The promise of computational journalism

Computational journalism involves the application of software and technologies to the activities of journalism, and it draws from the fields of computer science, the social sciences, and media and communications. New technologies may enhance the traditional aims of journalism, or may initiate greater interaction between journalists and information and communication technology (ICT) specialists. The enhanced use of computing in news production is related in particular to three factors: larger government data sets becoming more widely available; the increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous nature of software; and the developing digital economy. Drawing upon international examples, this paper argues that computational journalism techniques may provide new foundations for original investigative journalism and increase the scope for new forms of interaction with readers. Computer journalism provides a major opportunity to enhance the delivery of original investigative journalism, and to attract and retain readers online.

Globally networked public spheres? The Australian media reaction to WikiLeaks

The global release of 250,000 US Embassy diplomatic cables to selected media sites worldwide through the WikiLeaks website, was arguably the major global media event of 2010. As well as the implications of the content of the cables for international politics and diplomacy, the actions of WikiLeaks and its controversial editor-in-chief, the Australian Julian Assange, bring together a range of arguments about how the media, news and journalism are being transformed in the 21st century. This paper will focus on the reactions of Australian online news media sites to the release of the diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, including both the online sites of established news outlets such as The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the ABC’s The Drum site, and online-only sites such as Crikey, New Matilda and On Line Opinion. The study focuses on opinion and commentary rather than straight news reportage, and analysis is framed around three issues: WikiLeaks and international diplomacy; implications of WikiLeaks for journalism; and WikiLeaks and democracy, including debates about the organisation and the ethics of its own practice. It also whether a “WikiLeaks Effect” has wider implications for how journalism is conducted in the future, particularly the method of ‘redaction’ of large amounts of computational data.

Tools and methods for capturing Twitter data during natural disasters

During the course of several natural disasters in recent years, Twitter has been found to play an important role as an additional medium for many–to–many crisis communication. Emergency services are successfully using Twitter to inform the public about current developments, and are increasingly also attempting to source first–hand situational information from Twitter feeds (such as relevant hashtags). The further study of the uses of Twitter during natural disasters relies on the development of flexible and reliable research infrastructure for tracking and analysing Twitter feeds at scale and in close to real time, however. This article outlines two approaches to the development of such infrastructure: one which builds on the readily available open source platform yourTwapperkeeper to provide a low–cost, simple, and basic solution; and, one which establishes a more powerful and flexible framework by drawing on highly scaleable, state–of–the–art technology.

Leveraging social network data for analytical CRM strategies : the introduction of social BI

The skyrocketing trend for social media on the Internet greatly alters analytical Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Against this backdrop, the purpose of this paper is to advance the conceptual design of Business Intelligence (BI) systems with data identified from social networks. We develop an integrated social network data model, based on an in-depth analysis of Facebook. The data model can inform the design of data warehouses in order to offer new opportunities for CRM analyses, leading to a more consistent and richer picture of customers? characteristics, needs, wants, and demands. Four major contributions are offered. First, Social CRM and Social BI are introduced as emerging fields of research. Second, we develop a conceptual data model to identify and systematize the data available on online social networks. Third, based on the identified data, we design a multidimensional data model as an early contribution to the conceptual design of Social BI systems and demonstrate its application by developing management reports in a retail scenario. Fourth, intellectual challenges for advancing Social CRM and Social BI are discussed.

The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This presentation will deal with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I will argue that they have been the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. It will develop this argument in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It will also draw upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Fashion meets journalism : mapping and evaluating Australian fashion media

This study demonstrates how to study fashion journalism from the point of view, that it is its own field of journalism, akin to other journalism beats such as politics, sports and health. There is scope here for comment on the co-evolution of fashion and journalism, leading to ‘fashion journalism’ developing as a distinct field of study in its own right. This research contributes more generally to the field of media and cultural studies, by developing the threepart producer/text/reader model, which is the standard ‘media studies’ analytical framework. The study of fashion media from a cultural studies perspective acknowledges that cultural studies has pioneered the formal study of both journalism and fashion, for instance in studies of women’s magazines; but it has not brought the two areas together sufficiently. What little work has been done, however, has allowed theorists to explore how magazines promote feminism and form culture, which acts as a step in concreting fashion’s importance theoretically. This thesis has contributed to cultural studies by showing the relationship between the corporate industry, of both fashion and media (producer), and the active audience (reader) can be rethought and brought up to date for the more interactive era of the 21st century.

The digital transformation of 21st century news journalism

This paper deals with the transformations that have occurred in news journalism worldwide in the early 21st century. I argue that they havebeen the most significant changes to the profession for 100 years, and the challenges facing the news media industry in responding to them are substantial, as are those facing journalism education. This argument is developed in relation to the crisis of the newspaper business model, and why social media, blogging and citizen journalism have not filled the gap left by the withdrawal of resources from traditional journalism. It also draws upon Wikileaks as a case study in debates about computational and data-driven journalism, and whether large-scale "leaks" of electronic documents may be the future of investigative journalism.

Faster than the speed of print : reconciling ‘big data’ social media analysis and academic scholarship

The promise of ‘big data’ has generated a significant deal of interest in the development of new approaches to research in the humanities and social sciences, as well as a range of important critical interventions which warn of an unquestioned rush to ‘big data’. Drawing on the experiences made in developing innovative ‘big data’ approaches to social media research, this paper examines some of the repercussions for the scholarly research and publication practices of those researchers who do pursue the path of ‘big data’–centric investigation in their work. As researchers import the tools and methods of highly quantitative, statistical analysis from the ‘hard’ sciences into computational, digital humanities research, must they also subscribe to the language and assumptions underlying such ‘scientificity’? If so, how does this affect the choices made in gathering, processing, analysing, and disseminating the outcomes of digital humanities research? In particular, is there a need to rethink the forms and formats of publishing scholarly work in order to enable the rigorous scrutiny and replicability of research outcomes?

The democratisation of journalism practice for a politically informed citizenry : the capacities of new media to engage citizens in public life - a case study

This research investigates the extent to which the World Wide Web and the participatory news media culture have contributed to the democratisation of journalism since 1997. It examined the different ways in which public service and commercial news media models use digital platforms to fulfil their obligations as members of the Fourth Estate. The research found that the digital environment provides news organisations with greater scope for transparency, interactivity, collaboration and social networking compared to the traditional print and broadcast platforms.

The pre-socialization of future journalists

While the role of university journalism education in the professionalization of journalists has been extensively debated, systematic and comparative studies of journalism students are still scarce. This paper reports the findings from a comparative study of journalism students in seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. The data show a number of similarities, but also important differences between pre-professional cultures in journalism around the world. The findings are in line with recent conceptualizations of media systems, although some variations and particularities are observed at the country level. While students in all countries reject a loyal approach and favor a citizen-oriented role, they also do so to different extents. Brazilian and Chilean students believe in the citizen-oriented and watchdog roles, whereas their counterparts in Australia, Switzerland, and the United States favor the consumer-oriented approach to a greater extent. Mexican and Spanish students, on the other hand, while supporting the citizen-oriented role, reject the loyal role comparatively less than the rest of the countries.

Representing Death in the News : Journalism, Media and Mortality

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the relationship between the news, media and death. Driven by a perceived ubiquity of death and dying on television, in newspapers and on the internet, many scholars have attempted to more closely examine aspects of this coverage. The result is that there now exists a large body of scholarly work on death in the news, yet what has been lacking is a comprehensive synthesis of the field. This book seeks to close this gap by analyzing the scholarship on death in the news by way of a thematic approach. It provides a historical overview, looks at the conditions of production, content and reception, and also analyzes emerging trends in the representation of death online. This fascinating account provides a much needed overview of what we currently know about death in the news and provides food for thought for future studies in the field.

Tracking spatio temporal movement of human in terms of space utilization using media access control address data

Using Media-Access-Control (MAC) address for data collection and tracking is a capable and cost effective approach as the traditional ways such as surveys and video surveillance have numerous drawbacks and limitations. Positioning cell-phones by Global System for Mobile communication was considered an attack on people's privacy. MAC addresses just keep a unique log of a WiFi or Bluetooth enabled device for connecting to another device that has not potential privacy infringements. This paper presents the use of MAC address data collection approach for analysis of spatio-temporal dynamics of human in terms of shared space utilization. This paper firstly discuses the critical challenges and key benefits of MAC address data as a tracking technology for monitoring human movement. Here, proximity-based MAC address tracking is postulated as an effective methodology for analysing the complex spatio-temporal dynamics of human movements at shared zones such as lounge and office areas. A case study of university staff lounge area is described in detail and results indicates a significant added value of the methodology for human movement tracking. By analysis of MAC address data in the study area, clear statistics such as staff’s utilisation frequency, utilisation peak periods, and staff time spent is obtained. The analyses also reveal staff’s socialising profiles in terms of group and solo gathering. The paper is concluded with a discussion on why MAC address tracking offers significant advantages for tracking human behaviour in terms of shared space utilisation with respect to other and more prominent technologies, and outlines some of its remaining deficiencies.

Mobile phones and media use in Madang province of Papua New Guinea

A mobile phone service was not available to the majority of the population in Papua New Guinea (PNG) until mid-2007. Since that time, commercial competition has been introduced into the mobile telecommunication sector and coverage has spread across many parts of the country. While the focus of this article is on mobile phones, the research has also explored media access and media usage more generally. Analysis in this article adopts the 'circuit of culture' model developed by du Gay et al. (1997). The article is based on data from a survey conducted in 2009 in eight rural villages in Madang Province. The research occurred during the primary stages of mobile phone adoption in these places, providing a rare opportunity to gauge early adoption behaviour and attitudes.

Standards that we can 'own' : Threshold Learning Outcomes for Journalism, Public Relations, and Media & Communication Studies

This paper outlines the progress by the JoMeC (Journalism, Media & Communication) Network in developing TLO (Threshold Learning Outcome) statements for Bachelor-level university programs in the disciplines of Journalism, Public Relations and Media & Communications Studies. The paper presents the finalised TLO statement for Journalism, and outlines moves to engage discipline-based groups to further develop preliminary TLOs for Public Relations and Media & Communication Studies. The JoMeC Network was formed in 2011, in response to requirements that from 2014 all degrees and qualifications at Australian universities would be able to demonstrate that they comply with the threshold learning standards set by the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). The AQF’s threshold standards define the minimum types and levels of knowledge, skills and capabilities that a student must demonstrate in order to graduate. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) will use the AQF’s threshold standards as a key tool in recording and assessing the performance of higher educational institutions, and determining whether they should be registered as Australian Higher Education Providers under the Higher Education Standards Framework. The Office of Learning & Teaching (OLT) places the onus on discipline communities to collaborate in order to develop and ‘own’ the threshold learning standards that can be considered the minimum learning outcomes of university-level programs in that field. With the support of an OLT Grant, the JoMeC Network’s prime goal has been to develop three sets of discipline-specific TLOs – one each for the Journalism, Public Relations, and Media & Communications Studies disciplines. This paper describes the processes of research, consultation, drafting and ongoing revision of the TLO for Journalism. It outlines the processes that the JoMeC Network has taken in developing a preliminary TLO draft to initiate discussion of Public Relations and Media & Communication Studies. The JoMeC Network plans to hand management of further development of these TLOs to scholars within the discipline who will engage with academics and other stakeholders to develop statements that the respective disciplines can embrace and ‘own’.