Community PlanIt turns civic engagement into a game — and the prize is better discourse. If you’ve ever attended a Boston school committee meeting, you know that it can be the opposite of “bowling alone.” This community is not only engaged but raucous: At one meeting, protestors carried in a casket and tombstone to symbolize budget cuts. At another, parents fought with police trying to block a packed chamber. Fed up with the booing and shouting and constant interruptions, the committee drafted a code of conduct to try to keep people in line.
But along with trying to curb negative behavior, the committee is trying a civic-media experiment aimed at generating positive behavior. The platform was created by Eric Gordon, an Emerson College professor who has done a lot of work with civic media and gameification at his Engagement Game Lab. Users log in to find a familiar social dashboard that displays recent activity. Participants are asked to answer cerebral multiple-choice questions and essays, some with graphics and maps. Users earn “tokens” for completing activities. Why We Need the New News Environment to be Chaotic - NewsTrust.net. The business environment for newspapers continues to be grim. Pew recently reported that advertising revenue rebounded in 2010 for all forms of media, except newspapers. * This might just be a matter of transitioning from print to digital revenues but for the fact that the market values a print reader far more than a digital one.
The more or less official label for this problem is “analog dollars to digital dimes”; because of the enormous difference in assumed value per reader, lost value from print is not made up for by gains in digital readership. The ‘analog dollars to digital dimes’ problem doesn’t actually seem to be a problem. It seems to be a feature of reality. Digital revenue per head is not replacing lost print revenue and, barring some astonishment in the advertising market, it never will. Seeing this, several people have started looking for ways to exit that market.
One proposed response is to radically reform newspapers as both organizations and businesses. Community: A New Business Model for News. A few years ago, Public Radio International coaxed its most popular host, Ira Glass of "This American Life," into digital cinema. Ira had already expanded his famed radio program into a traveling stage show that toured a dozen cities a year. With this new idea he would perform one show and beam it live to hundreds of movie theaters around the United States at the same time. Efficient, yes, but would it be appealing, Ira wondered. After all, people came to see him and even hoped to meet him. So would they come and pay $20 a ticket? They came in droves. This isn't a brilliant new insight. Connection as a Strategy We are social beings. Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University who studies the effects of the Internet on society, writes eloquently of how technology is unleashing the greatest wave of social communication and collaboration in our history.
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the icons of the social economy. Community, Not Audience. Focusing a New Kind of Journalism on a City’s Needs. “Taking Charge of Our Story,” a public forum organized by New Detroit, inspired the idea behind Detroit143. Photo of The Supremes courtesy of The Detroit News. Poster design by Story Worldwide. “A New Partnership to Build a Common Understanding”- Shirley Stancato “Advertising as Storytelling—So News Stories Can Be Told”- Kirk CheyfitzCheck in with journalists who have spent part of their careers in Detroit—there are a lot of us—and you'll often hear the phrase, "Hell of a news town!
" Indeed, the Motor City is packed with the edge and drama that drives compelling accounts of politics, race, crime, corruption, sports and the highs and lows of one of the nation's most important and storied industries. It's been 35 years, but I've never forgotten the thrill of jumping on the Woodward bus and spotting people reading my story in that morning's Free Press. In my heart, I just knew they were exclaiming to themselves, "Holy Cow! " But it's not enough. Journalism and Civic Engagement. Online comments: ‘Our goal of civility is falling short’ A Monday story headlined "Israel fires on pro-Palestinian protesters; 20 reported killed" drew more than 700 comments in its first three days online. As with many stories about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the comments had moved far beyond the news report and had devolved into personal attacks and hateful speech.
On Thursday afternoon, comments on the article were restricted, which means they'll only be posted with a moderator's approval. A note in the comments section from Reader Engagement Editor Martin Beck says, "It's our opinion that this discussion has run its course. And moderators will be setting a *very* high bar for approval of any more comments. " The Times is committed to allowing an online discussion.
Comments on news articles (as opposed to blogs) run through an automated profanity filter, then are posted automatically. More often than not, this works. Monday's article about the protesters was no exception. Another problem is off-topic comments that turn hateful. Open Wire - open-wire. Ideas & Innovations The writing on the wall: Why news organizations are turning to outside moderators for help with comments. When a news organization decides to have someone else deal with their online comments, it’s sometimes seen as waving the white flag or the equivalent of dumping a problem child at a boarding school. (And that’s before the word “outsourcing” starts getting thrown around.)
But look at it from the angle of time and resources in a newsroom: Would you rather have online staff spend their time playing traffic cop in the comments or producing work for the site? It’s straightforward arithmetic, though somewhat slanted depending on the value you place on comments (i.e., whether you think they contribute to your site) and whether you have money. To borrow a line from The A-Team, “If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire…comment moderators.” Most recently, The Boston Globe joined NPR and the San Francisco Chronicle as clients of ICUC Moderation Services, a Winnipeg-based company that deals in, as the name hints, moderating online content. Barroom meetings one way St. Louis Beacon engages people where they really are.
When the St. Louis Beacon launched three years ago, its staff made a conscious effort to get out into the community. They wanted to engage with readers not just online, but in person — at museums, coffee shops and hipster bars. The nonprofit site, which covers a range of topics in the St. Louis region, frequently hosts meetups for community members who want to talk about diversity. And it has created local partnerships that have enabled it to reach new audiences in-person, online and on air. Recently, I talked with St. Meeting with members of the community Every other Monday, Duffy heads to a local bar to lead a conversation about diversity. The conversations tend to attract a variety of community members, ranging from college students to an octogenarian college professor. Duffy, who’s sometimes joined by other Beacon staffers, said he’s developed a connection with participants by sharing his own experiences.
Freivogel said it helps that the St. Partnering with the local museum.