This document discusses the rise of new media and its impact on journalism. It outlines how social media has transformed one-way broadcast media into two-way conversations by enabling people to both consume and produce content. It provides examples of how new media tools like blogs, social networks, mobile phones, and broadband access have been used to share information from events where traditional media was restricted, such as protests in Burma. The document argues that new media has made news more participatory and democratic by allowing citizens to directly engage as both witnesses and journalists.

1. new media: what’s really new?
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TED Fellow
Founding Editor, Groundviews, www.groundviews.org

2. 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 democratisation of knowledge and information, transforming people
from content consumers into content producers. (Wikipedia)

3. social media landscape in 2011

4. new media foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)
• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video
• And making this all possible is ADSL + 3G wireless
broadband

5. 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

6. old media model
Event / Issue
Journalist
Mainstream
media Consumer

7. new media models
Event / Issue Consumer Citizen media
Journalist Mainstream Consumer
media

8. the revolution
Journalist Consumer
News as a package
Consumer /
Journalist
Witness
News as a conversation

9. no longer just the elite

10. the use of new media internationally

11. SourceWatch: Crowdsourcing
http://www.sourcewatch.org

12. 10 questions: YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/show/10questions

13. crisis in darfur: using google earth

14. new eyes: using google earth

15. all mainstream media use new media

16. bombings in london
• 7 July 2005
• Within 24 hours, the BBC had received
1,000 stills and videos, 3,000 texts and
20,000 e-mails.

17. “saffron revolution” in myanmar 2007
• 100,000 people joined a Facebook group
supporting the monks
• No international TV crews allowed in the
country
• Mobile phone cameras were the first footage of
the monks protest
• Blogs from Rangoon were the only sources of
information
• The junta shut down all Internet and mobile
communications

18. burma vj reporting from a closed country

19. burma vj reporting from a closed country

20. the green revolution: post-election Iran 2009

21. the green revolution: post-election Iran 2009
• YouTube and Flickr brought multimedia out of the
distressed country. Twitter and Facebook updates
have spread videos virally. Blogs, Wikipedia, and
citizen journalism have helped disseminate and filter
this information.
• Most of all though, these tools have helped people
take action.

22. haiti earthquake, january 2009

23. Our present
The telegenic revolutions

24. The use of social media in Sri Lanka
Presidential Campaign 2010

25. flickr for sarath fonseka

26. flickr for the president

27. facebook for president

28. facebook for sarath fonseka

29. more local examples

30. groundviews citizen journalism bearing witness

31. readership and reach: web media
From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka.
Over this week alone, the site received over forty thousand readers and exclusively featured over
eighty-thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over a dozen photos, generating
over one hundred and fifty thousand words of commentary.
Tens of thousands more have read and commented on this content since.

32. commemorating lasantha
http://unbowedandunafraid.com

33. groundviews.org: participatory journalism
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/03/15/strengthening-democracy-in-sri-lanka-an-open-invitation-to-generate-fresh-
ideas/

34. recording history: archiving vital websites
http://sitesatrisksl.wordpress.com

35. groundviews citizen journalism bearing witness

36. online video: vikalpa YouTube channel
www.youtube.com/vikalpasl

37. alternative politics in sinhala vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

38. boondi alternative Sinhala critiques
www.boondi.lk

39. kottu blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

40. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

41. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

42. twitter topical, pithy perspectives
www.twitter.com

43. what is curation?

44. curated content

45. selecting the best produce

46. curating news
• Buying fruits of vegetables • Curating news
• Check price • Check authorship
• Weigh it in one’s hands • Check for veracity, quality
• Look at it from all angles • Is it accurate, fair, topical?
• What is the bias? Is it progressive?
• Look at it in context
• Select a few from many sources
• Look at a few, not just one
• Discard if out-dated information is
• Discard if old presented
• Ascertain location where it was • Be cautious of unverified information
produced and breaking news

47. curated twitter content on sri lanka: news
http://twitter.com/groundviews/sl-news

48. curated twitter content on sri lanka: blogs
http://twitter.com/groundviews/sl-bloggers

49. facebook for work

50. social networking: facebook
600 million+ users

51. social networking: facebook reach
Avg. FB account: 130 friends
Groundviews FB page has 5,311+ fans
Updates featured on ~690,000+ FB accounts. Instantly.

52. social networking: facebook reach

53. social networking: facebook reach

54. social networking: facebook video

55. case study: mumbai bomb blasts
November 2008

56. flickr: first images of the attacks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinu/sets72157610144709049

57. wikipedia: first narratives of the attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks

58. wikipedia: first narratives of the attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_November_2008_Mumbai_attacks
400+ edits / updates
100+ authors
Less than 24 hours after first attack

59. Getting updates: twittering the attacks
http://spy.appspot.com

60. case study: japan earthquake
March 2011

61. getting updates: google crisis response
http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

62. producing and reading content

63. gmail account: email, maps, news
• Free
• Access to Google Maps (mapping)
• Access to Google Reader (RSS / web updates)
• Access to Google News (news updates)

64. google maps

65. google news
http://news.google.com

66. google reader
http://reader.google.com

67. wordpress.com: blogging

68. twitter.com micro-blogging
http://media.twitter.com

69. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

70. ustream: mobile phone broadcasting
http://www.ustream.tv/mobile

71. bearing witness

72. flickr online photos

73. creating online content
• Think beyond text. Online is not print.
• Think beyond prose. Online can be satire, verse, haiku!
• Think of photos, audio, video. Rich media tells stories.
• Think of SMS and crowd-sourcing
• Don’t suggest you know everything. Use the community to add value to story.
• Link to other stories online

74. enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information, trickle of knowledge
• Veracity and verifiability
• 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

75. groundviews: first civility code
2006

76. still not convinced?

77. Thank you
sanjanah@gmail.com