Using new media for current affairs reporting. Lecture given to Sri Lanka College of Journalism.

1. Current affairs reporting
Leveraging new and social media
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TEDGlobal Fellow 2010
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 democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers. (Wikipedia)

3. what is new media?
• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital,
computerized, or networked information and communication technologies.
• New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or
paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)
• But increasingly, old media is leveraging the web, Internet and mobiles in
generating and disseminating news and information.

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

6. 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

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

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

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

10. What is out there?

11. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

12. 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.

13. online video: Vikalpa YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/vikalpasl

14. alternative politics in Sinhala: Vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

15. news from provinces: Perambara
www.perambara.org

16. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

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

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

19. twitter: topical, pithy perspectives
www.twitter.com

20. flickr photos on sri lanka
www.flickr.com

21. Facebook for work

22. social networking: facebook

23. social networking: facebook reach with $0

24. social networking: facebook reach with $0
Avg. FB account: 130 friends
Groundviews FB page has 1,600+ fans
Updates featured on 208,000+ FB accounts. Instantly.

25. Managing content: Pulling in

26. essential email: gmail / google account

27. google search: updates from social media

28. google news: thousands of sources

29. google alerts: thousands of sources
http://www.google.com/alerts

30. google reader: a web based RSS reader

31. podcasts from BBC: news and current affairs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts

32. podcasts from BBC: news and current affairs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts

33. podcasts from NPR: news and current affairs
http://www.npr.org

34. audio podcasts from Apple iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes

35. video podcasts from Apple iTunes
http://www.apple.com/itunes

36. iTunes university
http://www.apple.com/itunes

37. curated content

38. curated content = selecting the best produce

39. curating news
• Buying fruits of vegetables • Curating news
• Check price • Check authorship
• Weigh it in one’s hands • Check for veracity, quality
• Is it accurate, fair, topical?
• Look at it from all angles
• 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
• Be suspicious if it looks too good • Be cautious of unverified information
and breaking news
• Ascertain location where it was
produced • Is the producer local or foreign?

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

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

42. twitter desktop client
seesmic.com/seesmic_desktop/sd2

43. Managing content: Pushing out

44. wordpress.com: blogging

45. wordpress.com: blogging
http://si.wordpress.com

46. wordpress.com: blogging
http://ta.wordpress.com

47. wordpress.com: blogging via phone
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-by-voice

48. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

49. bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

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

51. flickr: posting images via mobiles
http://www.flickr.com/tools/mobile

52. 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

53. key points: recap
• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens
• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content
• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

54. Thank you