Basic Concepts of New Media

As discussed Week 6, Wednesday:

(1) Digital Media Dictionary
If there is interest, use WetPaint (wiki) or Google docs (requires gmail account) or WordPress (as group blog) to develop a directory of terminology related to this course and digital media. Team members would decide on scope and choose a publishing tool, with guidance from me.

(2) News Organization Survey
In 2007 and 2008, COM300 students charted how 110 online news organizations (newspapers and TV) are adopting social media tools like RSS, blogging and podcasting. The proposal for 2009 is to look at 50 “newspaper” sites and 10 “other” sites from the prior surveys as well as 25 independent/advocacy news sites. Bilkay will help lead the effort, along with me. The secondary goal this quarter is to compare technology adoption across time.

In this project you will analyze the websites of news organizations in the US and England. Specifically, you will visit N websites, analyzing news organization use of social media like blogs, RSS, podcasts or “share this article” links as well as integration of multimedia (photos, audio, video). Finally, you will make a subjective judgment about the website.

• Top 50 newspapers (by circulation)
• The Guardian, The Independent and The Sun (UK), The Financial Times
• ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR
• Independent/Advocacy sites (TBD but will include Red State, HuffPo, DailyKos, The Moderate Voice, Newsvine, NewsCloud, NowPublic)

This PDF has all student assignments!

This is the submital link (pdf for planning)

Due Dates:

• By 6.30 pm on Monday 16 February (no class), you should have completed at least two news sites. You should also create a blog post that reflects on your experience to date — how easy/difficult it is to find this information, anything you learned about how news organizations share information, etc. If you have been unable to complete two sites, explain why. Categorize this post “assignment.”
• By 6.30 pm on Friday 20 February, you should have completed all six of your news sites. You should also create a blog post that compares the (minimum four) sites on their use of multimedia (images, sound, video). Are they doing a good or bad job? Why? What might they do differently? Why? Which is the “best” (and how did you make that judgment). If you have been unable to complete four sites, explain why. Categorize this post “assignment.”
• By 6.30 pm on Monday 16 March, you should create a blog post that compares the six sites on their use of new media technology. Are they doing a good or bad job? Why – what is the basis for your judgment? What recommendations do you have – what might they do differently? Why? Which is the “best” of the x (and how did you make that judgment). Categorize this post “assignment.”

What The Heck Are We Doing?
In this exercise, we are building upon the work done by COM300 students in Spring 2007: we are looking at the same news organizations, over time, to see if we can spot trends in news organization use of technology and new reporting techniques. We are also providing historical snapshots for anyone who studies news media in the future!

We are also practicing the concept of crowd-sourcing — using lots of people to accomplish a task that would be too time-consuming or expensive for one person to do alone. It’s a practical application of social networks and the theory underpinning open source software. Crowd-sourcing is made possible by digital technologies (that “collapse space and time” thing!) and is being used today by Fortune 100 companies like IBM.

Finally, you are continuing to refine your web skills as well as your critical thinking skills (analyzing the sites).

1. Look at the list of news organizations and see which ones you have been assigned to review. Each organization has two (2) students assigned to it for quality control.
   A list of the news organizations (some with website URLs) and your assignment (newspapers and broadcast websites) can be found on this Google spreadsheet. Note that the assignments are by “number”, based on an alphabetical list of student first names (see below or check the assignment spreadsheet).
2. Review the form that you will use to input your data. Important: you MUST complete the form input process in one sitting: you will not be able to change your record for that news organization after clicking “submit.”
   The form that you will use to input data is also on Google. Consider printing the form (PDF) and making your notes before you get started with the form.
   You will complete the form six (6) times: once for each news organization.Instructions for completing each section of the form are on the form. Some answers are “yes/no” and some require you to paste a URL. Three are “thought questions”. Be sure to copy&paste the name of the news organization from the assignment sheet — so that we all use the same name for each organization!
3. You can check on the progress of the class by viewing this Google spreadsheet.

Student “Numbers” for Assignment.
This list is also on the assignment spreadsheet.