Session

in Workshop
Time Thursday, 02:00PM - 04:00PM
Room Workshop Room 4
Chair Anne Shann Yue Cheung
Speaker Christopher Anderson
Speaker Wolfgang Schulz
Respondent Karl-Heinz Ladeur
Respondent Lorenz Matzat

Intermediaries in Public Communication – Traditional Roles in Transition - Part 1 + Part 2

Part 1: Algorithms and Journalism

The way how information is retrieved, selected, filtered and edited is increasingly described and controlled by algorithms . The idea of this workshop is to consider algorithms as a new object of news that intersects with both journalistic practices and products, and ultimately affects the very definition of journalism itself. Future research on that key research domain should cross national borders as well as disciplinary ones. Therefore, this workshops aims to bring together scholars from the fields of e.g. computer science, law and regulation, and journalism studies to discuss and research that fundamental development.

We have identified a number of research questions. Here are the top 5:

  • How are algorithms influencing journalistic work routines in terms of both gathering and presenting news?
  • How do open data /transparency initiatives in different counties influencing computational / data journalsim?
  • What are some of the key algorithmic processes affecting journalism today (both from within the news indusstry and from outside it?). How are these algorithms constructed as man-machine hybrids? How do they intersect with editorial practices?
  • Do levels of field-specific capital (financial, cultural, etc) affect the uptake of computational journalistic practices?
  • Is there a "computational journalistic" culture? Is distinct from traditional journalistic culture?
Potential items tor future research include:
Transformations in Journalism Education and Newsroom Socialization: Given that
journalists are now confronted with a series of new digital objects, sources of evidence, and
methods of quantitative analysis, will the training of journalism (either formal or informal)
change accordingly? How are journalism schools seeking to adapt their curricula to face
these new empirical and methodological challenges? And can we compare these shifts in
education and sociolization across time; for instance, to the rise of so-called “precision
journalism” and “computer-assisted reporting” in the 1970s and 80s (Meyer 1991)?
Comparative Analysis ot Political System Transparency initiatives and their Impact on
Journalism: In the United States, there have been a number of recent government led
initiatives to push tor greater transparency of public information and government data
(Schudson 2010). Obviously, however, pubic-sector attitudes towards transparency differ
cross-nationally (see differing attitudes towards the Google Streetview program in the United
States and Europe, just to name one recent example). And to the degree that public-sector
data transparency affects journalism, different attitudes towards that transparency will
affect journalism differently. Analysis of computational journalism as embedded within
political systems, then, should be approached from a Gross-national perspective as well. This
line of analysis would obviously consider legal and regulatory questions as well.
Computational News Routines: Scholarship on journalism in the internet age has begun to
make considerable progress in understanding the manner by which larger changes in
communicative systems (the so-called change from a one-to-many to a many to-many
informational System) are impacting newswork (see Singer et. aI. 2011). Little research has
yet been done, however, on the way that algorithms and computational practices are
affecting news routines, individual rivalries, bureaucratic divisions, and daily process
imperatives in newsrooms. Ethnographic research of this sort would go a long way to
advancing our understanding of computational journalism. lt would also be interesting to
compare newer and older research.
Technologies and Tools Adapted by Journalists: How do journalists understand their own
technological tools? What cultural meanings do they invest in algorithms, data extraction
analysis, and other “objects” of computational work? And do their understandings of what
news is and the role it plays in society change as a result? This research would adopt the
technological and culturalist perspectives on computational journalism outlined above. Such
work would explore at least three areas:
the intersection between imagined values and engineering design during the
construction of journalistic artifacts,
the hybrid nature of newsroom sorting and filtering technologies,
and the changing status of journalistic evidence fostered by the increase in
evidentiary forms in the digital age.
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Potential items tor future research include:

  • Transformations in Journalism Education and Newsroom Socialization: Given thatjournalists are now confronted with a series of new digital objects, sources of evidence, andmethods of quantitative analysis, will the training of journalism (either formal or informal)change accordingly? How are journalism schools seeking to adapt their curricula to facethese new empirical and methodological challenges? And can we compare these shifts ineducation and sociolization across time; for instance, to the rise of so-called “precisionjournalism” and “computer-assisted reporting” in the 1970s and 80s (Meyer 1991)?
  • Comparative Analysis ot Political System Transparency initiatives and their Impact onJournalism: In the United States, there have been a number of recent government ledinitiatives to push tor greater transparency of public information and government data(Schudson 2010). Obviously, however, pubic-sector attitudes towards transparency differcross-nationally (see differing attitudes towards the Google Streetview program in the UnitedStates and Europe, just to name one recent example). And to the degree that public-sectordata transparency affects journalism, different attitudes towards that transparency willaffect journalism differently. Analysis of computational journalism as embedded withinpolitical systems, then, should be approached from a Gross-national perspective as well. Thisline of analysis would obviously consider legal and regulatory questions as well.
  • Computational News Routines: Scholarship on journalism in the internet age has begun tomake considerable progress in understanding the manner by which larger changes incommunicative systems (the so-called change from a one-to-many to a many to-manyinformational System) are impacting newswork (see Singer et. aI. 2011). Little research hasyet been done, however, on the way that algorithms and computational practices areaffecting news routines, individual rivalries, bureaucratic divisions, and daily processimperatives in newsrooms. Ethnographic research of this sort would go a long way toadvancing our understanding of computational journalism. lt would also be interesting tocompare newer and older research.
  • Technologies and Tools Adapted by Journalists: How do journalists understand their owntechnological tools? What cultural meanings do they invest in algorithms, data extractionanalysis, and other “objects” of computational work? And do their understandings of whatnews is and the role it plays in society change as a result? This research would adopt thetechnological and culturalist perspectives on computational journalism outlined above.

Response paper by Karl-Heinz Ladeur:

 

Part 2: The New Structural Transformation of Public Spheres - Challenges for Information Law

Publicity has changed in a way that can almost be called structural through some forms of online communication. Especially social media have created new types of public spheres. This leads to structural problems in processing it from a legal point of view. Courts had, to take an example, to deal with student-teacher-communication in a classroom put on a social media platform. One section of the workshop will revolve around those problems in this paper and discuss possible regulatory measures which have either already been taken or are works in progress.

Top 5 Research Questions

We have identified a number of research questions. Here are the top 5:

  • How do new sources of information and their use affect the publicagenda?
  • What legal concepts are at hand to cope with conceivable structuraltransformation of public spheres?
  • What approximations are adequate as starting points for legalregulation of internet services?
  • What do we know about social norms and there interaction withformal legal norms as regards behavior in the internet?
  • How can knowledge on the structure of public spheres created byinternet services be made available for the legal system to guaranteeadequate conflict solving?

 

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