New media for graphics designers and photographers

1. Graphic and photo journalism
Leveraging new and social media
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TED 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.

4. social media landscape over 2011

5. new media foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)
• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video
• 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. key web platforms
twitter, flickr, facebook

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

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

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

14. social networking: facebook
600 million+ users

15. social networking: facebook
600 million+ users

16. online photo sharing: flickr
www.flickr.com

17. what is out there?

18. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

19. commemorating Lasantha
http://unbowedandunafraid.com

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

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

22. boondi: alternative Sinhala critiques
www.boondi.lk

23. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

24. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

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

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

27. photography in HD for the web: moving images
www.movingimages.asia

28. photography blogs: ‘amateur’ vs. ‘professional’
http://is-theblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-york-noir.html?spref=tw

29. social networking by politicians

30. social networking: facebook

31. social networking: facebook

32. social networking: facebook reach
Avg. FB account: 130 friends
Groundviews FB page has 7,150+ fans
Updates featured on ~929,500+ FB accounts. Instantly.

33. social networking: facebook reach with $0

34. how to select & make sense?

35. curated content

36. curated content = selecting the best produce

37. 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?

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

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

40. examples in visualisation

41. community sourced mapping
In Columbia, South Carolina, journalists of The State Media Company newsroom noticed something
didn’t smell right in their town. It wasn’t corruption, but an actual stink that was permeating the air
outside. Betsey Guzior, the features editor, decided to call on the community to help investigate the smell
using an open Google Maps.

42. flooding in Colombo
http://groundviews.org/2010/05/15/colombo-goes-under-water-and-not-for-the-first-time

43. student unrest in sri lanka
http://groundviews.org/2010/11/04/a-turn-for-the-worse-undergraduate-protests-and-
unrest-in-sri-lanka

44. political hypocrisy
http://groundviews.org/2010/09/05/a-timeline-of-duplicity-promises-to-abolish-the-executive-
presidency

45. word clouds
http://groundviews.org/2011/05/11/from-draft-to-official-text-wikileaks-reveals-the-us-
response-to-the-end-of-war-in-sri-lanka/

46. interactive graphics
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/03/us/20110503-osama-response.html

47. interactive graphics
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/faces-of-the-dead.html#/kahalewai_henry_k_jr

48. infographics
http://www.smallmeans.com/new-york-times-infographics/

49. infographics
http://www.noupe.com/inspiration/stunning-infographics-and-data-visualization.html

50. managing content: pulling in

51. essential email: gmail / google account

52. google search: updates from social media

53. google image search: visuals from the web
http://images.google.com

54. google image subject search
http://images.google.com

55. google news: thousands of sources

56. google news image search: thousands of news
related images

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

58. google reader: a web based RSS reader

59. tin eye: checking the web for images
http://www.tineye.com

60. Managing content: Pushing out

61. wordpress.com: blogging

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

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

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

65. wordpress.com: video
http://videopress.com

66. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

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

68. wordle: word cloud creation
http://www.wordle.net

69. 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

70. 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

71. Thank you