What we have done.
We approached the experts (journalists and bloggers) to talk about the subject of citizen journalism, its current status and the future opportunities; we discussed their overall attitude to the development of the crowdsourcing news phenomenon, and their usual routine of dealing with social networks as well.
During the interviews we presented Crowdopolis and talked about its design, concept and flexibility.
We contacted journalists and citizen journalists in Russia and Czech republic:
1) Ekaterina Zgirovskaya, editor at RIA Novosti, main Russian news agency.
2) Gregory Asmolov, an intern at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, contributing editor to “Runet Echo” and a Russian language blogger. He and Alexey Sidorenko deployed the Ushahidi platform Russian Fires.ru
3) Jaroslav Valuch, coordinator of the Ushahidi Haiti project and the Krizova Mapa Ceska for the 2013 Floods.
We asked them the following questions:
- Do you use social networks as a news source in your professional work?
- Do you have a blog (FB, Twitter etc.) where you write about socially important things, aside/additionally to your professional writing?
- Do you follow any Citizen Journalism projects, how often? (+ if Yes, which ones?)
- Would you participate in a citizen journalism project? (+ if Yes, in which case?)
- Specialists have a lot of discussions about citizen journalism nowadays. There is a theory that citizen journalism will take over traditional journalism – do you agree/disagree, why?
Overall, we received a positive feedback from them, discussed current C.J. issues (verification, software, mentality) and the ways to avoid it, and used it to improve the Crowdopolis’ concept.
We also performed a focus-group survey, as we worked on a prototype of our website and showed it to typical active Internet users. We described to them the Crowdopolis’ functionality and possibilities and asked if they believe in this concept, would they participate in this sort of project.
Overall, the idea of Crowdopolis was well received by the participants, with more than half finding our idea promising.
What we will do.
We are going to finish our article for the book and start making the video based on our storyboard (see the pictures). As the video is going to consist of both visual footage and website development elements, we need to work as cameramen and computer designers at the same time, thankfully, we have all the skills needed in-house.
Changes in the project.
We didn’t have any critical changes at this stage, but we followed the comments given to us by the experts and Internet users. We are trying to improve Crowdopolis’ usability.
Resources.
Beside the articles and websites on the subject of citizen journalism, we (re)read books, such as “We the Media” by Dan Gillmor, “Citizen Journalism: ‘Back to the Future?” by Clyde H. Bentley, and felt really inspired by some of the ideas.
We approached the experts (journalists and bloggers) to talk about the subject of citizen journalism, its current status and the future opportunities; we discussed their overall attitude to the development of the crowdsourcing news phenomenon, and their usual routine of dealing with social networks as well.
During the interviews we presented Crowdopolis and talked about its design, concept and flexibility.
We contacted journalists and citizen journalists in Russia and Czech republic:
1) Ekaterina Zgirovskaya, editor at RIA Novosti, main Russian news agency.
2) Gregory Asmolov, an intern at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, contributing editor to “Runet Echo” and a Russian language blogger. He and Alexey Sidorenko deployed the Ushahidi platform Russian Fires.ru
3) Jaroslav Valuch, coordinator of the Ushahidi Haiti project and the Krizova Mapa Ceska for the 2013 Floods.
We asked them the following questions:
- Do you use social networks as a news source in your professional work?
- Do you have a blog (FB, Twitter etc.) where you write about socially important things, aside/additionally to your professional writing?
- Do you follow any Citizen Journalism projects, how often? (+ if Yes, which ones?)
- Would you participate in a citizen journalism project? (+ if Yes, in which case?)
- Specialists have a lot of discussions about citizen journalism nowadays. There is a theory that citizen journalism will take over traditional journalism – do you agree/disagree, why?
Overall, we received a positive feedback from them, discussed current C.J. issues (verification, software, mentality) and the ways to avoid it, and used it to improve the Crowdopolis’ concept.
We also performed a focus-group survey, as we worked on a prototype of our website and showed it to typical active Internet users. We described to them the Crowdopolis’ functionality and possibilities and asked if they believe in this concept, would they participate in this sort of project.
Overall, the idea of Crowdopolis was well received by the participants, with more than half finding our idea promising.
What we will do.
We are going to finish our article for the book and start making the video based on our storyboard (see the pictures). As the video is going to consist of both visual footage and website development elements, we need to work as cameramen and computer designers at the same time, thankfully, we have all the skills needed in-house.
Changes in the project.
We didn’t have any critical changes at this stage, but we followed the comments given to us by the experts and Internet users. We are trying to improve Crowdopolis’ usability.
Resources.
Beside the articles and websites on the subject of citizen journalism, we (re)read books, such as “We the Media” by Dan Gillmor, “Citizen Journalism: ‘Back to the Future?” by Clyde H. Bentley, and felt really inspired by some of the ideas.
Good work! I really like that you contacted journalists who are a potential target group, and asked what they thought of your concept. Then you also have a chance to adapt to some of their suggested changes and make the concept better. I'm looking forward to seeing your film!
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