Download - PhD Confirmation
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From Discussion to Action
Enabling Political Change with
Citizen Media
Barry Saunders
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Duty Calls
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Attribution Non-commercial 2.5
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My background
Student media / community radio
Brisbane Indymedia
Activist media
Vibewire
National Student Media Conference
NewStandardNews
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Opportunities in citizen journalism
ARC Linkage Project
QUT, SBS, Online Opinion, Brisbane
Institute, Cisco Systems
http://youdecide2007.org
http://qlddecides.com
Hyperlocal citizen journalism
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http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
The Indymedia Experience
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The problem
Lots of discussion of e-democracy, tends
towards IT implementation and corporate
solutions
Lots of discussion of citizen journalism -
primarily about threats to journalism,
professional identity
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Research questions
What shape does online political discussion
take?
How are political actors leveraging their online
presence through citizen journalism to build
issue publics?
How is citizen journalism being used to bring
citizens in the political process? Is it making a
difference?
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History
Revolutionary democratising technology
Just like handicam, radio, telegraph,
print…
Vision of a utopian fifth estate that kept
tabs on the fourth estate, death of
mainstream media, lower costs to entry
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Reality
Power laws affect readership and
popularity
Massive costs to entry
Popular political blogs dominated by
media professionals and people with
doctorates - economists, lawyers,
scientists, IT professionals
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USA situation
Online engagement in the USA seems to
encourage ‘chronic participators’ to
continue to engage, not necessarily new
people - except in the area of political
donations
Has made interventions into politics - Ron
Paul, Hillary Clinton, Trent Lott
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Australian situation
Less emphasis on personality politics
Tight party control
No presidential race with associated need
for massive fundraising
Culture wars not as virulent
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Concerns
Is there an online public sphere, or cyber-balkinisation?
Echo chamber?
Creation of issue networks, publicspheroids?
Does political discussion lead to politicalaction?
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The blogging experience
http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-04-08--infinite-loop.html
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Common terms
Citizen media
Citizen journalism
Blogging
Issue network
Public sphere
Public spheroid
E-democracy
E-participation
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Framing concepts
Journalism as the sense-making practice
of modernity (Hartley 1996)
Journalism as a human right (Hartley
2006)
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Journalism as a human right
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR)
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes
freedom to hold opinions without interference
and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers (UN 1948)
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Journalism as sense-making practice of
modernity
Notion of liquid modernity (Bauman,Deuze)
‘Zombie journalism’ (Deuze)
Journalism as a work in progress (Hartley)
If journalism is the sense making practiceof modernity, is citizen journalism thesense making practice of late modernity?
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Deliberative democracy
Deliberative democracya form of government in which free and equal citizens ..
justify decisions in a process in which they give one
another reasons that are mutually acceptable and
general accessible
(Guttman and Thompson 2004)
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The media as public sphere
…the media have become the socialspace where power is decided.
What does not exist in the media does not exist inthe public mind, even if it could have a fragmentedpresence in individual minds.
(Castells 2007)
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Literature
Primarily about the decline of quality journalism
Is it the case?
Numerous really important stories published,
little or no reaction
Possibly a recognition by politicians of the
limited power of the press outside of the election
cycle
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The computer wore menace
shoes - the SimpsonsKent: A new Internet watchdog is creating a stir in Springfield.
Mr. "X", if that is real name, has come up with a
sensational scoop.
Homer: [watching at home] Darn tooting!
Kent: But we must never forget that the real news is on local
TV, delivered by real officially licensed newsmen, like
me, Kent Brockman. Coming up: how do they get those
dogs to talk on the beer commercials? [a reporter in a big
cowboy hat appears] Cowboy Steve will tell you!
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Blogging as journalism
Redactive journalism
Journalism made of editing
Problem of too much information rather
than not enough, so explanatory
journalism becomes more important
Role of specialists - psephologists,
statisticians, forensic accountants
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Models of citizen journalism
1. Opening articles up to feedback
2. Citizen add-on reporter
3. Open-source or participatory reporting
4. The citizen bloghouse
5. Newsroom citizen 'transparency' blogs
6. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Edited version
7. The stand-alone citizen-journalism site: Unedited version
8. Add a print edition
9. pro-am hybrid
10. integrating citizen and professional journalism
11. wiki journalism, or readers as editors(Outing, 2005)
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The public sphere
Is online interaction discussion?
Do people engage with other perspectives or
simply solidify / refine existing perspectives?
Do these create issue networks?
Does discussion take place in public spheroids?
Do issue publics form, and if so, how?
Assumptions of good faith and reason
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Youtube
http://xkcd.com/202/Used under Creative Commons
Attribution Non-commercial 2.5
License
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E-government and e-democracy
E-government - government servicedelivery online
Used by repressive states, does notnecessarily lead to democratisation
Much of the literature about ITimplementation and corporate solutions
My interested is e-democracy as e-participation
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Methodology
Triangulation of network analysis, textual
analysis, participant interviews
Network analysis with Issuecrawler /
Vosun
Textual analysis with Leximancer
Semi-structured participant interviews
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Issuecrawler
Crawls network via seed URLs
Have control over URL depth
Can be used to find issue networks, track
one- and two-way links
Raw crawl data available for further
analysis
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Leximancer
Automated textual analysis tool
Can analyse large amounts of textual data
in various formats
Can be tweaked to avoid erroneous terms
Renders useful concept maps
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Interviews
Semi-structured interview
Participant perspectives
Why do they participate?
Does it affect their political thinking?
Does it affect their political engagement?
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Preliminary case studies
2020 summit
Indigenous apology
Leximancer and Issuecrawler analysis
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Issuecrawler
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2020 network
Blogs.com.au
Google search from manually edited list ofAustralian blogs
(Google has odd behaviours regardinggeographical location)
‘2020 summit’ as the search string
First 50 results used as seed URLs and articlesas source data for Leximancer
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2020 detail
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2020 reference
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2020 social network resources
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2020 Leximancer 58% theme size
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Indigenous apology
Same methodology
Search string “Australian Apology
Aboriginals”
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Apology network
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Indigenous central blogs
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outer cluster
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Indigenous Leximancer 68% theme size
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44% theme size44% theme size
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Final thoughts
Utilising the Leximancer and Issuecrawler toolsto map discussion of an issue seems to givesome useful results. Much work is needed to diginto exactly what the results mean and how theycan be used to map discussion; I also need toutilise the time parameter (available within theLeximancer tool) to map how an issue developsover time. While these results still undevelopedand quite simple, the process shows promise.