Ch. 4&5 Summary

Ch. 4 & 5 Summary

By: Lorraine Henderson

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE for Ch.4

This chapter is about social dimension of data journalism , of finding material, of sharing it and collaborating with the public, puts the new practice of data journalism well within the realm of social journalism.

Introduction

1. The world is full of data; financial data is probably the oldest form of data journalism.
2. Data: Large amounts of information, often numeric, graphs, maps or other illustrative ways.
3. Narrative function is essential to the process of data journalism and distinguishes news outlets from everyone else publishing data.

• --Narrative function: to tell stories and make sense of raw information.

Finding Data

1. Commissioned data

• Most common example is commissioned polls, like political questions
• Polling: Asking a range of people their opinions. Can be conducted by professional organizations or just a random person doing it on Twitter.

1. Government and institutional data

• Largest source for any news organization
• When trying to find local data, try to make contact with the people who collate and manage the data in the area-- very useful for massaging the data you need.

1. Freedom of information

• FOIAs: Any legislation that guarantees the legal right of access to government or corporate information-- part of the stated democratic goal of transparency.

1. Other Sources

• Leaked sources= best friend’s with news organizations
• Whistleblowers: People who revela (usually) criminal activity on the part of organizations to the gov’t or the press. In many countries, they are protected by the law, however, seek legal advice before proceeding.

Data Dumps

• Disinformation: The deliberate spreading of false information via the media. Also discussed in Ch. 9.
• WikiLeaks

Crowdsourcing

• Uses the public to gather and share data and information about the community, from littering to transport problems.
• Set up: asking for emails or tweet the newsroom, or as complex as creating a custom application to run people’s computers and smartphones.
• Gamification: To bringing elements of interactivity and game-design mechanics into other disciplines to make them more engaging.

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE for Ch.5

This chapter will look at the ways in which new technologies allow users to aggregate, organize and share content, and how this is both a challenge and an opportunity for journalists.

Introduction

• Distribution strategies play an integral part in rebooting journalism.

Search Engines

• Good at looking through large sets of data and returning results based on keywords
• Metadata: Pieces of content in terms of what is ‘behind the scenes’.
• Referral traffic: A sophisticated range of metrics and analytical tools are being constantly developed to better understand how stories are distributed online

Adding the Aggregators

• A key building block in distributing content around the internet
• Search aggregation: Content can easily be delivered to you, either on a home page or reader, via RSS.
• News aggregators: available news content on the web ad bundles it together.
• QR codes: Two-dimensional matrix barcode that can be read by an appropriate app on smart phones.

Open API: Refers to the sets of technologies that enable websites to interact with each other.