Journalism and social media whitepaper
Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 14:52
Daryl Willcox publishing has today released a whitepaper about how journalists have adapted to the rise of social media over the last five years, which I wrote for them.
The report is aimed largely at an audience of PR professionals who want an insight into how journalists think about social media, and it is being published alongside a survey about how journalists use social media. I must say some of the findings of that survey surprise me:
out of the
922956 journalists surveyed, over 200 made additional comments – some scathing, slamming social media as a pointless communication channel to manage, and some pointing to the fact they are now dependent on these websites as news sources.
Other findings of the survey were less surprising:
The survey also found that little more than one per cent of respondents claimed they were using social media less than they were 12 months ago, confirmation that journalists reject the notion that social media may be a fad.
One of the great frustrations of working on this project has been that the topic is so fast moving that the paper is inevitably out of date already. In the few weeks since I finished writing this, there has been quite a lot of additional information and new examples that I would have loved to include:
- The Project for Excellence in Journalism showed how Facebook had become a critical traffic driver to US news sites in 2010, while Twitter was making less of an impact.
- The Oriella Digital Journalism study found that journalists increasingly use social media – but also that the majority still don’t.
- The sessions of the BBC Social Media Summit provided a great deal of insight into how newsrooms in Britain and around the world view social media.
There have also been some interesting case studies in journalists’ use of social media, most notably the critical role of New York Times journalist Brian Stelter’s (re-)tweeting in breaking the story of Osama bin Laden on Twitter. In Britain, we have seen Twitter play an central role in the debate about privacy injunctions.
Somewhat less dramatically, Stefanie Gordon’s images of the Space Shuttle Endeavour provided an excellent case study of how images published on social media sites rapidly becomes incorporated into news organisations’ output.
Inevitably, the best way to keep up to speed with developments in social media and journalism is by participating in the link sharing communities that social networking sites enable. So here’s one place to start: my feed of social media and journalism links.
Press Gazette: ‘Epic Boobs’ woman loses Loaded privacy complaint
Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 14:27
"This case raised the important principle of the extent to which newspapers and magazines are able to make use of information that is already freely available online. …"
A crash course in journalism and Web 2.0
Monday, 22 January 2007, 10:46
A lot of people have been linking to the new issue of Nieman Reports, a special issue titled “Goodbye Gutenberg” and about the transformations happening in newspaper journalism and the rush to digital.
There’s a lot to get through, but a good place to start is the introduction to Journalism and Web 2.0 by Francis Pisani. It begins with a summary of the always-controversial discussion of what “2.0″ actually means, and then admonishes journalists to take note of these developments even if they can’t see the immediate relevance to their craft as it is traditionally understood:
Change starts at the edges. That’s where people—our readers and viewers—probe new practices. That’s also where their emerging culture is forming, a culture in which they look at media from a different perspective. And so journalists’ new thinking needs to begin at the periphery, where change comes quickly among the younger generation of users, and a lot more slowly for us. Tomorrow’s potential readers are using the Web in ways we can hardly imagine, and if we want to remain significant for them, we need to understand how. Yet news organizations have been all too slow to notice movement in places that are away from what has been their center.
In remarkably few words, Pisani runs through the effect on traditional media being caused by the ideas underlying Google, Craigslist, Wikipedia, Digg, Newsvine, and news mashups like ChicagoCrime.org. Blogging, citizen journalism and RSS are covered, too. It’s an invaluable crash-course introduction.
links for 2007-01-08
Monday, 8 January 2007, 12:25
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A blog dedicated to exposing the errors of The Sun’s showbiz editor Victoria Newton. Hat Tip: Independent on Sunday.
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Contrary to the view expressed by Jeff Jarvis, Monck writes: “Life is not on the record in many places, and it’s not just in Baghdad. In Britain, for example, we still run government communications on a system that operates precisely against that ‘on the
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Francis Shennan: “Privacy will replace libel as newspapers’ main legal problem this year”
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A good profile of one Delaware blogger shows how regionally-oriented political bloggers in the United States are influencing political journalism and politics in their rea.
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Katharine Seelye visits the newsroom of the new political web site The Politico, which recently poached John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei from The Washington Post, Mike Allen from Time magazine and Roger Simon from Bloomberg.
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“From the number of stories that regularly appear based on data revealed under the Act, you could be forgiven for thinking that the legislation had proved a resounding success. But what is often not fully appreciated is how long it takes …”
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“More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites”
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Guardian Readers Editor Ian Mayes on the staff reaction to the coverage of the Saddam Hussein execution.
