Between the Impact of Technology on Journalism and Twitter Political Turmoil

Two new ideas for my project:

1) Impact of technology on journalism. My goal as a researcher has been trying to understand how journalists are reacting to digital challenges and whether they are preserving fundamental ideas of their profession when facing technological innovations. Being here in Austin, I would like to explore how the free newspaper industry is adapting to digital technology and mobile platforms. A possibility for this research is to target a specific newsroom such as Chronicle, a print publication that mixes in-depth journalism with a city guide. I would like to apply a survey and to interview newsroom editors and managers to find out how this publication is facing digital disruptions and how it envisions its future.

2) Twitter political turmoil. I would like to explore the twitter reaction of Colombian most influential journalists towards the announcement of former president Alvaro Uribe to return to the political arena as a candidate to the Colombian Senate. Now that the Colombian government is in the middle of a peace process with the FARC guerrilla (one of the bloodiest players of this five-decade-internal conflict), the question is whether the presence of Uribe and his followers in Congress would undermine peace efforts. I would like to explore if the twitter reaction of Colombia journalists remains neutral or takes a position in favor or against Uribe’s decision to come back to politics as senator.

Impact of digital technology on journalists’ work

My research interests focus on the impact of digital technology on journalists’ work.

Question: What significant changes have Colombian newspaper journalists experienced due to digital technology when researching, gathering and producing information?

Method: Using an online survey, last year I asked this open question to 134 newspaper journalists who are working for major newspapers in Colombia.

I have organized their answers in five themes: Mobility, access to information, collaborative work, use of new tools-social networks, and information immediacy.

Some academic resources I found:

Fengler, S., & Russ-Mohl, S. (2008). Journalists and the information-attention markets: Towards an economic theory of journalism. Journalism, 9(6), 667–690. doi:10.1177/1464884908096240

Good, K. D. (2013). Why we travel: picturing global mobility in user-generated travel journalism. Media, Culture & Society, 35(3), 295–313. doi:10.1177/0163443712468608

Harries, G., & Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2007). The culture of arts journalists: Elitists, saviors or manic depressives? Journalism, 8(6), 619–639. doi:10.1177/1464884907083115

He, Z., & Zhu, J. -h. (2002). The ecology of online newspapers: the case of China. Media, Culture & Society, 24(1), 121–137. doi:10.1177/016344370202400108

Huxford, J. (2007). The proximity paradox: Live reporting, virtual proximity and the concept of place in the news. Journalism, 8(6), 657–674. doi:10.1177/1464884907083117

Jha, S. (2008). Why they wouldn’t cite from sites: A study of journalists' perceptions of social movement web sites and the impact on their coverage of social protest. Journalism, 9(6), 711–732. doi:10.1177/1464884908096242

Krause, M. (2011). Reporting and the transformations of the journalistic field: US news media, 1890-2000. Media, Culture & Society, 33(1), 89–104. doi:10.1177/0163443710385502

Martin, V. B. (2008). Attending the news: A grounded theory about a daily regimen. Journalism, 9(1), 76–94. doi:10.1177/1464884907084341

Olsson, E.-K. (2009). Rule regimes in news organization decision making: Explaining diversity in the actions of news organizations during extraordinary events. Journalism, 10(6), 758–776. doi:10.1177/1464884909344477

Reich, Z. (2013). The Impact of Technology on News Reporting: A Longitudinal Perspective. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(3), 417–434. doi:10.1177/1077699013493789

Statham, P. (2008). Making Europe news: How journalists view their role and media performance. Journalism, 9(4), 398–422. doi:10.1177/1464884908091292

Best Friends Forever

Friendship - "Any relationship based on the concepts of mutual familiarity, trust, and appreciation."

How well do you feel you know this individual? (Scale from "Not at all" to "Completely")

How much do you trust this individual? (Scale from "Not at all" to "Completely")

How much do you appreciate this individual?  (Scale from "Not at all" to "Completely")

Surfing through Academic Journals

1. JOURNAL: Television & New Media

Television & New Media (TVNM), published bi-monthly, is an international journal devoted to the most recent trends in the critical study of television and new media. TVNM addresses questions of how issues of economics, politics, culture and power are enacted through television and new media forms, texts, industries, and contexts. Topics for the journal engage with critical and interdisciplinary research into audiences and consumers, authors and producers, cultural history and geography, globalization, policy, citizenship, activism, and pedagogy as well as the intersections between social identities, such as race, class, and gender. It has been in publication since 2000 and is currently published by SAGE Publications.

  

ACADEMIC PAPER:

Title: A Contemporary History of Digital Journalism
Author: Scott, Be. Television & New Media 2005 6: 89
Link to article: http://tvn.sagepub.com/content/6/1/89 

2. JOURNAL: New Media & Society

Edited by Steve Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

New Media & Society is a top-ranked, peer-reviewed, international journal that publishes key research from communication, media and cultural studies, as well as sociology, geography, anthropology, economics, the political and information sciences and the humanities. It is committed to high-quality research that explores the relationship between theory, policy and practice.

ACADEMIC PAPER:

Title: Coverage of emerging technologies: A comparison between print and online media.

Author: Cacciatore, Michael A.; Anderson, Ashley A.; Choi, Doo-Hun; Brossard, Dominique; Scheufele, Dietram A.; Liang, Xuan; Ladwig, Peter J.; Xenos, Michael; Dudo, Anthony. New Media & Society, Sep2012, Vol. 14 Issue 6, p1039-1059, 21.

Link to article: http://nms.sagepub.com/content/14/6/1039.full.pdf%20html

Why Green with Envy?

Social science should look at its prolific academic tradition and overcome its envy towards physics. Even though adopting ‘hard’ scientific methods have improved --even validated-- some social science processes, historically the core of social science knowledge has come from philosophical thoughts. While the natural-physical world can be explained better through empirical tests, some of the most reveling ideas we share as society have come from philosophy or literature. Mental constructions happen to be as important as the physical world for societies. People in power take radical decisions and transform civilizations based on their ideas, believes or perceptions. Those choices don’t have anything to do with hard science. That explains why scientists continue to cite Orwell’s 1894 to illuminate the control of states vs. privacy or Shakespeare’s Macbeth to understand tyranny.

Professors Kevin Clarke and David Primo hit the nail on the head when they invite social science researchers to think  “deeply about what prompts human beings to behave the way they do” instead of copying hard scientific methods to validate everything they do.