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JTM/Silicon Valley: Innovation, democracy and a new ecology of news

How will technology innovation support journalism and participatory democracy?

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Ten technologies disrupting journalism

What are the 10 technologies or applications with the most potential to disrupt traditional journalism -- to create opportunities and challenges? We've started a list here. You can use the wiki edit function to add or edit this page, or email suggestions to jtm@mediagiraffe.org.

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To help identify types of technologies which might be most helpful -- or harmful -- to the future of journalism, consider these WISH LISTS.

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Suggested categories

10. Print on demand / distributed printing / video-on-demand

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Comments of Tom Johnson

EX Tom Johnson:

Seems to me that #3 ("trust") is closely related to #8 and #9.

And "every phone is a camera."

I would also suggest that GIS and GPS are driving and will drive a ton of new activities, and the industry doesn't have much of a clue about what these things are and how they can be used. (EVERY story has geographic aspects.) So how do we employ those tools as additional ways to understand phenomena and to better get the story to people who will care about it.

Additionally, we are in the very early stages of something for which we do not quite have a vocabulary yet, but there are examples. See FreeRice.com[1] or the project translating the instructions for the One Laptop Per Child project into obscure languages [2] And I'm just working on a project that will try to link persons unknown in the Spanish-speaking world to translate the manual(s) for Netlogo [3]into Spanish. All this as an open source/effort.

These are examples of some new form of global cooperation using digital tools for a common objective. They happen, I hope, with very little direct management, yet new resources -- with great but local utility -- emerge. Again, with relatively little investment except by those who (a) originally create the software and (b)those who have the time and inclination to put it to work.

If these are emergent trends, what's the impact on journalism? (1) They further undermine the elitist concept of "central authority," which journalism has long claimed. (2)These examples are taking place without concern for government authority or national/state legal systems. (3) They are taking place without the need outside traditional political systems and, thereby, presenting more opportunity to citizen participation in a way that enriches the political stew. (See this reporting on SuperDeligates [4]) (4) There are rapidly expanding tools for data visualization, which, when done well, can deliver much more insight than text. (See Music Listening History [5]

CLICK HERE AND ADD YOUR CONVENING IDEAS BELOW

Brainstorming

• Aggregation
• Craigslist
• Customization and personalization
• Databases (those usually used by public and those more likely to be used by reporters)
• Geotagging
• Google
• iPod
• Texting
• XML

• Multitude of options, especially for entertainment and reinforcement of anyone's own current perspective (OK, this isn't one and it's not technology per se. But it's still important, because competition for people's attention and for advertising dollars just continues to increase.)