May 24th, 2013
By Professor Janet Steele
This was one of the most interesting and inspiring speaker trips that I have ever experienced.
I first visited Phnom Penh, Cambodia for three days in October 2012, when I was evaluating the radio program "Asia Calling" for a USAID grant. Although I was only in Cambodia for a short time, it was long enough to make me want to come back. Not only was I captivated by the spirit of the journalists whom I met at the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM), but after visiting S21 and the Choeung Ek Killing Fields, I also wanted to learn more about Cambodia. I wanted to try to understand how the Cambodian people had survived such terrible times, and where they had found the strength to get on with their lives with such remarkable resiliency.
During that first very short visit, I was also struck by the similarities between journalism in Cambodia and what I had observed in other countries making the transition to democracy, especially Indonesia, Malaysia and East Timor. As an American lecturer with considerable experience in teaching about journalism theory and practice in Southeast Asia, I thought that perhaps I could make a small contribution.
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Tags: faculty, faculty_research, journalism, travel
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April 26th, 2013
Last night Professor Jason Osder's documentary, "Let the Fire Burn," won big at the Tribeca Film Festival, taking home the award for Best Editing in a Documentary Feature, as well as a special jury mention for Best New Documentary Director.
The jury said about the film: "'Let the Fire Burn' tells a story we were stunned to realize we didn't know. It offers a time capsule, taking us to a horrific moment in our nation's history with a masterfully structured edit that vividly mines a trove of blistering period archive images without voiceover narration. The film ensures that a criminal and senseless destruction that cost eleven deaths—five children, six adults—shakes us to our core and is remembered with utter visceral power."
The documentary explores the events leading up to and during the 1985 standoff between the extremist African-American MOVE organization and Philadelphia authorities. The police dropped two pounds of military explosives onto a city row house occupied by members of MOVE; even though firefighters were on site, the fire was not fought for over an hour. The clash between groups, destruction of 61 homes and deaths of 11 people devastated the community.
Zeba Blay of Indiewire wrote, "There have been many documentaries comprised entirely out of archival footage, but few as powerfully and masterfully structured as this one... a visually textured and fascinating piece of storytelling that steers clear of editorialization and manipulation by allowing the content to speak for itself."
Tags: awards, documentary, faculty, faculty awards, Jason Osder
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April 11th, 2013
In a Democracy Seminar at Harvard's Kennedy School last week, Professor Dave Karpf highlighted some of the key findings and research on the "MoveOn Effect" in American politics. Highlighting the idea that online politics is neither limited to "clicktivism" nor comprised of "organizing without organizations," Karpf presented evidence the new media environment has given rise to a new generation of political advocacy groups that have redefined membership and fundraising regimes.
For more information, check out Karpf's latest book, The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy.
Tags: faculty, faculty_research, faculty_writing, journalism, political_communication, travel
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December 27th, 2012
To close out 2012, The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard asked some leading media and journalism professionals their predictions for the coming year. Assistant Professor Nikki Usher was one of them. Here's what she said...
Next year, I expect to see more people taking a hard look at whether — and when — paywalls really work. We have seen evidence that they generate revenue (but not nearly enough) at the biggest sites, but I am not sure what the takeaway is for the local level. The harsh reality that hackfests, news startups without business models, and open source and hacker journalism will not provide any financial opportunity may be more clear, even if all this work leads to more reinvention in journalism.
The long slow bleed of money, advertising, and resources from newspapers will continue, and we will see (in less obvious ways) similar patterns emerge for network news. People are excited about partisan and hyper-involved cable news viewers as revenue streams (and niche viewers), but we need to remember just how small, ultimately, these audiences are in the grand scheme. (Fox News averages about 2 million viewers in prime time versus about 20 million or so for the networks.)
Assistant Professor Nikki Usher
To me, the question about partisanship is deeply concerning as these folks (on both sides) are information-seekers, while the majority of people tend to become most involved when an issue presents itself as relevant to their daily life (think the Connecticut school shooting and gun law debates). These information-seeking behaviors are deeply concerning — especially when we think about a decrease in the availability of quality local news. (If, of course, that news indeed was quality to begin with — a presumption we must question.)
It seems to me that David Carr is always right on, and his most recent column suggests a pattern that we will be increasingly cognizant of: that niche is useful — if not hamstery, and can succeed if it isn’t — because it’s niche. But online advertising is still fleeting, and no amount of social metrics canoodling, in my view, is likely to change that — even for Facebook. I would be delighted to be wrong about this.
Tags: faculty, journalism
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November 30th, 2012
During a panel discussion on "Technology on Election Day: From Systematic Observation to Citizen Reporting," Professor Catie Bailard presented some of the work she has done with Professor Steven Livingston on event mapping through the Ushahidi platform. She also explained the impacts and data analysis of recent election awareness efforts in Nigeria.
Tags: faculty, faculty_research, political_communication
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November 20th, 2012
In an effort to provide journalists with the best practices to avoid perpetuating racial stereotypes of African-Americans, the Foundation to Promote Open Society and the Open Society Institute's Campaign for Black Male Achievement awarded a $50,000 grant to SMPA professors Robert Entman and Kimberly Gross along with Andrew Rojecki and Carole Bell.
The grant will fund research and a major public event next year that examines racial appeals and the role of race in the 2012 presidential election with a particular focus on how the news media covered race.
"My colleagues and I are exploring the subtle appeals to some voters' prejudices that have replaced crude, obviously racist messages in politicians' toolkits. Through experiments and close analysis of media images, we'll figure out how to sensitize journalists and citizens to coded racial communications--which we hope will discourage politicians from using such tactics," said Entman.
More details on the research and event are forthcoming.
Tags: election, faculty, faculty_research, faculty_writing, journalism, political_communication
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November 19th, 2012
Professor Steven Livingston gave a lecture today at Addis Ababa University on technology and the Arab Spring.
He spoke about a chapter on which he and Professor Dave Karpf have collaborated for inclusion in a book on the Arab Spring. The students were assigned a draft copy of the chapter for their reading this week.
The professor of the class, Lucas Robinson, is a 2003 SMPA master's program graduate and is completing his PhD at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His spouse is a British diplomat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Tags: faculty, faculty_writing, journalism, political_communication, travel
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October 31st, 2012
On October 25, professors Catie Bailard, Matt Hindman and Steven Livingston spoke at the National Democratic Institute on their analysis of the open-source event mapping platform, Ushahidi Crowdmap.
In collaboration with InterNews, a Washington-based NGO that pursues media development initiatives around the world, Bailard, Hindman, Livingston and SMPA professor Nikki Usher analyzed almost 13,000 Crowdmap deployments over 2010-2011. Crowdmap allows users to plot events to a digital map so that the information can be used in a way somewhat similar to the way they would use information provided by conventional news media coverage. The key difference is found in the self-generated nature of crowdsourced information platforms such as Ushahidi. It is perhaps best thought of as News 2.0.
For example, in the aftermath of a natural disaster Crowdmap allows victims to text in reports of their location and condition. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, thousands of such reports, all displayed on an Ushahidi digital map, helped responders in their efforts to get much needed aid and medicine to victims of the disaster. In the language of the SMPA study, information and communication technology lowers collaboration costs and facilitates collective action initiatives in a wide variety of circumstances, including disaster response. Ushahidi means witness or testimony in Swahili. Crowdmap is a hosted version of the Ushahiidi software. The SMPA/InterNews report will be published soon, so stay tuned for more information.
Tags: faculty, faculty_research, faculty_writing, journalism, political_communication
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October 24th, 2012
By Professor Janet Steele
I just came back to Jakarta from a quick trip to Bandung (in West Java), where I visited the campus of the state Islamic University Sunan Gunung Djati. It's one of 18 state Islamic universities and institutes in Indonesia, and I was there to complete research for an article on journalism education in an Islamic context tentatively titled "Journalism and 'the call to Allah.'"
I was under the impression that I was going to give a brief presentation to faculty on my research into journalism and Islam followed by a discussion, but instead they asked me at the last minute to give a lecture on narrative journalism to 125 students -- all of whom showed up voluntarily. It was very impressive, and quite an event. They made the "spanduk," or banner, with less than 12 hours notice.
Afterwards, I did get to have the "diskusi" with the faculty, and it was a very interesting and productive trip.
Tags: faculty, faculty_research, global communication, journalism, travel
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