Social Media & the Loosening Up of Journalism

Martin Thomas @crowdsurfing

The Loosening Up of Journalism

1. Chaos, complexity & need for speed

2. Emergence of new patterns of collective behaviour

3. New generational expectations

4. New technology

1.Chaos, Complexity & Need for Speed

o Acceleration of news agenda

1952Lynmouth

flood disaster

1988Piper Alpha explosion

May 2008Sichuan

Earthquake

Jan 2009Hudson River plane crash

2 days 1 hour 30 minutes

Real Time

Real Time+

Spring 2011Live blogging during Arab

Spring

Most institutions struggle with Real Timeo Not configured to work in real time, in terms of

resources, structure or culture

One hourOne hour Ten MinutesTen Minutes

* Critical response time for responding to negative comments

Real Time Journalism

• Live blogging• Energising & engaging

(live blogs = 3.6m unique users on Guardian.com, 9% of site traffic (March 11)

v• Messy, unstructured & an insult to real journalism

“I’m fact checking and editing as I do it live. If I wrote something really crazy I’m sure someone would notice it … there isn’t really a way for someone else to get in there & change it …. For the most part it is what it is; here it is live and it is the best we can do.” Robert Mackey, live news blogger, New York Times

2. Emergence of new patterns of collective behaviour

o Capable of delivering political, social or commercial change … without structure or formal leadership

Underlines deficiencies of tight, bureaucratic structures that have to deal with them

Democratisation of Criticism

o Twitter-powered aggregator of amateur reviews

o End of the professional critic?

Collaborative Journalism

“mutualisation” = “getting readers to care about, inform and enhance our coverage” Meg Pickard

From Readers to Collaborators

3. New Generations

o Emerging at top and bottom of corporate hierarchy– Gen X in the Boardroom with a post-Boomer

mindset– Gen Y entering the workplace with new

expectations

Demanding new ways of working

Heightened Expectations

o Speed & responsiveness“The trouble with McDonald’s is it’s too bloody slow”

Instant access, instant response, instant gratification “living life through shortcuts” MTV

4. New Technology

o Social media driving new behaviours & expectations

Demanding new approaches

New Approaches

o Need to embrace new media opportunities without simply recycling old ideas & techniques

Multi-screen Mobile

avoid “trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tools & yesterday’s concepts” Marshall McLuhan

Thriving by Loosening Up

o Operational & cultural traits of successful organisations

TrustingAgileInformal Collaborative

Tight Thinkers Need Not Apply

o Organisations & people that struggle with this new worldHierarchicalBureaucraticProcess orientedDistrustful

Trusting

o Bedrock of strong internal cultureo Allows shared responsibility & real time

decision making

The best company rulebook ever written?

Nordstrom Revisited

“Prescriptive rules have the effect of infantilising staff & make it harder for them to adapt to different situations. This goes as much for digital communications as for selling socks … Like the Nordstrom handbook we’re trusting staff to follow the spirit, not just the letter, of our guidelines”Meg Pickard, writing about The Guardian’s new social media guidelines, November 2010

Agile

o Ability to improvise & operate in close to real time

o Limitations of excessive faith in longer-term planning

o Speed more important than absolute accuracy

Informal

o NPD: Living life in Beta

o Design: Messy vitality

o Creativity: Authenticity more important than production values

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