The Online Journalism Award

The Online News Association (ONA) was founded in 1999 by a group of professional online journalists, who decided to organize a platform for those who believe that Internet is the most powerful communications medium to arise since the dawn of television. The Association has more then 1,200 professional members, that is: "members whose principal livelihood involves gathering or producing news for digital presentation". ONA administers the prestigious Online Journalism Awards since May 2000, as a joint effort of with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a comprehensive set of journalism prizes honoring excellence Web journalism. This year, two Spanish new media won the awards for non-English language sites. 

El Pais won the Non-English General Excellence to a Large Site:

"The winner sets the benchmark by which others are measured. On a bedrock of first-class journalism it has built a brilliant suite of infographics that are rich in information, yet easy to consume. The site is a shining example of how traditional media can blossom in the digital arena."

http://www.elpais.com/global/

Sitou won the Non-English General Excellence Award to a Small Site:

"The winner is a brilliant example of the new, smaller independent online news, information and community sites. It balances rigorous journalism with the most innovative application of Web 2.0 practices, all packaged in a gorgeous design with unique attention to small touches of navigational genius."
http://www.soitu.es/

General Excellence, Large Site: CNN

"A site that made substantial changes in the past year, making it one of the more dynamic destinations out there. One that takes user content seriously and integrates it into the whole, opening a new era of networked content. One judge predicted "everyone will copy it."

http://www.cnn.com/

General Excellence, Medium Site: LasVegasSun.com

"A winner with an impressive visual approach to journalism that helped them stand out as being a little bit different and very strong. One of the best newspaper Web sites I have seen, with high quality multimedia content that is integral to the site, not an afterthought or secondary element."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/

General Excellence, Small Site: ArmyTimes.com

"The winner clearly knows its audience, speaks to it honestly and helps it speak to itself. It is relentlessly helpful, packed with news and information that focuses on the needs of its users. What it gets back is an engaged community."

http://www.armytimes.com/

Knight Award for Public Service: WashingtonPost.com, Fixing D.D. Schools

"The winning entry is an excellent package that focuses on a specific issue of tremendous importance to the community. A very strong investigation, very well-written stories, and obviously a matter of great public import. If I was a parent in Washington DC I would be studying this."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/interactives/dcschools/

Blogging Lessons For and From Journalism

Johnatan Bailey gives some advices on how to write journalistics blogs. In his article, he looks through the style and format on how to cover a story:

1. Dig into a Story
   
2. Write Visually
   
3. Radical Clarity
   
4. Cite Sources
   
5. Master Headline Writing
   

As he assets, there are some useful lessons from journalism that can help improve blog writing: "Though journalists are starting to make their peace with blogging and more reporters are starting up their own blogs, most are still loathe to connect themselves, in any way, to the mass of largely untrained and unpaid bloggers. But the success of blogging as a media indicates that bloggers are getting many things rights and that the “old media” may have something that it can learn, especially as it transitions more and more of its work to the Web".

1. Informal Tone
   
2. Corrections Policy
   
3. Conversations
   
4. Working with Competitors
   
5. Focusing on Free

You can also check some legal advice for bloggers.

Blog Catalog

This is a useful site where you could register your team blog to start enter in a social community for bloggers, learn about blogging or promote your blog. Check out the tutorial.

LAB: SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

From the personal selected sites to the sharing information, there is a recent method that is increasing its use among Internet users. Social bookmarking is becoming the most common way to store, organize and search for information, but also for keeping our links and research interest online. Users of social bookmarking system can save links to web sites they select as favorites. They can also share this links because they can be used publicly. One of the most popular system of bookmarks is delicious. But you can also find other tools that will help you in your personal and collective collaborations. Here you can check some of the top social bookmarking websites:

• Blinkbits, BlogMemes, Co.mments, Fark, Furl, 
• Google Bookmarks, LinkaGoGo, Ma.gnolia, Mister Wong, 
• Newsvine, PlugIM, Propeller, Stumbleupon, Slashdot, 
• Simpy, Sphere, Squidoo, Scuttle

Here you can find an easy tutorial that shows how to start up an account in delicious:

LAB: Making your own social network

A social network is a social structure made of nodes conducted by individuals or groups. They start up different ways of interdependency, such as values, interests, financial exchange, etc. The resulted structure becomes in several levels of complexity. The most common labels for this social relationship is nodes and ties.

Nodes are individual actors within the networks and ties are the relationship between the actors. You can find a huge range of ties between the nodes. One person can establish several and interconnected ties: familiar, friendship, academic, professional, business, etc. 

The importance of this new ways of relation and collaboration has been labeled in the term social capital which is a concept emerged in business, economic and political science that refers to connections within and between social networks. Just for the purpose of this course, we will focus social capital as the main characteristic related to networks. 

Myspace and Facebook are the the most popular social networks, but you can also check some other sites, such as Wiggio or Ning. Here you have some video tutorials about how to start up with them:

Wiggio

Ning 

The most popular social networks are, as you know, Facebook and MySpace. But you can also start up your professional profile in Linkedin. Do you know any other social network around the world? Take a look to virb.

READING: Mapping Citizen Media Models

Jan Schaffer former Business Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner for the Philadephia Inquireer, is the executive director of J-Lab: the Institute for Interactive Journalism an one of the most influential authors following the current transition process from old fashion journalism to the new media. J-Lab was launched in 2002 in the University of Maryland's College of Journalism to help newsrooms use innovative computer technologies to inform people about important public issues. In this study Schaffer, who also promote J-Lab's New Voices project, assets citizen journalism is emerging as a form of bridge media, linking traditional forms of journalism with classic civil participation. This study edited by Knight Citizen News network, analyses hyperlocal community new sties, a new phenomenon that is changing and growing rapidly. In Citizen Media: Fad or the Future of News? (2007), Schaffer sustains that "...The pioneers did not intend simply to experiment with new forms of journalism or give-and-take between citizens and journalists. Most site operators believe they are engaged in a new kind of community building, a kind of antidote to the “bowling alone” phenomenon".

The author gives examples of Citizen Media Models for analyze. Go to the websites and check components of interactivity, content, useful news, type of community generated, and, the most important: similarities and differences in their projects:

Community Cooperatives

The Forum

Northfield.org

Rye Reflections

ArbotUpdate.com

Trained Citizen Journalist Sites

Madison Commons

Chi-town Daily News

Professional Journalist Non-profit Sites

New Haven Independent

Voice of San Diego

Professional Journalists For-profit Sites

West Port Now

New West

Blog Aggregator Sites

Greensboro 101

PhyllyFuture

Syndicated Milti-site Models

Your Hub

Backfence

WickedLocal

Gate House Media

Legacy Media Sites

Bluffton Today

Northwest Voice

Southwest Voice

Solo Enterprise Non-profit Sites

Toledo Talk

Solo Enterprise for For-profit Sites

H2town

Baristanet

ibrattleboro

READING: From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0

Garham Cormodore works on social network analysis. Balancher Krishnamurthy center his reseach around the Internet measurements. In this essay titled "Key Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0" the authors focus an enlightening comparative analysis of principal contents, interactivity and approaches of both plattforms. As they indicate: "Web 2.0 is a buzzword introduced in 2003–04 which is commonly used to encompass various novel phenomena on the World Wide Web. Although largely a marketing term, some of the key attributes associated with Web 2.0 include the growth of social networks, bi–directional communication, various ‘glue’ technologies, and significant diversity in content types. We are not aware of a technical comparison between Web 1.0 and 2.0. While most of Web 2.0 runs on the same substrate as 1.0, there are some key differences. We capture those differences and their implications for technical work in this paper. Our goal is to identify the primary differences leading to the properties of interest in 2.0 to be characterized. We identify novel challenges due to the different structures of Web 2.0 sites, richer methods of user interaction, new technologies, and fundamentally different philosophy. Although a significant amount of past work can be reapplied, some critical thinking is needed for the networking community to analyze the challenges of this new and rapidly evolving environment".

This year's fourth year of Web 2.0 Summit will be held this November in San Francisco, after the recent past Web 2.0 Exposition in New York. As their organizers asset, they have been focused on industry's challenges and opportunities. Now they suggest: "Our conversation is no longer just about the Web. Now is the time to ask how the Web might tapped to address the world's most pressing limits..."

What is Web 2.0? Where can we find our own sources, feeders, holders, etc.?
Why is important for us to discuss about Civil Society Media, Community Media and Alternative Media?

READING: Introduction to Participatory Journalism

The most obvious difference between participatory journalism and traditional journalism is the different structure and organization that produce them. Bowman, Shayne and Willis, in his Introduction to We Media, pointed out the emerging of new media ecosystem.



For them, traditional media are created by hierarchical organizations that are built for commerce. Participatory journalism is created by networked communities that value conversation, collaboration and egalitarianism over profitability.


What do you think about this affirmation? Are we facing a new structure of news production?

Identity and Change in the Network Society

Manuel Castells is a Spanish sociologist who centers his research on information society and communications. He has developed a long-term study analyzing the role of new technologies in economic restructuring. During the 1990s the grouped his areas of interest within a massive study, Information Age, published as a trilogy between 1996 and 1998. Here you have an interview held in 2001 for the Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley. His argumentation will help us understand the impact of new technologies in current society and will guide our discussion about the role of new media.

Most journalists get story ideas from blogs

A survey by Brodeur and MarketWire, shows that 75% of journalists use blogs to get ideas for stories. 30% of journalists in the survey say the have their own blog.

Top Sites for Journalists

Political Journalists: Huffington Post, Real Clear Politics, Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos.
Tech Journalists: Engadget, Gizmodo, Boing Boing
Lifestyle Journalists: TMZ, Perez HIlton and MSN Lifestyle, AOL Living.
Travel Journalists: Tripadvisor, Frommers
Healthcare Journalists: NIH, WebMed, Mayo Clinic, MSN Health

Still, some journalists ask Why Journalists should blog. Take a look to this post in Newsweek.

Interesting examples on Digital Journalism

Professor Howard Rheingold teaches Digital Journalism at Stanford. Here you can find some good examples of those students working in new media. One is a multimedia story at iStanford picked up by The New York Times. The other is a personal blog of a student focused on design and learning sicences.

The Online Journalism Awards 2008

The Online News Association celebrated its Awards ceremony on September 11-13. This year, the Spanish Newspaper El Pais won the Newest Online Journalism Award category.
Take a look at the Student Journalism Award: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill & Universidad de Los Andes, South of Here, and Taylor Hayden, Western Kentucky University, Closer to Home: A Daughter Becomes Caregiver.
We could discuss the possibility of enroll as members of the ONA.

Useful tools for Photo Sharing

Professor David Blumenkrantz shared with us his experience as a active user of Flickr. We discussed the current ways of photo sharing. We talked about forms of using some online published photos, the rights for their use and the ways we could get in contact with some authors. You could open a profile in Flickr or other similar photo sharing tools.

There is also another tool for photo sharing developed by Google and useful for bloggers: Picasa


Check some examples on photojournalism at Reuters website. There you can find some ways to link this production to your blogs.

You could also find some Reuters News RSS Feeds on this website.


Here you can find a tutorial on how to use Picasa



Here you can find a tutorial on how to use Flickr:

READING: Interactivity in Online Newspapers

Based on this recent essay, published in may 2008, we were analyzing the structural interactivity in Online Newspapers. We went from theory to practices, trying to define what is interactivity: "... a measure of a medium's potential ability to let the user exert and amount of influence on the content and/of form of the mediated communication", or "... the extent to which the communicator and the audience respond to each other's communication need".

Exercise: Compare print and online versions of some newspapers. What is the principal difference between the content and the relation with their audiences? Point out two examples on five categories of the content analysis: a) Complexity of choice available, b) Effort users must exert, c) Responsiveness to the user d) Facilitation of interpersonal communication, e) Ease of adding information.

Los Angeles Times
Sacramento Bee

The New York Times
Washington Post
Chicago Tribune
The Independent
The Guardian
The Times

READING: About Audiences and news Consumption

This week we have been discussing about Online News Consumption. Based on the most recent findings of The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, we compared traditional and online sources, audiences segments and the changing news environment. An overview of the report resumes the general trends in current transformation of audiences. In depth information can be find in the complete report.

How are we building our blogs?

As a class group we are building and maintaining seven blogs. This class blog will center all its attention towards theory and methodology. I will to post general comments on our readings.

What is a blog?

There are different sources that explain what is exactly a Blog. Following Howard Rheingolg's Project, Participatory Media Literacy, we will analyze blogs as a new and indispensable tool that transformed the website from readable to writable.
Basically a blog is a web page that is updated frequently by posts published in order of production. "Blog" is a contraction of the term "Web log" and tend to be a space of comments and news on a particular subject.
With the appearance of journalistic blogs, audiences turned to be more active in the consumption of new media. Most of the mass media producers are increasingly recognizing the importance of incorporating such tools in their daily practices. Three years ago, all the BBC Editors were asked to start and maintain journalistc blogs. The main reason for this decision, as they declared, was to open a new form of communication with their transforming audiences.

READING: Impact of new technologies in the production of news

The first readings will help us understand the impact of new technologies in the production of news. As a group, we were discussing the advantages and disadvantages of becoming ejournalists. Which are the main differences between "old fashion" journalism and current journalism practices? Why are we going to incorporate such theoretical and methodological questioning in this course? Why this is not a exclusively technical course?
Leading with the discussion pointed out in Deuze's and Gillmore's text we are centering our debate in what is going to be the future of print journalism. I expect some comments in this sense. Take a look at online version of the Washington Post, where do you find some examples of what Gillmore and Deuze pointed.

Howard Rheingold: Way-new collaboration

READING: From the Screen to the Streets

By Howard Rheingold
In These Times, Volume 27, issue 26.
10.28.03

It was five years ago when Rheingold reflections about new media were published in In These Times. His discussion will help us understand the role of new media in activism and politics.

"It has taken 10 years of talk about “new media” for a critical mass to understand that every computer desktop, and now every pocket, is a worldwide printing press, broadcasting station, place of assembly, and organizing tool—and to learn how to use that infrastructure to affect change.Previous technologies allowed users only to communicate one-to-one (telephones) or few-to-many (broadcast and print media). Mobile and deskbound media such as blogs, listservs and social networking sites allow for many-to-many communication. This provides opportunities and problems for progressive political activists in three key areas: Gathering and disseminating alternative and more democratic news; creating virtual public spheres where citizens debate the issues that concern democratic societies; and organizing collective political action".

http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=414_0_1_0_M