Informing the Public in the Internet Age

April 15

The profusion of low-cost media production and distribution has led to the rise of an alternative citizen-led media sector. Is this a passing fad of enthusiastic amateurs or the beginning of a fundamental restructuring of the way media and news are produced and consumed? Will the current trends lead to more information, better information, and better informed people or to an infinite stream of unreliable chatter? Will it lead to a more politically engaged populace or to an increasingly polarized society that picks its sources of information to match its biases and ignorance?

Readings

The whos and wheres of modern journalism

• Persephone Miel and Rob Faris, News and Information as Digital Media Come of Age (read executive summary)

• Persephone Miel and Rob Faris, A Typology of Media Organizations (skim)

• Federal Communications Commission, Information Needs of Communities (read executive summary, skim overview)

• Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (Chapter 7) (read from 225 ("Our second story focuses…") to 241 (end before "On Power Law Distributions, Network Topology, and Being Heard"); read from 261-66 ("Who Will Play the Watchdog Function?"))

Threats and issues

• Amy Mitchell, The State of News Media 2014

• This American Life, Picture Show (audio, from 0:00 to 5:09)

• RonNell Anderson Jones, Litigation, Legislation, and Democracy in a Post-Newspaper America (Section I only)

• Brendan Nyhan, Biases Abound (about 15 mins., watch all)

• Yochai Benkler, The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case

• Jay Rosen, Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press

New technologies and models

• Catherine D'Ignazio, Ali Hashmi, and Ethan Zuckerman, Mapping the (Boston) Globe (play with the website)

• Banyan Project, Introduction and Overview

• Chris Faraone, MuckRock City (Boston Phoenix)

• Adrienne LaFrance, From Cold Calls to Community Building, ProPublica Tries to Make Crowdsourcing More Meaningful (Nieman Journalism Lab)

Optional Readings

• Jonathan Zittrain, 2009 Richard S. Salant Lecture on Freedom of the Press (the lecture starts at 19:45)

• Sara Morrison, The Photo That Cried Wolf

Class Discussion

Please remember to sign your postings by adding four tildes (~~~~) to the end of your contribution. This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post, like so: Andy 15:12, 7 November 2013 (EST)

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I just came across this video about a different kind of censorship that is happening on Facebook: [1] It's really interesting to consider that censorship is not only happening as a result of laws or terms of use, but now as a way of "forcing" people/companies to pay. Castille 13:12, 9 April 2014 (EDT)

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I'm very thankful for the readings on the implications of the new media revolution on the Fourth Amendment as it's an issue I've never thought about before. Indeed, if the laws are not appropriately updated, these changes could have a massive impact on the freedom of journalism. I wonder whether one way to work around the issue would be to form some form of unions that would encompass many individual amateur reporters, providing them with legal protection, but without limiting the freedoms of the individual participants.--Seifip 13:14, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

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The Information Age and proliferation of media outlets seem to present a double-edged sword situation: while it's wonderful that we have access to a plethora of "news" from around the world and about whatever subjects in which we have a particular interest, there is also very little transparency in terms of the filters through which reporters and stations may be processing and delivering stories. By this I mean that there is no regulation to disclose what the stance of the company or organization might have, and how that stance might color the stories, which are generally presented as factual-- and indeed they may be-- but are oftentimes only offering one of many perspectives on an issue. Of course, maybe the solution is not to bind this freedom of speech with rules but instead to expect viewers to be intelligent enough to carry out their own research if they are so inclined. While this is a valid argument, is it "fair" to expect viewers to have to become reporters themselves? And what about the fact that the "truth" of a situation is virtually impossible to establish in many cases? Ultimately, all of the information available (or not available) is likely to leave the public either misinformed, blissfully ignorant of other points of view, or confused instead of truly informed. Castille 17:27, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

There is a constant sense of urgency and ‘pride in the newsroom’ to be the first to unveil critical information in a developing story. I worked at ABC News in 2011 and everyone there could tell you who broke what information first against their competitors - CNN, NBC, etc, on almost any story they’ve worked on. While I don’t think this industry-race is any different before the internet age, I do think the pressure and urgency has upped the stakes. Now that a pool of captured-this-on-my-iPhone citizen journalists have entered the pool along with individual bloggers - it’s as if staying on top or getting critical information first has been causing numerous reporting blunders and mistakes from the big media companies that would have happened less frequently years ago. Almost every big name media company has learned a lesson the hard way about fact-checking in recent years. Accuracy will outweigh the race to finish in first place; but that is easier said than done within the industry Marissa1989 23:05, 14 April 2014 (EDT)

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I think Brendan Nyhan's talk about biases lends some weight to the idea that new decentralized and less professional media outlets can be problematic. While I'm not as concerned as some people might be about a de-professionalization of media outlets (I'm sure there are many capable reporters, writers, editors, etc. than just those employed at major newspapers and other media outlets), I can understand why writers, editors, etc. in the media can benefit from a level of standard training. Learning best practices in order to avoid some of the issues Nyhan raises regarding readers' biases seems really important! Nyhan says that the technology we have at our disposal makes it easy to buttress our own views and ignore the ones we don't agree with (much like Sunstein's fears about the polarization of the blogosphere), so it's important that journalists don't encourage this behavior and type of thinking by the way they structure headlines and articles. Jkelly 22:38, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

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Jay Rosen's piece "Audience Atomization Overcome" balances some of the arguments made about problems with the changes occurring in traditional media outlets. It serves as a good reminder that, while newspapers and other traditional news media can do a great public service by holding the government and other large institutions accountable to the public, they also (intentionally or not) set the agenda at the inevitable cost of certain issues. He aptly points out that much as journalists like to think they can engage in their work without being political, the very act of choosing to write or not write about a topic is a political statement, or at the very least implies that the topic is worthy of public discourse. Jkelly 22:54, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

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This is a little off topic, but for anyone who was particularly interested in the article on MuckRock and its FOIA requests, you should check out the work that Ryan Shapiro (a PhD candidate at MIT) is doing.[2] (Full disclosure- Ryan is a friend!) Jkelly 23:08, 13 April 2014 (EDT)