Using Social Media for Community Engagement

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Using Social Mediafor Community Engagement

• Andy Carvin
• National Public Radio
• andycarvin_at_yahoo.com
• www.pbs.org/learningnow
• www.andycarvin.com
• andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt

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Traditional Media Production

• Until recently, to produce content for a large
  audience you needed to be a...
• Publisher
• Broadcaster
• Billboard owner
• Pilot flying a sign-dragging airplane
• Guy holding up signs at televised football game

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Enter stage left Web 1.0

• Most people read the Net instead of producing for
  it, because producers needed
• HTML coding skills
• Programming skills
• Graphic design skills
• Hosting ability
• Promotion mechanisms

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Today Web 2.0

• Late 1990s New classes of online software to
  simplify content creation
• Allowed people to focus on ideas and creativity
  rather than technical know-how
• The Read-Write Web
• AKA Web 2.0
• AKA We Media

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Social Software and theDemocratization of Content

• classblogmeister.com edublogging tool
• flickr.com photo blogging community
• epnweb.org education podcast network
• blip.tv make your own video blog
• youtube.com 100 m videos downloaded daily
• Common thread
• Online communities where people
• are actively encouraged to use
• and share each others original content

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Content ProductionAll The Cool Kids Are Doin It

• 48 mil Americans have posted content online
• One in 12 Internet users publish a blog
• One in four have shared original content
• Young people more likely to post content
• Race, income, education less of a factor
• Latinos, African Americans slightly more likely
  to post online content than whites
• Source Pew Internet American Life Project,
  Home Broadband Adoption 2006

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The Web 2.0 Universe

• Geotags Blogging Aggregation
• Podcasting Folksonomies Rating Tools
• Vlogging Community Discussions
• Online Social Networks
• Tagging Instant Messaging mashups
• RSS Citizen Journalism Wikis

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Most Famous Example Blogs

• Early days online geeks posted personal
  homepages or diaries (example me)
• Blogging software made online publishing easy
  anyone can do it (again me)
• Fill-out-a-form publishing
• Today 60-100 million blogs online, including
  many of you
• Perception A media-blogger war of attrition

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The Media Hates Bloggers

• Cant trust bloggers or citizen journalists to
  get the story right
• Bloggers have agendas/bias/grudges etc.
• Web 2.0 dominated by mob mentality
• Bloggers dont respect journalists
• Bloggers dont do hard news

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Bloggers Hate the Media

• Cant trust big media (or old media)
• Big media claim theyre unbiased right.
• Big media dominated by soundbites
• They dont respect the publics brains,
  collectively or individually
• They do hard news anymore, pandering to lowest
  common denominator

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Today Happy Internet (War is Over)

• Concerted attempts at finding understanding
  between the media and the blogosphere
• Media/blog collaboration now more common
• Greater emphasis on networked journalism (Jeff
  Jarvis)
• Finding ways for the media to work with
• The people formerly known as the audience (Jay
  Rosen)

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Why Are Media Outlets Embracing Web 2.0?

• Improving journalistic transparency
• Creating a public dialogue
• Tapping into public knowledge and creativity
• New collaborative opportunities with affiliates
• Maybe its profitable, too?

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Open Piloting

• Inviting the public to help create new broadcast
  programming
• Sharing rough drafts of shows before theyre
  ready for prime time
• A focus group, but everyones welcome
• Examples Rough Cuts, Bryant Park

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Radio Open Sourcehttp//www.radioopensource.org

• A blog with a radio show
• Not about open source software!
• Opens editorial process to the public
• Invites users to submit, debate program ideas
• Users recommend guests, questions
• Asks users to participate on-air
• Hosts online debriefs after each show
• Similar TOTN, WHYS

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BBC Have Your Say

• Centralized forum for discussing news
• Only select stories covered
• Two-tiered moderation
• Users can rate each others comments
• Best comments integrated into stories

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CNN iReporthttp//www.cnn.com/exchange/

• CNN citizen journalism project with Blip.tv
• CNN asks users to submit photos, video for
  specific stories
• Very best clips included on air, other highlights
  archived in an online gallery
• Published early video from VT shooting
• Tell your friends, iReport for CNN

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USA Today

• Embedding social networking across site
• Not balkanized to a special section
• Users can comment on any story
• Comments featured on homepage, elsewhere
• Syndicating blogs from around the Internet

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OhmyNewshttp//english.ohmynews.com/

• Korean online news service
• Publishes in Korean, English, Japanese
• Dedicates 20 of its space to citizen journalists
• Invites public to submit content as volunteers
• Ones that submit consistently get paid

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Global Voiceshttp//www.globalvoicesonline.org

• Project of the Harvard Berkman Center
• International citizens media news service
• Bridge bloggers monitor blog discussions around
  the world and summarize them
• GV/Witness.org Human Rights Video
• Works closely with Reuters

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VoteGuide

• Organized by Center for Citizen Media
• Berkeley journalism students created blog and
  aggregator for Californias 11th Congressional
  District
• Automatically collects news, photos, etc using
  tags
• Citizen journalists encouraged to cover
  candidates
• Test case for larger project during next cycle

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Minnesota E-Debatehttp//e-democracy.org/

• Used blogging to host gubernatorial debate
• Candidates submitted text, video, voicemail
• Public rated responses, posted comments
• Users uploaded video, photos, text and audio to
  various Web 2.0 and tagged them MNpolitics
• Result Dozens of podcasts, 100 videos, hundreds
  of photos, text comments
• Could be replicated nationally in 08

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NewAssignment.net

• Networked journalism project by Jay Rosen
• Launching in April 2007
• Will provide a platform for pro and amateur
  journalists to collaborate on stories together
• Developing endowment to pay pro journalists,
  cover expenses of amateur journalists
• First project collaborating with Wired News

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H2OTownhttp//www.h2otown.info

• Community blog for Watertown, MA
• All news stories produced by town residents
• Includes text stories, photos, video
• Excellent example of placeblogging
• H2OTown founder Lisa Williams launching placeblog
  platform for other communities

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Outside.Inhttp//www.outside.in

• Neighborhood content aggregator
• Combines placeblogging, citizen journalism with
  mapping and geotagging
• Allows users to explore community news as a blog,
  or on a neighborhood map

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Tunisian Prison Map

• Created by expat Tunisian
• A new form of civil disobedience
• Uses Google Maps to chart Tunisian prisons
• Lets users track down famous dissidents
• Built with free tool gMapEZ

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The Gates _at_ Central Parkhttp//nycgates.blogspot.
com

• Event blog The Gates art project in NYC
• Anyone could post their own content
• Blog entries by email
• Photos by email
• Voicemails converted to podcasts
• Used free tools (Blogger.com and Flickr.com)

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Katrina Aftermathhttp//katrina05.blogspot.com

• Based on Gates website
• Solicited public contributions
• Aggregated news, blogs, missing persons info,
  photos
• Also used free tools
• Blogger.com
• Flickr.com
• Feeddigest.com

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The Echo Chamber Projecthttp//www.echochamberpro
ject.comhttp//www.echochambermovie.com

• Collaborative documentary by Kent Bye about
  pre-war media coverage
• Recorded hundreds of video clips interviewing
  journalists, experts
• Public invited to work on segments, review and
  edit video clips into playlists
• Playlists exported into Final Cut Pro to produce
  the documentary
• Open Source version of Jumpcut.com, focused on
  collaborative video storytelling

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So What Should You Do?

• Community blogs and discussions?
• User-generated photos, videos or podcasts?
• Collaborative documentaries?
• Citizen journalism?
• Citizen policymaking?
• All of the above?
• What else?

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Photographed by Ethan Zuckerman Bathroom, Rhodes
University, South Africa (cc) 2006 by-nc
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Thanks!

• Andy Carvin
• andycarvin_at_yahoo.com
• www.pbs.org/learningnow
• www.andycarvin.com
• Presentation
• andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt