Study on Data Journalism in Tamilnadu & the Challenges

When Digital technology brought online journalism and new practices into newsrooms that made a huge impact on Indian newsrooms articles that lead to different perspective stories which gave a lot of space for creativity, this allowed every citizen to become online journalist that was a great milestone in digital evolution. But, when the news credibility in online journalism gradually fell, many journalist and publishers worried that admired principles of news reporting, experience and intuition might decline or even disappear. On the other hand, they fail to realise that this will empower journalists to use numbers to tell stories with fewer anecdotes, more reliability and to cover challenging invisible stories. Journalism has always involved numbers and data analysis was also a part of it. Then a new practice, “Data journalism” sparked in the newsroom that involves data to find a story and create visualizations which are not a very easy process in the newsroom. Howard (2014) in his study mentioned that 21st century was a change for mobile computing that lead to increases in online connectivity, access, speed and an explosion in data creation that completely changed the landscape for computer-assisted reporting. Another study by Parasie and Dagiral (2012) argued that data journalism comes into light because of hacker culture, initially, the hackers deal with the open-source and open government with some political values, which injects a new culture into the newsrooms. When we look at the national context there are many challenges to adapt in India newsrooms and confusion about its role and importance in the field of journalism. The major focus of this research is to find the complications faced by journalists while incorporating data into their news organization. The sample consisted of data journalists from various parts of India

Discovering civic educational hackathons: an exploratory study

Educational hackathons are a new way to respond to some of the biggest challenges in education. This exploratory study seeks to define the key elements of these hackathons and to offer a theoretical and practical starting point for future publications and research. A literature review is carried out, with the information then contrasted with the experience as organizers of EDhack Raval, the first community-focussed educational hackathon in Catalonia. Observations, a questionnaire and interviews are used to add depth and objectivity to the wealth of data derived from field work. The results point to the valorization of the freedom of the creative process, the generation of community networks and social learning over the creation of solutions, findings that coincide with the latest research.Thus, the study concludes that educational agents would do well to appropriate, adapt and evaluate the assets of the hacker culture, making sure not to commit the error or organising hackathons that promote solutionism, elitism and competition.

Wiki as a mediating technology of organization

This chapter discusses wiki in the context of the debate over seemingly ‘democratizing’ properties of Web 2.0 technologies. Basic features of wiki cannot be easily identified: it can be described as a technology of organizing primarily textual information, in a web-like hyperlinked environment, in which parts can be easily edited by one or multiple users. Tracing the origins of wiki reveals in-built social norms, stemming from the hacker culture, and the idealistic pursuits to democratize the Web. However, in practice wiki technology supports not only innovative open collaboration systems, such as Wikipedia, but also proprietary systems of organization of knowledge, largely strengthening existing power relations in organizations. Employing the concept of technology affordances, the authors outline how organizational consequences of wiki depend on the social context of its implementation.

Freedom in the wilderness: A study of a Darknet space

Mass media and journalistic accounts of Darknets have focused disproportionately on their criminogenic aspects. Moreover, research has focused mainly on the Darknet technology Tor. We wish to expand scholars’ knowledge of Darknets by exploring a different Darknet technology, Freenet. Using a combination of content analysis and grounded theory, this research asked three progressively complex questions. First, we asked: What are the types of content and the distribution of content on Freenet? Our findings show that Freenet fosters a singular distribution of content, with a high ratio of blogs (or flogs), child pornography, empty links, and Web 1.0 websites that archive information. We assumed that this content is not discrete points of data but instead produce sociologically interesting phenomena. Therefore, we ask: What are the content patterns on Freenet? Four patterns were identified. Freenet is (1) an archive of deviant data resistant to censorship, (2) a space dominated by content associated with masculinity, (3) a nonmarket space where commercial exchange is nonexistent, and (4) an empty space with many requests not returning information, and many flogs abandoned. We asked a third question: How does the analysis of Freenet inform current understandings of hacker culture? Freenet, we suggest, can be understood as a type of digital ‘wilderness’. It is a singular Darknet space, supporting a distinct set of hacker practices.

Por uma genealogia da cena hacker brasileira

Este artigo busca apresentar os resultados de uma pesquisa investigativa, com o objetivo primordial de oferecer uma pequena base para estudos mais consistentes dedicados a detalhar e compreender a genealogia e peculiaridades da primeira geração de hackers brasileiros em meados da década de 1980. A cena hacker brasileira faz parte da chamada "Cultura Hacker" que se expandia em diversos países do mundo neste período, porém a literatura científica sobre o desenvolvimento desta comunidade no Brasil neste período é escassa. Para tanto, este artigo desenvolve uma pequena referência que ajuda a entender e construir o perfil do hacker brasileiro, de acordo com a realidade e as adversidades encontradas por esta primeira geração de hackers no país.Palavras-chave: Hacker. Genealogia, cultura, cyberpunk, underground. This paper aims to present the results of an investigative research, with the overriding goal to offer a small framework to more consistent studies dedicated to detailed and understand the genealogy and peculiarities from the first generation of brazilian hackers in the mid-1980s. The Brazilian hacker scene makes part of the so-called "Hacker Culture" that was expanded in several countries of the world in this period, but the scientific literature about the hacker comunity in Brazil in this period, are scarce. To that end, this article development a small reference that helps to understand and construct the profile of the Brazilian hacker, in accordance with the reality and adversities encountered by this first generation of hackers in the country.Keywords: Hacker, geneaology, culture, cyberpunk, underground.