Simonsays

Royal Holloway keynotes - Micah Sifry: Open source politics

I spoke at Royal Holloway University's Web 2.0 Politics conference on 18 April and had planned to live-blog the two keynotes by Micah Sifry and Michael Turk but unfortunately didn't manage to. But I did make notes and have now re-worked them so they are sort of a deferred live-blogging stream-of-consciousness.

First up is the keynote by Micah Sifry, titled Open Source Politics:

Micah began by stating that political communications must move from being egocentric to network centric. That is, becoming less about individuals and more about loosely connected networks of supporters that coalesce and self-organise around specific issues.

This allows voters to become co-creators of the candidate’s political campaign and network effects, Micah argued, are the key to this.

Funding – we are seeing small, but significant revolutions in political funding taking place:

• For example Ron Paul opened up his funds by putting all his campaign donations online

• The database of donations was entirely searchable

• Building on this, supporters started building useful tools that displayed fundsina useful and meaningful way

• For example, they started making graphs that displayed funding from specific places, organisations or people – they then set-up the website ronpaulgraphs.com where you can view the most interesting results [Edit: think of that resource as a journalist as well as a supporter!]

• Apparently Obama is considering running an online to raise $1m in 1min – which may or may not be a good/successful idea!

• Micah’s concluding point was that with micro-economics emerging on the web, big money doesn’t go away – but now there is a counter-veiling force. People can now say if that if the party does follow this or that route with policy or selection etc then they will donate cash to a rivel candidate etc. The micro-funding revolution makes parties/candidates etc more accountable

Micah also addressed, what he termed as, the Economy of Abundance:

• This arises – in essence - from the easy and cheap availability of storage on the web.

• Micah says that – politically, at least - the sound bite is being challenged by abundance of space online to have upload, store and search etc other messages, speeches, communications material etc

• The media presentation format of 20 or 30 second glib or catchy but meaningless snapshots is being onverted

• As an example: Barack Obama has approximately 900 videos on YouTube, and most of these videos are about 13mins long

• The Race Video has had 4m views and as YouTube only counts a full play-through of a video as a view then there’s a lot of people who are hungry for quality, in-depth content that they can’t get from MSM. Where do they go to find it? Online.

Micah’s three conclusions were particularly insightful:

Conclusions

• The network is more powerful than the list

• Networks are resilient, but not nimble
  • If you have a network of 5,000 bloggers and one says something stupid then it’s not the end of world. However, if you take away the central point then they’re that not easily corralled

• Networks and campaigns can be allies, but they ultimately have cross-purposes
  • Campaigns share tasks but not authority with their supporters
  • To get to a position of open source politics we need to give supporters authority
  • Micah asks can we ever get there? Ron Paul supporters were given full authority to shape his campaign, but then they raised money to spend on a branded blimp – was a good idea and use of funds?

For Micah, the big (and most interesting) question is where will the balance of power lie in the future and what happens to the networks once the elections are over. Once you have given supporters/voters a sense of power, they probably won’t let it go so easily.

Technorati tags: Royal Holloway University, Politics 2.0, Micah Sifry, Open Source Politics

Lord of the Blogs - corny name but great blog

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

Can UK political bloggers influence the MSM?

I posted a few months back about the completion of a research project for my CIPR Diploma which investigated the ability of political bloggers in the UK to affect the MSM agenda of broadsheet newspapers.

I promised that once I had the final result I'd post up a version to share. Well, I'm pleased to say that the research project was awarded a distinction and so for your enlightenment here's a pdf version of New media democracy or pain in the RSS? An examination of political bloggers and media agenda setting
in the UK. [Download simoncollisterdiplomaresearchproject2008.pdf (383.8K)]

I'll also be presenting an updated version of the paper at Politics & Web 2.0: an international conference in April if anyone's interested.

Technorati tags: political blogging, research, CIPR

Internet and Ideology Part 3 - Society

Following on the political and economic changes of modernity, the emergence of social mobility was also a new development based partly on individual’s new found power of self-determination.

Modernity represented:

“a move away from traditional society marked by an unchanging hierarchy … modernity involved a search for new identities to replace the traditional and religiously sanctioned ones of the previous epoch. Moreover it was made clear that these new identities were the creation of human action and agency, rather than god given and unalterable.”

What this means is: people living in the modern period became individuals for the first time. The ideology of modernity helped people define their own personality and shape their own lives through their actions.

However this social emancipation was still only available within the confines of the relatively structured society at the time. Likewise it was also limited by cultural norms and shared values.

There was a long way to go until people had real personal liberty but then the process of enlightenment was just that: a process. Things didn’t change overnight but from modernity onwards individuals shaped by own actions.

Contrast this with the Internet Age – a period of relatively early post-modernity. People have (mostly) had self-determination and the concept of being limited in terms of what we want to do – socially at least – is something alien to us – or at least a lot of us.

Looking forward and extending the idea of a post-modern ideology offering individuals something more than just the opportunity to shape their own lives, the internet offers us the possibility to not only define but invent, create, design, shape, live, change, co-create a range of identities and lives.

One rather basic example of this the ability of someone to take on an alter-ego in Second Life. But the same notion applies when we think about the different personalities we all probably have. My persona on ebay is probably different from this blog; likewise my blog is probably different from my Twitter profile which in turn is probably different from my Facebook profile.

This is Modernity’s idea of a self-determined individual exploded arcoss a range of platforms and positions not bounded by geography – or indeed physical space of any kind. David Weinberger has a great illustration of what this means practically and philosophically in Small Pieces Loosely Joined.

But bear in mind that this is just me with a predominantly Modern conept of myself as a single entity simply being expanded across the internet retrospectively.

Think of what this all means to the generation below me (and the rest) who have grown up in an internet age. The type of people who cannot remember a time BG – Before Google.

Technorati tags: ideology, post-modernism, modernity, John Schwarzmantel, society 

Internet and Ideology Part 2 - Economy

I’m posting some thoughts at the moment about the ideological shift in politics, economics and society that occurred during the transition to modernity 200 years ago and comparing them with changes occurring now as we entered a period of post-modernity.

I’ve covered off these ideas already in an introduction and I;ve added a post about the political changes taking place. This post will specifically take a look at the changes to economic ideologies in an internet society.

According to Schwarzmantel, another core feature of modernity “was the separation of two orders: state and economy”. For the first time making money was something that was no longer the sole domain of the state.
People were free to create wealth using their newly found individualism. Although these opportunities were limited due to traditional physical barriers: capital, land, education etc, Modernity paved the way for industrialisation, industrialists and mass market capitalism.

Contrast this with today’s post-modernity and while we still have largely a mass market capitalist society (and I’m talking primarily about Western history and economies here) I’d argue the internet is separating markets (ie. wealth creation) further from the ‘capitalist state’ – i.e. the large companies that relied on levering capital to make money.

More specifically, markets are being opened up to the individual in an even greater way. Look at tools like Paypal, designed to allow money transactions globally that by-pass state regulation and banks; look at virtual markets such as the metaverses of SL and WoW where money can be made through creating, buying and selling goods that only exist in a virtual capacity – but a capacity with a market value nonetheless.

Modernity separated the economy from the state, but wealth creation remained largely in the hands of industrialists and ‘big business’. It’s likely that in an age of post-modernity the internet will further emancipate the individual and open even greater opportunities for wealth creation outside of traditional mass markets and the mass market economic systems that have grown up over the past 200 years.

Technorati tags: ideology, post-modernism, modernity, John Schwarzmantel, economy

Internet and Ideology Part 1 - Politics

Yesterday I posted about the ideological shift in politics, economics and society that occurred during the transition to modernity 200 years ago and comparing them with changes occurring now as we entered a period of post-modernity.

This post will specifically take a look at the changes to political ideologies in our internet society and examining what we can learn. These are not fully formed ideas; consider these blog posts as a note pad where I attempt to work out some of my thoughts in public.

The “politics of modernity” according to John Schwarzmantel is marked by

“the malleability of human nature. In contrast to the religious argument of the time that individuals were irredeemably marked by original sin … [modernity] took a more optimistic view of human nature and suggested the possibility of cooperation.”

Furthermore:

“These more positive attributes of human nature could be fostered by political or social institutions designed to encourage the cooperative spirits of human nature.”

I would argue that this view has prevailed pretty much unchanged for the past 200 years – at least until the coming of the social web.

While civil society has played a key part in fostering human cooperation, society’s endeavours were always dependent on institutions providing support, funds, direction and often a voice to facilitate change. Admittedly there are exceptions throughout history, but as a rule I would agree with Schwarzmantel’s suggestion.

Compare that with civil society in an internet age. Institutions are being disintermediated; individuals are organising themselves, membership organisations (political parties, charities etc) are losing out as barriers to participation and scalability are removed.

People no longer need – nor want - a rigid, hierarchically structured institution, they want  a ‘join in’ type of organisation operating as a flat network, not a ‘join us’ top-down one - as identified by David Wilcox. This is made possible and happening thanks to the internet and IMHO marks a key developmental stage of civil society in a post-modern world.

In short, when we entered modernity the political and social focus moved from a pre-determined world where lives were pre-determined according to religion and towards a world where individual rights came into existence: for the first time people’s lives could be self-determined.

However, that this vision of the modern civil society was dependent largely – if not entirely – on civil society institutions. In essence, people could recognise their individual liberty, but only through wider groups or institutions.

I would argue that it has taken until now and the rise of the social web for people truly to be able to shape civil society as individuals liberated from the traditional membership organisations the grew up 200 years ago.

Technorati tags: ideology, post-modernism, modernity, John Schwarzmantel, civil society, politics

The internet and ideology - introduction

Apologies in advance to those who work with me for I am about to post briefly about post-modernism; more specifically I’m going to write a post about modernity and what comes afterwards.

A lot of people – IMHO – talk about the specific changes taking place in business or education or politics as a result of the internet and social web; they may even highlight specific changes that seem to be taking place in, for example, consumer behaviour. But what about the changes taking place at the level above – at the level of the cultural and social ideologies that shape our wider political, economic and public sphere?

I only ask because I’m reading John Schwarzmantel’s Age of Ideologies which argues that the ‘ideologies’ – political, social etc – that have largely shaped our business, poltics, social behaviour etc are a product of a very specific phase of history: modernity.

As we’re now in the age of post-modernity these ideologies (arising directly from the American/French revolutions) need re-shaping. Schwarzmantel also suggests the concept of ideology itself may need to be revised wholesale to accommodate the fragmented world of post-modernity.

So let’s hold it there. The reason I’m blogging this is because Schwarzmantel’s view of the rise of modernity struck some chords with what’s happening now as the internet impacts on politics, economics, society etc. So I thought I’d look at the origins of modernity as outlined by Schwarzmantel and see if his conclusions about the transition from the pre-modern into the modern 200 years ago can be applied to what’s happening in our internet-enabled world now and spot parallels or patterns.

Schwarzmantel discusses the effects of modernity on three areas: society, politics and economics. Over a series of forthcoming posts I’ll look at each of these areas in-depth.

More to follow….

Technorati tags: Age of Ideologies, Ideology, John Schwarzmantel, Internet, Theory

New pamphlet: Politics, Policy and the Internet

Daily Telegraph journalist and blogger, Robert Colvile has produced a new pamphlet on behalf of the think-tank, Centre for Policy Studies.

Politics, Policy and the Internet is available online (as you'd expect!) and has already caused some buzz.

I plan to take a look and blog about it in due course.

Technorati tags: politics, policy, Robert Colvile, Centre for Policy Studies

Why measure at all?

I spotted from Twitter that a number of people were heading along to the Chinwag event on social media measurement last night. I couldn't attend but look forward to reading the reports and thoughts of those that could.

But the idea of 'social media measurement' got me thinking: why do we seek to measure social media? The thought led me to two immediate answers:

1. Because as the management rule goes - if you can't measure it, you can't manage it
2. Because we need to justify ROI for a) clients b) investors c) advertisers

But then I asked myself are these two reasons the best and and most compelling reasons to try to measure social media? Possibly according to the following counter-arguments:

1. the opportunities offered by social media are born of the fact that as a (social) medium it resists management and control, so why try to measure it in order to manage it?
2. is commidifying or monetising members of online communities and their networks and itneractions the best way to measure and judge ROI?

I'm not saying we shouldn't measure social media per se, but rather asking why we need to  measure it?

Technorati tags: Chinwag, social media, measurement, ROI, management

Media, community and humanity - call for papers

Charlie Beckett from the LSE's Polis think-tank has a post calling for abstracts for a forthcoming conference: Media, Communication and Humanity.

The conference is about how the media is "mediating human values, actions and social relations" and paper proposals should offer "theoretical insight and/or empirical work on this theme". In particular:

• Communication and difference
• Democracy, politics and journalism ethics
• Globalisation and comparative studies
• Innovation, governence and policy
• Media and new media literacies

Funnily enough I've been thinking about a few of these themes recently. More specifically whether democracy building/public diplomacy is being changed by citizens using social media to by-pass traditional media gate-keepers.

If so, whether these changes support greater diplomatic/democratic transparency or whether they are open to greater, more subtle (and thus more dangerous) exploitation by special interests.

And also, if the traditional media are being made obsloete, what's the role for NGOs or independent organisations that aggregate and/or curate digital news content. A good example of this may be the Berkman Center's Global Voices project.

Hopefully more of this to come.

Abstracts/papers can be submitted by going here.

Technorati tags: Charlie Beckett, Polis, London School of Economics, democracy, public diplomacy,
Berkman Center, Global Voices

Edelman Trust Barometer - UK findings and video

I've had a couple of requests for the UK specific results from yesterday's Trust Barometer launch.

I haven't got managed to get my hands on Robert, our UK CEO's presentation yet, so I have embedded a video of his presentation of the key UK results below.

The over-riding - and perhaps surprising - result was that trust in Britain has seen a significant upward leap. There are a number of speculative reasons for this as Robert outlines.

PART 1

PART 2

Technorati tags: Edelman, Edelman Trust Barometer, Robert Phillips

Some official and personal Trust Barometer highlights

Following today's highly successful trust barometer launch I thought I'd stick some of the official - and unofficial - key insights into a post and share it with you - although you definitely have a look at the Trust Barometer site which has a pdf of the main findings as well as a video of the full launch event.

So official highlights of the report (which is released in full next week) include:

1. Trust in business is higher than government in 14 of 18 countries. The US is experiencing the widest divide.
2. Twenty-five-to-34-year-old opinion elite, surveyed for the first time this year, tend to trust business even more than their older counterparts.
3. Trust in media as an institution is at a high point in the study's history.
4. Mainstream media are the most widely used sources of information about a company.
5. Social media is on the rise, particularly in the BRIC countries.

My personal highlights were:

1. The top three global *media* brands were.... BBC, CNN and Google
2. Wikipedia was the second most trusted source of information
3. High levels of trust in NGOs across the board

I'm sure there's more coverage of the findings on Technorati and our European President and CEO, David Brain has a fuller round-up over at Sixty Second View.

I also had a good discussion with Neville Hobson about how the concept of 'trust' is changing/has changed. It's a fluid concept and personally I'm certain that what trust means to younger elites is very different than older elites.

On top of that I've been thinking of late about what the media and the social web means for civil society and democracy. Some of these thoughts have been co-agulating and spurred on by the NGO findings - especially in BRIC countries.

I'll hopefully have some more thoughts about these issues soon.

Technorati tags: Edelman, Edelman Trust Barometer, NGOs, civil society

Edelman Trust Barometer 2008: live twitter

Tomorrow sees the UK launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer, the de facto indicator of 'trustworthiness' across business, politics, media and civil society.

Edelman's Global President and CEO, Mr Richard Edelman, will be in town to discuss the findings and what they mean for the PR landscape. He'll be joined by UK CEO Robert Phillips, former Sunday Telegraph editor, Patience Wheatcroft and Daily Mail columnist and political commentator, Quentin Letts.

As previous years have shown - expect a significant (and rising) level of influence from 'people like me' and social media.

I'll be live twittering the event, as will Edelman's European President and CEO, David Brain.

For updates try following http://twitter.com/simoncollister and http://twitter.com/davidbrain from 8am GMT.

Technorati tags: Edelman Trust Barometer, Richard Edelman, Trust, Twitter,
 

Daily Telegraph's Robert Colvile gives further insight into blogging and media agenda-setting

The Daily Telegraph's Robert Colvile has picked up on my post about the key findings from my thesis into whether political bloggers can impact the MSM agenda. He gives his own perspective on the issues involved at the paper's Three Line Whip blog.

Robert starts by pointing out that:

"The fact is that, from the outside, the mainstream media (or 'MSM', as it is referred to in the blogosphere, often as a term of abuse) looks quite monolithic. But inside, it's made up of hundreds of editors and writers and reporters, all casting around for things to fill their pages with."

This is a very important point to bear in mind. We (bloggers and social media types) do tend to talk about the MSM as a monolithic institution  when in reality - while this is perhaps true at the organisational level -  like all vast organisms there are undoubtedly sub-layers and networks of real, human activity which are easily overlooked.

To this I would say of course MSM institutions are built up of networks in the same way the blogosphere is. The main difference is that the blogosphere is designed in a way that allows it to be open and facilitate the opportunities and benefits available to those within the network. I would argue that the reverse is generally true of institutional organisations. They tend to want to close down unchecked and living networks - whether consciously (at a personal level) or sub-consciously (the inherent bureaucracy present).

Robert also writes:

"The technology makes this process [news gathering] easier for online material, but as far as I can see the basic approach is the same as usual. Trying to theorise about it in terms of the formal influence of the blogosphere on the mainstream media might be, as the great Boris said in another context, 'like trying to pin jelly to a wall'."

Again he is raises another important point that my research hopefully makes clear, but which may well not have been made cyrstal clear in my previous post. The problem with trying to theorise formally is that most - if not all - formal media theories were created around traditional channels, whether TV, radio or print media. In fact there are plenty of journal articles that deal with online media but through the theoretical form and function of traditional media... I digress.

In my full conclusion I point to the fact that while there is some evidence to suggest agenda-setting by bloggers, the models used in the study are all fairly linear - ie. broadcast. I recommend that further study is necessary to examine the flow of information in a networked world, possibly through a revised Two-Step Flow theory which is built around the flow of information to and from the media and public via 'opinion leaders' - which in this case are be represented by bloggers.

Anyway. This is all fascinating stuff and hopefully I'll get the chance to explore some of these ideas further.

Robert also has a book coming out shortly on the internet and politics.

Technorati tags: Daily Telegraph, research, politics, media theory

Research review: Do UK political blogs influence broadsheet newspapers?

I submitted my PR Diploma dissertation at long last this week. It examined whether political bloggers in the UK have an influence on the media agenda of broadsheet newspapers.

I won’t go into the findings in depth as I plan to upload a pdf of the full thesis in due course.

But the findings were interesting and I’ve summarised the main points below.

• The study undertook a longitudinal evaluation of three case studies where it appeared UK political bloggers had influenced the broadsheet’s media agenda. These findings were then compared with data from interviews carried out with key journalists writing about the case studies issues in the MSM.

• The case studies were: the Charity Commission investigation into the Smith Institute; the Labour Party auctioning a copy of the Hutton Report signed by Cherie Blair and Iraqi translators’ asylum status.

• Results suggested that all three case studies displayed some evidence of media agenda-setting. All three cases appeared to act as trigger events (Dear and Rogers, 1996). That is online media events that occurred before the issues in question were picked up by the MSM – thus triggering media coverage.

• It also appeared that in all the case studies influential, high-traffic blogs – or networks of lower-traffic ones – acted as framing devices (Drezner and Farrell, 2004) around the story, pulling together key information and interpreting/analysing issues. This was reinforced by one journalists who admitted in an interview that he used blogs as sources of “comment” and “insight” for stories.

• Despite the above findings, 100% of the journalists interviewed claimed they did not use material from blogs when writing stories, while 50% of journalists said they did not even read blogs.

• Interestingly of the remaining 50% that did read blogs, one journalist indicated that he used blogs for insight into political parties’ grassroots members while another admitted “cross-fertilisation” between an influential blog and his stories.

• The general conclusion was that although on paper there appears – at least – theoretical evidence for media agenda-setting by UK political blogs results from the newsdesk indicate that for the majority, blogs are not a trusted source of news.

• The conclusion speculates this could be either the journalists interviewed are not being entirely open in their answers and that blogs play a bigger role in the newsgathering process or that there is agenda-setting going on but that this agenda-setting process in not linear, direct from blogs to the newsdesk. Instead it may flow indirect to the media agenda through either the policy agenda or public agenda or perhaps through an entirely unknown channel being opened up by the networked world of the internet.

• The thesis suggests further research – particularly from the critical perspective of Two-Step Flow  theory - is necessary to investigate these issues.

I’m hoping to tweak the thesis slightly and submit it as a conference paper in 2008, so if anyone has any feedback I’d love to hear it!

Technorati tags: PR, public relations, research, theory, agenda-setting, newspapers, blogging, politics

*UPDATED* Goldsmiths Futures of the News Part 2

The second panel of the afternoon featured political bloggers, Guido Fawkes and Recess Monkey, Guardian Associate Editor, Michael White and freelance journalist, Nick Jones.

This was far and away the best panel of the afternoon in terms of quality of debate. And admissions by bloggers that journalists now tipped them off about unpublishable stories shows just how far the Goldsmiths programme needs to go with its research to catch-up with the new media.

Nick Jones’ presentation also gave the audience a sharp wake-up call. Nick challenged Ofcom research findings delivered in one of the morning sessions as “complacent” and warned that the regulator and media industry in general that they risked utterly losing out in a rapidly changing media world.

Nick’s argument ran along the lines of Ofcom doing little to adapt its position as regulator of media silos in world where convergence is happening at a frightening pace. Citing

18 Doughty Street

as an example, Nick asked how Ofcom could deal with a world where TV delivered via the internet is entirely outside of the regulator’s remit?

This was all very interesting, as I overheard the conference chair tell Mr Ofcom that his findings were very important and would be quoted a lot in the future! Or maybe not…

I didn’t stay for the final speaker – I went to the pub with Guido and Recess. But what I do know is that the people leading the Futures of News research project could certainly benefit from reading people like Jeff Jarvis, David Weinberger and Dan Gilmor to that a lot of the ‘future’ of the news is now.

*UPDATED* My colleague, Tim Callington, has more from the event here:

James Curran, Goldsmiths College - introduction

Martin Turner, head of operations at BBC News Gathering - "The end of news as we've known it."

Anne Spackman, editor-in-chief, Times Online - "the ten most discussed topics at Times Online"

John Glover, senior programme executive, OFCOM - "Good news, bad news; new news, future news"

 As does, the Media Standard Trust's, Martin Moore:

Technorati tags: Goldsmiths, Futures of the News, Guido Fawkes, Recess Monkey, Ofcom

Goldsmiths University: the Futures of News write-up

As promised, here are some notes from the Futures of the News conference at Goldsmiths University  last Saturday. For my initial reaction, see my previous post.

The morning session was opened by Martin Turner, Head of Operations for BBC Newsgathering. His presentation was far and away the most on-the-money one of the whole morning, but it was telling that the conference chair had only made one note on it, compared to copious notes for other speakers.

Martin outlined the shifts happening in media right now and suggested the corresponding changes in organisational behaviour may not be enough to save the media as we know it. In fact, he was the first (and, I think only) speaker on the day who acknowledged that real innovation is being driven by small firms and people outside the major media players. 

Martin suggested that the only innovation by major media businesses have been ad (and thus revenue) focussed.Coupled with healthy(ish) online ad spend this has helped reinforce the notion that if there’s still profit in the broadcast/linear media model why would you drop it?

I think Martin was also the only speaker to talk about:

• aggregation
• algorithms
• community filtering of news

All of which he claimed were part of the future of news and the media. But Martin also suggested that with a proliferation in user-generated content, will the desire to produce news dry-up or change dramatically? Unsurprisingly he had no answers.

In the afternoon, Goldsmith’s Natalie Fenton presented on the research project’s predicted directions. In Making Sense of the News in a Digital Age: Journalism and Democracy, she proposed the thesis: "Forms of news journalism can contribute to the process of democracy – which is both a marker of modernity and an inherent feature in modern life and democratic structure."

Well, that all gets my vote and so did the parameters of the work Goldsmiths is set to undertake, which will investigate how speed of access, poly-centricity and multiplicity and interactivity and participation all affect the news production and consumption process. What is being attempted, we were told, was: “a macro-societal investigation into micro-organisational changes.” But, of course!

However, a couple of the other presentations presented interim research that seemed to look at online developments from the perspective of ‘what will journalism/media etc look like in the future’.But yet some of the ideas they discussed (e.g., the BBC’s responses to multi-platform media production) were – while interesting – not particularly ground-breaking. 

I asked as much during the Q&A session and although the answers recognised that staying ahead of the curve was a challenge when setting out research parameters, there was an amazing outburst from one of the project leaders.

She raised her hand to ask a question but then delivered a rant about why citizen journalism doesn’t really exist. She added the caveat she spoke as a former journalist but her argument that CJs were nothing more than super-sources missed the point entirely for me. Haivng heard Dan “father of CJ” Gilmor discuss the same issue I found Goldsmith’s take pretty dismal.

Obviously, I drink the social media Kool-Aid good ‘n’ proper and accept that any solid research needs to be as unbiased as possible, but then again the woman from Goldsmith’s seemed to be as against social media as I am for, so that can’t be too even-minded!

More to come....

Technorati tags: Goldsmiths University, Futures of News, Martin Turner, Natalie Fenton, citizen journalism

Goldsmiths: Futures of News?

I'm back from Goldsmith University's inaugural symposium for it's major research project: The Futures of News, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

I'll try to give the day a full write-up soon, but it's Saturday and I've had a couple of glasses of Rioja gran reserva.[not that rich!]

In the meantime, disappointed at the event organsiation..... it may have been the future of news but there were only about four laptops in the audience (including me) and no wifi. Plus the organisers seemed to have overbooked the event and we had to schlep between buildings for presentations and coffee/lunch.

In a nutshell, the over-arching parameters of the group's research seems very media institution focussed and takes on "new media" from a definite top-down perspective.

Other worrying ommissions were RSS, social networks, YouTube...... in fact anything remotely technology related. Still, some interesting presentations. More to come.

Technorati tags: Goldsmith's University, Futures of News, media industry, research

The future...

The future of media is being discussed both in London next Saturday 24 November at Goldsmiths University and online at the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

Goldsmiths' The Futures of News has an interesting line-up which seems to be a cross between big names (Guido Fawkes, Michael White etc) adding their tuppence-worth to the "bloggers vs traditional media" debate and some more academic papers, such as News as national soft power: the emerging global English-language channels by Annabelle Sreberny, School of Oriental and African Studies.

Meanwhile, the JCMC's latest issue is guest edited by Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellison. I've not read any of the articles but am looking forward to inwardly digesting all or some - including the following;

• Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube - Patricia Lange
                  Based on a one-year ethnographic project, this article analyzes how YouTube participants developed and maintained social networks by manipulating physical and interpretive access to videos. The analysis identifies varying degrees of "publicness" in video sharing, depending on the nature of the video content and how much personal information is revealed.
• Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites - Eszter Hargittai
                  Are there systematic differences between people who use social network sites and those who stay away? Based on data from a survey administered to young adults, this article identifies demographic predictors of SNS usage, with particular focus on Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, and Friendster.
• Social Network Profiles as Taste Performances - Hugo Liu
                  A social network profile's lists of interests can function as an expressive arena for taste performance. Based on a semiotic approach, different types of taste statements are identified and further investigated through a statistical analysis of 127,477 profiles collected from MySpace.

 

[Via David Weinberger]

Technorati tags: Goldsmiths University,

European 16-24 year-olds spend more time online than watching TV, and other useful stats

Two stories in today's Guardian make for an interesting juxtaposition and indicate that employers of the future have a rude awakening.

First up, a report by the paper shows employers are cracking down on the amount of time staff use the internet and in particular, social networks. A deeper read reveals that the investigation has only covered the public sector but still shows 1,700 staff have been diosciplined or sacked in the past three years for mis-use of the internet or email. Trade Unions also calims they are dealing with an increase in the number of disputes involving social networks.

Contrast this with the story a bit further on about young people aged 16-24 are spending longer than ever before on the internet and the number of people using social networks has doubled from 23% last year to 42%.

So as employers crack down on people connecting and socialising online, today's young people (and tomorrow's workers) are spending even more and more of their lives on the interent. Hopefully when they come to the world of work employers will have realised just how integral (not to mention useful) the internet and social web can be.

The report (produced by the European Interactive Advertising Association) also found:

• an increase in instant messaging and the message functions of social networks use which has led to a decrease in email (see also, Robin Goad's recent post)
  
• 81% of surfers say they have sent an email at least once a month over the past year, down from 85% in 2006
• internet users across Europe (7,000 specially selected people across 10 European countries) are spending an average of nearly 12 hours a week on the internet
• Italians are the heaviest users (13.6 hours per week), followed by the Swedes (13 hours) and the French (12.7 hours). The British - in seventh place - spend 12 hours a week, up from 11.3 hours in 2006. The Dutch are last on 9.8 hours
• Almost a third of European web users have watched a TV, film or video clip, compared with 12% last year.
• The EIAA study shows the effect on TV viewing, especially among the youth audience which is using the internet more often than TV for the first time. The survey shows that 82% of 16- to 24-year-olds use the web between five and seven days a week while only 77% watch TV as regularly - a drop of 5% from last year

Technorati tags: European Internet Useage Statistics, Guardian, social networks, employment

Study examines political internet campaigning in the UK and US

Apologies for the dearth of new posts around these parts - loads of great stuff happening but work too busy to let me check my feeds regularly!

But I thought I'd definitely flag up a working paper by Nick Anstead and Andrew Chadwick from Royal Holloway University's New Political Communication Unit.

The paper, Parties, Election Campaigning and the Internet: Toward A Comparative Institutional Approach [downloadable here as a pdf] examines the use of the internet comparatively between political institutions in the UK and US.

The description reads:

"This paper argues that a comparative approach to analysing the relationship between technology and political institutions has the potential to offer renewed understanding of the development of the Internet in election campaigning. Taking the different characteristics of political parties and the norms and rules of the electoral environment in the United States and the United Kingdom as an illustration, it suggests that the relationship between technology and political institutions is dialectical. Technologies can reshape institutions, but institutions will mediate eventual outcomes. This approach has the potential to generate a theoretical framework for explaining differences in the impact of the Internet on election campaigning across liberal democracies."

I'm particualrly interested in the author's suggestion that the relationship between technology and institutions is dialectical - and that they are working towards a theory for understanding the relationship.

I haven't read the paper yet (although at 16 pages, it's not a lengthy read) but as far as I know it looks like a valuable study of what the UK can learn from the US in terms of political campaigning on the internet.

Anecdotally I don't think anyone could argue that the US is streets ahead of the UK in this sphere (just look to Labour's poor record) - what the paper hopefully offers is some reasons why and how.

Technorati tags: politics, internet, UK, US, New Political Communications Unit, comparative study

Is the UK political blogosphere left or right-wing?

Have been meaning to put together a post on this topic for a while now but never managed to get around to it.

The Daily Telegraph's Home and Legal Affairs Correspondent posted last week about comments made by Alastair Campbell complaining that the UK political blogosphere is too right wing. Hope posed the question to his readers as to whether this was true or not.

Well, according to the opinion of fellow Telegraph writer, Robert Colvile, the right is very much leading the way online.

Then there is the argument that it is always much easier to blog in opposition - just look at the US's vociferous, campaigning bloggers on the political left.

But do we actually know how the left/right blogs split in terms of volume? Guido and Iain Dale, it could be argued, make the most noise but who has the biggest network?

The most recent, comprehensive stats I've got come from a study by James Stanyer from Loughborough University who surveyed the UK blogosphere during the 2005 general election.

Stanyer's figures are now out of date, but they give an interesting snapshot of the political web at that moment in time:

• 312 blogs covering political issues and the general election - this figure will undoubtedly be much higher now. Just take a look at Iain Dale's top 500 political blogs published last week.
• 47% (n147) of these blogs were left-wing including centre-left and hard-left
• 8% (n26) were right-wing including centre or hard-right
• 45% had no discernable ideological stance

So from these findings the idea that right-wing bloggers hold sway appears to be a myth or at least was in 2005. Has it all changed? Or are the right-wing blogs making all the noise. More work needs to be done. It's not me (at tis stage, anyway)... any offers?

Technorati tags: Christopher Hope, political blogging, left-wing, right-wing, research, James Stanyer

Measurement and Metrics once more

Just a short note on the debate around measurement and metrics on the web. James Cherkoff has a good round up of the issues involved which can be summed neatly as follows:

"a recent McKinsey report shows that despite the fact that the web can offer data like no other, it still hasn't come up with a metrics package and system that is sufficently user-friendly and stable to attract the really big brand budgets ... A top media executive described the same idea to me very succinctly as: "We know the bike is broken, but it's the only one we've got".

I think most us would agree with that, but we really need to start looking at ways to measure the web in line with the new ways it changes the way we interact. We won't be able to get anywhere near a half-decent metric as long as we're still forcing traditional adSmallervertising/marketing/PR measurement frameworks over a revolutionised and revolutionising medium.

In other news the Society for New Communications Research has announced the start of a research project "titled New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the PR Profession, will explore the impact of Web 2.0 and social media tools on communications and the public relations profession."

It'll be interesting to see if there's a chapter dealing with the elusive measurement issue.

Technorati tags: James Cherkoff, measurement, metrics, Society for New Communications Research, Web 2.0

*UPDATED* Conducting research in a networked world

Shel Holtz Israel  has posted some initial findings of his survey of social media trends for software firm SAP over the Society for New Communications Research blog. The results are interesting - but more of that later. What's really interesting is the way Shel carried out his research.

It's a cliche that the internet is changing the way stuff happens, but it's also changing the way we research and interpret the world around us.

Shel writes:

"The trends I’ve found did not surprise me that much, but the survey and the process has, from time-to-time, been a shocker ... I had this whole project down on a spreadsheet. I had a timeline and all sorts of nice project management systems in place. Just what had I been thinking?"

It turns out that although Shel had planned his research properly when he sent out his first round questionnaires, Hugh MacLeod posted the questions and his answers on his blog. This started a snowball effect with bloggers spread around the world playing their own part in the survey.

As it spread, individuals added more questions to the survey, suggested some weren't the right questions to ask, the end result being a not untypical loss of control of the research methodology. In response, Shel

"posted a set of “roll-your-own questions,” telling people to post them or send them, keep them or change them… whatever. SAP and me, we were cool with it. Just write where and when you want."

This is fascinating. I'm not a professional resaercher but know a bit about devising random or non-random sampling strategies, questionnaire design and planning your researcg roll-out down to finest detail. But the lesson here is try to do this in a networked online world and your best efforts will come unstuck.

While it works here for Shel and his client, there won;t always be times when researchers want this loss of control to happen. But then what can they do about it?

The final initial findings as promised are below - but perhaps some of the best results can be found in the blog posts and commetn spread across the network, resplendent with the social knowledge that shared research brings.

• Social networking is the most relevant and sustainable tool in our global workshed. Local, regional and global versions are growing and morphing even as they imitate each other.

• If you want to know what your business will look like in five years, go talk to you kids. Watch their habits. They will make more decisions based on friendship than marketing.

• At about the point when early adopters get bored, large organizations feel it is safe to adopt. Current example: blogs. They’re old news in the Silicon Valley and suddenly hot in the enterprise. Future example: online video. It’s hot in the Valley, but no yet ready for prime time in the enterprise.

• Where there is broadband, there is social networking. 

• The company most mentioned in the SAP Global Survey was “Facebook.” Surprisingly little discussed: Google. Mentioned twice in 40 conversations: Microsoft.

Shel's full findings will be presented at the SNCR Symposium in December.

Technorati tags: Society for New Communications Research, Shel Holtz, SAP, research, social media, social knowledge

*UPDATED* Do we do enough to encourage digital media innovation?

It's been a busy old week so I'm now trawling through 1200+ posts trying to make sense of everything that's been happening.

Anyway, a couple of posts one I spotted made me wonder what the UK is doing to encourage innovation and experimentation in the media industry.

Firstly, I read about the Knight News Challenge organised by the Knight Foundation (apologies to whoever blogged it - I forget where I first saw it). Now in its second year, the News Challenge is:

"a contest awarding as much as $5 million for innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.  Last year’s winners included a diverse collection of 25 individuals, private and public entities, ranging from MIT to MTV.  The Foundation plans to invest at least $25 million over five years in the search for bold community news experiments."

And then Jeff Jarvis blogs about the exciting CUNY Networked Journalism Summit which has been made possible by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

Where are the Knight and MacArthur Foundations in the UK? And where are the exciting digital projects? I admit I have done no research so they may exist... but if so, where?

As a footnote it is definitely worth plugging a new venture launched by Lloyd Shepherd, Messy Media.

MM is a UK-based blog network providing quality editorial. According to Lloyd:

"We believe there’s a clear opportunity in Britain to use the blogging format to do proper journalism - to entertain and inform. Proper design, professional editorial development and a serious commercial proposition are all part of that."

Good luck, I say. Lloyd's quote and more besides comes via an interview with Simon Dickson.

 *UPDATED* - More support for innovation announced by Jarvis:

"I’m delighted to announce that I’ve received a $100,000, two-year grant from the McCormick Tribune Foundation to provide seed funding to news start-ups developed by students in my course in entrepreneurial journalism at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism. A jury of industry leaders from the media community in New York – experts in content, revenue, marketing, venture capital and startups – are speaking with the class, helping guide students through creating their proposals, and at the end they will select the projects (if any) likely of success as sustainable journalistic enterprises and deserving of investment from the fund. The full announcement is here.)"

Why is the UK equivilent?

Technorati tags: media, digital, innovation, Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundati