sources

google reader: a web based RSS reader

web based document management: google docs

web based document management: Microsofthttp://www.live.com

google calendar: web based story planning

know your twitter hastags (#lka #srilanka)http://www.twitter.com

spy: http://spy.appspot.com

twitter: desktop aggregation via Seesmic Lookseesmic.com/look

news management toolkit

key points: recap

• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens

• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content

• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

Thank you