media innovations for individual, community and higher education

Media Ecosystem InnovationsA macro and micro view of individual, higher education and community tools for providing fresh news and information.

Dr. Michelle FerrierScripps College of Communication, Ohio [email protected]; @mediaghosts

mailto:[email protected]

• Associate Dean for Innovation | Associate ProfessorScripps College of Communication, Ohio University, OH; [email protected]; Twitter: @mediaghosts

• Vice President, Journalism That MattersFounder, Create or Die Startup Gatherings

• Founder, [email protected]; Twitter: @localize_nc

• Mother of Google Maps

EducatorEntrepreneurMentorScholarNew Media Innovator

Dr. Michelle Ferrier


Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Elon University, @mediaghosts

My World View

Our Agenda

1. Digital Story Quilt: Creating identity and community online using quilters’ tactics.

2. Media Deserts Project: Way of "seeing" that provides high-level view of the ecosystem.

3. Media Entrepreneurship: Creating pathways to innovation inside and outside the classroom.

4. Digital Scholarship: Representing nonlinear narratives in a nontraditional format.

Dr. Michelle Ferrier, Ohio University, @mediaghosts

Four strategic questions that frame the new challenges and opportunities for media organizations.

Source: The Big Thaw: Charting a Future for Journalism, Deifell, 2009.

The Digital Story Quilt

Alan Kay, an interface designer, poses the question:

“What kind of thinker would you become if you grew up with an active simulator connected, not just to one point of view, but to all the points of view of the ages represented so that they could be dynamically tried out and compared?”

Alan Kay,“User Interface: A Personal View,” The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, 1990.

Practice: The Quilters’ Space

Reflexive, poetic, interpretive practice

Kind of rootedness

Quilts communicate in an intimate fashion across generations

Offers tactics for agency


Through quilt text(iles), women used their constraints n – to create a way of knowing that expanded their domestic rhetoric into a public realm.

Contrary to patriarchal rhetorical styles, this femmage or female collage uses fragments to work in a conductive fashion – a hyperrhetorical movement.


Using six themes of family, nature, ancestry, discipline, community and entertainment, users select multimedia content for each theme.


Fragmentation: Tearing apart that which is seemingly whole into pieces to create place of liminality (in between).

Condensation: Reduction of ideas to icons or symbolic narratives; at level of family unit.

Juxtaposition: Destabilizing, relational nature of narratives, images display complexities.

Improvisation: Kairos; the right suggestion at the right time; yielding to the creative process.

Endurance: Persistence over time.


Users then search the interface using a variety

of search tools. They create a visual quilt top that may be manipulated or “read” to reveal the multiple dimensions of each patch.

Postfeminist Research, Hypertext Theory

Participatory Action: Everyone can speak for themselves and constitute their own subject position.

Dismantling Genres: Shift distinctions between “received categories” so they may be questioned and redefined.

Communal Authorship: Politics of hypertext that is polyvocal that overturns dominant mythology of solitary author.

Recombinant Materials: Creative appropriation of symbology of a culture.

Diane Greco, “Hypertext with Consequences: Recovering a Politics of Hypertext,” ACM, 1996.

Media Deserts Project

Using GIS tools, we map “media deserts” --places where fresh news and information is lacking.

Modeled after the USDA Food Access Locator Map


What is a “Media Desert”?

Working Definition

A media desert is a geographic area that is lacking fresh news and information.

This condition may be as a result of a lack of content, access, language barriers and other issues.

Framework of Analysis I use Lawrence Lessig’s concept

of communications architecture:

CODE: Language, spoken or written or computer languages

CONTENT: News, information, images

CONDUIT: Newspapers, radio, mobile.


Newspaper Layoffs and Buyouts

Year

2007

2008

2009

2010

Layoffs and Buyouts

2,256+ (partial data)

15,992+

14,783+

2,828+

120+ newspapers


More than 120 newspapers have ceased operation in the United States since 2008.

Mapping Newspaper Changes


Methodology

Data Sets

Audit Bureau of Circulation (Alliance for Audited Media) total paid circulation data for daily newspapers in North Carolina from 2007 and 2010/2011.

2000 census data by zip code.

Technologies

Excel spreadsheets

Google Maps

ArcGIS proprietary software


Methodology

Daily Dispatch

Alamance News

Times-News

Winston-Salem Journal

Mount Airy News

News & Record

High Point Enterprise

Sanford Herald

Charlotte Observer

Fayetteville Observer

Salisbury Post

Danville Register & Bee

News & Observer

Asheville Citizen-Times

Richmond County Daily Journal

Wilmington Star-News


Overlapping service areas for 12 newspapers in NC. Three newspapers in our pilot did not have ABC data for multiple years.

Mapping Circulation Data


Average Annual Changein Circulation

-4% 0% 4%

RQ1: Newspaper Circulation Change 2007 to 2011


Results

Household Income

Statistical analysis using Ordinary Least Squares Regression suggests a very weak positive relationship between Median Household Income and Change in Circulation (R2 = 0.16, p < 0.1). A $10,000 decrease in Median Household Income results in a %0.02 drop in Circulation.

Education Attainment

Similarly, the data suggest a very weak positive relationship between the % of people with At Least Some College and Change in Circulation (R2 = 0.12, p < 0.05). A 10% reduction in the number of people with some college results in a %0.08 drop in Circulation.



-4% 0% 4%

% of population with at leastsome college

0% 38% 90%


-4% 0% 4%

Median Household Income

$0 $35,000 $100,000

Greensboro News & Record

Service area for the Greensboro News & Record, according to their 2014 media kit.


Results for News & Record

This region shows erosion around the perimeter of its service area. However, in the core of Guilford County, we also see erosion of the circulation. The newspaper lost many subscribers right in their back yard.


Average Annual Change inDaily Edition Circulation

-4% 0% 4%


The interface design for the public website includes pinpoints of the location of daily newspapers with dot size representing the daily circulation.


After users see the pinpoint data, they can click on a state and see the circulation change rendered by zip code. Users can also compare the circulation on demographic factors.

Hyperlocal Online News Layer

Quantitative Analysis

We examined the reach by zip code of 132 hyperlocalonline news sites.

We collected demographics from 2010 census data and from site-specific demographics as available on gender, education, HHI, and ethnicity.

Qualitative Analysis

We collected “home page” screen grabs of each of the 132 sites for 14 days.

Our content analysis focused on story coverage and on a visual analysis of the sites.


The student work is collected into a wiki, where we can aggregate the content analysis for each hyperlocal online news site. Future work will incorporate geographic reach into the media deserts map.

Hyperlocal Online News Layer


Four strategic questions that frame the new challenges and opportunities for media organizations.

Source: The Big Thaw: Charting a Future for Journalism, Deifell, 2009.

5 Concrete Steps for Media Innovation

Create more venues like Comcast’s DreamIt Ventures and UNITY’s NewU that increase the odds that diverse people and projects can pitch and be heard. As part of this mix, we need incubators that don’t require relocation to Silicon Valley or Boulder, Colorado. A “Bloom where you’re planted” model would bring together training and talent in a geographic space

Develop education and training for the hundreds of potential businesses that wither at the doorways to incubators and pitch sessions. These projects could be successful if provided with nurturing, talent, and access to funds. We need a distributed model, probably online and in physical space, that will help give entrepreneurs just-in-time access to the information and people that can help vet and nurture new ideas.

http://www.dreamitventures.com/

http://unityjournalists.org/newu

5 Concrete Steps for Media Innovation

Create a talent network so that media entrepreneurs can find and build a talented team that has a higher likelihood of success. Content ideas rarely get funded unless they have a strong technology play. Many ideas flounder because of the lack of a tech team early on in the process of product development.

Create a microfund to support application fees and travel fees for potential entrepreneurs to attend and perhaps pitch at the other startup weekends and venues around the country. These small loans, probably of a couple of hundred dollars, will help in identifying media entrepreneurs in need of just the services a robust network can provide.

Create a media corps of new and tested hyperlocal online news publishers to serve underserved and underrepresented communities.


OHIO University Pathways to Innovation

Scripps Innovation Challenge: University-wide student media entrepreneurship competition.

Mobile Module: Two-week module taught by industry expert.

Game Research and Immersive Design Lab: Pre-incubation space for game development teams.

Digital Media Incubator: Early-stage investment in student/graduate companies.


Workshop Question #1

What skills and knowledge do

non-business students need to

know and be able to do?


What structures within the

university can facilitate the

acquisition of these

skills/knowledge?


How do students demonstrate

their learnings in a “published”

format?

Associate Dean for Innovation, Research/Creative Activity and Graduate Studies

Scripps College of CommunicationOhio University

[email protected]

@mediaghosts

Michelleferrier.wordpress.com

Dr. Michelle Ferrier
