News As User Experience...Or Journalism and Data: The New BFFs

Cindy Royal, Ph.D

Associate Professor

Texas State University

School of Journalism and Mass Communication

croyal@txstate.edu

www.cindyroyal.com

slideshare.net/cindyroyal

Digital Media at Texas State

Fundamentals of Digital/Online Media Core Course Electives

Web Design and Publishing Coding and Data Skills Multimedia Journalism Digital Storytelling Digital Entrepreneurship

Digital Concentration – graduate and undergraduate

New Digital Media Innovation Major SXTXState project Mass Comm Week brings in digital media speakers from the

region and nation

News as User Experience

Social networks and media are having an effect on traditional media

Increased expectation on part of user as to participation News examples: comments, ratings, blogs, user-generated

photos and videos; news sites on Facebook, using Twitter, other social platforms

News sites run the risk of seeming outdated or irrelevant if you don't give users something to do

Rise of participatory culture – Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture

News as User Experience

Changing idea of “news” Breaking news Mobile – expectation of receiving news anywhere, on

demand Relationship with community, sources Relevance of data to storytelling Rise of tools available to work with and present data Rise of data journalism as a speciality Rise of programming skills as an important literacy

Examples

New York Times – Rent or Buy

Examples

ProPublica Dollars for Docs

Examples

New York Times – How Ya’ll, Youse and You Guys Talk

Examples

Texas Tribune – Faces of Death Row

Examples

Statesman – Child Abuse and Neglect Fatality Database

Examples

NYT Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical

Examples

ProPublica – Money As a Weapons System

Examples

Texas State Student Becky Larson – Loud Austin

Examples

Stamen Design – MTV Movie Awards Twitter Visualization

Resources Are Journalism Schools Teaching Their Students the Right Skills, - Nieman Lab,

http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/04/cindy-royal-are-journalism-schools-teaching-their-students-the-right-skills/

When the Data Struts Its Stuff – NYT - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/business/03stream.html

Teaching with Infographics – NYT - http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/

Renegades at The New York Times – New York Magazine - http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53344/

Data Journalism at the Guardian: What It Is and How Do We Do It? - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/28/data-journalism

The Programmer Majored in English – Nieman Journalism Lab - http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/the-programmer-majored-in-english-a-fascinating-study-of-the-nyts-interactive-news-unit/

Poynter – Data-driven Journalism articles http://www.poynter.org/tag/data-driven-journalism/

Stanford – Journalism in the Age of Data - http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/

Hacks/Hackers – hackshackers.com

11 Journalism Jobs You May Hold in the Future - http://sustainablejournalism.org/future-of-journalism/journalism-jobs-may-hold-future

Other Reading

Data Journalism Handbook – European Journalism Centre - datajournalismhandbook.org

Simon Rogers – Facts are Sacred Clay Shirky – Here Comes Everybody & Cognitive Surplus Dan Gillmor – We the Media & Mediactive Jeff Jarvis – What Would Google Do? Max McCombs - The Future of News Douglas Rushkoff - Program or Be Programmed: 10

Commandments for a Digital Age Henry Jenkins - Convergence Culture Ian Bogost – Newsgames: Journalism at Play James Surowiecki – The Wisdom of Crowds