In the final research panel at ISOJ, Rosellen Downey, Erika Johnson, and Bailey Brewer, University of Missouri, looked at the coverage in photos of the Japanese tsunami. The study, Through the lens: Visual framing of the Japan tsunami in U.S., British, and Chinese online media, looked at how the Japanese tsunami was reflected in the images of US, British and Chinese media. The researchers examined at 242 photos, 58 from NPR, 52 from the

Here’s the media release on the research I presented at the International Symposium on Online Journalism at UT Austin on Saturday, April 21: A new study shows how far NPR’s Andy Carvin, known as “the man who tweets revolutions,” favoured the voice of protesters in his reporting on Twitter of the Arab Spring. The rigorous analysis of more than 5,000 tweets found that Carvin’s feed gave higher priority to the messages from

At ISOJ, Alberto Cairo, lecturer in visual journalism, University of Miami, raised some critical questions about the visualisation of data in journalism. Cairo explained that an information graphic is a tool for presenting information and for exploring information. In the past, info graphics were about editing data down and summarising it. But this worries me, he says, as it is just presenting information but does not allow readers to explore the

Day two of the ISOJ started off with a keynote by Bob Metcalfe, professor of Innovation and Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise, University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering. He is behind Metcalfe’s Law, which states that a communications network is proportional to the square number of connected users. Metcalfe set the scene by explaining how the internet has been disrupting industries for many years and posing a challenge

Linda Jean Kenix of University of Canterbury in New Zealand presented the results of a study of Samoa Topix at ISOJ. The study,with Christine Daviault, asked the question, Is this the future of online news? An examination of Samoa Topix. Topix describes itself as a place for people to share and talk about the news. The about page says ”Topix is the leading news community on the Web, connecting people to the information and

The first academic presentation at International Symposium on Online Journalism came from Carrie Brown of the University of Memphis. For her study, #Memstorm: Twitter as a community-driven breaking news reporting tool, she looked at real-time flow of information on Twitter during the storms that hit the region. She highlighted how the hashtag, #Memstorm, did not come from the news outlets but from the public. Fox tried to created its own hashtag to brand the storms,

One of my favourite conferences takes place this week at Austin, Texas, the International Symposium on Online Journalism. It stands out by bringing together practitioners and academics, mixing experiences from the newsroom with research from universities. It also has an international outlook, with journalists and academics from Brazil, Finland, Spain, Australia and New Zealand to name a few. Among the keynote speakers is Richard Gingras, head of news products for

Twitter, participation, start-ups, community, networks and trust are among the topics tackled by research papers due to be presented at the International Symposium on Online Journalism at UT Austin in April. The international scope of the research is impressive, with scholars from the US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Finland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The abstracts for the papers have been posted online after a competitive peer review process.Only

An analysis of 43,738 tweets from 1,443 users offers some valuable insights into emerging communication norms on Twitter. The study (PDF) by researchers Paul André of Carnegie Mellon, Michael Bernstein of MIT, and Kurt Luther of Georgia Tech aimed to uncover what makes for a good message on Twitter. The team found that the most valued tweets were informative, funny and encouraged conversation.  Perhaps surprising, they also found that self-promotional messages also elicited a positive response. By comparison,

There is a seasonal theme to this month’s Carnival of Journalism, hosted by The Guardian Developer blog. Journalists are being asked when would be the best present from programmers and developers, and vice versa for developers. It is a key question as it focuses on the intersection of emerging communication technologies and journalistic norms and practices. The way journalists do what they do has always been affected by technology, from the