News, Place & Relevance

ABC Digital Network

A study of people’s experiences with a location and preference aware mobile news and information service.

News, Place & Relevance

A study of people’s experiences with a location and preference aware mobile news and information service.

Canberra Friends – Photo (cc) Richard Thorek

Priscilla Davies & Astrid Scott

Editor: Viveka Weiley Contributors: Nicolaas Earnshaw and Charlie Szasz Prepared for: Angela Clark, Director ABC Digital Network

1. INTRODUCTION 2 2. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS 6 3. RESEARCH APPROACH 12 4. DISCOVERIES 22 5. DISCUSSION 98 6. CONCLUSIONS 110

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1. INTRODUCTION

Media organisations have been pivotal in driving the shift towards personalised news and information experiences for mobile. It is now possible for news stories and articles to be surfaced and recommended to individuals based on their stated preferences, previous activity or reading history. Google Now and Zite are high profile examples of these types of services. In this landscape of the personalised experience, it’s common for location to be a key content discovery and organising principle. People can see what’s happening close to their GPS location, explore the news around them via a map, or filter content according to proximity to a certain place.

These approaches are already proving their usefulness, yet they are still relatively new and there are gaps in our collective knowledge about what rates as location-relevant content, and how it might be surfaced for a particular user at a particular time. For example, does a story increase in relevance when it’s closer to home? How do people engage with news and information from locations other than where a person is located right now? If people have relationships with many places, is there some way to accommodate that? How does location-relevance interplay with other factors of relevance such as topic or time? Are there interest topics for which location makes a difference to people’s understanding and level of engagement with stories? How does location-relevance interplay with other factors of relevance such as topic or time?

To add another layer of complexity, there is a further question: are there sufficient quality digital stories produced to enable content discovery via location-match alone? Perhaps in the cities there is enough, but regionally-based news and information seekers have a harder time because the contraction of media towards state capitals means that the volume of locally-specific stories has reduced. So how does this impact news and information flows within regional communities? This report contains some answers to those questions by providing insight into people’s perspectives of news, place and relevance. It also describes some implications of these discoveries for media service providers who create and distribute news and information.

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The lessons contained in this report were collected whilst undertaking This report has been created to help media service providers make some the third pilot of ABC Innovation’s Location project (‘Spoke 3’). Many of decisions about: those lessons further substantiated findings from earlier pilots (‘Spoke 1’ and ‘Spoke 2’). • How to go about making content more relevant when location is a key factor determining a person’s pathway into news and information. Spoke 3 took the form of a smartphone app that was built and tested with • How to service areas outside of major capital cities, and those living people living in regions of ACT and Albury-Wodonga from September to on state-border regions. December, 2014. The app featured a single news feed of recommended content that was dynamically generated according to various factors, • What the regionally-based news-seeker (target audience) wants, including a person’s location and topic preferences. Each interaction values and needs in relation to content about their local area. was tracked in order for the app to ‘learn’ from a person’s behaviour over • How ‘competing’ media providers might cooperate to service the time, thereby further influencing their news mix. The app content drew needs of a particular community or interest group. from multiple content sources including the ABC, local media outlets, local interest groups and council news. • How to describe content via labelling and categorisation in order to ensure it is more discoverable to people. Overall, the project’s research approach comprised a mixture of • How to expose content in ways that liberates it from the limitations of quantative data analysis and qualitative feedback. Using custom web vertical distribution, thereby making it accessible to people who may analytics, researchers looked for patterns in the collective actions and not engage with your core products. app preferences of 1296 users. Time was spent undertaking surveying • Whether or not experimenting with different news presentations and interviewing Spoke users in the pilot regions in order to gain insight may help you identify gaps in your content offering or opportunities. into their behaviours, needs and values; why they made certain choices in Spoke’s design was just one example of how presenting content in their news-seeking habits overall; how they used the Spoke app, and what unusual way exposed content gaps for the ABC. they thought of it.

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2. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS People’s motivations for seeking news.

Understanding the reasons why people seek out news and information is key to ensuring relevance of content. News helps me make conversation with other people, and I want to lighten my mood are two examples of twelve motivation statements that were generated from this research. These statements are a useful reference for those who wish to develop a content Hume Dam strategy built around audience motivations. Photo (cc) Alex Blackburn People’s news-seeking habits and values.

Spoke research participants from ACT and Albury-Wodonga regions describe how they normally access news and information, and which People’s location interests. sources are most valuable to them in various scenarios and contexts. Identifying how location matters to people was a primary objective of this research. Spoke has shown that location based services need not solely be As a news and information seeker... about where I’m at right now but can extend to the other places I care about. • I like being able to access and cross-reference Participants were questioned about their location interests, and how news from multiple sources and platforms. those interests impact their experiences using Spoke and other news and • When a story is local, I turn to social media or to information services. a medley of locally-situated media providers. • When a story is of national significance, As a news and information seeker... I am likely to turn to the ABC. • My interest in location isn’t confined to my local area. • When a story is international in scope, I may • If the news is local to me, then my topic interests expand. go to the top international news outlets. • Sometimes an unfolding news event • I’ve noticed the contraction of local media triggers my interest in a new place. services towards Sydney and Melbourne. • Media coverage paints vivid pictures of • Above all else, I want mobile news to places, thereby shaping my worldview. be accurate and up-to-date. • I live in a border region, so state-split • I get sick of the same news repeated over and over again. presentations of news are very inconvenient.

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People’s topic interests Responses to Spoke’s content

People mentally position topics along the scale of more locally relevant to recommendation system more globally relevant. The more local a story is, the more personal and Spoke’s presentation of news was quite different from more traditional direct the impacts of the news story will likely be. Through analysing mobile news apps. Instead of providing menu items such as ‘just in’ or people’s interactions with Spoke, and then questioning them about their ‘world news’, Spoke comprised a single news feed organised by a content personal associations with news topics and subject matters, revealed recommendation algorithm that responded to people’s stated preferences content gaps and service opportunities that media providers may and their previous activity. This research set out to understand how consider addressing. Spoke’s alternative presentation changed people’s behaviour and people’s engagement with the news. Research participants liked the concept of a recommendation system, but the way it is implementated makes all the difference to their trust and acceptance of it. As a news and information seeker... As a news and information seeker... • Give me more grass roots political coverage. • It’s okay for the ABC to track and collect my personal • There is more big business than I need. data because I trust the ABC to use it responsibly. • What’s on for me? Events, arts and entertainment. • Spoke surprises me with interesting stuff • Crime is compelling, even when it’s not close to me. I didn’t expect I’d ever want. • Education is about my kids and I. • But Spoke also gives me FoMO (Fear of Missing Out)! • Environmental news could also be about my area. • I’m not always the same person, so how could an algorithm ever predict what I want? • Health matters when it threatens or impacts me and my family. • What is a top story? I want transparency. Show me how this thing works, and hand me the controls. • I like local community and human interest stories, and animal stories from everywhere. • If you could sort out the problems, I reckon this system could work well. • I don’t care about Sport but I do love cricket. • I love science and technology, but they’re not the same thing. • I care when it’s close, I care when it’s big: Disasters ABC Open Day and Accidents, War, and National Security. Photo by Jim Trail ABC Canberra

Responses to inclusion of content from multiple providers.

In the single news feed, Spoke included content from a variety of sources outside the ABC in order to increase the breadth of local news for participants in the two pilot locations. This included material from local newspapers, news items from local councils, and social media posts from relevant local community groups and organisations. Analytics were collected to gauge interest, then participants were directly questioned about their attitude towards the inclusion.

As a news and information seeker... • Including my local newspaper made Spoke feel more locally relevant. • Other sources add local substance to subject areas where the ABC is a little thin. • I expect the ABC to keep a close eye on the quality of content from other sources. • It makes sense for the ABC to support the work of local media providers.

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3. RESEARCH APPROACH Lessons from Spoke 1 & Spoke 2 Background to this project During the Spoke 1 and Spoke 2 pilots, gaps in locally-specific content The Location Project was initiated by ABC Innovation. were identified, and the challenges of content distribution were experienced. Also, it was found that existing social channels are most The objective was to identify people’s unmet needs for effective for a public discussion. location and preference-aware news and information. Findings would be used to inform future development Spoke 1 and Spoke 2 revealed, that as a of ABC’s mobile services, especially in regional areas. regionally-based news and information seeker... The initial research approach was developed by Symplicit, a Melbourne • I want local news and local information included in based user-experience design consultancy: the one place. Information refers to content such as local events, community noticeboard, classifieds, etc. • Field research: collect insights through meeting, observing and talking to people. • I want local, national and international content in a single mobile feed. • Build: generate product ideas from research; create lightweight prototypes to test these ideas. • I want to customise my news by my location and topic preferences. Topic customisation is • Pilot: test hypotheses in 3-4 month trials. Refine. Iterate live. Spoke 1 well received, but must be fine-tunable. • Analyse: synthesise data and share what is discovered. • I want news and information from multiple sources that are local to me in my ABC feed. Research has been conducted in five different locations over three pilots known as Spoke 1, Spoke 2 and Spoke 3. The pilot sites were: Newcastle • I want more quality coverage of local issues & Launceston (Spoke 1), South East South Australia & Townsville, and and discussion around these. Canberra & Albury-Wodonga (Spoke 3) • There is a perceived lack of high quality coverage of local issues. People are noticing their local The research sought to understand the relationship between location and media disappearing, especially in the regions. relevance for mobile news and information services. • There is a widespread perception that vested interests Spoke 1 was designed to test the propositions around the customisation control local media sources. People trust the ABC. and presentation of location and topic. • Local issues start slow, and stay relevant for longer.

Spoke 2 was both a news mix and an open platform for local residents to • Seeking input from local ‘experts’ is major challenge. access and comment on special coverage of local issues.

Spoke 2

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Spoke 3 research questions

The findings from Spoke 1 and Spoke 2 pilots revealed that the relation- Spoke 3’s design as an app (rather than a mobile website) ship between location, news and relevance is a complex one that deserved made it possible to collect detailed data about each further interrogation. The outcomes from early pilots generated new individual user: their preferences and activities. questions such as: are some types of stories more relevant than others, depending on location? Are certain news topics in greater demand when occurring closer to home? Do people wish to follow certain locations because of the news that is generated there?

There was also the question of how the presentation of news might influence the level of engagement when a person’s individual location and topic interests were factored into the design. With respect to the design, there were are many paths that could be taken. Spoke 3 embarked on modelling just one approach: a mobile app containing a single news feed of content supplied by multiple sources that was organised by a recommendation algorithm.

Spoke 3’s content recommendation algorithm dynamically generates an personalised news mix for each user, based on his or her preferences and behaviour. This system assigns each story a position in the news feed according to a combination of factors:

• User preferences: topic priorities and locations of interest • Recency: date and time published • ABC editorial weight Spoke 3 main screens • The user’s previous seven days of activity: which stories they viewed or didn’t view, and which stories they actively demoted via the less like this feature.

Spoke 3 design & information architecture sketches

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Primary research hypotheses Secondary research outcomes

The central hypotheses that shaped Spoke 3’s research Beyond testing the five hypotheses, Spoke 3 was an plan were: opportunity to discover new information about news-seekers, such as: • That users show a preference for location relevant content for some topics over other topics. • People’s motivations, habits, preferences and • Users associate certain topics with particular opinions in relation to news and information. geographic locations or regions. • People’s mental models in relation to ‘local’ and location and • The majority of users will add more the how this relates to their news and information needs. than one favourite place. • How people interact with the local ACT and • That users actively and confidently interact Albury-Wodonga news and information networks—both with content presented to them, as determined formal, and grassroots. Sought to further understand by the content recommendation system. the ABC’s brand positioning in these contexts. • That the user experience isn’t negatively • How people’s content and interaction needs evolve at disrupted by presenting ABC content headlines different points along a news story’s lifecycle. alongside non-ABC (3rd party) headlines. • How to design mobile news experiences—with respect to both content and interaction design. • Potential content gaps (demand vs. supply)

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Spoke 3 research methods and activities

In order to validate the hypotheses and generate the ACT region participants secondary research outcomes, a mix of quantitative • Callum, 23 from Acton, ACT* and qualitative research activities were planned and • Allison, 27 from Richardson, ACT* undertaken: • Laura, 30 from Francislin, ACT • Peter, 32 from Higgins, NSW* Data analysis: mobile app / web analytics • Francis, 33 from Queanbeyan NSW There were 1296 users of Spoke between 16th September - 5th December, 2014. Quantitative data about these users’ interactions with the app • Annalise, 41 from Bungendore, NSW* was aggregated and extracted from tracking software (appfigures. • Nancy, 46 from Giralang, ACT coms, Google Analytics and from a custom analytics tool). This data was analysed for overarching and generalised patterns about Spoke usage. • Craig, 52 from Monash, ACT* Albury-Wodonga region participants Remote qualitative study: survey series & interviews • Keira, 22 from Albury, NSW Sixteen participants were invited to participate in a formal study. The • Brad, 34 from Barnawartha, VIC* panel was composed of an even gender split, spanning ages 22-55. Eight participants were already using Spoke before they were selected for • Kevin, 35 from Albury, NSW* the study, while the remaining six were recruited via a market research • Lena, 37 from Wodonga, VIC recruitment agency. Throughout this document, names have been changed to protect the privacy of the participants. • Denise, 42 from Thurgoona, NSW • Alan, 43 from Albury, NSW • Julie, 51 from East Albury, NSW* • Phil, 55 from Albury, NSW

* participants who were already using Spoke prior to participating in study NB: The names of participants have changed to protect privacy of participants.

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Participants committed to using Spoke for a minimum of 5-10 mins Data analysis and synthesis per day for 4 weeks. They responded to a series of nine online surveys between October 27 - December 15, 2015. In total, 135 survey responses All data sources—interview transcripts, survey were generated. Not all participants responded to every survey (n= 11 for responses, feedback emails, usage statistics & charts— survey 9). have been combed by the researchers in order to The online surveys were followed with a 40 minute phone interview with to isolate interesting statements or facts that reveal 13 of the 16 participants which were transcribed and coded, ready for data something about the users’ actions, habits, motivations, analysis. thoughts and opinions.

Each point (snippet) was written on post-it note or cut out from web A note about sample size and qualitative research analytics reports and stuck on walls. Using the saturate and group method, the snippets are organised into groups and then re-grouped to When assessing the validity of qualitative methods, sample size often let patterns and themes emerge. arises as a point of concern. In human-centered research, the number of participants is often relatively small because this style of this research The saturate and group visualisation process helps us prove or disprove favours richness, nuance and stories over statistical relevance. It the project’s central hypotheses, plus identify other audience insights helps researchers gain a more in-depth understanding about the tacit that emerged as incidental secondary research outcomes. motivations, desires and values of people.

Spoke’s research approach incorporates a mix of qualitative and quantitative data. Patterns were sought in the quantitative data generated from 1296 Spoke users’ interactions over 4 months (ie. what people do), and then qualitative data was mined to provide explanation about why those patterns might have emerged (ie. why people do what they do).

Content analysis of direct feedback

The ABC received email feedback from Spoke users, and researchers undertook seven informal phone interviews with ABC staff who use Spoke. This data was logged, and coded, ready for data analysis.

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4. DISCOVERIES 4.1 People’s news-seeking motivations, habits and preferences

In this section: What follows is a selection of qualitative insights from sixteen study 1. My motivations: I am driven to seek participants that describes their motivations, habits, opinions and out news and information. preferences. The Spoke study was a good opportunity to learn more 2. I like being able to access and cross-reference about news-seekers in Albury-Wodonga and ACT regions. Many findings news from multiple sources and platforms. in this study strongly align with the findings from the initial discovery research conducted in Canberra, Launceston, Mt Gambier, Geelong and 3. When a story is local, I turn to social media or to Newcastle. a medley of locally-situated media providers. 4. When a story is of national significance, Media providers can use the following insights as a I am likely to turn to the ABC. point of reference—a touchstone of sorts—that will help 5. When a story is international in scope, I may them ground mobile news and information services go to the top international news outlets. in the realities of the everyday lives of people living 6. I’ve noticed the contraction of local media in Canberra and Albury-Wodonga. The following services towards Sydney and Melbourne. section also provides readers with a sense of how news 7. Above all else, I want mobile news to services are perceived and valued by the participants— be accurate and up-to-date. both the ABC’s own news services, and non-ABC 8. I get sick of the same news repeated over and over again. sources.

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4.1.1 My motivations: I am driven to seek out news and information E. I want to educate others about the news, so I need Researchers generated a set of motivations that explain why participants’ to feel confident talking about the facts. Lena from seek out news and information. Understanding the reasons why people Wodonga is a teacher who is often asked questions do what they do is one way to identify design or business opportunities. about news headlines by her year 8 students. F. I want to find opportunities to deepen my understanding These statements were either explicitly expressed of—and connection with—someone I know. or implicitly expressed and interpreted by Spoke Laura from ACT reads Navy News so that she can more easily talk and bond with her father who works in defence. researchers. G. I want updates about a particular matter because it directly impacts me or someone I care about. Francis A. News helps me make conversation with other people. from Queanbeyan reads about Mr Fluffy asbestos issue Peter from ACT deals with clients over the because it impacts housing market values in his area. phone for his job. He likes how news gives him icebreakers for conversation with clients. H. I want to broaden my social conscience so that I can be a better person. Peter from ACT believes that B. I feel out-of-the-loop. I want to get up-to-speed with a story reading the news helps him become a better citizen. I’ve heard snippets about on the grapevine. Alan first saw mention about the Ferguson I. I want to better understand society and how people think. shootings on Facebook, but he needed a backstory Craig from ACT is a self-proclaimed ‘news junkie’. to fill in the gaps of his knowledge. He reads the news in order to observe how people think and what they believe. This is important C. I want to feel updated; to catch-up on the latest to his community role as church pastor. developments to a story that is unfolding right now. Lena from Wodonga wanted the latest daily developments J. I want to improve my own ‘lot’ in life. Laura from ACT about Ebola, rather than having to read through always looks out for lifestyle content that gives her tips so-called ‘new’ stories that were barely different (in on how to be healthier, wealthier, more productive. terms of story-developments) from the previous days. K. I want to lighten my mood. Annalise will visit Mamamia for a lighthearted take on the day’s news. D. I want to feel updated; to follow-up on a story that I lost track of a while ago. Laura from ACT hadn’t L. I want to return to the original source in order to to come across any updates about what was happening check a fact. Francis from Queanbeyan mentioned with the Canberra light rail and knew that there that he’ll often want to refer to an original story must be news about it out there somewhere. he read to help him discuss news with others.

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4.1.2 I like being able to access and cross-reference Discussion news from multiple sources and platforms. These motivation statements to define the content and design strategy of existing and future news and information services. For instance, Following on from analysis of behavioural data from the complete Statement K indicates a need to lighten one’s mood. How could the a Spoke user-base, sixteen participants listed their top news sources, and content provider respond to this need, particularly on heavy news days? responded to hypothetical scenarios. Their responses shed a light on how and why people turn to their different news providers in different Some of these statements can also be combined to map how people’s contexts. needs might change at different points along a timeline of engagement with a particular news story. For instance, a user might take the following There is no single news source that meets all of a person’s needs path: B > A > K > L. How would the one go about designing that entire completely. People appreciate that each news provider has its own journey? strengths and weaknesses, and that each offers a perspective, tone or emphasis that differs from one to the next. For instance, Craig from ACT actively seeks out content about the same subject matter from different sources because he enjoys the challenge of pinpointing political biases ACT region participants Albury-Wodonga region participants through the stylistic nuances of each news provider: ‘every news source has Top 5 news sources Top 5 news sources a particular idea that they are pushing.’

Sometimes, different news sources quite naturally fulfil different roles for a person throughout the timeline of their engagement with an unfolding new story. (See Appendix B for more lessons about participants’ regular news habits). For instance:

• Alan from Albury was checking Facebook on his mobile during a work break when he saw a friend’s status update about the Phil Hughes cricket accident. He tuned in to the hourly radio news bulletin broadcast on Star FM 104.9 to hear their coverage of the story. Later that night he watched Prime7 for visuals and a different storytelling take. For Alan, the radio and tv broadcast news gave the story verification and was an opportunity to get a different perspective to fill in the gaps of the story. • Craig from ACT uses Twitter during news events that are unfolding right now, that the broadcast media might not have immediate access to.

Phil

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• If Laura’s (ACT) neighbours haven’t recently seen any 4.1.3 When a story is local, I turn to social media or to professional news coverage about what’s happening with the Canberra light rail, they will post a question to My a medley of locally-situated media providers. Gungahlin Facebook Group. It enables them to check-in I value local news sources when they are available. with each other and share news regarding local matters when traditional media providers aren’t covering that topic. Local media providers were frequently included in the study participants’ lists of top 5 news sources they most frequently access (see page 26). Their • YouTube allows Craig and Alan to view news clips answers are listed in the order that the participant responded. that aren’t locally available. Craig from ACT: if I read an article and I think I’d love to have seen that • ABC services appear to be more frequently accessed by interview or that Deniseate, YouTube will have it. ACT participants (7 of 8) compared with Albury-Wodonga • Annalise turns to Mamamia for some light participants (5 of 8). Mentioned ABC services: the relief when she’s fed up with hearing gloomy ABC app, ABC News (on tv, website and Twitter), news from her other news providers. ABC NewsRadio, ABC Local, QandA, and Spoke. • Commercial local media providers mentioned by Albury-Wodonga participants include: Prime News 7 Discussion (6pm bulletin), Star FM (104.9), The River (105.7 FM). • Work with (not against) the audience’s propensity to access multiple sources. This is something the ABC already handles quite well, but Local news services are still central to my community’s local there’s always room for improvement. Ask why might the media news and information flows. provider might be an important source for a particular user at that The majority of participants mentioned leading local newspapers in particular point in time. The answer could inform how the content is their top five news sources, and local mastheads frequently popped up in produced and distributed. survey responses and interviews. • Understand the strengths and weaknesses of ABC’s various news and information sub-brands (News24, ABC News Breakfast, The • Albury-Wodonga folk regularly look at their local Drum, AM/PM, etc.) and channels (tv, radio, Twitter, etc.) alongside paper. It is known as a service that covers a little bit of the alternatives. Clearly articulate the audience value propositions everything: local, national and world news. Some people of each, and ensure these messages are incorporated into content did have reservations about the quality of the content. strategies and style-guides. • ACT folk believe that their local paper’s coverage of local news is thorough and of good quality, but some believe that Spoke gave it a run for its money.

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For many of us, ABC Local is on the periphery of our regular We still enjoy flipping through free community news-seeking experiences. print publications.

• ABC Local services were accessed regularly by 3 • ‘I would like to see content from The Chronicle in Spoke’ —Eric participants: Annalise and Allison (both ACT region) and from ACT reads a local community newspaper which quite Kevin (Albury). Annalise from Bungendore (NSW) listens often contains local planning and development news. to ABC radio but prefers to listen to Sydney 702 over • Francis and Laura (both from ACT region) will pick up Canberra 666 and will tune her car radio to 702 if she can. copies of local newspapers like The Canberra Weekly if they She finds 666 too parochial and too emotional about local see them at shopping centres: ‘They tend to be community issues. She likes 702 because she loves James Valentine. events and advertisements. but I’m interested in politics and • Phil from Albury ‘very occasionally listens to ABC local crime and things. I want to know about redevelopment plans radio’ but did say that ABC Local would be his first and changing the city plans’.—Francis, Queanbeyan, NSW port of call for information about a local issue. • Allison (ACT) listens to The World Today on Canberra 666 and loves it. She said, ‘I often find out about things for the first time.’ She wants ABC Local to ‘use Facebook Implications when designing for local communities and Twitter to say we’ve got a lot of calls on this issue and • Consider monitoring certain community Facebook pages for ideas here are some of the key things you need to know.’ on local content gaps. What are people asking questions about? What petitions are being distributed amongst community members? What People in my social network help me discover and stay information do they need and value right now? in-the-loop about local issues, usually via Facebook. • In relation to mobile news and information, people value ABC Local content when they remember to access it or stumble upon it, • Word-of-mouth is a common source of local news but it does not appear to be front-and-centre in people’s minds as a discovery. Participants were asked how they first heard comprehensive ‘go-to’ digital source for accessible, informative and about a particular local issue that they cared deeply entertaining local content. about, and most had answers like ‘through a friend ’. • How can the ABC broaden the reach of this kind of relevant content? • Participants sometimes mentioned Facebook as the Maybe by looking to re-distribute outside specific destinations. first place that they heard about a particular local issue, For example, by funnelling geo-targeted content via ABC’s main Facebook page as well as sharing content into locally-relevant such as via sharing of online petitions. Local cause or Facebook groups? campaign Facebook Pages are used to follow updates • More initiatives like locally targeted feeds in the ABC app are great, on those issues that people feel strongly about. but Spoke shows that hiding a local feed within the broader app • Facebook Groups were by mentioned as an easy is a less effective method than integrating it with national and and accessible way that some stay in touch with international headlines. places and communities that relevant to them. eg. My Gungahlin Facebook Group for Laura, ACT.

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4.1.4 When a story is of national significance, I am 4.1.5 When a story is international in scope, I may go likely to turn to the ABC. to the top international news outlets

When participants were asked: ‘If you heard that a huge cyclone was suddenly For the majority of participants, when a big international story breaks, threatening the safety and welfare of thousands of people in North Queensland, generally their everyday news sources (including the ABC) would be which news or information sources would you turn to first?’ Eight of fourteen sufficient. But a notable minority would seek information from interna- participants specifically mentioned ABC services including: News 24, tional providers such as BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Spoke and ABC News website. The ABC was followed by The Bureau of Reuters. A small group of news seekers seem not to trust that the ABC’s Meteorology website as the second most popular information provider. world news coverage is sufficiently detailed: ‘Generally, I would go straight away to the BBC App. I like the way it splits the continents - they cover each continent. It’s very thorough. Being based over there, they follow that part of the Many participants already used the ABC mobile app regularly and world. They have a larger quantity of news (so it’s) better. I haven’t seen a lot of perceived as being good for national news, in contrast to how they the Ferguson stuff happening in Spoke at all, but that is highlighted in BBC, so it positioned Spoke as good for local coverage: ‘The main abc app keeps me up seems like it’s not a huge priority in Spoke.’ —Callum, ACT to date with federal politics. Spoke one is more local stories’—Don, ACT

Discussion

Spoke’s unusual presentation of news content made users feel as if it contained more local stories compared with the ABC app. This is interesting because almost the same volume of local news is available to users via both apps (aside from a small number of additional local third party material included in Spoke). Local news is less prominent in the ABC app, whilst Spoke surfaces local content.

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4.1.6 I’ve noticed the contraction of local media services towards Sydney and Melbourne. Discussion • People really notice the absence of news that reflects their own world ABC’s earlier Spoke pilot (Spoke 2) reported that people—especially those and priorities back at them in regional areas. They asked for more based in regional areas—notice how news is produced and distributed local coverage—explainers, fact checking, analysis and opinion— from state capital centres, especially from Sydney and Melbourne. The that extends to the heart of local issues such as development, council Spoke 2 findings have been further validated by Spoke 3. politics, big litigations. • How can ABC do better at resourcing the collection, creation and • ‘We get more Melbourne news, and very little from distribution of in-depth local news and information? If resources Sydney. Our 7 News is Melbourne based. It really is are lacking, is it of value for the ABC to focus on in-depth coverage based on that major city’. —Lena, Wodonga of important stories while supporting other local media or organisa- • ‘Everyone seems to ignore that Canberra is a city. We’re lucky to tions to distribute their content throughout the local community? get a mention on national news for more than anything but the ABC Open is one model that explored alternatives, and Spoke was weather. We usually get written-off as a regional’. —Peter, ACT another.

Albury-Wodonga participants noticed the lack of reporting of local issues during the Victorian election:

• Despite being a big newshound, Brad didn’t hear any news from local MPs or policies that would be relevant to his life in Barnawartha and he noticed how Melbourne- centric the election coverage was: ‘The East-West link: I couldn’t care less whether they built it or not. It’s never going to affect my driving in Melbourne’.—Brad, Albury • Lena from Wodonga said: ‘We’re not hearing much from the members up here, but everything is coming out of Melbourne which is pretty disappointing. The sitting Liberal member is only saying what Denis [Napthine] is saying so how can you hear about Denis, but to be in touch with Melbourne?’ —Lena, Wodonga

This contraction may explain why some participants held an assumption that ‘nothing really happens around here’. Yet all journalists know that stories can be found everywhere. This perception is more likely due to the fact that local resources are simply not available to collect, report and distribute these stories.

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4.1.7 Above all else, I want mobile news to be accurate I want it to be up-to-date. and up-to-date. The nature of Spoke’s recommendation system would mean that ‘breaking’ stories may not appear immediately for some people, even When asked which top 5 qualities participants are looking for in mobile though recency is a factor taken into consideration by the algorithm. news services, the most highly ranked responses in order were:

• Accurate Brad from Barnawartha said: I think there’s a level of expectations through things like Twitter and instant news showing up straight away...Spoke did feel • Up-to-date behind. So I’d see things 8 hours after they happened, and I’d think ‘that was • Independent confirmed even by a different ABC news source six hours ago, why did it take so • Locally-oriented much time to appear? • A mix of serious and light news We received requests from many users who wanted to be able to override I want accuracy and independence in a mobile news service. the recommendations filter so they could see a list of ‘just in’ stories (amongst other filters). See more on this at 4.4. ‘Newspapers are not really that accurate or politically unbiased, but I need the local events news and I quite like the opinions of local people’—Julie, Albury Sometimes idiosyncrasies of ABC’s digital publishing workflow would disrupt audience perception of how up-to-date Spoke seemed. ‘I am moving away from news sources that require payment and show what I consider to be commercial and political bias’. —Craig, ACT • Annalise from Bungendore didn’t understand why she saw news items from AM in the afternoon because she had Many participants mentioned that mention that ABC’s reputation for already read about the events they were talking about. accuracy and independence are ABC’s key strengths, which puts ABC ahead of the pack in terms of qualities people are seeking in a mobile • Allison from ACT was bothered when occasionally she would tap news service. Phil from Albury said ‘I’ve always been confident about Spoke’s on a story headline, yet the main story details were missing, and accuracy’, while Francis mentioned that Spoke performs very well against the only words were: ‘Transcript coming soon’. She said, ‘I was both of those two values: ‘I like how ABC tells it straight, there’s none of the really pumped about the headline, but I couldn’t read about it.’ junk you get with other media providers that try to sex-it-up or god knows what other junk they do with it’.—Francis, Queanbeyan (NSW)

Discussion Recommendation

ABC content creators and brand managers must protect ABC’s reputation Existing publishing workflows may work effectively for one or two for independence and accuracy above all else, as these are highly prized purpose-built contexts (such as for the AM website or for ABC News’ and valued by audiences. When aggregating content from multiple audio page), but aren’t suitable for syndicated presentations (such as sources—including non-ABC content—there is a risk that these values Spoke). To free content from their original contexts and enable stories to may be eroded if implemented without care and attention to the details be presented and discovered in other ways, ABC needs to be consistent of content, context and design. in its publishing workflows, and in how data and metadata is added to content management systems.

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I like mobile-news to be locally-oriented. • I go to news.com.au when I need to space out for a second! I’d like to say that I’m not into the celebrity stuff, but sometimes you want Interestingly, some users enjoyed this aspect of Spoke, although some to read about someone saying something they shouldn’t have or users said they wished it would be more locally-oriented. wardrobe malfunctions. I suppose it comes down to conversations that I have with the people around me [at my office] —Peter, ACT • I think my taste has changed to become more local and • I don’t want to know celebrity news, but things like I like to know what is going on. I saw articles in Spoke your everyday Aussies and what they are doing that I wouldn’t have bothered to look up. —Callum Your local hero type stuff. —Laura, ACT • Very local focussed. I really like that. Was curious to see what was • I want to hear about people doing good things for each other such happening around here and there’s more than I expected —Dan as the Wayside chapel and people supporting a homeless man. — • Nancy (ACT) considered her local Canberra newspaper’s Nancy, ACT coverage of a dispute at her local shops to be the kind of ‘really’ local news Spoke could do more of: ABC Canberra There is appetite for human interest stories (see section 4.3.8). stories are more like stories from Sydney.

I want a mix of serious and light news. Future Directions Participants mentioned they wanted to some relief from the bad and • Track individual interactions across news content. Over time, we may gloomy news, and wanted some news with a positive spin. In their pick up at which point a user exits out of the gloomy news and seeks own words, they asked for stories that are ‘good news’, ‘comic and light something more fun to read. Eventually, we might be able to time the hearted’, and ‘stories about interesting people doing interesting things’. recommendation of lighter-news story. • ABC R&D are currently exploring ideas around natural language • There’s a lot of stuff that goes on that I just go, ‘Oh my god what processing (NLP) that provides a layer of consistent metadata to ABC is going on!’ It’s a bit of a downer, really! But then I saw that content, including aspects like topic, mood and location. Doing this Leunig or someone else’s comic in there and I thought, they’re may allow us to look to a future of recommendation based on mood or listening to me! When I saw that, I was pretty rapt! I had a sentiment. bit of a chuckle. You made my day. —Lena from Wodonga referring to a story from Insiders’ Talking Pictures segment

Summernats Fest Photo (cc) Eva Rinaldi

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4.1.8 I get sick of seeing the same news repeated Discussion

over-and-over again. • How might a media provider with multiple sub-branded programs or outlets (like the ABC) reduce the frequency of the same news content When participants were asked to name one thing they’d like to change being published by multiple outlets? This comes back to identify- about ‘the news’ as they currently know it (in general), some of them ing the value that each property can bring to the overall story. What talked about how they felt bombarded with the same news headlines, the does each property offer the audience that is different from the next same story recaps and insignificant updates: property? How can a more the approach be more coordinated

• Sometimes it is hard to get away from the political story of the • Spoke has explored what might be achieved when people’s day/week/month and find news on other things.—Allison, ACT preferences and interactions are individually tracked, and how their • When a big event happens in the news they seem to data informs which content is recommended to them. Yet Spoke’s repeat it over and over again. —Alan, Albury implementation was just the tip-of-iceberg in terms of what might created. An even further personalised news experience would • Lena from Wodonga wanted the latest daily developments take into account where a person is positioned in their journey of about Ebola, rather than having to read through so-called engaging with a specific news event or story. For instance, on any ‘new’ stories that she thought were barely different in particular news subject the ABC could track which stories on that terms of story-developments from the previous days. subject have previously viewed (and in which order), the keywords, opinions, quotes and facts that a user has previously been exposed Unfortunately, the Spoke experience may have further aggravated a sense to. The logical extensions of this data? The ABC could provide that of story fatigue in users. They noticed a clumping of stories in their feed person with a simple story update (instead of a recap and an update). that covered the same news event, yet the stories were subtly different If this is the first time engaging with a subject matter, we could because they were created by different news programs or divisions within recommend ‘explainer’ content to get them up-to-speed. Maybe after the ABC. Most likely, each of those items would share the same metadata a little while, that user is primed for analysis and opinion. We could and would be published around the same time, which is why they were also help a user easily track-down the key story points, when they are clumped together in the Spoke feeds. The Spoke Editor editorialised this in fact-checking mode. where possible but couldn’t eliminate it.

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4.2 People’s location interests I have an historical connection with this place.

Peter from ACT: If I see [a crime story] that has happened in the [south coast In this section: NSW] towns that I know, and I know people who live in those towns. I know it’s still a longshot that someone that I know would have been involved, I am curious 1. My interest in location isn’t confined to my local area about what is going on in an area that I know. 2. If the news is local to me, then my topic interests expand I am planning to spend time there. 3. Sometimes an unfolding news event Brad from Wodonga added Melbourne to his Spoke location preferences triggers my interest in a new place because he wants to live there one day. 4. Media coverage paints vivid pictures of places, thereby shaping my worldview This place generates stories that interest me. 5. I live in a border region, so state-split presenta- Craig is interested in political stories from China and United States. tions of news are very inconvenient I’m interested in other kinds of places that might not be 4.2.1 My interest in location isn’t confined to my pinpointed on a map. local area. There are places, regions, and trails that people wish to to receive news about that might more conventionally be perceived as a topic. For Location based services need not solely be about instance, participants mentioned: national parks, ski fields, marine parks where I’m at right now but can extend to the other and outer-space. In a location-based service, perhaps further consideration might be given to how to incorporate unconventional places such as places I care about. these as locations to follow?

I’m interested in news from locations far away from me. Prompt me to save other ‘places I care about’. Via our conversations with Spoke users, we gained a better understand- Spoke prompts users to ‘add your ing of why people are interested in news and information from a favourite places for local stories’, at location other than their current location or home location. Some themes which point users have an option to emerged that explain people’s interests in other locations. start typing in the name of a town, Someone I care about lives there. and Spoke provides suggested location matches via a lookup table. The alter- Julie from Albury wants news from New Zealand because she is an nate way for users to add a location expatriate and has family members still living there. is to detect current location via GPS. 14% of all Spoke users added 2 or more locations to their preferences. The maximum number saved by one user was eight.

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Unique locations saved by all users, Spoke 3 • Lena from Wodonga said she thought she would need to add Melbourne as a location so that she would be provided news about her local MP’s policies via Melbourne. She knew that local coverage of her local MP was thin on the ground. • Annalise who lived outside ACT was conscious of adding both home location of Bungendore-NSW-2621, and Acton-ACT-2601 so that she would see news from both states. In contrast, Francis assumed that adding Karabar-NSW-2620 would be sufficient to pick up relevant stories from ACT. • Craig from ACT added a second location of someone he cared about: Parkes because his son lives there.

There may be many reasons why 86% of users set none or only one location, and it’s likely to be because that behaviour aligns with the established design pattern of mobile apps. One user said that he was surprised to be asked to add a location and expected this to be automati- cally set via GPS.

The design of the Spoke on-boarding experience may have distracted people from acting on the multi-location suggestion. Spoke could have done a better job of succinctly selling the value proposition as to why Amongst the Spoke user-base that added multiple people might consider adding one or more ‘favourite places’ and how that locations, there were some patterns: would impact their mobile news experience.

• The most common pairing is to add a postcode within After Spoke researchers learned from Julie and Craig that they were greater city, plus the city postcode (eg. Giralang, interested in seeing news from New Zealand, USA and China, the ACT, 2617, + Canberra, ACT). Why? Perhaps people researchers suggested that they try adding those country names to their assume they will receive hyperlocal news from favourite places. Both participants did this immediately, which supports within their postcode. For instance, Nancy wanted the idea that once the idea was described to them, they could immediately news about her local shops and businesses. understand the value of it. • A second common pairing was Albury-NSW- 2640 + Wodonga-VIC-3690; perhaps because users expected different news to be generated from these postcodes, according to state-based lines.

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Considerations • For users interested in following international places, they • Allowing people the ability to save multiple locations must follow country names (eg. China, New Zealand) rather to their app preferences pushes up against established than major international regions, states or cities. Is it time design conventions. In order to encourage more people for ABC to expand its location tagging model to enable to think outside the box (ie. beyond location setting = my people to follow global locations at a more granular level? current location), we must do a better job in design and implementation. We need to sell the value proposition as to • Consider enabling people to follow pairings why people might consider adding one or more ‘favourite of locations. For instance, if someone has a places’ and how that might impact their experience. particular interest in China-USA relations. • Consider allowing locations or regions to align with • The users’ location preferences data could be more powerfully alternate place-meanings or frames of reference used in a news and information service if we understood that exist for certain groups of people eg. regions how people relate to those multiple locations in their from Aboriginal Australia map (organised by preferences. For instance, if we understood which location language/tribal/nation groups by AIATSIS) a user added was their ‘home location’ vs ‘a location where someone I care about lives’ we could potentially recommend • Expand our notion of locations to allow people to different content to them for those respective locations. add location-like topics such as ‘national parks’, ‘Murray-Darling’ ‘outer-space’, ‘Java Sea’, ‘The Moon’, ‘Great • Be aware of meeting user expectations when enabling them Barrier Reef’. Establish which location tags may overlap to follow postcode level locations. Some people assume they with new or existing topic tags, and how these might be will receive hyperlocal news from within their postcode, treated in a location-based news and information service. which may not be an expectation the ABC can always meet.

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4.2.2 If the news is local to me, my topic interests 4.2.3 Sometimes a news event triggers my interest in a expand. new place.

On the whole, people are more interested in local if ‘it is Due to Spoke’s unusual presentation of news content, relevant to my existence there.’ people would find themselves intrigued by a story of local significance that was not occurring in their own For some people, home locations are the primary indicator of relevance. local area. When Julie from Albury reflected on diverse range of locally-relevant headlines that she had read over the previous 5 weeks, she said: I think most of those [stories] I read just because they were local, not because • I added Perth because that’s where my parents live, and I found I’m particularly interested in those topics. Francis from Queanbeyan out more about Perth than I think I would have normally, agreed, ‘I don’t really follow subjects by location - but I will browse any subject such as about council amalgamations which I actually found related to my home location simply for the purposes of keeping in touch with what moderately interesting! —Brad from Barnawartha, VIC is happening in my area.’ • Lena from Wodonga is interested in world news so she can think about where she next wishes to travel. There appear to be some topics that are more important to people if they are local stories. For instance, over the Spoke trial, there was a relatively strong interest in local business stories (compared with national, international or capital-city based stories), despite the rarity of those local Recommendation business stories. Participants might also be moved to act on certain local Where contextually appropriate, give people the option to issues, that would not normally fall into their priority topics of interest. ‘follow more stories from this location’. On the other hand, to some people there will always be topics that they don’t care about regardless of whether it’s local or not, and sport is a good example of a topic that will always be off limits for some people. Sky Whale Discussion Photo by Jim Trail ABC Canberra While people can clearly articulate which topics are relevant to them in a general way, people are somewhat less beholden to firm topic prioritisation when it comes to news about where they live. The design of news services and content recommendation systems might take this into account when designing location based-services eg. if location matches user’s home location, give them a topically broader range of news compared with what they might normally see for other locations.

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4.2.4 Media coverage paints vivid pictures of places, 4.2.5 I live in a border region, so state split presentations thereby shaping my worldview. of news are very inconvenient. People use the news as a way to learn about the world Spoke 3 captured some perspectives of people living on and across state and to interpret and understand their place in it. A borders. We spoke to Albury-Wodonga citizens who constantly cross media provider thereby participates in the shaping between NSW-Victoria, and NSW citizens who would commute into ACT. Australians’ perspectives, beliefs and ideas about local places, international places and the respective cultures Border region citizens feel like they’re part of one united of those places. community yet depending on which side of the border they live on, they have different media and political Through numerous free word-association exercises with Spoke study influences competing for their attention. participants, it was observed how media coverage about particular locations influences perceptions. Locations develop ‘identities’ that are Most of the time, news and information providers like to neatly demarcate based on the creation of knowledge and ideas about these places. For their coverage along official state lines, which doesn’t reflect the lived instance, Australia’s neighbouring Asia-Pacific countries are associated experiences of people who live there: with dramatic and negative news topics: boat people; political turmoil; natural disasters poverty; disasters; live animal exports; military coups; • Dividing news into states drives me crazy. If you are here, or rising sea levels; religious conflicts; violence against women; civil unrest; phone tapping; security; deaths; drugs; crime. across the border you get NSW news or VIC news. You get one or the other. This is very infuriating as it’s not the way we feel. The People are also mindful of how their own community or region is Border Mail does a good job in that regard.—Julie, Albury NSW represented in the media, because they know that these depictions can be • Sometimes we hear a little about NSW, but mostly Melbourne inaccurate: ‘We’re also a city just like any other around Australia, so there are based. I have no idea why. —Lena, Wodonga things that are going on apart from what happens of Capital Hill’—Laura, ACT • It’s like with Yarawonga & Malwala - there’s a bridge development in between the two sides. Where is the money going to come from? You’ll have one side in an election year, and the other Discussion one isn’t. One says they’ll fund it and the other one won’t. That’s what happens living on the border.’— Alan, Albury Media organisations are responsible for shaping people’s perceptions of places, people, and cultures. This is a position of power must be wielded • Even though Annalise works in Canberra she consciously and carefully. How might content providers broaden the lives in Bungendore (NSW) and resents being variety or news topics associated with particular locations in order to forced into ACT news streams (both radio & create more positive associations (or at least balance them out), dispel online) because she would prefer Sydney. and subvert subtle prejudices, promote a increased cross-cultural understanding? Perhaps via generating more human interest stories from these areas? More sport stories?

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For Francis in Queanbeyan (NSW), the relevant news being reported didn’t give a complete picture due to state lines: Obviously asbestos is a big issue in both Canberra & Queanbeyan but because ACT is a different jurisdiction A note about location metadata they are doing something about it, but Queanbeyan being part of NSW isn’t doing anything. I never saw that news story about my town because it

To mitigate this, Albury-Wodonga users would commonly add both wasn’t tagged appropriately. locations: There is no news that is ‘just Albury’ and there is no news that is ‘just Presenting content in Spoke’s unusual way revealed some weaknesses Wodonga. That’s why I added both locations. — Lena, Wodonga in location metadata. Sometimes location metadata was completely missing, which meant that Spoke could not include that content. This Recommendations was the case for Radio National and triple j content.

• When considering audience news and information needs, consider Also, sometimes the notion of a primary location and a secondary the unique needs of people living in border regions whereby location doesn’t always apply. For example, a story titled ‘4WD crashes state-split news streams are problematic. through Vinnies shopfront’ provided the primary location at state level • Frustrations expressed by participants about this issue further (ACT) and its secondary locations were set at a suburb postcode level underscore how important it is to have journalists within the where the accident actually occurred. Really, the location relevance of this community reporting and investigating issues that are relevant to the event is higher closer to the site of the event. The hierarchy of primary local region. and secondary locations should be suburb as primary and state as • Allow people to decide for themselves how local they wish their local secondary. news coverage to be. They could choose from options such as ‘within 1 hour’s drive from this location’ or ‘within 150km from this location’.

Banks Suburb © Jim Trail ABC Canberra

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4.3 People’s topic interests

Spoke research participants said they want more local news. Given ‘local’ is not a subject topic, we looked carefully at how our users interacted with the different topic areas of Spoke to try and understand this statement. In this section: 1. Give me more grass roots political coverage. 2. There is more big business than I need. 3. What’s on for me? Events, Arts & Entertainment. 4. Crime is compelling, even when it’s not close to me. 5. Education is about my kids and I. 6. Environmental news could also be about my area. 7. Health matters when it threatens or impacts me and my family. 8. I like local community and human interest stories, and animal stories from everywhere. 9. I don’t care about Sport but I do love cricket. 10. I love Science and Technology, but they’re not the same thing. 11. I care when it’s close, I care when it’s big: Disasters and Accidents, War, and National Security.

Data patterns that emerged revealed how people mentally position topics along the scale of ‘more locally relevant’ to ‘more globally relevant’. The more local a story is, the more personal and direct the impacts of the news story will likely be, which—in turn—may impact a person’s interpretation and emotional engagement with a story.

When some topics are explored in a local context, people have a different level of interest and engagement with those stories, which changes their association with that topic.

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4.3.1 Give me more grass roots political coverage. Only, 3 out of 5 of the top viewed politics stories were tagged with a location relevant to either pilot site, which is relatively high considering Spoke published more stories about politics than less than 10% of the all published stories were local to those sites. In the any other primary level topic, and people read more case of ACT users, this is because most federal politics stories are tagged political stories than any other topic. by ABC as ‘Australia’ with the primary location, rather than Canberra.

Some participants expressed a desire for more coverage of local political issues. For instance, in the leadup to the Victorian state election, Lena and Brad—both from Wodonga—said they were hungry for more reports and analysis of local election issues: ‘We’re not hearing much from the members up here, but everything is coming out of Melbourne which is pretty disappointing.’—Lena from Wodonga

Sixty-four politics stories were published with Albury-Wodonga postcodes in the 4 month period that included the Victorian election campaign and follow up.

Lena, and others like Francis wanted more ‘explainers’ for political issues, including local political issues:

• ‘I looked at a few [Jacqui] Lambie posts, but I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t understand what happened prior to reading the 2nd or 3rd article. If you didn’t have the backstory it was hard.’—Lena from Wodonga • ‘I see people taking really strong opinions and frothing at the mouth, but if you look at all the facts you think: How big is this issue? and how important is it? Why have you made this decision? My approach is that I think we need more in depth coverage the key facts and what is the background’ —Francis from Queanbeyan in reference to the Canberra light rail project.

Nine of fifteen survey participants included politics as one of their top five priority topics. They were happy to find out most federal political Discussion updates in their own time, but they still wanted to get them. However, some specified ‘local politics’ as being an important distinction: ‘I want • Spoke 3 findings reinforce the previous feedback collected from to know about the council and our MP’s. This extends to Wodonga & Northern Spoke 1 and 2; that there is a gap in coverage of politically important Region Victoria as well’—Julie from Albury issues at a local level. • The ABC is doing a great job of coverage at a federal and state level, but there is still demand for in-depth political coverage at a local and regional level. There is an audience need for ‘explainer’ content that describes the background story to local issues, especially politics.

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4.3.2 There is more big business than I need. to people at an individual level? Julie from Albury says: ‘I recognise that my ability to significantly influence those that control the financial aspects of my life Spoke published a large number of business stories, is so limited as to make the whole subject rather depressing, so I tend to avoid it.’— most of which were not read. At least 67% of published Julie from Albury

business stories were never viewed in Spoke. Only three study participants identified topics tangentially related to business as important to them during the survey series. For instance, Francis followed business news because he works in finance, and Laura is looking for a job so she wanted employment news. Craig was more big picture: ‘I am also interested in the performance of the Tony Abbott led Australian government. Their performance has a direct bearing on my daily life. The current public servant reductions is closing shops and business in Canberra where I live.’

However, 12 of 15 top business stories had some kind of local relevance to the pilot sites such as ‘ACT hopes for economic boom after signing agreement with the city of Shenzhen, China’ ABC News (see Appendix A for full list). Business was proportionately the topic most strongly aligned to the pilot sites, so this begs the question as to whether there is an audience demand for business stories with local significance.

Discussion

• Is the ABC weighted too heavily towards covering globally-focussed business stories? Could the ABC invest resources towards covering more locally relevant business stories? • Can we find ways to let people know when business stories are relevant to them because they have local impact?

Business, Economy and Finance as a topic label is conceptually located as ‘global’ in people’s minds. In an exercise in which 15 participants were asked to associate business with locations, they mentioned Australian capital cities such as Sydney, and locations of international financial markets: Sydney, Hong Kong, London, New York. Canberra was also mentioned due to its association with the development of federal economic policies. Only three people mentioned their local area, for diverse reasons such as having once worked at the ATO in Albury. In relation to users’ topic preferences, most users had business sitting in the mid-section (‘some of this’) level and only 23% promoted it to a ‘more of this’ topic. Perhaps business as it’s currently presented feels irrelevant

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4.3.3 What’s on for me? Events, Arts and The first of these is useful when we compare it with what people have been telling us across all 3 of the Spoke trials; that they want more Entertainment. information about what is happening in their local area in terms of entertainment and events. When participants were asked to create their Arts and Entertainment was proportionally the third own labels for topics they would like to follow, events or ‘what’s on locally’ most popular topic area and Music was the most was suggested by half our surveyed participants. Also, the 3rd most viewed secondary level topic. popular sub-topic for Arts and Entertainment stories overall was Events, even though volume of events content published was relatively low.

ABC Local do cover ‘what’s on’. For instance ABC Goulburn Murray creates a what’s on guide to the weekend via their Facebook page and these stories were republished into Spoke:

• I saw one [what’s on listing] in there and I thought ‘Ha! That’s pretty cool. That would actually be really handy, especially because I don’t have Facebook anymore.—Brad from Barnawartha • I have seen a couple of things [in Spoke] about events that are on. None of those events were of interest, but it has occurred to me that Spoke could be handy like that. I don’t take as much notice as I probably should about what is going on in my local neighbourhood. So, that’s another reason why I might keep using Spoke fairly regularly.—Phil from Albury

Five of the top 15 viewed Arts and Entertainment stories had relevance to However generally, there is a content gap and inconsistencies in the the Spoke pilot sites, but this is reasonably high if you take into consider- availability of a reliable local what’s on guide, especially for people who ation that less than 20% of stories published had relevance to those sites. avoid Facebook.

When research participants were questioned about the locations they In an exercise in which participants were asked to create their own labels associated with Arts and Entertainment they responded with: of subjects they would like personally follow, 11 out of the 15 participants wrote topics that relate to Music, Books, Films, and Visual Arts. • Local places where there are events and festivals: I don’t pay attention to this topic, unless it’s in my local area A couple of people mentioned that rather than being interested in all content covered by Arts & Entertainment, they wish to follow sub-topics • Sydney is perceived as an entertainment at a granular level, such as music, or books and graphic novels. This need and ‘party’ destination also emerged for other primary topics like Sport. • Melbourne is perceived as ‘cultural arts’ capital (concerts and theatre) and for people in Albury-Wodonga, where big gigs are • Hollywood was still regarded by a couple of people as synonymous with entertainment

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A note about topic metadata

I never saw that Arts & Entertainment story because it wasn’t tagged appropriately.

For someone like Brad in Barnawartha, triple j music stories would have been priority content. However these stories were rejected by Spoke because location data was never ascribed to these stories, as per Spoke’s minimum publishing requirements. Another problem was that triple j music stories that were supplied via ABCs internal systems to Spoke, Civic dancers didn’t include a body of the article. This was raised with internal teams Photo by Jim Trail but no solution has been found. ABC Canberra

While Radio National does ascribe topic metadata, it doesn’t ascribe location metadata to its content, so its content had to be excluded from Spoke, despite the fact it would be highly attractive to those people interested in books, films and visual arts. Discussion ABC Arts online stories have no topic metadata supplied so Spoke had to write rules to map these stories to the ‘Arts and Entertainment. However, • Across the board, all ABC sources must be more consistent if they had been given two layers of metadata—a primary topic level 1 with metadata creation so we can do a better job of of Arts and Entertainment and primary topic level 2 of Music— Spoke targeting relevant content to our audience. The content would have been able to better target Brad’s interest in music by giving exists, but it doesn’t always reach interested audiences. him these stories. As it stood, it was luck of the draw. • Arts and Entertainment is definitely a topic area where local interest could be fostered. A new comprehensive Additionally, ABC’s taxonomy and topic labelling can confuse people or digital ‘what’s on’ guide to replace the Big Diary could be misalign with people’s own categorisation models: ‘I always thought arts a real drawcard for the ABC, especially in regional areas. and entertainment was a problematic name. I am more interested in arts, and a lot of what people would classify as entertainment I’m not interested in’. • To increase relevance of news or information services, —Phil from Albury allow audiences to follow secondary-level or tertiary- level topics rather than just primary-level topics. • Consider re-aligning taxonomy further towards the audience’s own content categorisation models. Research could be done around this via card sort exercises, etc.

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This topic is associated with personal and domestic space ie. pertaining 4.3.4 Crime is compelling, even if it’s not close to me. to my safety and the safety of my loved ones. For instance Laura from Only 7% of stories published with this topic were local ACT told us that she is interested in crime stories from Sydney because her sister lives there. to Spoke pilot sites, yet 9 of 15 top stories viewed in this topic were local to one of the pilot sites. There is also a compulsive interest in stories about crime (less so law and justice). Both Peter and Annalise were compelled to click on stories about Local crime stories are popular, but high location crime, but couldn’t really explain why they did so: ‘If it happens in Perth, I alignment of viewed Law, Crime and Justice stories still have to open it, it’s so weird’—Annalise from Bungendore NSW was relatively low at 27% which indicates that people In one case an interest in crime was depressingly inadvertent. Nancy looked at the majority of this topic’s stories from was interested in stories related to indigenous affairs as her children are outside their local area. indigenous. However, when interviewed she realised that only because Spoke groups and responds to content under that topic level was it apparent that so many of them were crime stories. I think some places are more dodgy than others.

In an exercise in which participants were asked to freely associate the topic of Law, Crime, Justice with locations, they most commonly mentioned large metropolitan cities (especially Sydney), or their own local city of Canberra. Two people identified Albury, their local city.

In other exercises, participants were asked to freely associate topics with their local area or other places:

• Sydney was associated with ‘shootings’ • Albury generated responses of ‘crime’ and ‘drugs’ • ACT participants nominated ‘law and order issues’, ‘crime’, ‘theft’ and more obliquely, ‘hoons’ and ‘bogans’

Discussion

• Updates on big local investigations are ‘need to know’ news for many Updates on big local investigations such as the Palasiacs murder people, yet crime is interesting and relevant to us far beyond our local in Canberra were classed as category A (‘tell me this news as soon area. What are the implications for distributing stories outside an as it happens’) for almost half the surveyed participants in ACT. In area of local relevance in the future? Albury-Wodonga, there was interest around bikie gang activity, with • How might the ABC use topic analysis to provide balance when updates on this—including QLD state legislation—marked as a category portraying certain cultural groups? A by half of the respondents.

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4.3.5 Education is about my kids and I. In an exercise in which participants were asked to freely associate Education with locations, 15 participants identified the following: While only 36 of all published Education stories had geotags relevant to Spokes pilot sites, 9 out of the • My (local) location because either my kids or I study here top 15 viewed education stories did. For instance, a • Where I’ve studied in the past top Education story for Albury was: ‘Lavington girl’s behaviour to principal disgraceful’ from the local paper. • Canberra and State capitals because my relevant education policy comes from there

10 out of 15 participants said they’d like more education news. When asked what Spoke could learn its local community newspaper, Denise from Thurgoona noted that, ‘it has a section for education highlighting activities that the schools are undertaking, celebrations, etc.’

Discussion

• There is a demand for Education content at the ‘local’ level.

• Can the ABC do more to generate stories about local schools, TAFEs and universities, as well as making state education policy more accessible to its potential audience?

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4.3.6 Environmental news could also be about my local Interestingly, words like ‘earth’, ‘global’ or ‘world’ were rarely mentioned in this exercise. For the survey group, Environment is more commonly area. perceived as a more local topic, rather than a global one but only 5 out of In an exercise in which participants were asked to freely associate top 15 viewed Environment stories were local to the pilot sites. This may Environment with locations, they answered: be an issue of supply; only about 10% of the stories in this topic area were tagged with locations relevant to the pilot sites. Als0, the top 3 viewed • Australian national heritage sites like Great Environment topics were, 1) climate change, 2) alternative energy, and 3) Barrier Reef - iconic signifiers conservation. This may indicate that people think of the environment in • Local places eg. Wonga Wetlands or ‘Canberra’ quite a personal and local way, but believe international policy and global were just as frequently referenced change around business practices impacts the environment everywhere and tends to dominate news coverage. • ‘National parks’ were frequently referred to as locations, as were ‘Oceans’ Discussion

• Data raises the question about whether a media provider’s focus on covering global environmental stories like climate change could be balanced out with some more locally specific content that more closely aligns to audience’s own personal associations with this topic. • The results of the free-association exercise indicate that people associate this topic with specific locations such as The Great Barrier Reef, as well as non-specific locations such as Oceans, National Parks or Planet Earth. If the ABC is to allow its audience to follow specific topics, we might consider allowing them to fine-tune their news feeds such as: • Follow topic / location pairings. eg. I want to follow Great Barrier Reef + Environment stories only (not tourism related) • Follow locations outside the standard postcode location definition. eg. The Moon, Oceans, National Parks, planet Earth, Space

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4.3.7 Health matters when it threatens or impacts me In an exercise in which participants were asked to freely associate Health with locations, they answered: and my family. • The location of my closest hospital and the location of major health Health as a topic is deeply personal and therefore often service facilities elsewhere eg. for Albury-Wodonga participants, this locally focussed in relation to services. Only 6% of was Melbourne the published Health stories were relevant to the pilot • Canberra, because that is where health policy comes from sites, but 9 out of the top 15 viewed Health stories were • West Africa, because Ebola was featured so heavily in the news over the trial period locally relevant. The West African example reflects the high profile of the Ebola outbreak in the news over the period. This is borne out by the top 5 primary locations of viewed Health stories:

• Australia • Canberra, ACT, 2600 • ACT • United State • Sierra Leone

The interest the Ebola coverage provoked in our participants could arguably also be personal. Global pandemics tend to raise the public’s concern for their own safety and wellbeing.

Stories from secondary-level topics that might be described as ‘personal’ health had good traction: Diet and Nutrition, Exercise and Fitness, Obesity, Women’s health, Reproduction and Contraception and Adolescent health.

Of the top 15 viewed Health stories, 5 stories were about Mr Fluffy Discussion asbestos issue; 5 were about Ebola and 3 were about hospital services. Interestingly, the Mr Fluffy asbestos issue in Canberra might equally be • Health—much like Business, Education and Environment— is a topic described as financial, or political , or legal stories. None of the surveyed for which the location/topic nexus could be explored further. Can I participants referenced this as a health story. follow health policy updates for my area, or the latest on exercise and fitness? • There is obviously appetite for content related to personal health as well as articles about local health services, and they would fit firmly into the category of ‘more local news’ requested by many participants in the three Spoke trials.

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4.3.8 I like local community and human interest Yet, 5 out of the top 15 viewed Community and Society stories were local to the pilot sites whilst 39% of all published Community and Society stories, plus animal stories from everywhere. stories were strongly aligned to users’ location preferences. Also, the top 5 locations of viewed stories in this topic tell a story of the demand for local Community and Society was another very popular coverage of this topic : subject area where demand exceeded what we published. • Australia • Canberra, ACT, 2600 • ACT • Albury, NSW • Albury, NSW, 2640

The top secondary-level topics of viewed Community and Society stories also tell a story:

• Religion and Beliefs • History • Immigration • Urban Development and Planning

Religions and Beliefs and Immigration likely reflect the predominance of stories around Islamic migration that were published over the pilot’s duration.

Urban development and planning is an issue that was raised as important multiple times:

• ‘We’re talking about which amenities are going in and local construction. It’s about what is coming to the community that we can all enjoy’— Laura from ACT describes the topics that are discussed in the My Gungahlin Facebook Group • Nancy, from ACT was motivated to community action by a dispute ‘about my local shops’

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A note about metadata Human Interest Only 1 of the top 15 Human Interest stories published was local to a pilot Appropriateness of Community and Society topic tagging site. This might be because 59% of the stories viewed in the category were either animal related or, specifically, animal attack related. The top There were stories that may have been miscategorised by the ABC to 15 viewed Human Interest stories included three shark related stories, Community and Society. This was revealed after analysing stories’ two tiger related and one about a bear eating someone. The only top primary and secondary topics. For example, stories that more appropri- story local to a pilot site, was the most popular story about domestic cat ately belonged to Law, Crime and Justice or Disasters and Accidents containment in Canberra. were tagged under Community and Society > Death, Missing Person and Domestic Violence. Although these sub-categories are frequently So Community and Society and Human Interest stories are vaguely tangentially relevant to Society, in these cases they were not.For example, defined but popular, and there is appetite for more. 50% of participants a story titled ‘Man dies after car hits tree in Canberra’ was given the primary said that they wanted more news that falls into the category of Human topic of Community & Society > Death. For its secondary topic, it was Interest or Society. When asked what kind of topics they’d like to see tagged Disasters and Accidents > Accidents > Road. more of they described topics like ‘good news’, ‘comic and light hearted’, ‘stories about interesting people’:

I particularly like stories about interesting people doing interesting things. People are doing innovative and interesting things here, there’s a chance that it’ll impact me, or that I might meet them or come into contact with what they are doing—Julie, Albury

The ABC missed an opportunity with this category, again due to poor metadata and tagging. Radio National content contains no location data, and is therefore excluded from Spoke because it doesn’t meet Spoke’s minimum publishing requirements, despite the fact that RN produces a wealth of appropriate content for people like Julie. Consider this Big Ideas story that was rejected from Spoke: ‘Revitalizing Civic – Canberra’s tired CBD’, a story with geographical relevance to Civic, Canberra and surrounds.

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Discussion 4.3.9 I don’t like Sport, but I do love cricket.

• The fact that over half the stories published in Human Only 50% of published Sports stories were ever viewed. This is partly Interest are about animals could be confusing in a because Sport is characteristically a subject that people tend to feel topic filter. However, being able to filter by popular strongly about either way, and Spoke provided a way for users to either categories ‘human interest’ or ‘animal related’ easily promote or demote Sport their news feeds. could add value to a personalised news feed. ‘And I can get rid of Sport too!’—Anna from • Time for a review? These primary topics seem to be a Melbourne catch-all for stories that don’t fit into other categories. • Miscategorisation of stories creates via human error problems for a news presentation like Spoke that depend on the accurate categorisation of stories in order to serve relevant content to users according to their topic preferences. • It’s worth challenging the notion that a hierarchy of topic categorisation should even exist. For instance, who can say that a story most neatly fits into a ‘primary level 1 topic’ and then a ‘secondary level 1 topic’? These topic hierarchies are inbuilt into ABC’s publishing systems, but this creates problems for alternate entry points into content eg. a news presentation like Spoke that depend on the accurate categorisation of stories in order to serve relevant content to users according to their topic preferences. • Can we come up with a taxonomy that is more user-centred? If the ABC is to allow people to discover and follow news and information via tags (topic, sub-groups of topics, locations & pairing of topic/location), it’s important to assess the alignment of ABC’s taxonomy and publishing workflows to the audience’s own mental models. Of all the news topics, Sport probably has the strongest mental associa- • Inconsistent or absent metadata, rigid taxonomies and tions with specific places. In an exercise in which participants were asked problematic publishing workflows are not the only factors to freely associate Sport with locations, some themes emerged: limiting the freedom on ABC’s content to be syndicated into presentations like Spoke. Sometimes content is • Competitions and championships are strongly created and published in content management systems connected to place eg. Glasgow = 2014 (CMSs) that use a different framework like Drupal. Commonwealth Games; Melbourne = AFL This means that content from ABC Open—a potentially • Sport, as it relates to new appears to be conceptually located rich source of regional human interest and community in national and international zones, rather than local. stories— was not accessible to Spoke. Fortunately, the Radio division is currently developing content 7676 ABC-WHP-2015-AAPIs that©2015 will Australian help address Broadcasting this issue Corporation in the future. ABC-WHP-2015-A ©2015 Australian Broadcasting Corporation 77

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Only 10% of published Sports stories had primary-locations belonging 4.3.10 I love Science and Technology but they’re not to the Spoke pilot sites, and only 1 of the top 15 stories viewed was locally the same thing tagged. Interestingly, none of the survey respondents indicated a strong interest in receiving more local sports coverage. Although published in small numbers, Science and Technology was proportionally the most popular topic, ‘I don’t have expectations for the ABC to cover local ahead of both Politics and Arts and Entertainment. regional sport’— Callum, Acton (ACT)

Participants were vocal about what matters with Sport: the ability to filter or follow Sport sub-topics at a granular level, such as Cricket, or AFL:

• ‘I want to follow netball, not sport’—Nancy from ACT • ‘I like cricket, but I hate AFL. I like rugby union too’—Annalise from Bungendore, NSW

Sport raised a another interesting case study for content classification in Spoke. When Australian cricketer Phil Hughes was killed, many participants didn’t see this story of national significance because they had demoted Sport as a subject they wanted to see. This was due to the way the algorithm was weighted toward stories about preferred topics and wouldn’t happen in a regular breaking news feed, which is perhaps a good argument for providing both options to the user: ‘top news’ and ‘recommended for you’ via the same user-interface.

Discussion

• As per discussion point made in relation to Arts & Entertainment: Two secondary-level topics— Astronomy (Space) and Computers and In order to increase relevance of news or information services, allow Technology— were vastly the most popular, representing half of all audiences to follow secondary-level or tertiary-level topics rather than Science and Technology stories viewed. just primary-level topics. Published Science and Technology stories had comparatively low location • The case study about the Phil Hughes story demonstrates that alignment. Only 15 stories had primary locations tagged to the Spoke sometimes there are stories that are considered important and pilot sites, and only 3 of the top 15 viewed Science and Technology stories relevant to all people, regardless of individual interest in that topic. were locally relevant to those sites. The Spoke model of news presentation did not handle this scenario neatly.

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One participant who is a scientist, Allison, raised a general point about this topic. She’d prefer to follow Science stories in isolation from Technology. Allison said she isn’t interested in new technology updates and she saw too much ‘internet and new iphone news’. In her opinion, Environment and Health aligned much better with Science.

Looking at the secondary-level topics breakdown above, it seems that the ABC publishes a large amount of IT and internet related stories within Science and Technology. Therefore, Technology’s pairing with Science is possibly a legacy issue from when ABC’s content taxonomy was first established. There is also crossover with the primary topic of Media and IT in Spoke (known as Information and Communication in ABC’s taxonomy). Out of 155 stories published in Media and IT, 48 were tagged Internet or Mobile Phone.

Science & Technology is mostly a location ‘agnostic’ topic. It is at odds with a recommendation algorithm that always takes location into account because a user’s priority for this topic will never usually be about location (eg. Space). If you are interested in Science, it will always be interesting to you, regardless of location.

Discussion

• There is a strong appetite for Astronomy (Space) stories.

• The ABC should consider splitting Science from IT related technology stories. Look at the crossover / double-up with Media & IT and consider creating a new primary topic for communication and information.

• Consider Science and Technology as as example of a topic that is might be location agnostic, and therefore needs special consideration in relation to designing a recommendation system like Spoke’s.

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Participants were asked to sort 30 news headlines into four categories 4.3.11 I care when it’s close, I care when it’s big. along a 4-point personal relevance scale; from Category A (I want to Disasters and Accidents, War, and National Security know about this news as soon as it breaks) at one end of the spectrum, to Category D (I don’t care if I completely miss this news headline) at the other end. Disasters and Accidents Here are some themes that emerged in relation to Disasters and Only 69 of the stories published had primary locations Accidents: tagged to the Spoke pilot sites, but 9 of the top 15 viewed Disasters and Accidents stories were locally • Local emergencies—a severe weather warning or bushfire— are relevant to those sites. urgent for twice as many people as any other headline in both locations . Nearly all participants marked this Category A. • More people were happy to find out about a fire-ban in their own time in the ACT, whereas most people in Albury-Wodonga rated this a Category A. • A local car crash, forklift accident or gas leak is category A for more participants than an Australian killed overseas, but all participants still wanted to know about both.

Many Disasters and Accidents are international, but the users’ interests in this topic seems to be prioritised between ‘it’s local to me’ and ‘earth shattering world event’.

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War and Unrest Defence and National Security

Understandably, only 12 stories published in War and Only 10 stories published had primary locations Unrest had primary locations belonging to ACT pilot belonging to the ACT pilot site but they included 3 out site, and none of the top stories were locally relevant. of the top 15 viewed Defence and National Security stories. These stories were all about the security of Parliament or major institutions.

A note about metadata

Terrorism and September 11 attacks were the only secondary topic of Appropriateness of War and Unrest topic tagging viewed War and Unrest stories across the 4 month pilot duration. Of the 793 stories tagged, 533 were tagged terrorism. The story Well founded fear (Lateline, Nov 12. 2014) was tagged Unrest,Conflict & War>Terrorism as its primary topic. It was tagged in this way despite the fact it’s about the successful high court appeal by an Afghan asylum seeker against deportation. The nuance of the broadcast story is lost in the topic categorisation of the online story. In this case, the secondary tag Community and Society>Immigration>Refugees might have been be more appropriate. This example raises concerns about topic miscategorisation and how this may be publicly perceived as dangerously over-simplified and biased.

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4.4 Responses to Spoke’s content The primary distinction between the Spoke app and recommendation system current ABC app is the way that Spoke orders stories. The ABC app provides users with ‘top stories’ and a menu structure to In this section: navigate feeds filtered by ‘just in’ , ‘most popular’, by location, and by topic. In contrast, Spoke consists of a single feed defined by a recommen- 1. It’s okay for ABC to use my personal data dation system which assigns each story a position in the feed according because I trust ABC to use it responsibly. to a combination of factors: 2. Spoke surprises me with stuff I didn’t expect I’d ever want. • User preferences: topic priorities and locations of interest 3. But Spoke also gives me FoMO (Fear of Missing Out)! • Recency: date & time published 4. I’m not always the same person, so how could an algorithm ever predict what I want? • ABC editorial weight 5. What is a top story? I want transparency. Show me • The user’s previous 7 days of activity: which stories viewed how this thing works and hand me the controls! or didn’t view, and which stories they actively demoted from their feed via the less like this demote feature. 6. If you could sort out the other problems, I reckon this system could work well The Spoke app was deliberately designed to contrast with the ABC flagship app so that we could test how people felt about receiving news via a content recommendation system.

Spoke 3 revealed that people don’t want to cede control to a system that learns from their behaviour unless they: 1) understand how it works, 2) receive immediate feedback based on their actions, and 3) are provided controls to adjust it or override the system completely.

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4.4.1 It’s okay for ABC to use my personal data • ‘To not see any news on the passing of Phil Hughes seems because I trust ABC to use it responsibly. a bit odd to me’—Tim from ACT (via email) • ‘A day like today shows that there still does need to be some prioriti- Participants felt they could trust the ABC with their personal data (such sation based on story importance, I’ve got like eight stories about as tracked activity, location and topic preferences) that make this type baby zoo animals and flower festivals before anything to do with of recommended reading list possible. This level of trust may not be the raids’ —Jack from Belconnen provided to other organisations: Knowing the ABC is behind it, there is trust. Knowing there is no advertising. Getting stories that I wouldn’t necessarily have found, I can see the benefit.—Francis, Queanbeyan 4.4.4 I’m not always the same person, so how could an algorithm ever predict what I want? 4.4.2 Spoke surprises me with stuff I didn’t expect I’d ever want. One participant said that she felt as if relinquishing control to an algorithm like Spoke’s means they are giving up the chance to be flexible Even though people wanted the ability to control the way Spoke delivered I might decide one day to remove disasters-and-accidents because I’m content, many also enjoyed the experience of finding unexpectedly all filled up and don’t want another one. ‘It’s quite possible that I’d want interesting things in their feed: to change from day to day’—Julie from Albury, NSW. Nancy said that she didn’t feel like Spoke could understand how her mood fluctuated • ‘It’s good to see different stories out of place; throughout the day so it could respond appropriately. it raises interest’.—Denise, Albury • ‘Sometimes I would think ‘why is that there?’ and then ‘actually, I might have a look at that!’ —Brad, Barnawartha 4.4.5 What is a top story? I want transparency. Show • ‘Towards the end I would warm to Spoke. I do remember me how this thing works and hand me the controls. stories that I would otherwise not have found’ —Francis, Most Spoke participants were bewildered by Spoke’s news headline Queanbeyan ordering principle until it was explicitly described to them as a personalised ‘recommended reading’ mix that was ordered by a combination of factors including topic, location, recency, editorial weighting and 4.4.3 But Spoke gives me FoMO their previous activity. Many people noted that the app didn’t feel timely (Fear of Missing Out)! enough because the ordering of stories was out of synch with publication time. Some participants said that they couldn’t help but wonder what kind of news they were missing out on. Most people wanted the see the big • ‘I still have an issue about the ordering of stories. I don’t stories of the day (as per a conventional ‘top stories’ or just in’ news feed). understand why it is done this way’ - Julie, Albury They didn’t trust that Spoke would always supply them with this content in a timely manner. • ‘Spoke falls short in terms of being up-to-date’—Callum, ACT • ‘It’s not to say that anything I’m seeing is irrelevant, • ‘I really missed a highlight of major stories. I wanted a but when I use Spoke I wonder what else I am quick rundown of the top stories that have happened missing out on?’—John from Canberra or have changed over a day.’—Lena, Wodonga

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People wanted cues that would help them understand why they were seeing the headlines in the order that they were, yet Spoke app’s user-in- Discussion terface (UI) lacked these cues (headings, labels and other feedback In theory, the majority of participants supported the principle of the mechanisms) that could have helped them intuitively understand this. personalised recommended news reading list based on their preferences and previous activity. In fact, many of them agreed that this type of mix Most participants said they would have liked to decide for themselves could work nicely as one filtering option within a more traditional or how the headlines were ordered, whether that be by publish time, topic, complete menu structure such as found in the ABC flagship app: sub-topic, popularity, ABC’s edited top news mix, or location (eg. local, national. Pacific, Asia, etc.) ‘Yes! I’ve already designed it! I would absolutely love if instead of the most popular on the ABC app I could In reference to Spoke’s customisation and story-demotion features, they would feel anxious about the potential unknown implications of their have my spoke mix. I never like the things you put actions (What am I saying ‘less’ to? What am I saying ‘more’ to?). under most popular’—Annalise, Bungendore, NSW

4.4.7 If you could sort out the other problems, I reckon this system could work well.

Interestingly, most participants said they believed that their Spoke mix became ‘moderately more responsive’ to their interests the more they used it:

• ‘I’m not sure if it learned my habits? It seemed to get more what I was interested in.’—Callum from ACT • ‘Yes I really liked it. I find I’m not going on to Twitter or news things as much. Did you fix it as you went along?’ —Allison, Bonython, ACT • We learned that people really liked what they got when they created a feed influenced by their personal topic and location preferences: • ‘I think Spoke knows me quite well!’— Annalise from Bungendore, NSW

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4.5 Responses to inclusion of 4.5.1 Including my local newspaper made Spoke more content from multiple providers. locally relevant.

Via Facebook, Twitter and RSS, the Spoke Editor cherry-picked and All Spoke study participants believed that the inclusion published 3rd party content from external, non-ABC sources including of local newspaper feeds made Spoke seem more local- local councils, sporting teams, art galleries, museums, markets, local ly-oriented and 10 out of 11 (91%) participants felt more MPs, and local blogs like RiotACT. Across December, headlines from local informed about local matters due to the inclusion of newspapers were also included. local newspaper content

In this section: • ‘There were more stories from my local area and they • Including my local newspaper made were stories I was interested in reading’—Nancy, ACT Spoke more locally relevant • ‘I felt the economic situation in Canberra was • Other sources add local substance to subject broadened and deepened by the inclusion of the areas where the ABC is a little thin Canberra times coverage.’ —Craig, ACT • I expect the ABC to keep a close eye on the 8 out of 11 participants (73%) felt that adding their local newspapers into quality of content from other sources. Spoke made their experiences using the app better: • It makes sense for the ABC to support the work of local media providers. ‘I like it, It’s put my number 1 local news source at my fingertips when it doesn’t have it’s own app for my phone. Means I get more local news.’—Callum, ACT

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4.5.2 Other sources add local substance to subject 4.5.3 I expect the ABC to keep a close eye on the areas where the ABC is a little thin. quality of content from other sources.

Third-party content accounted for only 3.2% of all content published The ABC’s position as a trusted high quality news provider was the main via Spoke, yet some of the third-party stories appeared in top 15 stories reason why a couple of people were hesitant to unquestioningly support viewed overall (see Appendix A). Amongst users who saved a postcode the inclusion of third-party content: in Canberra region, 3 of the top 15 stories viewed were supplied by third party sources. For Albury-Wodonga region it was 4 of the top 15 stories. • ‘I trust ABC but it doesn’t help my view of ABC when The relative popularity of this content may be an indicator of its relevance there is dodgy content.’—Callum from Acton, ACT to Spoke users. • ‘Today I noticed that there were twitter feeds Third-party material can fill content gaps that ABC isn’t generating, such from the RiotAct which is okay because i like as local events and local council information. Education, Arts and Entertain- them anyway. But I wondered how you decide ment and Environment topic profiles were bolstered by the inclusion of what stories to publish?’—Allison from ACT third party local coverage. People expect the ABC to maintain a close eye on third-party content 5 of the top 15 Education stories were from 3rd party sources, the top in order to maintain quality-assurance. Some participants expect the story overall was from local Albury Wodonga paper. Education was a quality of third-party content to meet ABC’s own editorial standards: ‘We topic area where participants had generally indicated they would like watch/listen to ABC because we expect certain standards/ content and possibly somewhat more coverage and there is demand for local coverage (9 of the even viewpoint. Otherwise we’d go elsewhere.’—Julie from Albury top 15 education stories were locally relevant to the pilot sites). Others felt that so long as ABC clearly flag that the content isn’t from the In December, while local newspapers were included in Spoke, 3 of the ABC, than the content doesn’t need to match the same standards, within top 15 Arts and Entertainment stories were from the local Canberra paper. reason: ‘It doesn’t need to be the same quality so long as it is clear in the article Non-ABC stories about Environment were also proportionately popular, (and to the reader) that the content is derived from a non-ABC source, otherwise it with 4 stories from local non-ABC sources in the top 15. will tarnish the ABC’s reputation’—Denise from Albury

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Implementation – decisions around content & design – 4.5.4 It makes sense for ABC to support the work of makes all the difference. local media providers. Participants would prefer if Spoke could host all the story details inside Spoke 1 & 2 findings revealed that there may be oppor- the app, rather than linking out to view full details on that provider’s site. This limitation lead Nancy to believe that ‘some stories lack detail and depth’. tunities for the ABC to support and nurture healthy local digital media ecologies. Our findings from Spoke All participants agreed that an identifying icon in the feed was sufficient 3 further supported this. 13 out of 15 study participants to communicate which source content was coming from: felt that the ABC could take a role to support local ‘I was always conscious that I was reading an outside source and read it with an understanding that quality would be different because of the nature of the media by distributing content made by local media organisation presenting the material’—Craig from ACT providers, although some had reservations about the impact this might have on news and the ABC itself.

• ‘I think the ABC would be a good platform to help local and up and coming news providers. Maybe they can give their expertise and help save some money too instead of doubling up?’—Allison from ACT • ‘If there was a way of the ABC giving local media broader audience, that would help! Especially in even more remote areas than here.’—Phil from Albury • ‘Yes, to address local news that people might not get to see or read.’—Denise from Albury • ‘I don’t have a concern with the ABC helping to distribute local content per se....but in light of arguments about the ABC being publicly funded and the right wing media thinking the ABC has too much power already I would be concerned that this sort of idea would be grist to their mill i.e. another reason why the ABC should be pared back’—Francis, Queanbeyan

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5. DISCUSSION: IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Developing effective content and FOR THE ABC design strategies

The following is a collation and re-organisation of all • Media organisations can use audience motivation statements (see the discussion points and recommendations raised section 4.1.1) to define the content and design strategy of existing and future news and information services. Some of these statements throughout the document. can also be combined to map how people’s needs might change at different points along a timeline of engagement with a particular In this section: news story. The design can respond to those needs. 1. Developing effective content and design strategies • Work with (not against) the audience’s propensity to access multiple 2. Addressing content and service gaps sources. This is something the ABC already handles quite well, but 3. Redesigning news experiences with there’s always room for improvement. Ask why might the media content recommendation systems provider might be an important source for a particular user at that particular point in time. The answer could inform how the content is 4. Redesigning location-based news experiences produced and distributed. 5. Addressing ABC’s publishing workflows and metadata • Understand the strengths and weaknesses of ABC’s various news 6. Addressing issues related to taxonomy and information sub-brands (News24, ABC News Breakfast, The and topic preferences Drum, AM/PM, etc.) and channels (tv, radio, Twitter, etc.) alongside the alternatives. Clearly articulate the audience value propositions of each, and ensure these messages are incorporated into content strategies and style-guides.

• Spoke’s unusual presentation of news content made users feel as if it contained more local stories compared with the ABC app. This is interesting because almost the same volume of local news is available to users via both apps (aside from a small number of additional local third party material included in Spoke). Local news is less prominent in the ABC app, whilst Spoke surfaces local content.

News, Place and Relevance News, Place and Relevance

5.2 Addressing content & service gaps • In relation to mobile news and information, people value ABC Local content when they remember to access it or stumble upon it, • People—especially those based in regional areas—notice how news but it does not appear to be front-and-centre in people’s minds as is produced and distributed from state capital centres. Frustrations a comprehensive ‘go-to’ digital source for accessible, informative expressed by participants further underscore how important it is to and entertaining local content. How can the ABC broaden the reach have journalists within the community reporting and investigating of this kind of relevant content? Maybe by looking to re-distribute issues that are relevant to the local region. outside specific destinations. For example, by funnelling geo-targeted content via ABC’s main Facebook page as well as sharing content into • The ABC is doing a great job of coverage at a federal and state level, locally-relevant Facebook groups. More initiatives like locally targeted but there is still demand for in-depth political coverage at a local feeds in the ABC app are great, but Spoke shows that hiding a local and regional level. There is an audience need for ‘explainer’ content feed within the broader app is a less effective method than integrat- that describes the background story to local issues, especially politics ing it with national and international headlines. stories.

• ABC content creators and brand managers must protect ABC’s • Consider monitoring certain community Facebook pages for ideas reputation for independence and accuracy above all else, as these on local content gaps. What are people asking questions about? What are highly prized and valued by our audiences. When aggregating petitions are being distributed amongst community members? What content from multiple sources—including non-ABC content—there information do they need and value right now? is a risk that these values may be eroded if implemented without care and attention to the details of content, context and design. • People really notice the absence of news that reflects their own world and priorities back at them in regional areas. They asked for more local coverage—explainers, fact checking, analysis and opinion— that extends to the heart of local issues such as development, council politics and big litigations. How can ABC do better at resourcing the collection, creation and distribution of in-depth local news and information? If resources are lacking, is it of value for the ABC to focus on in-depth coverage of important stories while supporting other local media or organisations to distribute their content throughout the local community? ABC Open is one model that explored alternatives, and Spoke was another.

• Media organisations are responsible for shaping people’s perceptions of places, people, and cultures. This is a position of power must be wielded consciously and carefully. How might content providers broaden the variety or news topics associated with particular locations in order to create more positive associations (or at least balance them out), dispel and subvert subtle prejudices, promote a increased cross-cultural understanding? Perhaps via generating more human interest stories from these areas? More sport stories?

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• Is the ABC weighted too heavily towards covering globally focussed business stories? Could the ABC invest some more resources covering • There is a demand for Education content at the local level. Can the more locally relevant business stories?Can we find ways to let people ABC do more to generate stories about local schools, TAFES and know when business stories are more relevant to them because they Universities, as well as making state education policy more accessible are locally relevant? to its potential audience?

• Arts and Entertainment is definitely a topic area where local interest • Data raises the question about whether a media provider’s focus could be fostered. A new comprehensive digital ‘events / what’s on’ on covering global environmental stories like climate change could guide to replace the Big Diary could be a real drawcard for the ABC, be balanced out with some more locally specific content that more especially in regional areas. closely aligns to audience’s own personal associations with this topic.

• Health—much like Business, Education and Environment— is a topic • There is a strong appetite for Astronomy (Space) stories. for which the location/topic nexus could be explored further. Can I follow health policy updates for my area, or the latest on exercise and • How might the ABC use topic analysis to provide balance when fitness? There is appetite for content related to personal health as well portraying certain cultural groups? as articles about local health services, and they would fit firmly into the category of ‘more local news’ requested by many participants.

Eamon Hamilton briefing Journos at the Heavy Lift Group, Richmond VIC Photo (cc) Grant and Steve

5.3 Redesigning news experiences 5.4 Redesigning location-based with content recommendation news experiences systems • When considering audience news and information needs, should the • Sometimes there are stories that are considered important and unique needs of people living in border regions whereby state-split relevant to all people, regardless of individual interest in that topic. news streams are problematic. The Spoke model of news presentation did not handle this scenario neatly. • Allowing people the ability to save multiple locations to their app preferences pushes up against established design conventions. In • Spoke has explored what might be achieved when people’s preferenc- order to encourage more people to think outside the box (ie. beyond es and interactions are individually tracked, and how their data location setting = my current location), we must do a better job in informs which content is recommended to them. Yet Spoke’s design and implementation. We need to sell the value proposition as implementation was just the tip-of-iceberg in terms of what might to why people might consider adding one or more ‘favourite places’ created. The ABC could create more personalised news experiences and how that might impact their experience. that take into account where a person is positioned in their journey of engaging with a specific news event or story. For instance, on any • Consider allowing locations or regions to align with alternate particular news subject the ABC could track which stories on that place-meanings or frames of reference that exist for certain groups subject have previously viewed (and in which order), the keywords, of people eg. regions from Aboriginal Australia map (organised by opinions, quotes and facts that a user has previously been exposed language/tribal/nation groups by AIATSIS). to. The logical extensions of this data? The ABC might provide that person with a simple story update (instead of a recap and an update). • Expand our notion of locations to allow people to follow location-like If this is the first time engaging with a subject matter, we could topics such as ‘national parks’, ‘Murray-Darling’ ‘outer-space’, ‘Java recommend ‘explainer’ content to get them up-to-speed. Maybe after Sea’, ‘The Moon’, ‘Great Barrier Reef’. Establish which location tags a little while, that user is primed for analysis and opinion. We could may overlap with new or existing topic tags, and how these might be also help a user easily track-down the key story points, when they are treated in a location-based news and information service. fact-checking mode. Over time, we may pick up at which point a user • For users interested in following international places, they must exits out of the gloomy news and seeks something more fun to read. A follow country names (eg. China, New Zealand) rather than major good moment to recommend a lighter-news story! international regions, states or cities. Is it time for ABC to expand the location tagging model to enable people to follow global locations at a • ABC R&D is currently exploring ideas around natural language more granular level? processing (NLP) that provides a layer of consistent metadata to ABC content, including aspects like topic, mood and location. Doing this • Consider enabling people to follow pairings of locations. For instance, may allow us to look to a future of recommendation based on mood or if someone has a particular interest in China-USA relations. sentiment. • The users’ location preferences data could be more powerfully used in • In theory, the majority of participants supported the principle of a news and information service if we understand how people relate to the personalised recommended news reading list based on their each locations in their preferences. If we understood which location preferences and previous activity. In fact, many of them agreed that was a ‘home location’ vs ‘a location where someone I care about lives’ this type of mix could work nicely as one filtering option within a we could potentially recommend different content to them for those more traditional or complete menu structure such as found in the respective locations. ABC flagship app.

News, Place and Relevance News, Place and Relevance

5.5 Addressing ABC’s publishing • vBe aware of meeting user expectations when we enable them to follow postcode level locations. Some people assume they will receive workflows and metadata hyperlocal news from within their postcode, which may not be an expectation we can always meet. • Across the board, all ABC sources must be more consistent with metadata creation so we can do a better job of targeting relevant • While people can clearly articulate which topics are relevant to them content to our audience. The content exists, but it doesn’t always in a general way, people are somewhat less beholden to firm topic reach interested audiences. prioritisation when it comes to news about where they live. Take this into account when designing location based-services eg. if location • Presenting content in Spoke’s unusual way revealed some weaknesses matches user’s home location, give them more business, health and in location metadata. Sometimes location metadata was completely education news than they might normally see for other locations. missing, which meant that we could not include that content at all.

• Considering allowing people to decide for themselves how local they • Existing publishing workflows may work effectively for one or two wish their local news coverage to be by selecting options such as purpose-built contexts (such as for the AM website or for ABC News’s ‘within 1 hour’s drive from this location’ or ‘within 150km from this audio page), but aren’t suitable for syndicated presentations (such location’. as Spoke). To free content from their original contexts and enable stories to be presented and discovered in other ways, ABC needs to be • Updates on big local investigations are ‘need to know’ news for many consistent in its publishing workflows, and in how it adds data and people, yet crime is interesting and relevant to us far beyond our local metadata to content management systems. area. What are the implications for distributing stories outside an area of local relevance in the future? • In relation to the way Spoke presents content resulted in ‘clumping’ of similar stories, we must be aware of how this appears to audiences. • Consider Science and Technology as as example of a topic that might Perhaps it raises questions for them about ABC’s investment of be location agnostic, and therefore needs special consideration in content-creation resources. Can the ABC reduce the frequency of the relation to designing a recommendation system like Spoke’s. same news content being published by various news programs and divisions? Again, this comes back to what are the strengths of each news program sub-brand? What can each news program or division offer the audience that is different from the next?

• Content not available to syndicate.Sometimes content is created and published in content management systems (CMSs) that use a different framework like Drupal. This means that content from ABC Open—a potentially rich source of regional human interest and community stories— was not accessible to Spoke. Fortunately, the Radio division is currently developing content APIs that will help address this issue in the future.

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5.6 Addressing issues related to

taxonomy and topic preferences

• Miscategorisation of stories creates via human error problems for a • The fact that over half the stories published in Human Interest are news presentation like Spoke that depend on the accurate categorisa- about animals could be confusing in a topic filter. However, being tion of stories in order to serve relevant content to users according to able to filter by popular categories ‘human interest’ or ‘animal related’ their topic preferences. could add value to a personalised news feed.

• It’s worth challenging the notion that a hierarchy of topic categori- • To increase relevance of news or information services, allow sation should even exist. For instance, who can say that a story audiences to follow secondary-level or tertiary-level topics rather than most neatly fits into a ‘primary level 1 topic’ and then a ‘secondary just primary-level topics (eg. follow Netball not Sport; follow Visual level 1 topic’? These topic hierarchies are inbuilt into ABC’s publish- Arts, not Arts & Entertainment) ing systems, but this creates problems for alternate entry points into content eg. a news presentation like Spoke that depend on the • People associate Environment topic with specific locations such accurate categorisation of stories in order to serve relevant content to as The Great Barrier Reef, as well as non-specific locations such as users according to their topic preferences. ‘Oceans’ or ‘National Parks’ or planet Earth. If the ABC is to allow its audience to follow specific topics, we might consider allowing them • If the ABC is to allow people to discover and follow news and informa- to fine-tune their news feeds such as: tion via tags (topic, sub-groups of topics, locations & pairing of topic/ + Follow topic / location pairings. eg. I want to follow Great location), it’s important to assess the alignment of ABC’s taxonomy to Barrier Reef + Environment stories only (not tourism related) the audience’s own mental models. Can we come up with a taxonomy + Follow locations outside the standard postcode location that is more user-centred? Re-align taxonomy further towards the definition. eg. Oceans, National Parks, planet Earth, Space audience’s own content categorisation models. Research could be done around this via card sort exercises, etc. Primary topics of • The ABC should consider splitting Science from IT related technol- ‘Community and Society’ and ‘Human Interest’ seem to be a catch-all ogy stories. Look at the crossover / double-up with Media & IT and for stories that don’t fit into other categories. consider creating a new primary topic for communication and information.

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6. CONCLUSIONS

The Spoke 3 pilot involved four months of tracking 1296 Spoke users’ Some types of content have more local relevance than others interactions, and seeking direct feedback from people living in There are topics for which the level of demand changes when a story Albury-Wodonga and ACT regions who were using the Spoke app. The relates to where one lives. Business is a great example of this. People research was designed to shed light on the importance of location as might be disinterested in business as a global or national news topic, but a factor when designing mobile news and information services for may be very interested in a local business story. More content analysis via Australians. The lessons and insights contained within the report add tools like Spoke will help prioritise effort when it comes to coverage at a nuance and detail to our collective understanding of regionally-based local level. news-seekers. It challenges long-held assumptions and unpacks some of the complexity regarding how to provide relevent and valuable location- The source matters less than overall quality of service based news and information services. Spoke tested the level of concern felt by individuals regarding an aggregation of locally relevant sources by including third parties such as Location-services should broaden beyond GPS location local newspapers and community Facebook pages. As long as the sources Mobile GPS has driven the conversation about location-based services, were clearly designated, and an overall ‘quality control’ approach was but when it comes to determing relevance, people have relationships with taken, people were largely happy to see their local sources brought into a many places, and this influences their news engagement. Restricting primarily ABC news feed. location selection to where someone is right now, limits opportunities for that person to discover news stories that are relevant to them. Overall, people like the idea of recommended news The pilots demonstrated that when a recommended news reading mix is The city-state approach may need to change delivered by a trusted source such as the ABC, and when implemented in People can’t be easily categorised into caring about a suburb within a way that is transparent and the parameters are within a user’s control, a city within a state. The capital city-centric model of determining then people like the idea of using a customisable, recommendation-based content relevancy doesn’t always work that well outside state capitals. In news service. answer to the question of whether digital news services provide regional coverage aligning with that community’s local news and information In an era where resources are constrained, findings like these can give support to ideas on how the media—including public broad- needs, it seems clear that this hierarchy needs to be re-thought by most casters—might best focus their energies towards improving their service providers. Also, different ways of defining my local area need to be mobile services in both regional areas and major centres. considered. In relation to the ABC, there is much goodwill felt by the public toward the organisation. The ABC is perceived by the public as a Alternative presentations into news help people discover local content. trusted and responsible provider of quality content and services. The interest people expressed in ‘new’ local content via Spoke indicated However, with the Spoke research we found that this goodwill that they weren’t normally exposed to these locally-relevant stories via does not always translate into audience value because people their usual channels. Using a different mechanism for displaying stories were not aware of the digital content that is created by the ABC (customisation by topic, more than one location and recommendation) that suits them. showed that there is more available content than they previously knew of. These findings indicate that media organisations need to focus on The lesson is that when thinking about content distribution, look beyond the mission of adapting their approaches to meet people where existing branded channels for audiences. they live, wherever that may be.