Nancy Baym of Microsoft Research kicked off the session on the transnational dimensions of spreadable media at MIT8. She gave an insight into her research on musicians and international audiences. Her research takes on the two dominant discourses about music audiences. Listeners are viewed as pirates who steal music or as customers who are not paying enough for music. Baym said both are economic metaphors that position musicians as manufacturers

This year’s Media in Transition (MIT8) conference at MIT addresses question of the shifting nature of the public and the private, kicking off with a panel on oversharing. The panel brings together Feona Attwood, Middlesex University (UK), David Rosen, author and Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard University, moderated by Nick Montfort. Montfort introduces oversharing by talking about how people are voluntarily divulging information online that makes other people uncomfortable. He asks why are people willing to share in this way, but also why

The BBC College of Journalism is a treasure trove of advice, lessons and tips for any budding or experienced journalist. Outside of the UK, it is only available on a subscription basis. The College of Journalism tends to post videos from events on its Youtube channel. But I recently discovered that some of the lessons available through a dedicated website on the main BBC website. Among the videos are various

When data analysis and visualisation goes wrong: The problem with heatmaps, captured perfectly by xkcd.   (Via Danny Sanchez)

This blog has been somewhat neglected over the past few months. My writing energies have gone into working on my new book,  Tell Everyone: How the Stories We Share Shape What We Know and Why It Matters. Tell Everyone shows us how to thrive at a time when our vastly expanded ability to share has given individuals much greater power to influence what is published, changed the way people organize, challenged institutional

At the Neo-journalism conference, Nathalie Pignard-Cheynel of Université Stendhal, Grenoble, presented a study in live coverage conducted with Brigitte Sebbah of the Université de’Metz. The researchers were looking at whether live coverage, or live blogs, can be considered a new form of reporting. For the study, they examined live coverage by Le Monde of the DSK case, which offered an explosive cocktail of sex, politics and power. They looked at 40 hours of continuous

The survey data released by social TV startup Zeebox points to a generational divide over the use of Twitter. Overall, 13 per cent of the UK sample said they used Twitter at least daily compared to 10 per cent in the US. The age breakdown suggests that people between the ages of 16 and 34 are the heaviest users. In the UK, 22 per cent of 16-24 year-olds reportedly use Twitter

Congratulations to all the winners and finalists in the Online Journalism Awards. The General Excellence Awards went to BBC News, The Globe and Mail, Voice of San Diego, NJ Spotlight, OWNI and La Nacion in their  respective categories. The UBC Graduate School of Journalism was a runner-up in the Online Video Journalism (small site category). Here is the full list of winners: Knight Award for Public Service Barnegat Bay Under Stress –

Emily Bell, professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, kicked off the Future of Journalism conference discussing the many futures of journalism. Talking about how we have viewed the profession, Bell argued that journalism is becoming less defined by the businesses that support it than by the activities it involves. She made the good point that arguing who is a journalist

BBC News political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg built up a large following on Twitter with her mix of news, commentary and colour. Her move to ITV News in September has raised questions over who “owns” the almost 60,000 people who follow @BBCLauraK. The Guardian suggests that “rather than handing her old account login back to the BBC to start from scratch with a new ITV account, the sensible thing to do is to