Crowdsourcing and Journalism Seth C Lewis School of

Crowdsourcing and Journalism Seth C. Lewis School of Journalism, UT-Austin seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Crowd-what? • White Paper Version: Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call. • Soundbyte Version: The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software. Source: Jeff Howe Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Crowdsourcing “trailer” (online version) Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Key principles • • • The crowd is dispersed The crowd has a short attention span The crowd is full of specialists The crowd produces mostly crap The crowd finds the best stuff Source: “The Rise of Crowdsourcing, ” by Jeff Howe (2006) Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Crowdsourcing and Journalism Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

A spectrum of input • From the simple … – Reading documents (a la Dallas Morning News case) – Sending in photos (of polling places, for instance) • … To the more challenging … – Researching and writing articles • The point – The collective efforts of non-specialists can add up to more than one expert individual – Dan Gillmor: “my readers know more than I do” Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Crowdsourcing, in journalism, is the use of a large group of readers to report a news story. It differs from traditional reporting in that the information collected is gathered not manually, by a reporter or team of reporters, but through some automated agent, such as a website. Source: Robert Niles Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

How it works • • Lend us your eyes Help us gather data Submit your photos/videos The keys … – Keep it simple – Keep it directed – Provide an easy, automated interface Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Lending Us Your Eyes • Dallas Morning News and the JFK files – “Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why were calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination. ” • Roc. Docs – “We’re inviting you to help us be watchdogs” • Work of TPM Muckraker (Hat tip: JP Digital Digest) Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Gathering ‘everyday’ info • WNYC – “Are you being gouged? ” – Gas-guzzlers on the street • Gas. Buddy • Problems at polling stations in Cincy? Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

And more • Full articles written by users … – Example: Now. Public • … or edited by users – Example: Wikinews • Beyond journalism – Google Image Labeler – Amazon Mechanical Turk Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Like citizen journalism, but … • … crowdsourcing is easier – Users are given bite-sized tasks to accomplish – Time commitment can be small • Unlike more traditional notions of “citizen journalism, ” crowdsourcing does not ask readers to become anything more than what they’ve always been: eyewitnesses to their daily lives. Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu

Is crowdsourcing the future? • “The failure of one citizen journalism Web business after another this year ought to be showing news publishers that a business model based on readers doing reporters’ jobs for free isn’t working. ” (Robert Niles) • But be warned … – Open-source journalism is tough – You have get the division of labor just right Seth Lewis • seth. lewis@mail. utexas. edu