Lecture 9 - Fri Sept 27 (10-12) - Westlund

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Time & Place: Friday September 27 at 10-12 in lecture hall M2.

Guest lecturer: Oscar Westlund, Associate professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Gothenburg and the IT University of Copenhagen.

Title: Mobile news consumption gaining traction

Talk: During the past decade, the development of mobile "phones" has increasingly converged with computing. In recent years there has been a rapid diffusion of touchscreen-enabled mobile devices such as Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, equipped with flat-rate subscriptions for mobile internet and facilitating access to mobile ecosystems with hundreds of thousands of applications. People no longer only engage in mobile communication through voice and texting, but also use social media, e-mail etc. and have also started using their mobile for accessing information such as news. This lecture focuses on presenting various studies on cross-media and mobile news consumption, drawing primarily upon the postal-based surveys conducted annually by the SOM-institute, nationally representative to the country of Sweden.

About: Oscar Westlund serves on the editorial boards of the journals Digital Journalism, the Journal of Media Innovations and Mobile Media & Communication. He has researched the production and consumption of mobile news since 2005, and has recently published a book, many book chapters and also several articles in international journals on the subject.

Literature: 

- Grueskin, Seave & Graves (2011), "The story so far: What we know about the business of digital journalism". Read chapter 4 "The new new media: Mobile, video and other emerging platforms". Available online.

- Schudson, (2011), "The sociology of news". Please read chapter 9, "The audience for news", before the lecture.

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Three cancelled lectures next week!

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There are no less than six scheduled slots for next week but we will only utilize three of them. That means that three lectures are cancelled.

I have not had time to remove them from the official online schedule yet, so please take notice so that you don't show up in the lecture hall or travel to KTH when you don't have to.

Out of the six lectures that are scheduled for next week, we will only actually have guests at three occasions:

- Tuesday Sept 24 at 8-10
- Friday Sept 27 at 10-12
- Friday Sept 27 at 13-15

The other three occasions are cancelled, i.e. no lectures on Mon 23 at 13-15, Wed 25 at 13-15 and Thu 26 at 13-15.

There will be a few other changes in the schedule in the coming, I will publish blog posts about these changes when the schedule is updated.

/Daniel
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Lecture 8 - Tue 24 (8-10) - Johansson

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Time & Place: Tuesday September 24 at 8-10 in lecture hall E3.

Guest lecturer: Ulf Johansson, Chief Editor News, Swedish Television.

Title: Public service in the Future of News

Talk: Ulf will first talk about the current activities and thinking in the area of news at Swedish Television. The second half of the lecture will discuss the kind of competition Swedish Television experiences today as well as challenges for tomorrow.

About: Ulf Johansson has been Chief Editor News at Swedish Television for two years. He has worked as CEO and Editor in Chief at different Swedish newspaper before that.

Literature: 

- Becker and Vlad, (2009), "News organizations and routines". In Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch (eds.), "The handbook of journalism studies". Available in Bilda.

- Lund and Lowe, (2013), "Current challenges to public service broadcasting in the Nordic countries". In Carlsson (ed.), "Public service media from a Nordic horizon". Available in Bilda.

- Ulf also suggests that you should visit http://www.svt.se/ and other Swedish media websites

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Seminar 2 topics

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Please see the blog post with the instructions for seminar 2.

1. The death of newspapers (on paper)?

No further comments necessary…

2. Life after death (of paper) - the rebirth of...?

Newspapers will continue to live after they shed their paper skin. Their rebirth (please specify further here) will be glorious, because...

3. Manipulation and bias online and offline

It can be argued that beyond pure censorship, media (newspaper, radio, tv) always “manipulate” the news in different ways when choosing, preparing and producing them. This can perhaps be avoided on the internet by combining multiple sources about the same event. Or does new technologies allow for ever-more-devious manipulation and bias online than what was ever possible offline? But filtering can on the other hand also be seen as a service (performed by software or an experienced editor). See further the concept of “filter bubbles”.

4. Diversified news organizations (“business models of the future”)

IDG publishes papers and organizes events and does professional recruiting. Everything works together synergistically Being a jack-off-all-trades and the center of a “relationship hub” with your customers/readers could be a template for future news organizations. Other news organizations will... (please specify further here).

5. Free news?

News are free of charge on the Internet. Or are they not? What are the present and future “costs” (personal, societal, integrity-wise) of reading “free news”?

6. Citizen journalism & crowdsourcing news

What is the future of citizen journalism? How could we all make it work? What would the advantages/disadvantages/implications be?

7. Is there too much news? Can there be?

Are there limits, can we saturate the news environment? Where is that limit and what does it look like? Will future technology help us master a super-saturated news environment or will it create such an environment?

8. Individualized news

We will have 100% customized and individualized news in the future! How will this come about? What will the implications be (for technology, for behavior, for society, for democracy)?

9. Interactive visualization of news

Mash-ups of news events, maps, comments, discussions and video - what will the “whole package” look like in the future?

10. News and speed (and technology)

What are the effects of speeding up news? What are the implications? What technologies (or social norms etc.) act to speed up or slow down the news flow? Slow journalism, anyone? Invent a speed-related scenario of news futures.

11. Online vs. offline

Being served the news (filtered, “curated”, lean-back, pull) vs having to filter and hunt for it yourself online (lean-forward, push). What is the future in terms of the (shifting?) balance between these two modes?

12. The future on local news

Sofie Abrahamsson talked about current and near-future trends. What is the future of local news in a 10-20 year perspective? Will we care about local news more than ever or not at all? If so, how?

13. Journalistic ideals vs new technology

How will traditional journalistic ideals (“watchdog function” etc.) fare in the digital world we move toward. Will new technologies strengthen the function of and the quality of news or will they undermine it?

14. The future of crap journalism

“Crap journalism” is a nightmare scenario to news people. But what is crap journalism and crap news? Do we have it today, will we have more of it in the future? Invent the future of crap journalism?

15. The medium is the message

How does the news medium shape the news? How does technology reshape that reshaping? What news “fit” newspapers, radio, TV and evolving digital channels? (example: an event is not “good news” on TV unless there are moving images capturing the event.)

16. The future of journalists

How does technology reshape the role of journalists? What does the future of journalists look like? Will they create content or “only” curate it?

17. News and background knowledge

How can the most recent events be combined with the offer to know more about the background of a news event? How can the very latest events (news) be combined with deep knowledge of underlying forces (history) through new technologies?

18. The future of censorship

Many countries suffer from censorship. Will recent and future technological developments help or undermine censorship? China, but also the US (Manning, Snowdon) comes to mind as well as Wikileaks etc.

19. The future of digital paper

Is there a future in-between paper and screens? What does that future look like?

20. News habits of the future

Examine present (“advanced”?) news habits (perhaps of a specialized group) and extrapolate to the future. What at the news habits of the future? How do new technologies enable new behaviors and habits?

21. News aggregators

Are news aggregators, rather than publishing houses the future of news? Will Google, Buzzfeed and Reddit choose news for you rather than DN, Aftonbladet and SvD?

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Seminar 2 instructions (Thu Sept 19)

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Our next seminar will be held Thursday morning (8-10) Here are the instructions for how to prepare for that seminar:

1) Read through all the 21 news- and future-related topics in the blog post directly following this blog post. We have harvested these topics from your essays and from our guest lectures. Some topics are very brief, other topics are a little bit more elaborated.

2) "VOTE" HERE for your three favorite topics. These are the topics you could imagine yourself working with during the project phase, or, that you at least would like another group to work with during the project phase. Your vote is a vote on interesting topics - not a pledge of yours as to what you want/will work on during the project phase. NOTE: perhaps I was better at formulating certain topics than others - but your task is to see through and beyond the short descriptions and imagine what these topics could be developed into!

3a). Preferably: You are inspired by several of the topics, but you realize that we have missed an excellent topic that should have been in this list. Find a title and write a short text about that topic (50-150 words) and bring it on paper to the seminar on Thursday. You can use bullets to make you idea/topic more clear. Don't forget to write your name on the paper!

3b) Otherwise: If you can't think of a new topic, take one of the 21 existing topics and "develop" or specify it further. Take the topic one step further ("to the next level") and bring it on paper (50-150 words) to the seminar on Thursday. Don't forget to write your name on the paper!

4) NOTE: We all meet in the seminar room Q34 for initial information. Please be on time as we will divide you into seminar groups as quickly as possible after we start! Late arrivals will have fewer options!

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Lecture 7 - Fri Sept 20 (10-12) - Sigvardsson

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Time & Place: Friday September 20 at 10-12 in lecture hall E2.

Guest lecturer: Ola Sigvardsson, Press Ombudsmand of Sweden.

Title: Freedom and responsibility - self regulation of the Swedish press

Talk: Ola will talk about the press ethical system in Sweden in terms of:

- Its evolution over time

- Its function

- Its challenges in a digital future

About: Ola Sigvarsson has been a journalist for 35 years, mostly working as reporter in both local and national newspapers. In 1996 he was awarded "The Swedish Grand Journalism Prize" and "Guldspaden" for investigative journalism. He has also worked as executive editor of Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm and as editor-in-chief of Östgöta Correspondenten in Linköping. Ola has been the Press Ombudsman of Sweden since April 2011.

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Lecture 6 - Sept 18 (10-12) - Pilhage

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Time & Place: Wednesday September 18 at 10-12 in lecture hall Q36

Guest lecturer: Kerstin Pilhage, Director Business Development, The Swedish News Agency Group (TT Gruppen).

Title: The challenge facing News Agencies in a changing media market

Talk: News agencies worldwide have for more than a hundred years played an important role in creating and disseminating news. Today they are modern media companies with the aim of being the perfect media partner, with products and services that meet all the demands of its customers. In a time of disrupted business models, they are alos forced to look for new customers in new markets outside of traditional media.

About: Kerstin has a background in journalism. During the past 12 years, she has been a part of the management team of the growing TT group, holding a variety of different positions in the company. Between 2008 and 2012, she was the Manager of the Business Area News. As of last autumn, Kerstin is head of Business Development at the TT News Agency.

Literature: 

- Schudson, (2011), "The sociology of news". Please read chapter 7, "News sources", before the lecture.

- To get to know more about the TT News Agency: http://tt.se/

- To get an overview of European News Agencies: http://www.newsalliance.org/about.htm

- To learn more about how the industry tackles challenges in the new media landscape: http://newsonomics.com/

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