New media allows for many-to-many communication rather than one-to-many broadcast media, transforming people from passive content consumers to active content producers. This has changed the way journalism is practiced, with information coming from citizen witnesses on the ground through social media platforms and smartphones. While this has democratized information and enabled reporting from closed countries, it also poses challenges like verifying accuracy and determining the veracity of stories amidst a torrent of information on digital platforms that are constantly evolving.

1. new media: old wine in new bottles?
Sanjana Hattotuwa
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)

4. new media based journalism
• Glocal information – what is local anymore?
• Information agents are rapid moving, transnational and cellular
• A person in Cape Town can report on activities in Colombo who sources his
information from someone in Menik Farm who sends an SMS to a relative in
Australia who posts it to the web
• Models of news gathering and trust are changing

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

6. what’s new
• Ubiquity of two way communications
• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees
• Journalism tied to ICTs
• First stories come from citizens, who are the first witnesses to any event
• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media
• Content from ordinary peoples juxtaposed with professional journalists

7. new media platforms and technologies
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace)
• Google Maps
• Mobiles: SMS, MMS, Mobile photography and video
• VoIP: Skype
• Underpinning the above is 3G HSPA wireless broadband and ADSL

8. no longer just the elite

9. the use of new media
internationally

10. Source Watch: Crowdsourcing

11. 10 questions: YouTube for accountability

12. crisis in darfur: using google earth

13. mainstream media: all use new media

14. 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.

15. “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

16. burma vj: reporting from a closed country

17. the green revolution: post-election Iran, 2009

18. the green revolution: post-election Iran, 2009
• Social media played three very important roles in the Iran situation:
1.It helped Iranians communicate with each other.
2.It helped Iranians communicate with the outside world.
3.It helped the rest of the world communicate with both Iranians and others
who sympathize with the protesters.
• 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.

19. haiti: earthquake, january 2009

20. haiti: earthquake, january 2009

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

22. flickr for sarath fonseka

23. flickr for the president

24. facebook for the president

25. facebook for sarath fonseka

26. more compelling local examples

27. twitter: bearing witness to ground realities

28. groundviews.org: investigative journalism
http://www.groundviews.org/2009/08/15/first-images-the-flooding-in-menik-camp-and-the-increasingly-
dire-situation-for-idps

29. groundviews.org: visualising perspectives

30. groundviews.org: real time reporting
http://www.groundviews.org/2009/02/21/air-raids-and-airports

31. groundviews.org: using twitter post-election
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/02/01/updates-capturing-aftermath-of-presidential-elections

32. groundviews.org: verifying stories
http://www.groundviews.org/2010/04/04/confusing-reportage-over-comments-by-the-president-
propaganda-or-fact

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

35. vikalpa.org: citizen journalism in Sinhala

36. youtube.com/vikalpasl: videos

37. perambara.org: regional perspectives

38. case study: mumbai bomb blasts
November 2008

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

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

41. 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

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

43. producing and reading content

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

45. gmail

46. google maps

47. google news

48. google reader: a web based RSS reader

49. wordpress.com: blogging

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

51. Google: Updates from social media

52. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

53. youtube.com: online video

54. flickr: online photos

55. facebook: leveraging social networks

56. facebook: leveraging social networks

57. Wikipedia: leveraging it for journalism

58. bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

59. drop.io: reports through audio

60. creating online content
• Think beyond text. Online is not print.
• Think beyond prose. Online can be satire.
• 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

61. enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.
• Veracity hard to determine
• Pace of technology development hard to keep pace with
• Need some basic understanding of English

62. new media toolkit

63. still not convinced?

64. still not convinced?

65. Thank you