Computational Journalism Bangalore , Oct 2009

1. Computational Journalism
Who will drive the world?

2. Computational Journalism
Computational journalism
the application of computation
to the activities of journalism such as information
gathering, organization, sensemaking,communication
and dissemination
upholding values of journalism such as fairness,
accuracy, and objectivity.

3. Computational Journalism
How do you define WIKILEAKS?How do you define WIKILEAKS?

4. Computational Journalism
In sheer volume it is more than all information
gathered by all reporters/new agencies
worldwideworldwide
If a analytical toll is added to it and made
available to the media the impact would be
phenomenal

5. Computational Journalism
The field draws on technical aspects of computer
science including artificial intelligence, contentscience including artificial intelligence, content
analysis (NLP, vision, audition), visualization,
personalization and recommender systems as well as
aspects of social computing and information science

6. Computational Journalism
The field emerged at the Georgia Institute of
Technology in 2006 where a course in the subject
was taught in 2007 and 2008.
In February of 2008 Georgia Tech hostedIn February of 2008 Georgia Tech hosted
a Symposium on Computation and Journalism which
convened several hundred computing researchers
and journalists in Atlanta, GA.
In July of 2009, The Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University
hosted a workshop to push the field forward.

7. Computational Journalism
Public and private databases are expanding exponentially
Synergy between journalists/software developers/ computer
scientists/other scholars
Large amount of structured/unstructured for their stories
Watchdog Journalism

8. Overview

9. Computational Journalism
Four areas for potential advances in CJ
Techniques of data transformation and pattern
discovery
Digital Dashboard for journalistsDigital Dashboard for journalists
New watchdog roles for readers as well as reporters
Narratives and spillovers from cutting edge research in
areas such as Homeland Security, Digital Humanities
and Medical Research

10. Accountability through Algorithm
Extraction Integration Visualisation
Journalists Dashboard
Interaction
among readers
and reporters
Sensemaking
advances in
other
disciplinines

11. Computational Journalism

12. Computational Journalism
Data in the Data in
Structured
Data in the
physical
mode
Data in
digital
mode
Structured
data

13. Computational Journalism
Various tool to
Information,
Can run search
engines
Various tool to
be used of
specific
requirements
Information,
ready for use
for reporting

14. Data Mining
Data mining is the process of extracting patterns from data.
Data mining is seen as an increasingly important tool by
modern business to transform data into an informational
advantage.advantage.
It is currently used in a wide range of profiling practices,
such as marketing, surveillance, fraud detection and
scientific discovery.
Complex investigative stories need data mining tools for a
proper analysis of data and conclusions based on it.

15. Challenges
• Need for a consensus on the nature of structured data
• Open source developers can help translate tools
developed in other fields into reporting algorithms
• Low cost data mining toolsLow cost data mining tools
• Creation of a standard software for journalists
• Capacity Building for journalists
• Change Management
• Readers Role

16. Challenges
The development of computational journalism
can be speeded up by the transformation ofcan be speeded up by the transformation of
products already developed into tools that
can be used by journalists.

17. Conclusion
For a wiser audience...we require a wiser journalist…
For a wiser journalist…we require a wiser technology…For a wiser journalist…we require a wiser technology…
The roadmap of the future journalism would be more
factual, investigative, analytical and real time reporting
with the right blend of technology.

18. THANK YOUTHANK YOU