New media for crime and judicial reporting

1. Crime and judicial reporting
Leveraging new and social media
Sanjana Hattotuwa
TEDGlobal Fellow 2010
Editor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

2. what is social media?
• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform
broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers. (Wikipedia)

3. what is new media?
• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital,
computerized, or networked information and communication technologies.
• New media is not television programs, feature films, magazines, books, or
paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)
• But increasingly, old media is leveraging the web, Internet and mobiles in
generating and disseminating news and information.

5. new media and foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook)
• Google Maps
• Mobiles: SMS, mobile photography and video
• VoIP: Skype, Google Chat
• And making this all possible is ADSL + 3G wireless broadband

6. what’s new
• Ubiquity of two way communications
• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees
• Both news generation and dissemination leverages new media
• Disintermediated models vs. traditional media model
• Citizens as producers
• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

7. old media model
Event / Issue
Journalist
Mainstream
media Consumer

8. new media models
Event / Issue Consumer Citizen media
Journalist Mainstream Consumer
media

9. the revolution
Journalist Consumer
News as a package
Consumer /
Journalist
Witness
News as a conversation

10. What is out there?

11. bearing witness: Groundviews
www.groundviews.org

12. readership and reach: web media
From 19 – 27 May 2010, Groundviews ran a special edition on the end of war in Sri Lanka.
Over this week alone, the site received over forty thousand readers and exclusively
featured over eighty-thousand words of original content, one video premiere, over
a dozen photos, generating over one hundred and fifty thousand words of
commentary. Tens of thousands more have read and commented on this content since.

13. readership and reach: 18th amendment
• Groundviews was read well over 22,000
times from 1 – 9 September, when content
and debates around the 18th Amendment to
the constitution reached their peak. Over 170
comments were featured in the site during
this week alone, totalling around 65,000
words. In addition to the content on the site,
our Twitter feed posted well over one hundred
and fifty updates during the course of the
week.
• Content on Groundviews was republished or
referred to by the Sunday Leader, the New
York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique dozens of
other local and international Twitter accounts
of leading journalists and others, Livemint.com
published by the Wall Street Journal in India
and a range of other blogs and websites.

14. online video: Vikalpa YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/vikalpasl

15. alternative politics in Sinhala: Vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

16. news from provinces: Perambara
www.perambara.org

17. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

18. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

19. sinhala bloggers union: Sinhala blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

20. twitter: new perspectives
www.twitter.com

21. flickr content on sri lanka
www.flickr.com

22. social networking: facebook reach with $0

23. social networking: facebook reach with $0
Avg. FB account: 130 friends
Groundviews FB page has 1,600+ fans
Updates featured on 208,000+ FB accounts. Instantly.

24. social networking: facebook

25. podcasts: apple iTunes

26. Managing content: Pushing out

27. essential email: gmail / google account

28. wordpress.com: blogging

29. wordpress.com: blogging
http://si.wordpress.com

30. wordpress.com: blogging
http://ta.wordpress.com

31. wordpress.com: blogging via phone
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-by-voice

32. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

33. bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

34. ustream: mobile phone broadcasting
http://www.ustream.tv/mobile

35. flickr: posting images via mobiles
http://www.flickr.com/tools/mobile

36. drop.io: reports through audio

37. transferring large files
https://www.wetransfer.com

38. Managing content: Pulling in

39. google search: updates from social media

40. google news: thousands of sources

41. google alerts: thousands of sources
http://www.google.com/alerts

42. google reader: a web based RSS reader

43. enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information, trickle of knowledge
• Veracity and verifiability
• Eye-witness accounts are partial, subjective
• New media / technology illiteracy even amongst journalists
• Apathy and animosity against citizen journalism
• Licensing and attribution of online content

44. key points: recap
• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens
• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content
• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

45. Thank you