Rewiring journalism: The new literacies of networked communication architectures

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Social media platforms, especially Twitter, have emerged as networks for real-time news and information where reports, rumours and speculation are challenged, contradicted or corroborated. The characteristics and use of Twitter nourish an always-on, ambient news environment, affecting how individuals interpret and communicate information in meaningful ways. This paper applies research in new literacies to contextualize the interplay between networked communication technologies and journalism. As new forms of communication emerge, journalism seeks to adopt and adapt new affordances that disrupt prevailing norms and principles through a contested process of negotiation. The new literacies of Twitter and similar platforms give rise to tensions between conventional ways of working and new possibilities in reporting, analysing and explaining the news. This paper explores how journalism is being shaped by, and shaping, the new literacies of networked communication architectures.

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Rewiring journalism:

The new literacies of networked communication architecturesAlfred Hermida, University of British Columbia @hermida

ICA London, June 20 2013

Journalists and Twitter: It’s complicated

Photo: the half-blood prince - http://www.flickr.com/photos/unconstructive_bry/

From modern, industrial literacies towards post-industrial, knowledge society literacies

Lankshear and Knobel, 2011Photo: phub - http://www.flickr.com/photos/phub/

Journalism: Uniform, monolithic, enclosed, stable, linear

Photo: Mike65444 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike-f/

Twitter: Distributed, open, collaborative, dynamic, non-linear

Photo: Kristina Alexanderson - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/

The finished productPhoto: albyantoniazzi - http://www.flickr.com/photos/smoy/

Journalism as a tentative and iterative process where contested accounts are examined & evaluated in public in real-time

Photo: Cathy Arkie - http://www.flickr.com/photos/shepaused4thought/

Andy Carvin: Twitter as newsroom

Photo: personaldemocracy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/personaldemocracy/

Networked news, networked powerPhoto: Matthijs - http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthijs/

Thank youalfred.hermida@ubc.ca @hermida

• WORKS• Hermida, Alfred, Seth C. Lewis, Rodrigo Zamith. (forthcoming).

Sourcing the Arab Spring: A case study of Andy Carvin’s sources on Twitter during the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communications

• Hermida, Alfred. (in press). Twitter as an ambient news network, in Bruns, K. Weller, J. Burgess, M. Mahrt & C. Puschmann (eds.), Twitter and Society. New York, NY: Peter Lang

• Hermida, Alfred (forthcoming). #journalism: Reconfiguring journalism research about Twitter, one tweet at a time, Digital Journalism