SociaLNK is based in Oxford, a centre for intellectual debate. We often have the opportunity to be involved in some great talks and discussions. Last month the Oxford Social Media Convention was focused around the impact of social media on the more traditional forms of media. A key talk was that by Richard Sambrook who is director of the BBC Global News Division.
Just as in many other spheres of life he argued that social media is transforming the role of journalism. The media is no longer acting as gatekeeper rather they are involved in sharing the news in a public space. He thinks that the impact of social media is a little over-hyped at the moment but does believe it will make lasting changes to the news.
One of things that he can see evolving is a new objectivity. Although journalism has always been based on trust, in this new media world it is “transparency that delivers trust”. In other words the emergence of news is now seen as almost as important as delivering the news itself. In a sense he is arguing that viewers are becoming much more sophisticated in their news consumption and so the relationship between the news presenters and the public becomes more equal. They no longer need to hide behind a veneer of perfectly presented news stories.
Despite this he does not see the role of the citizen journalist replacing the need for journalism. Journalism is much more than just information. It requires discipline, analysis, research, explanation and context.
Another speaker John Kelly of the Washington Post discussed how the advent of social media was affecting the newspaper industry. He argued that the print media were starting to use social media tools, such as discussion forums, to their advantage to increase the engagement of their readers. Apparently 8% of the Daily Telegraph web traffic now comes from social media.
He brought up the subject of crowdsourcing as a possible source of value for journalism in the future. This is a fascinating topic. Crowdsourcing is a term coined by Jeff Howe in an article (2006) in Wired magazine. He argued that one could apply the open-source principles beyond software. Instead of outsourcing a task to one person you outsource it to a crowd and bring the distributed intelligence of many people to bear.
Of course the famous example of using crowdsourcig in print media was during the MP Expense scandal when the Guardian created a simple site that allowed members of the public to help analyse the 700,000 expense claim documents. Over 20,0000 people participated in finding erroneous data. This incredible free resource enabled the guardian to rapidly carry out much more detailed analysis than they could have afforded any other way.
It seems that the connectedness and transparency that the internet affords is having impacts on every type of organisation. Experimentation seems to be the name of the game at the moment. It is going to be fascinating ride!
