“The Hype Vs. Reality Vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News”

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“The Hype Vs. Reality Vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News” “The Hype vs. Reality vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News” Hsing Wei – Spring 2006 KSG Harvard Masters Project This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.5 License Table of Contents An Introduction ..……………………………………………………….... 2 - Study Components ……………………………………………….. 3 - The Limitations of Popular Anecdotes …………...……………… 4 Part I: What’s Out There? Mapping A Corner of The Landscape ……….. 6 - Backing Up: Understanding the Context ………………………… 6 - Circling Back: Some Definitions ………………………………… 8 - Developing a Conceptual Framework …………………………… 10 - Features Structuring Participation & Production ………………… 12 - Features Structuring Community ………………………………… 14 - Strategies From the Real World: A Bit More on Why Communities Matter …………………………………………………………….. 17 - Identifying What is Distinct in a Model …………………………. 18 Part II: What Do They Think? Surveying the Community ………………. 19 - Methodology ………………………………………………………. 19 - Summary of Survey Results ………………………………….…… 21 o Demographics …………………………………………….. 22 o How committed are they: Notes on usage behavior ………. 22 o How do they seek …………………………………………. 24 o Why do they seek: Primary uses ………………………….. 24 o Trading off: What do users most value ……………………. 26 o Credibility ………………………………………………… 28 o On Aesthetics ……………………………………………… 28 o Do they make friends: Extent a politicizing force ………... 29 o Motivations for contributing to content …………………… 30 o Sources of information …………………………………… o Barriers to contributing: Reasons for not writing content or 32 posting comments ………………………………………….. 32 o Perception of challenges …………………………………… 34 o Perceived strengths over MSM ……………………………. 37 A Discussion of Implications: Tying it all Together ……………………… 42 - What is Natural and What can be Built ………………………….. 44 - Their Side of the Story: Summarizing …………………………….. 48 Appendix and References ………………………………………………... 53 A Big Thank You! To all those involved with these websites who took time to give their opinions, thoughts, and advice. Special thanks also to the Center for Citizen’s Media and its logistical support in building awareness and response to this study. 1 An Introduction There is much confusion over the hype vs. reality of collaborative news and interactive technology’s impact. What is out there? How should the emergence of these innovations be analyzed? How do they differ from the communication and knowledge offered by traditional news formats? How do they change the engagement of citizens to each other and to societal issues? And following from any resolution to this confusion, how can they be used to improve news media for the future? The scope of this paper cannot fully address all these questions, but it will provide a starting outline on some. Many in the news industry have been fretting over the emergence of bloggers. Nervous headlines tinted with fear and loathing raised the common question of who qualifies as a legitimate journalist, (the subtext, of course, being would the profession of journalism survive). While some have relegated bloggers to the sidebar, concluding that the old news giants with their resources (and own reporters now blogging too) would continue to reign, bloggers were just the beginning. A scaleable, next generation of We Media has emerged. While traditional news media are finally dipping their toes in the waters and paying attention, most are still far from understanding and adopting what is happening at the edges. In the growing mass of voices, the key players who will organize the clutter and engage the voices (now also the eyeballs) are still being determined. Those who figure out how to best aggregate and distill the cacophony will win a loyal base. Those who also figure out how to create sustained conversations among the distilled sound will win a potentially powerful base. The news industry is undergoing a period of transformation. Some academics have been looking at recent initiatives by traditional news media that incorporate blogging and other forms of interaction. This study focuses on the other end, at emerging collaborative news organizations where the degree of innovation is most dramatic. Primary examples include (but are not limited to) OhMyNews, Wikinews, Global Voices, Digg, Slashdot, Newsvine, and Now Public. These models offer a basis for interesting comparisons between innovative structures and formats. As predominately online entities, they also offer useful inferences about the entry of Internet goliaths such as Yahoo and Google that are increasingly playing in the space of news content. Moreover, unlike Technorati and other algorithm based news aggregators, these sites offer an 2 interesting view of the human dynamics at play in what is too often seen as a 0s and 1s programmed sphere. During the past few months, I've been attempting to understand the successes and challenges of these collaborative news sites and their structures. Through the rest of this paper, I attempt to make more concrete the manner and degree to which these emerging models alter the nature of news/information, the creation of community, and the role of individuals beyond that of a spectator. In short, the extent to which any of this hype is true and matters. Study Components In Part I, the background context that’s feeding the emergence of these websites is briefly described. Next, conceptual frameworks are introduced to provide one way of analyzing the structure of collaborative news engagement and community. This is followed by a rudimentary format analysis of a few key examples and feedback from real world practitioners on some of the challenges currently faced. In Part II, discussion of a large-scale survey adds texture to an often un-examined piece of the puzzle -- how and why people value and use these collaborative sites. Mapping those cited behaviors and values against alternative site structures provides useful inferences on the strengths and weaknesses of recent innovations. While time did not allow a detailed dive, an overview is established from which to discuss how the sphere of news and conversation has shifted. To recap, there are three main pieces to this study on which discussion is based. I) Establishment of a conceptual framework II) Format analysis of key examples III) Large-scale survey of users (3,167 responses), interviews with website executives (8) 3 The Limitations of Popular Anecdotes There is much hype in every direction about the potential promises and problems in the next generation of participatory news and interactive technology. While some focus on the prospects for public empowerment, others focus on the veracity of information, and still others focus on the benefits of community. Three short stories exemplify these popular assertions: Anecdote One: “Every Citizen Is A Reporter” Oft-credited with balancing the political debate and altering the course of the 2002 presidential election for underdog, Roh Moo-hyun, the website OhmyNews has changed the news media ecology in South Korea. 1 Since its humble, but ambitious beginnings in 2000, OhmyNews now mobilizes 41,000 citizen contributors.2 Capturing the enthusiasm of 20 to 30 year olds, OhmyNews registered 20 million hits a day in a country of 42 million during that rough and tumble election period. 3 Aside from its political and journalistic accolades (ranked 6th most influential news organization by Sisa Journal), this year OhmyNews also heard a loud “cha- ching” from investors -- a note sounding to the tune of $11 million from Softbank, which will contribute to the enterprise’s international expansion.4 Aptly the poster child for citizen journalism, excitement is brewing as its founder Oh Yeon Ho proclaims, “The traditional paper says ‘I produce, you read’ but we say ‘we produce and we read and we change the world together.’”5 Anecdote Two: “Who Killed J.F. Kennedy?” Last year, John Siegenthaler Sr., found himself on the pages of Wikipedia (the world’s biggest encyclopedia written and edited by the public), implicated in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. The former special assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and founder of the First Amendment Center, was put in the awkward position of tracking down the prankster who posted the false entry.6 Around the same time Digg.com, a website also open to public posting, experienced a similar incident. Someone calling himself 'KoolAidGuy' gamed their system. Using multiple accounts, he succeeded in promoting false stories, such as “Google acquiring Sun Microsystems” onto the front page.7 Both incidents were eventually identified and flagged, however critics sounded the alarm bells, predicting that scammers would manipulate stock prices and spread misinformation. As Digg and Wikipedia offshoot, 4 Wikinews, seek to establish themselves among a larger public, the shadow of these stories continue to cast a cloud on their credibility. Anecdote Three: “Who Wants to Know about Life as a Rubber Man?” On October 28, 2005 a seventeen year old from Indiana wrote a 565 word post on CurrentTV’s discussion board about his life with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. “Long story short I have joint hypermobility and skin-hyperplasticity. Long words meaning that my body is about as flexible as rubber.” Wanting to reach collaborators for producing a story about living with this condition, he asked “Any rubber men or women out there in cyberspace right now?”8 Based on the post, someone emailed Current TV, an online and cable channel started
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