Newsroom management and new media, a lecture delivered to mid-career journalists at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism (SLCJ)

1. Social networks & new media
Bane or boon for newsroom management?
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TEDGlobal Fellow 2010
Editor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

2. what is social media?
• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform
broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers. (Wikipedia)

3. what is new media?
• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital,
computerized, or networked information and communication technologies.
• New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or
paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)
• But increasingly, old media is leveraging the web, Internet and mobiles in
generating and disseminating news and information.

5. new media and foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)
• Google Maps and mashups
• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video
• VoIP: Skype, Google Chat
• And making it all possible are ADSL, 3G wireless broadband

6. what’s new
• Ubiquity of two way communications
• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees
• Both news generation and dissemination leverages new media
• Disintermediated models vs. traditional media model
• Citizens as producers
• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

7. enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.
• Veracity / Verifiability hard to determine
• Post-disaster communications can be unreliable and difficult. Eye-witness
accounts are partial, subjective.
• New media / technology illiteracy even amongst journalists
• Apathy and animosity against citizen journalism
• Licensing and attribution of online content

8. What is out there?

9. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

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

11. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

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

13. sinhala bloggers union: blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

14. online video: Perambara YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/internewslanka

15. alternative politics in Sinhala: Vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

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

17. twitter: new perspectives

18. flickr content on sri lanka
www.flickr.com

19. Managing content: Pushing out

20. essential email: Gmail

21. essential sinhala unicode tools
http://ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter

22. transliterating sinhala unicode
http://www.google.com/transliterate/sinhalese

23. transliterating tamil unicode
http://www.google.com/transliterate/tamil

24. wordpress.com: blogging

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

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

27. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

28. bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

29. google maps: plot events

30. google maps: plot locations

31. Managing content: Pushing out
Investigative journalism

32. drop.io: reports through audio

33. whistleblowing & source protection: Moomeo
http://moomeo.com

34. whistleblowing & source protection: Moomeo
http://moomeo.com

35. Managing content: Pulling in

36. google search: Updates from social media

37. google news: thousands of sources

38. google reader: a web based RSS reader

39. web based document management: google docs

40. web based document management: Microsoft
http://www.live.com

41. google calendar: web based story planning

42. know your twitter hastags (#lka #srilanka)
http://www.twitter.com

43. spy: http://spy.appspot.com

44. twitter: desktop aggregation via Seesmic Look
seesmic.com/look

45. news management toolkit

46. key points: recap
• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens
• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content
• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

47. Thank you