Alumni Magazine - Summer 2008 - (Page 64) giving rise to an individualized and personal way of receiving news. In terms of content, the trend is driven largely by the spectacular boom in blogging and social networking. Blogs started to catch on in the early 2000s with the availability of free blogging software. By 2005, the Web was populated with 9 million blogs, BusinessWeek reported. Recent estimates peg the total at more than 150 million worldwide, according to Technorati.com, a Web site devoted to reporting on the blogosphere. Bloggers run the gamut from professional reporters to amateur writers who simply want to share a certain perspective or interest with likeminded individuals. But blogging often is, in the broadest sense of the word, journalism. Links to blogs are part of the fabric of interactive stories and news offered at a growing number of Web sites both by established news organizations and entrepreneurial or issue-specific entities. The implications for traditional journalism are far from settled. “The profession of journalism is important to society, and it is changing,” says Amy Bruckman, an associate professor in the College of Computing and a member of the GVU Center. “I believe some people fear that the role of professional journalists is being reduced, but I do not believe that. Quite the opposite. I think their role continues to grow, but it has to change in some interesting and dynamic ways.” Bruckman moderated a panel presentation dealing with social computing and journalism. “It’s hard to think of a topic that’s more important because the ways that we share important information affect who we are as a culture and who we are as a democracy,” she says. At first glance, popular sites such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com may seem to have little in common with news gathering or dissemination. Like blogs, they facilitate direct exchanges between writer and reader — more of a dialogue than the one-way communication model of, say, print media, in which reaction is limited to letters to the editor. Looked at another way, social networks embody the ultimate in local news. Participants talk about the things most important to them — which is often each other and their weekend plans. Journalists ignore the significance of social networks at their peril, according to panelist David Cohn, a recent Columbia School of Journa- “When readers are exposed to different viewpoints, people start thinking, analyzing and asking questions, and I think only good things can come out of that.” — Krishna Bharat lism graduate and new media entrepreneur. He notes what some might consider a generational divide: “More and more we live our lives online — or at least our social lives are happening online.” Thus journalists, who once upon a time hung out at the local barbershop or coffee shop to pick up local gossip and learn what was going on, should come up with ways to get involved with social networks. In short, they need to go to where the people are — and increasingly that’s online social networks. Cohn adapted the social network structure to create a tool for journalists called Beatblogging. org. It allows reporters to create a private social network of their expert sources. “Let’s say a journalist has 30 or 40 sources who live and breathe green technology,” he says. The system makes it easier for the journalist to interact and draw upon the expertise of individual sources, but the network can also support a group dynamic not possible with the traditional one-on-one phone call. “You can create a network where they are talking to each other, and you can either get involved in the conversation or sit back and listen,” Cohn says. Visualization Is Worth a Thousand Words isualization tools take advantage of the Web’s computational power and can help journalists convey news or present background information in ways that are easy for readers to grasp quickly. John Stasko, a professor and director of the Information Interfaces Research Group at Georgia Tech, opened the panel presentations on “Sensemaking and Information Visualization” with a definition: “Visualization is a cognitive process, not just pictures,” he says. “In other words, how do you take lots of information and make sense of it?” To make the point, Stasko projected a map of metro Atlanta on a screen. The map was heavily crisscrossed with lines marking the noisy approach and departure lanes into and out of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport — except for the lower right-hand quadrant, which was conspicuously clear of lines. After pausing a moment to let the audience contemplate the graphic, he says, “Now you know why so many pilots choose to live in Peachtree City.” The sheer volume of information applicable to a particular story can be overwhelming, Stasko V 64 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2008 http://Technorati.com http://MySpace.com http://Facebook.com
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