10 research articles on blogging, Twitter, UGC and journalism 2010-1

So I'm doing my viva examination for the PhD later this month - nothing like a couple of hours worth of questioning as reward for several years hard work.

In preparation for the impending engagement, I'm trying to get a handle on the latest research around blogging and related subjects. And I thought I'd collect them here for those of you who are interested...

(Afraid these are all institutional or Athens-type log-in access only...which forms part of the complaint about academic publishers in this recent article in The Guardian.)

1. D. Murthy, Twitter: Microphone for the Masses? Media, Culture and Society, 2011

"Twittering citizen journalists are ephemeral, vanishing after their 15 minutes in the limelight. In most instances, they are left unpaid and unknown. Although individual citizenjournalists usually remain unknown, Twitter has gained prominence as a powerful media outlet...It is from this perspective that Twitter affords citizen journalists the possibility to break profound news stories to a global public."

2. M. El-Nawahy & S. Khamis, Political Blogging and (Re) Envisioning the Virtual Public Sphere: Muslim— Christian Discourses in Two Egyptian Blogs, Int. Journal of Press/Politics, 2011

"Our analysis showed that although there was a genuine Habermasian public sphere reflected in some of the threads on the two blogs, there was a general lack of rational— critical debates, reciprocal deliberations, and communicative action as envisioned by Habermas. It also showed that this newly (re)envisioned virtual public sphere aimed to revitalize civil society, through broadening the base of popular participation, which in turn led to boosting and expanding the concept of citizen journalism, beyond the official sphere of mainstream media."

3. S. Steensen, Online Journalism and the Promises of New Technology, Journalism Studies, 2011

Useful survey of current research into hypertext, interactivity and multimedia.

4. A.M. Jonsson & H. Ornebring, User-Generated Content and the News, Journalism Practice, 2011

"Our results show that users are mostly empowered to create popular culture-oriented content and personal/everyday life-oriented content rather than news/informational content. Direct user involvement in news production is minimal. There is a clear political economy of UGC: UGC provision in mainstream media to a great extent addresses users-as-consumers and is part of a context of consumption."

5. Williams et al, Have they got news for us?, Journalism Practice, 2011

"Our data suggest that, with the exception of some marginal collaborative projects, rather than changing the way most news journalists at the BBC work, audience material is firmly embedded within the long-standing routines of traditional journalism practice."

6. A. Hermida, Twittering the News, Journalism Practice, 2010

"Traditional journalism defines fact as information and quotes from official sources, which have been identified as forming the vast majority of news and information content. This model of news is in flux, however, as new social media technologies such as Twitter facilitate the instant, online dissemination of short fragments of information from a variety of official and unofficial sources."

7. C. Neuberger & C. Nuernbergk, Competition, Complementarity or Integration?, Journalism Practice, 2010

"At first glance, three different relations can be identified between professional and participatory media: competition, complementarity and integration. We found little evidence that weblogs or other forms of participatory media are replacing traditional forms of journalism. It seems to be more likely that they complement one another. Besides this, we observed that the integration of audience participation platforms into news websites is expansive."

8. G. Walejko & T. Ksiazek, Blogging from the Niches, Journalism Studies, 2010

"Results indicate that science bloggers often link to blogs and the online articles of traditional news media, similar to political bloggers writing about the same topics. Science bloggers also link heavily to academic and non-profit sources, differing from political bloggers in this study as well as previous research."

9.  A. Kuntsman, Webs of hate in diasporic cyberspaces: the Gaza War in the Russian-language blogosphere, Media, War and Conflict, 2010

"This article looks at ways in which a military conflict can produce circuits of hatred in online social spaces. Ethnographically, the article is based on the analysis of selected discussions of Israeli warfare in Gaza in 2008 and 2009 as they took place in the Russian-language networked blogosphere."

10. T. Johnson & B. Kaye, Believing the Blogs of War?, Media, War and Conflict, 2010

"This study surveyed those who used blogs for information about the war in Iraq...In both 2003 and 2007, blog users judged blogs as more credible sources for war news than traditional media and their online counterparts. This study also found that different types of blogs were rated differently in terms of credibility in 2007 with military and war blogs rated the most credible and media blogs being judged the lowest in credibility."

Let me know if you spot any good ones I've missed out...

UGC online (and breaking news from Haiti)

Just left this comment on Paul Bradshaw's Online Journalism Blog, on a post entitled 'What is User Generated Content?'

I've reproduced it here for your pleasure/pain.

(It's certainly applicable to coverage of Haiti...)

One of the things I’ve been thinking and writing about is the fact that in the specific circumstance of reporting crisis situations, UGC published online inevitably breaks the news.

This is a fundamental change from the role of the “historical UGC” contributions that Paul alludes to in his post (letters to editor etc) and has significant implications for journalists as it threatens one of the pillars of their economic and cultural capital.

Journalists find themselves playing catch up in the breaking news game and incorporating these contributions into their own coverage becomes a vital part of the news process.

It enables traditional media organisations to retain the illusion of breaking news by re-publishing the UGC effectively as their own (even if they do highlight the origin of the source, link, etc).

It also forces journalists into new roles as curators of UGC on the grounds that the content being delivered is often the best or only news content available, particularly in the early stages of any crisis until they can get reporters on the ground.

Furthermore, journalists can add value to UGC through its organisation, presentation, contextualisation and distribution by mobilising resources and expertise on a scale that most UGC contributors do not have.

The Future of International Broadcasting

The BBC's Director of Global News (far left of panel) discusses the Future of International Broadcasting at Reuters yesterday.

Laura Oliver, who was sitting a few rows behind me, has a good summary of what Richard Sambrook said at journalism.co.uk. Well worth a read for his thoughts on the end of the old foreign correspondent model in the face of economic pressures.

While he urged broadcasters to "embrace" UGC as a "valuable supplement" and a way of capturing the "authenticity" of news events, he also said the "expertise of seasoned journalists" was still required.

Generally, the panel was optimistic about the future, expressing particular confidence in state funding and pledging to continue to send journalists to all parts of the world.

Paxman on UGC

Via Reportr.net, via cybersoc



Worth pointing out that this video was added in October, so must have been a while ago. I wonder if his views have changed since then?

Reporting Tibet

Protests in Tibet have escalated today triggering the largest demonstrations in the province for decades. According to the BBC and Reuters, protesters have been burning cars and shops in Lhasa. (Even the Chinese news agency Xinhua acknowledges that something is happening.)

Unrest began earlier in the week after police arrested a number of Buddhist monks marching to mark the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.

One BBC reporter I spoke to today, who is working on the story, admitted it was difficult to know exactly what was going on.

But he said that blogs, and people who had contacted the BBC's User Generated Content (UGC) department, were helping to build up a picture of events on the ground:

"UGC is coming up trumps on Tibet".

Yesterday, the BBC's World At One radio programme used information they had obtained from a blog written by a Western tourist.

What's on the blogs?

• One traveller wrote about his experience of the gathering on Barkhor Square on 10 March. His blog post also has a couple of images and a very short video, which has been running on BBC World Television today.
• A 'blond scientist' joined the march to Tibet from India and meets Tenzin Tsundue on the way.
• Another traveller twittered the (non)-coverage of the event on television in China, suggesting that the plug simply gets pulled when the BBC mentions the situation.
• A round up of unrest can be found at the Students for a Free Tibet blog.
• Some short extracts translated from Chinese blogs can be found here at Global Voices Online.

Update

• Unfortunate error in an article by MSNBC.com: "BEIJING - At least people were killed in rioting between Tibetans and Chinese security forces in Lhasa on Friday, according to a report." Hopefully someone will notice and amend it in due course.