Using Social Media

for Community Engagement

Andy Carvin
National Public Radio
andycarvin@yahoo.com
www.pbs.org/learningnow
www.andycarvin.com
andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt
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

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
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”
Social Software and the
Democratization 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 other’s original content
Content Production:
All 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
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
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
The Media Hates Bloggers
 Can’t trust bloggers or “citizen journalists” to
get the story right
 Bloggers have agendas/bias/grudges etc.

 Web 2.0 dominated by mob mentality

 Bloggers don’t respect journalists

 Bloggers don’t do hard news

Bloggers Hate the Media
 Can’t trust big media (or “old media”)
 Big media claim they’re unbiased – right.

 Big media dominated by soundbites

 They don’t respect the public’s brains,

collectively or individually
 They do hard news anymore, pandering to
lowest common denominator
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)
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 it’s profitable, too?

Open Piloting
 Invitingthe public to help create new
broadcast programming
 Sharing rough drafts of shows before they’re
ready for prime time
 A focus group, but everyone’s welcome

 Examples: Rough Cuts, Bryant Park

Radio Open Source
http://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

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

CNN iReport
http://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”

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

OhmyNews
http://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

Global Voices
http://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

 VoteGuide

 Organized by Center for Citizen Media

 Berkeley journalism students created blog and
aggregator for California’s 11th Congressional
District
 Automatically collects news, photos, etc using
tags
 Citizen journalists encouraged to cover
candidates
 Test case for larger project during next cycle
Minnesota E-Debate
http://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
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
H2OTown
http://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
 Outside.In
http://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
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

The Gates @ Central Park
http://nycgates.blogspot.com

 Eventblog: “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)
Katrina Aftermath
http://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
The Echo Chamber Project
http://www.echochamberproject.com
http://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
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?
Photographed by Ethan Zuckerman
Bathroom, Rhodes University, South Africa
(cc) 2006 by-nc
 Thanks!

Andy Carvin
andycarvin@yahoo.com

www.pbs.org/learningnow
www.andycarvin.com

Presentation:
andycarvin.com/complibraries.ppt