1. Media Ecosystem Innovations
A macro and micro view of individual, higher education and
community tools for providing fresh news and information.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier
Scripps College of Communication, Ohio University
ferrierm@ohio.edu; @mediaghosts

2. • Associate Dean for Innovation |
Associate Professor
Scripps College of Communication,
Ohio University, OH; ferrierm@ohio.edu;
Twitter: @mediaghosts
• Vice President, Journalism That Matters
Founder, Create or Die Startup
Gatherings
• Founder, LocallyGrownNews.com
info@locallygrownnews.com;
Twitter: @localize_nc
• Mother of Google Maps
Educator
Entrepreneur
Mentor
Scholar
New Media Innovator
Dr. Michelle Ferrier

3. 
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University, @mediaghosts
MyWorldView

4. Our Agenda
 1. Digital Story Quilt: Creating identity and
community online using quilters’ tactics.
 2. Media Deserts Project: Way of "seeing" that
provides high-level view of the ecosystem.
 3. Media Entrepreneurship: Creating pathways to
innovation inside and outside the classroom.
 4. Digital Scholarship: Representing nonlinear
narratives in a nontraditional format.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

5. Four strategic questions
that frame the new
challenges and
opportunities for media
organizations.
Source: The Big Thaw: Charting a Future for
Journalism, Deifell, 2009.

6. The Digital Story Quilt
 Alan Kay, an interface designer, poses the
question:
“What kind of thinker would you become if
you grew up with an active simulator
connected, not just to one point of view, but
to all the points of view of the ages
represented so that they could be
dynamically tried out and compared?”
Alan Kay,“User Interface: A Personal View,” The Art of Human-Computer
Interface Design, 1990.

7. Practice:The Quilters’ Space
 Reflexive, poetic,
interpretive practice
 Kind of rootedness
 Quilts communicate in
an intimate fashion
across generations
 Offers tactics for
agency

8. Practice:The Quilters’ Space
 Through quilt text(iles), women used their
constraints n – to create a way of knowing
that expanded their domestic rhetoric into a
public realm.
 Contrary to patriarchal rhetorical styles, this
femmage or female collage uses fragments
to work in a conductive fashion – a
hyperrhetorical movement.

10. The Digital Story Quilt
Using six themes of family,
nature, ancestry, discipline,
community and
entertainment, users select
multimedia content for each
theme.

11. Practice:The Quilters’ Space
 Fragmentation: Tearing apart that which is seemingly
whole into pieces to create place of liminality (in
between).
 Condensation: Reduction of ideas to icons or symbolic
narratives; at level of family unit.
 Juxtaposition: Destabilizing, relational nature of
narratives, images display complexities.
 Improvisation: Kairos; the right suggestion at the right
time; yielding to the creative process.
 Endurance: Persistence over time.

12. The Digital Story Quilt
Users then search the
interface using a variety
of search tools. They
create a visual quilt top
that may be
manipulated or
“read” to reveal the
multiple dimensions of
each patch.

13. The Digital Story Quilt

14. Postfeminist Research, HypertextTheory
 Participatory Action: Everyone can speak for
themselves and constitute their own subject position.
 Dismantling Genres: Shift distinctions between
“received categories” so they may be questioned and
redefined.
 Communal Authorship: Politics of hypertext that is
polyvocal that overturns dominant mythology of
solitary author.
 Recombinant Materials: Creative appropriation of
symbology of a culture.
Diane Greco, “Hypertext with Consequences: Recovering a Politics of
Hypertext,” ACM, 1996.

15. Media Deserts Project
 Using GIS tools, we map
“media deserts” --
places where fresh
news and information is
lacking.
 Modeled after the
USDA Food Access
Locator Map
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

16. What is a “Media Desert”?
Working Definition
 A media desert is a
geographic area that is
lacking fresh news and
information.
 This condition may be as a
result of a lack of content,
access, language barriers
and other issues.
Framework of Analysis
 I use Lawrence Lessig’s concept
of communications
architecture:
 CODE: Language, spoken or
written or computer languages
 CONTENT: News, information,
images
 CONDUIT: Newspapers, radio,
mobile.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University, @mediaghosts

17. Newspaper Layoffs and Buyouts
Year
 2007
 2008
 2009
 2010
Layoffs and Buyouts
 2,256+ (partial data)
 15,992+
 14,783+
 2,828+
120+
newspapers
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts
More than 120 newspapers have ceased operation in the United States since 2008.

18. Mapping Newspaper Changes
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

19. Methodology
Data Sets
 Audit Bureau of Circulation
(Alliance for Audited Media)
total paid circulation data for
daily newspapers in North
Carolina from 2007 and
2010/2011.
 2000 census data by zip
code.
Technologies
 Excel spreadsheets
 Google Maps
 ArcGIS proprietary software
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

20. Methodology
 Daily Dispatch
 Alamance News
 Times-News
 Winston-Salem Journal
 Mount Airy News
 News & Record
 High Point Enterprise
 Sanford Herald
 Charlotte Observer
 Fayetteville Observer
 Salisbury Post
 Danville Register & Bee
 News & Observer
 Asheville Citizen-Times
 Richmond County Daily Journal
 Wilmington Star-News
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

21. Overlapping service areas for 12 newspapers in NC. Three newspapers in our pilot did not
have ABC data for multiple years.
Mapping Circulation Data
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

22. Average Annual Change
in Circulation
-4% 0% 4%
RQ1: Newspaper Circulation Change 2007 to 2011
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

23. Results
Household Income
 Statistical analysis using
Ordinary Least Squares
Regression suggests a very
weak positive relationship
between Median Household
Income and Change in
Circulation (R2 = 0.16, p <
0.1). A $10,000 decrease in
Median Household Income
results in a %0.02 drop in
Circulation.
Education Attainment
 Similarly, the data suggest a
very weak positive
relationship between the %
of people with At Least
Some College and Change in
Circulation (R2 = 0.12, p <
0.05). A 10% reduction in the
number of people with some
college results in a %0.08
drop in Circulation.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

24. Average Annual Change
in Circulation
-4% 0% 4%
% of population with at least
some college
0% 38% 90%

25. Average Annual Change
in Circulation
-4% 0% 4%
Median Household Income
$0 $35,000 $100,000

26. Greensboro News & Record
 Service area for the
Greensboro News &
Record, according to
their 2014 media kit.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

27. Results for News & Record
 This region shows erosion
around the perimeter of its
service area. However, in the
core of Guilford County, we
also see erosion of the
circulation. The newspaper
lost many subscribers right
in their back yard.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts
Average Annual Change in
Daily Edition Circulation
-4% 0% 4%

28. Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts
The interface design for the public website includes pinpoints of the location of daily
newspapers with dot size representing the daily circulation.

29. Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts
After users see the pinpoint data, they can click on a state and see the circulation change
rendered by zip code. Users can also compare the circulation on demographic factors.

30. Hyperlocal Online News Layer
Quantitative Analysis
 We examined the reach by
zip code of 132 hyperlocal
online news sites.
 We collected demographics
from 2010 census data and
from site-specific
demographics as available
on gender, education, HHI,
and ethnicity.
Qualitative Analysis
 We collected “home page”
screen grabs of each of the
132 sites for 14 days.
 Our content analysis focused
on story coverage and on a
visual analysis of the sites.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

31. The student work is collected into a wiki, where we can aggregate the content analysis
for each hyperlocal online news site. Future work will incorporate geographic reach into
the media deserts map.
Hyperlocal Online News Layer
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

32. Four strategic questions
that frame the new
challenges and
opportunities for media
organizations.
Source: The Big Thaw: Charting a Future for
Journalism, Deifell, 2009.

35. 5 Concrete Steps for Media Innovation
 Create more venues like Comcast’s DreamIt Ventures and
UNITY’s NewU that increase the odds that diverse people and
projects can pitch and be heard. As part of this mix, we need
incubators that don’t require relocation to Silicon Valley or
Boulder, Colorado. A “Bloom where you’re planted” model
would bring together training and talent in a geographic space
 Develop education and training for the hundreds of potential
businesses that wither at the doorways to incubators and pitch
sessions. These projects could be successful if provided with
nurturing, talent, and access to funds. We need a distributed
model, probably online and in physical space, that will help give
entrepreneurs just-in-time access to the information and
people that can help vet and nurture new ideas.

36. 5 Concrete Steps for Media Innovation
 Create a talent network so that media entrepreneurs can find and build a
talented team that has a higher likelihood of success. Content ideas rarely
get funded unless they have a strong technology play. Many ideas flounder
because of the lack of a tech team early on in the process of product
development.
 Create a microfund to support application fees and travel fees for potential
entrepreneurs to attend and perhaps pitch at the other startup weekends
and venues around the country. These small loans, probably of a couple of
hundred dollars, will help in identifying media entrepreneurs in need of just
the services a robust network can provide.
 Create a media corps of new and tested hyperlocal online news publishers
to serve underserved and underrepresented communities.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University, @mediaghosts

37. OHIO University Pathways to Innovation
 Scripps Innovation Challenge: University-wide
student media entrepreneurship competition.
 Mobile Module: Two-week module taught by
industry expert.
 Game Research and Immersive Design Lab:
Pre-incubation space for game development teams.
 Digital Media Incubator: Early-stage investment in
student/graduate companies.
Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University, @mediaghosts

38. Workshop Question #1
 What skills and knowledge do
non-business students need to
know and be able to do?

39. Workshop Question #2
 What structures within the
university can facilitate the
acquisition of these
skills/knowledge?

40. Workshop Question #3
 How do students demonstrate
their learnings in a “published”
format?

41.  Associate Dean for Innovation,
Research/Creative Activity and
Graduate Studies
 Scripps College of Communication
Ohio University
 ferrierm@ohio.edu
 @mediaghosts
 Michelleferrier.wordpress.com
Dr. Michelle Ferrier