Digital Arts Service Corps - citizen journalism

developing online communities for education

Stephen Loverme — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:02:02 +0000

One of the main goals for HOME In.c at the moment is to create a community between the students in our different programs (our three partner schools and the TeenTV summer workshop). I feel that the best way to do this is to tap into existing social network rather than trying to create our own. We've tried having a Myspace page for TeenTV but it hasn't caught on. Currently I'm looking into developing a presence on Facebook...creating group pages for TeenTV and each media lab. I'd like to have each media lab have it's own group that is affiliated and shares membership with the main TeenTV group. Hopefully in this way students from different schools can network with one another.

I'm also developing some curriculum materials around blogging and citizen journalism. Working with a journalism class, the stories published in the school newspaper will also be published on the web via a blog, with some stories being developed into video pieces for the school TV show. Ideally the school's paper (The Brighton Banner) will have an online audience that will enage with one another and the authors discussing the articles and issues within the school and the community.

Crossposting from PCM blog: A crash course on citizen journalism

Denise Cheng — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:42:43 +0000

I wrote this for my PCM blog and thought it might be interesting food for thought as a field report. The context for traditional journalism when participatory journalism appeared was one of threat. Ultimately, journalists realized that regardless of how they might disparage it, this participatory movement was here to stay and expand. A couple of years later, it's a way of life and a given when it comes to the Internet. Since I've been working at PCM, I've also been thinking about how social media/participatory journalism have not only been threats to traditional journalism but also to community media centers that cannot or choose not to adapt to the Internet as a distribution platform. Why is this? Because although community media centers have aimed to do for their constituencies what the Internet has allowed anyone with a connection to do (that is, to create media and have a distribution platform), the Internet does it on a much bigger scale and isn't concerned so much with the quality of production as much as it is the content. Fancy jib cams, twenty-inch lenses, top-notch microphones... none of those are necessary to create good media. Thanks to the Internet, media's become very DIY, and community media centers must not only latch on, they have to be ahead of the curb if they want to stay relevant.

A CRASH COURSE ON CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Or participatory media, as I like to call it, for more inclusive reasons.

One of my favorite quotes about participatory journalism is from Macromedia founder Marc Canter. “Five percent of the populace (probably even less) can create. The others watch, listen, read, consume. I think one of the destinies of digital technology is to enable the other 95% to express their creativity somehow. That’s the gestalt view.”

Back when I was in college, I wanted (and still entertain the idea) to be a journalist. Right before my senior year, a movement was beginning to gather steam, a movement called citizen journalism.

“Who are these people?” Lev Grossman posed in Time’s 2006 Person of the Year article. “Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak fries at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion? The answer is, you do.”

Everywhere I looked, on magazine covers, front pages and home pages, I saw three words: “Print is dead!” Columbia’s Dean of Journalism Nicholas Lemann was not in such a rush to support the statement. In his mind, it was amateur hour, where at its best, you might get a couple of decent opinions, but more brilliant and polished insights on the matter are already available in the papers. He echoed the thoughts of many journalists at the time.

So who are citizen journalists and why do they do what they do? Here’s where the term “citizen journalism” falls apart. The term was coined by academics trying to name something they saw, a something where everyday people were creating worthwhile media distributed on the Internet. Other terms for it are participatory journalism, pro-am journalism and grassroots journalism. Of those that frame the movement in terms of journalism, I believe the most encompassing name is participatory journalism (Aside: In my personal opinion, the biggest reason citizen journalism isn't an adequate term is because "citizen" denotes geography, and this doesn't take into account diasporas, immigrant identities, or the unfortunate few who aren't protected under any citizenship).

Of course, there are many bloggers who see themselves as the alternative to mainstream media, but why participatory journalism? Well, the Baghdad Blogger put it best. His blog, Where is Raed? was the go-to source for on-the-ground information during the War on Iraq. As an Iraqi citizen, he had access to areas that even the most high-power
journalists could not wander into.

“[Blogs are] good because they seem like small windows in to how people are living and thinking in the outside world. I also realized that there’s nothing coming from the Arab world. So I thought I’d start one. To give something back to the blogging community … Honestly, I’m not comfortable with the idea that I am considered a ‘news source.’ I am just blogging. A blog is where you can make the news more real for you… for me.”

The Baghdad Blogger wasn’t blogging with the intent of becoming an authority; he was writing what he saw in his little corner of the world in spite of politics, research and statistics. His accounts enhanced that greater entity called news. His facts were sensory ones.

“Let me tell you one thing first,” he wrote. “War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sounds of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your ‘imminent liberation’ anymore.”

Since graduating college, I’ve come across a couple of new terms: Web 2.0, social media, new media. All of this thanks to my position with Portland Community Media as the New Media Vista. Ultimately, all of these are very similar to participatory journalism, where normal and average people are choosing what goes on their front pages (Digg, Newsvine, Reddit) instead of journalists, where commenting on blogs can create a sense of community. Where people are fulfilling their need to share and create. Simply put, social media, new media and Web 2.0 are all terms referring to media that is driven by social desire and positive reinforcement. This media encourages dialogue and collaboration and uses technological tools to reinforce human social relationships. The difference between citizen journalism and social media are simply how they are phrased: One looks at everything from a social interaction perspective while the other focuses specifically on journalism.

This is clearly a powerful force, one that journalists, community media centers and marketers are trying to harness. At first, journalists begrudgingly accepted citizen journalism’s de facto existence, but are now scrambling to find a way to reinject the social aspect into news in order to secure their survival, which is ironic because news is ultimately about people. To understand this, it must also be understood that the way mainstream media have progressed in the last century is akin to a soup kitchen: The public was served predetermined headlines and portions with little say in what they wanted to have. It was an experts-to-advisee system. Broadcaster to consumers.

Ultimately, the best citizen journalism and social media sites seem to keep three things in mind. One, that your public is a capable public with interesting and valuable information to share. Two, that everyone craves community and positive reinforcement. Three, that everyone--from the site’s members to the site’s administrator and hosting company--is both the broadcaster and the audience. Any social media or citizen journalism site takes a lot to maintain, but if participants are invested enough in the content they create, the quality and the warm fuzzies they get from social exchange, they can ultimately become monitors who watch out for vandalism of their media forum (i.e.: Wikipedia).

For further reading, check out:

Press Think by Jay Rosen
We the Media by Dan Gillmor
We Media by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis
Social media business strategy and more by Chris Brogan
Alltop - Top Social Media News

Learning from other projects

Julie Adler — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:08:11 +0000

I was in DC over the weekend at a grantee meeting. The following is a reflection from my CCTV blog for those who are working on and thinking about citizen journalism projects:

On Saturday, April 5th, J-Lab staff invited its 2007 New Voices grantees to Washington, DC to share program successes and challenges. Some of the grantees have learned valuable lessons so far -- insight that we can definitely use as we look ahead to the future of the NeighborMedia project.

New Castle NOW in Chappaqua, NY, like NeighborMedia, is trying to fill a news and information void in the community. "People do not know what's going on out there," says project editor Ann Marie Fallon. In a community driven by its public school system, the site strives to inform people so they won't be "afraid to participate in the discussion." New Castle NOW, which runs on Expression Engine. features real voices because residents are not interested in "pretend reporting," but does not currently allow its users to comment on posts. One challenge the project has faced is a digital divide issue: People above a certain age can't always figure out how to navigate around the site.

Jeff South of Greater Fulton News says his citizen journalism initiative, a Wordpress site covering an area of Richmond, Virginia, requires registration for top-level posts, but not to post a comment -- unlike NeighborMedia, which requires registration even for commenting. South's project is making strides into multimedia by having local students produce news packages; though he has offered training to residents on using flip video phones with built-in USB ports, it appeared that as with NeighborMedia, his bloggers have for the most part stuck to text and photo submissions.

OurTahoe.org is another project that depends on student reporting to cover issues that surround Lake Tahoe, California. Students receive disposable cameras to take photos for the site. OurTahoe.org was built in Drupal and had to be redesigned in Wordpress after Donica Messing received feedback that the Drupal platform was not very easy to use.

NewsDesk on AccessSF has been "chockfull of challenges," according to project coordinator Carter Paige. The access center has been recruiting not individuals but non-profit organizations to participate in training sessions and produce media. But creating relationships with organizations who are willing to dedicate a representative from their staff to four hours of training (2 hours of instruction plus 2 hours of practicum) has proved difficult.

Looking ahead

Julie Adler — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:02:32 +0000

Things in Cambridge are great. It's hard to face the reality that it's winding down soon. We are going to be shooting 3 more episodes of YVC, and then at the end of May we will wrap up production. NeighborMedia (the pilot round) will also finish up around that time, to leave time for the programmatic reflection/re-imagining/tweaking/re-development process. My goals for the next 2 months are as follows.

- To finish doing NeighborMedia outreach. We still need to hit a lot of neighborhoods. Our grand plan was to kill all the birds with one stone by presenting at the ACN (Assoc. of Cambridge Neighborhoods) meeting, but unfortunately the leader of that group fell ill and the next meeting is postponed indefinitely.
- To get the four citizen journalists who still have not produced any web video to put together some sort of multimedia package for the site. This could be just audio or a digital story, but text and photos alone don't count.
- To document, document, document.
- To gain some insight next weekend at the New Voices Grantee Meeting in Washington, D.C.

When I return from D.C. I will be meeting with the CCTV "steering committee" (that's made up of the 3 org. staff members with "director" in their title) to figure out a grand plan for moving ahead. Another specific action item we are trying to move forward with is getting promotional postcards made.

Anyone out there have decent design skills?

The latest from Cambridge, Mass.

Julie Adler — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:40:22 +0000

It seems I'm about four field reports behind, so I’m providing four links that will help explain what I’ve been working on. The first two relate to my organization’s citizen journalism project and the last two to the youth video journalism club I work with.

1. NeighborMedia citizen journalism site
The third quarter of my VISTA term has been focused on outreach for NeighborMedia. I have been working with our citizen journalists, one neighborhood at a time, to identify outreach opportunities in their zip codes. We are promoting the project as a source of news and information, while trying to stress the participatory nature of the media in the hopes that people will get involved. Due to the civic-mindedness of the people in the program, engaging community members in issues they’re covering has been successful. The only problem is that many of our cit-jos simply do not have the time to be the sole correspondent – or one of two – in their area. It is a full time job, they say, which is why our model is not working as well as others have, and we are looking to re-examine the direction of the project. Some of the stories covered so far: holiday festivals, neighborhood development issues, traffic calming and snow emergency regulations.

2. NeighborMedia episodes
Each month, we try to put together the best of the content that was produced the previous month. Since much of the video content comes from BeLives (30 minutes on the hot set), we are trying to get creative so the show is not just talking heads. I have been rounding up staff members (including myself) to voice over blog entries, and I have an intern who helps me lay the voice track over photographs the cit-jos have taken. We have been assigning production mentors to work 1-on-1 with participants who seem to have the time but just not the know-how to produce video yet. Many of the cit-jos come from backgrounds in print journalism, so the transition to multimedia has been a real challenge for them.

3. Youth View Cambridge
This is the online archive of our new student newscast at Cambridge Educational Access, a media arts organization affiliated with Cambridge Rindge and Latin H.S. In terms of progress, I feel that we have come a long way. (By we, I mean myself and the CEA staff members I am working with.) Since this is an after-school program and that doesn't leave much room for a training program, we have started to really focus attention on certain students based on their strengths, interests and availability. Instead of reaching out for fresh talent, we are trying to make the most of the students we have, because by investing time in them it's more likely they'll stay involved throughout their high school years. (None are seniors.) There is a group of work-study students at the Media Arts Studio where are based, and we consider them part of our Video Journalism club because they often serve as the crew who goes out and shoots stories for the reporters who don't get paid. These students have some degree of technical expertise. What we realized was that one of them was weaker in the production sense, so we recruited him to instead be a key player on the news team (Associate Producer). He gets paid twice as much to do this, and he's a sophomore, so the hope is that he will really soak up a lot of knowledge and be able to pass it on in the coming years.

In other news, we recently tried to do a live-to-tape studio shoot, but it was unsuccessful, so we are trying to figure out how to get organized and make that happen. We found that it keeps students on their feet, so it has the potential to make shoots go more smoothly.

4. YVC blog
We set up this blog as a forum for story ideas and students’ thoughts, but instead it became a good way for us to document recent developments with the video journalism club. As you’ll see in the blog, we took a field trip to channel 5 in Boston where one of our other club leaders works part-time. He gave us a great tour and students had the opportunity to view the live newscast from the studio and control room. Also since the new year, a new program began that was supposed to be part of my VISTA work-plan but had to be cut out due to time constraints. Instead, the idea – to create a news program for 6th-graders – was tweaked and is now being run by one of the media teachers. She is teaching a few 11-year olds basic video news production skills so they can produce segments for YVC.

Another youth media milestone for me was a cyber-discovery that I made: hsbj.org, an offshoot of highschooljournalism.org, which led me to the RTNDF broadcast journalism teacher listserv. The messages that come through are often very helpful, making the listserv an extremely valuable resource for the high school broadcast journalism community.
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(In news unrelated to my VISTA work, CCTV is hosting a Digital Divide pilot project in collaboration with the city and an educational nonprofit. Participating residents in a low-income housing development are receiving free wireless, refurbished computers and computer training. It's been a really interesting project to watch unfold, especially because it's so in line with the CTC VISTA mission!)

NeighborMedia to the max

Julie Adler — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:56:19 +0000

Disclaimer: The following CTC*VISTA work product requires several hours per week of grueling 1-on-1 meetings with super-opinionated people, endless hours of preparation for grant reports, and a schedule that is nearly impossible to share with any other VISTA project. Do not try this at home...(or a host org without an incredibly supportive staff!)

CCTV’s NeighborMedia project, your latest source of Cambridge news and information, has a mission: to foster the type of participatory atmosphere that’s been created by bloggers and YouTubers all around the world. That means our group of citizen journalists want to hear from you about the issues they’re exploring. Click on the NeighborMedia video channel at any time to read their stories, watch their videos, and find out how to get involved!

In the month of October, our citizen journalists generated a plethora of stories not covered in the mainstream media. Now, it's a brand new month, and that means new stories are being posted each and every week. Here are a couple of the best to give you a taste of what's to come:

In East Cambridge, our correspondents are investigating the role of the Mirant Corporation in the construction of a new boardwalk on the Broad Canal. If you have a stake in this issue, attend the November 8th BZA meeting and let your voice be heard.

In the Agassiz neighborhood,the future of Shady Hill Square is in dispute. Give our North Cambridge correspondent your two cents!

The above is from a recent blog entry at cctvcambridge.org and is meant to be a tool to help us use digital media for community organizing. Please disregard the fact that the digital media itself is at a minimum, as we are still in the early phases of the project.

A Citizen Journalism Class Template from CCTV

Julie Adler — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:01:42 +0000

Here's a handy 6 page handout on citizen journalism class put on by CCTV

NeighborMedia orientation materials - Cambridge Community Television

Beat

Julie Adler — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:33:07 +0000

Well it's been awhile since I've posted, and I know I could just copy and paste from my CCTV blog, which I'll do eventually (once I get back to writing longer blog posts instead of just the snippets I've had time to do lately). For now I must say: I am beat. I've never worked so many days in a row in my life, and it's all because I just held the orientation (Saturday, 9/8) and first training session (Sunday, 9/9) for citizen journalists for our new program, NeighborMedia. It went well, but I'm at the point of expiration. I will probably advantage of the Jewish New Year tomorrow to rest and restore.

We're starting to launch CEA programs too (the youth newscast component of my VISTAness), which is something I've been putting on the back burner that I really need to start focusing on. Thankfully there are some other staff members working on those projects with me, so I'm not alone in that endeavor.

Anyway, I'm thinking about posting some of my orientation materials on the wiki but I don't know how useful it would be to anyone else. I'd like to attach the file here but that's not working either (help?), so you can just check it out in my blog at http://www.cctvcambridge.org/node/1814. Does anyone know if there are other citizen journalism projects going on in the ctc vista world?

Some Examples of Digital Media Curricula Created by VISTAs

lauren bratslavsky — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:08:25 +0000

Here's some curricula and/or handouts created by VISTAs:

Shot Composition Packet (Media Bridges - Lauren)
MOSAIC, Digital video bootcamp (english high school) (HOME Inc - Kevin/AJ)
Digital Photography Course Packet (Media Bridges - Lauren Bratslavsky)
Media Literacy (Project Think Different - Colleen)
Basic Computer Skills (Shaneka)
PhotoBooth (Media Bridges - Lauren)
Digital Storytelling (Center for Digital Storytelling - Jessica)
?? (Computers 4 Kids - Ray)
Video (Reelworks - Will)
After school Curriculum with a Radio Station (Lashanda)
Creating a Youth Online Radio Station (Pink House - Renae)
tips/forms for student project management

Also, here's some curricula used/recommended by VISTAs from other sources:

Adobe website
Youth Learn (EDC)
CTCNet Resource Center
Danielle's Curriculum links on Delicious

Need basic curricula templates/guides?

Blogging Workshop at Media Matters: Writing Conference

danielle martin — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 18:43:48 +0000

Colin Rhinesmith (ACME Boston / Berkman Center / Emerson grad student / podcast genius) and I presented a quick one hour workshop today on blogging for teens and journalism teachers at today's Blogging Workshop at Media Matters: Writing Conference For High School Teachers & Teens, sponsored by the Boston Globe here on the UMB campus. The event was co-sponsored by Project Think Different, home of former CTC VISTA Cara Powers and current VISTA Colleen Kelly. The group seemed interested in how to get the word out about blogs once they're up. Colin and I posted the outline on the ACMEBoston blog, along with folks ideas of how they might use blogging in the future.

PS - Check out the cool presenter gift I got...oooo the sparkly globe.