AJM 1ISOJ 2012
Prof. Katarina Stanoevska-Slabeva
katarina.stanoevska@unine.ch
Vittoria Sacco
vittoria.sacco@unine.ch
Marco Giardina
marco.giardina@unine.ch
Content Curation: a new form
of Gatewatching for social
media?

AJM 2ISOJ 2012
Characteristics and similarities of media content curation
with gatewatching processes.
Potential roles of media content curation to be a filter for
social media content.
Potential changes imposed by media content curation on the
media landscape.
GOALS

AJM 3ISOJ 2012
INTRODUCTION & GAPS
Online journalism has created new forms and new genres.
The audience is more involved in news production and distribution.
Social media have lowered the barriers for citizen contributions.
But, eyewitness journalism in social media has several disadvantages:
the sheer amount of information provided is overwhelming and cannot reach
everyone;
information pushed forward by new contributions vanishes from readers' screens;
several sources talk about the same events but from different perspectives;
lacks a clear storyline which calls for the need to have someone to make sense out of
the flow of information, to find the best content and to give credit to the right
sources.

AJM 4ISOJ 2012
LITERATURE REVIEW
Gatekeeping Gatewatching
Definition
It is the practice of deciding why one story is selected to be
reported and the other is not (Bruns, 2006). It concerns
the newsgathering and news production processes and the
reasons given by newspapers editors for discarding
possible news issues (White, 1950).
Gatewatching should represent the new role of media
organizations which have lost the power to choose what news
to include or to exclude in the editorial processes (Bruns,
2006). Gatewatchers do not embody journalists’ roles but they
amalgamate traditional gatekeeping processes with
information aggregation (Bruns, 2003).
Characteristics
Organizational factors and journalists’ workflows
(Beam, 1990; Reese & Ballinger, 2001; Shoemaker et
al., 2001);
Events concurring within the time frame of publication
Unpredicted stories (Singer, 1998);
Events diverging from others already published (Singer,
1998);
Expert judgment motivation (Berkowitz, 1997);
Political ideology (Chang & Lee, 1992);
Education (Peterson, 1979);
Other background experiences (Peterson, 1979);
Class position (Gans, 1979);
And career pressures(Gans, 1979).
Gatewatching is based on accessible information and
sources (Bruns, 2003).
The public is an active reader by taking some of the roles of
traditional gatekeepers, such as the assessment of sources
and misinformation bias moderated by gatewatchers’
comments (Bruns, 3003).
Three stages of Gatewatching (Bruns, 2008):
1. Disclosure and access to original sources of information;
2. Openness towards users to check input information;
3. Participation of users in all stages of news production.
Examples Traditional newspapers
Slashdot, IndyMedia, Kuro5hin, MediaChannel, OhmyNews &
Wikinews

AJM 5ISOJ 2012
MEDIA CONTENT CURATION
From a structural point of view, main components of curated stories are:
The original contributions curated from social and/or conventional media;
The context and background information provided by the author;
Additional meta-data as date and time of publication, author and other such
similar information. The number of provided additional meta-information
depends on the tool used to curate and create the story.
Key aspects of media content curation based on gatewatching (Bruns, 2005) are
the following:
All submitted stories are published instantly (no editorial intervention at the
input or output stage);
Where editorial decisions are made, they are entirely transparent to users;
News stories and the entire website system itself are freely redistributable.

AJM 6ISOJ 2012
STORIFY.COM
Number
of views
Author’s
Profile
Content
created by the
author
Hyperlink on
an online
journal
Curated content :
Youtube video
Curated
content: Picture
from yfrog
Curated content: Tweet
Curated content : Tweets
Content created by the
author
Profile of
the person
who has
posted the
Tweet
Date and
hour when
the Tweet
has been
posted
Source: http://storify.com/ajestream/the-
egypt-effect

AJM 7ISOJ 2012
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
RQ1:
Which are the sources employed in social media curation?
RQ2:
What are the types of interactive features commonly adopted in social media
curation?
RQ3:
Is social media curation affecting the levels of gates?

AJM 8ISOJ 2012
METHODOLOGY
Sources Definition
Media Organizations All level of media professionals involved in media organizations without country distinction
Citizens Eyewitnesses, victims, prisoners, fighters, protesters and their families from the country of
revolutions.
Official Official and administration authorities (i.e. members of governments or military forces).
NGOs Non-profit organizations (i.e. Amnesty International or the Red Cross).
Non-Arab People People not physically involved in the rebellions and that do not live in Arab countries.
Arab People Arab people and refugees that do not live in the countries of the rebellion stories.
Themselves Social media posts of the writers themselves.
Others/unknown Sources not identified or that could not be part of the other categories
Content Analysis (Krippendorff, 2004; Kolbe &Brunett, 1991; Kassarjian, 1977)

AJM 9ISOJ 2012
DATA GATHERING AND CODING PROCESS
Sample
450 Storify’s stories whose Yemen (43), Syria (74), Barhain (74), Libya (96), Egypt (96),
more than one revolution (66).
Period from January-February 2011 to August 2011.
Key words searched in Google: revolution, rebellion, freedom, flag, fight and civil war,
main cities, name of the dictators + the country name (There was no search engine
directly in the website at the time of the study).
Coding
Unit of analysis = the story
Binary coding + demographic variables of authors
Crosstabs for describing the inference about variables meaning.
Reliability (Krippendorff, 2004)
Krippendorff’s α for sources = 0.820
Krippendorff’s α normal for technical sources = 0.956

AJM 10ISOJ 2012
RESULTS
77%
87%
80%
55%
48.00%
59%
40%
39.20%
51%
35%
36.00%
27%
25%
24.80%
26%
13%
12.00%
23%
8%
5.60%
8%
14%
12.80 %
16%
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00
Hours
Day
Days
Others
Official
NGOs
Themselves
Arab People
Non Arab People
Citizens
Media
Original Contributors

AJM 11ISOJ 2012
RESULTS
37%
37%
26%
29%
24%
47%
15%
51%
34%
33%
0
67%
19%
30%
51%
24%
19%
57%
36%
25%
39%
35%
23%
42%
17%
20%
63 %
30%
23%
47%
0 20 40 60 80
Hours
Day
Days
Others
You Tube
Lockers
Yfrog
Flickers
RSS
Facebook Photos
Facebook
Twitpic
Twitter
Digital sources

AJM 12ISOJ 2012
CONCLUSIONS
RQ1: Which are the sources employed in social media curation?
Social media curation comprise several sources, while at the same
time posting one’s own story as the primary source of information.
Social media curation gives access to internal and external sources in
ways that are unique and add enough value to attract news users.
RQ2: What are the types of interactive features commonly adopted in
social media curation?
Results reveal that curation glues existing social media content and
traditional media content without creating original news itself.
Readers can quickly access of news delivery since new stories can be
published as soon as source information is found anywhere on the
Web.

AJM 13ISOJ 2012
CONCLUSIONS
RQ3: Is social media curation affecting the levels of gates?
Stages Gatekeeping
(Bruns, 2005,
p.12)
Citizen Journalism
(Bruns, 2008, p.79)
Storify’s stories
Amateurs authors Media Professionals
authors
Gatewatchi
ng
-
Gatewatching of
news sources open
to all users
Gatewatching as
primary source open to
all users
Gatewatching as primary
source open to all users
Input
News gathering
only by staff
journalists
Submission of
gatewatched stories
to all users
Submission of
gatewatched stories to
all users
Submission of
gatewatched stories to
all users
Output
Closed editorial
hierarchy
Instant publishing
or collaborative
editing of stories
Instant publishing
Story selection
controlled by media
editors.
Response
Editorial
selection of
letters/calls to
be made public
Discussion and
commentary open
to all users.
Discussion and
commentary open to
all users.
Discussion and
commentary open to all
users.

AJM 14ISOJ 2012
REFERNCES
• Beam, R. A. (1990). Journalism professionalism as an organizational-level concept: Association for Education in Journalism
and Mass Communication.
• Berkowitz, D. A. (1997). Social meanings of news: A text-reader: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Bruns, A. (2003). Gatewatching, not gatekeeping: Collaborative online news. Media International Australia Incorporating
Culture and Policy: quarterly journal of media research and resources, 107, 31-44.
• Bruns, A. (2005). Gatewatching: Collaborative online news production (Vol. 26): Peter Lang Pub Inc.
• Bruns, A. (2006). Wikinews: The Next Generation of Online News? Scan Journal, 3(1).
• Bruns, A. (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond: From production to produsage (Vol. 45): Peter Lang Pub Inc.
• Chang, T. K., & Lee, J. W. (1992). Factors affecting gatekeepers' selection of foreign news: A national survey of newspaper
editors. Journalism Quarterly, 69, 554-554.
• Kassarjian, H. H. (1977). Content analysis in consumer research. Journal of consumer research, 8-18.
• Kolbe, R. H., & Burnett, M. S. (1991). Content-analysis research: An examination of applications with directives for
improving research reliability and objectivity. Journal of consumer research, 243-250.
• Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology: Sage Publications, Inc.
• Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what's news: a study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, Newsweek, and Time:
Northwestern Univ Pr.
• Peterson, S. (1979). Foreign News Gatekeepers and Criteria of Newsworthiness. Journalism Quarterly, 56(1), 116-125.
• Reese, S. D., & Ballinger, J. (2001). The roots of a sociology of news: Remembering Mr. Gates and social control in the
newsroom. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 78(4), 641-658.
• Shoemaker, P. J., Eichholz, M., Kim, E., & Wrigley, B. (2001). Individual and routine forces in gatekeeping. Journalism Mass
Communication Quarterly, 78(2), 233-246.
• Singer, J. B. (1998). Online journalists: Foundations for research into their changing roles. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 4(1).
• White, D. M. (1950). The “gate keeper”: A study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27, 383–390.

AJM 15ISOJ 2012
Thank you for your Attention !!!