By Julieta Romero Güeto and Simon Didszuweit
After witnessing investigative journalism almost disappear in Latin America, Peruvian journalist Gustavo Goritti, director of IDL Reporteros, thinks there is now hope for rebirth. Continue reading
By Julieta Romero Güeto and Simon Didszuweit
In Germany 1989, social change started with people gathering in a church. This year in Egypt, cameras and mobile phones played a key role during demonstrations. That’s how Marek Tuszynski, co-founder of the international NGO Tactical Tech Collective, opened the workshop “Navigating the Digital: Getting your Message Heard and Staying Safe” during the second day of the FoME Symposium. Continue reading
By Natalia Lazareva and Eira Martens
YouTube: 8 years of video content is being uploaded every day. Facebook: 250 million of photos are being uploaded every day. Twitter: while in September 2010 about 100 million of tweets were posted daily, their number reached 250 million in September 2011. What will the figures be for the year 2012? This question was posed at the workshop on the Day 2 of the FoMe Symposium by Gavin Sheridan, Innovation Director for Storyful, a news agency for the social media age, based in Dublin, Ireland.
By Gerhard Schneibel and Eira Martens
On Day 2 of the FoME 2011 Symposium, participants joined workshop sessions for a more in-depth look at specific topics. Adam Thomas, of Prag-based Sourcefabric shared with participants some strategies for implementing open source software in their newsrooms.
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By Toqa Pia Hilal, Srinivas Mazumdarum and Eira Martens
The role of social media in past, current and future revolutions is becoming not only a widely discussed but also a highly controversial topic. Highlighting the impact of Facebook and Twitter on supporting the so-called Arab Spring revolutions, the speakers of the session on “Security Threats” portrayed not only the bright side of this rapidly evolving social media usage, but also the ugly side.
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By Mohammed Al-Sarray, Srinivas Mazumdaru and Eira Martens
The second day of the FoME 2011 Symposium started with a discussion on new media platforms and their usage by “traditional” and citizen journalists. According to Ivan Sigal, Executive Director of Global Voices, a non-profit online initiative for citizen media, information now a days flows through complex networks between citizen journalists and media organizations. Partnerships always exist in one way or another.
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By Christine Bukania and Eira Martens
In Africa, where access to technology and the internet is still extremely low, open source software through initiatives like Freedom Fone and FrontlineSMS are turning mobile phones into the major drives for meeting information demands and enabling citizen participation across the continent.
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By Natalia Lazareva, Srinivas Mazumdaru and Eira Martens
Data Journalism was one of the afternoon sessions on Day 1 of the FoME Symposium in Bonn. A diverse mix of speakers discussed the present and future of data journalism: A concept still new to many media and development practioneers.
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By Christine Bukania and Eira Martens
Giving his keynote address at the FoME 2011 Symposium, Justin Arenstein of the Association of Independent Publishers and Rest of the World Media, highlighted: “There is no one future for journalism, there are multiple futures. There is no one platform and there is no one solution.”
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By Gerhard Schneibel and Eira Martens
Mark Thompson, of the Open Society Foundations Media Program, opened the FoME 2011 Symposium with a keynote speech on digital media which his organization is mapping in the 60 countries.
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Mapping Digital Media: Case Studies from Moldova and Macedonia
OSF’s Mapping Digital Media project examines the opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media in 60 countries. The project explores how these changes affect the core democratic function of any media system: providing the public with news about political, economic, and social affairs.
The presentation will briefly introduce the range and methodology of the research project, and present the findings of the first reports completed – highlighting the examples of Moldova and Macedonia. Emphasis will be laid on the effects of digitalization on journalism and the changes in media usage and consumption patterns. In addition some detailed aspects additionally covered by the Digital Media Project will be dealt with, i.e. impact on traditional media and new business models, investigative journalism in the web, the role of mobile technology, etc. Continue reading
Digital Investigative Journalism
The traditional media industry is rapidly changing in western and in developing and transitional countries. In the northern hemisphere models like Pro Publica are still more or less unique. In Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America exists a longer tradition of civil societal organizations and NGO’s, providing an online-driven investigative journalism. Very often they publish their content in own Internet forums and ‘stakeholder’-media. Those organizations provide investigations which the traditional media aren’t capable of achieving and financing anymore. For them the digital media is both a tool for editorial management and publishing their investigations. Normally those organizations are supported either by foreign governmental agencies or foreign private foundations. Very rarely their business model works in a sustainable manner. Continue reading
Data Journalism
Data is playing an increasingly important role in our digital age. Not only the debate around Wikileaks has brought up the question what role journalists play in the creation of transparency and accountability. With the growth of movements for open government and open data, new possibilities and challenges are opening up (not only) for journalists interested to work with open data as a source. Continue reading
Mobile Journalism
The mobile phone may be the one most powerful tool or technology in developing countries today. This session will focus on the topic of mobile technologies for media development and examine how is mobile telephony impacting on media and journalism directly? Two speakers are invited to highlight two aspects of mobile reporting: the gathering and dissemination of information. Continue reading
New Media, New Partnerships?
Citizen Journalists, in particular political Bloggers, are playing an increasingly influential role as opinion shapers and information suppliers in a number of countries. In particular in countries lacking pluralistic and independent media structures, citizen journalists often use the Internet to express opinions who are not voiced in other public media. The group of bloggers who created Ushahidi in Kenya, the regime critical Egyptian and Tunisian Bloggers are just the more prominent examples.
But with everybody being a journalist, the providers of infrastructure and the mere communication networks (i.e. telecom companies) become more important than the traditional broadcasting organizations. Continue reading
Security in the Digital Era
What threats do media organizations and journalists working online need to be aware of and how can they protect themselves? Social Media has become a new outlet for political protest and mobilization against combat governmental suppression. The revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East have shown that state censorship can be circumvented and that the Internet can be a driving force for democratic movements. Continue reading
A Sneak Preview: The Future of Technology and Media in Development
Infrastructure and lack of connectivity are often considered the main problems in developing countries when it comes to using new media. With the mobile revolution and backbone development taking place, this situation may soon be improving significantly.
In this final session, we will attempt a view into the future: What are the trends and visions for connectivity in developing countries and what will be their impact on journalism? The session starts with a brief overview of the recent developments in Internet Infrastructure and mobile Internet in Africa and continue to predict how the situation may evolve over the next five years. Continue reading