The Disruptive Impact of Emerging Technology

In this chapter, context for understanding the phenomenon of “big data” and disruptive innovation is introduced relative to current changes affecting the future of the journalism industry. Perspective is provided on market forces and emerging technologies that now shape the demand for data journalism. Current best practices and strategies to analyze, scrape, personalize, visualize and map data are presented. Trends and resources to access data and effectively analyze information are outlined for journalists to use when researching and reporting online. Three contemporary case studies explore the day-to-day operations and decision-making processes of media organizations struggling to remain profitable; adapt to changing consumer demands and try to serve a new demographic that is increasingly global, wireless, mobile and socially networked.

Web 2.0 and News 2.0

This chapter examines the effects that Web 2.0 technologies have had on traditional news organizations and how those organizations have been forced to adapt their content style, speed of production, and distribution models. It specifically focuses on real-time analytics and how news organizations can utilize new opportunities presented by social media platforms and web usage mining to analyze their audience, the competition, and popular opinions. The chapter will explain in detail how a news organization can compile data from social media and web usage, gain insights from that data, and act upon those insights. To further examine real-time analytics, the chapter presents real examples from BostInno, an online news source, where real-time analytics affected content and distribution. To conclude, the authors will reflect on the impact real-time analytics has on the news industry and how it might affect it in the near future.

A Tale of Two Newsrooms

This chapter describes the results of a study that compared a strongly market-oriented newsroom and a less market-oriented newsroom in terms of how they used web analytics in news work. Using ethnographic methods, the study finds that web analytics influenced editorial decisions in both newsrooms. However, the two newsrooms differed in the extent to which they used analytics and in their reasons for doing so. These differences are examined using the framework of market theory in news construction.

Visualizing Social Network Influence

Billions of social media users communicate via Web and mobile platforms. A variety of measurement tools may be used to advance research methodologies in the study of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Social networking sites (SNS), such as Twitter, allow researchers to conduct exploratory data scraping and create visual mapping of possible relationships between social network accounts. The nature of the visualization depends upon the number of accounts within the social network, the amount of communication activity, the direction of specific communication, the amplification of messages across the network and other factors. A major challenge of this research method is disclosure and verification of individuals operating online identities. Additionally, most free research tools fail to disclose algorithms for generating scores and ranks. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how individual position, or centrality, is one reflection among many in the measurement of social network influence.

Spreading the News

This chapter is concerned with the process of “spreading the news” through social media. It suggests a method of rhetorical analysis that focuses less attention on the content of news productions and more attention on analyzing how audience members might make use of the news. This transition of focus from content to audience use should lead news producers to see the value of content that engages with audiences and enables audience members to engage in the sharing and spreading of news content. The purpose of this chapter is twofold: 1) to help journalists design content that engages their audiences in the process of spreading the news in ways that can go far beyond the reach of traditional news formats and 2) to provide journalism scholars with a means of understanding the ways in which audiences and the news media interact in social media-rich communication environments.

Shaping Content Strategies with User Analytics and Identities

User data has become the foundation of many businesses. The ability to increase the breadth and depth of user data to analyze trends is now the roadmap for information companies – providing direction for new business, content strategy, print to digital shifts and overall retention and engagement. In this chapter, the author will explore user identity and the three key core data buckets – Profile, Activity, and Behavioral – that define how to decipher audience members and their ‘user records.' The chapter will specifically showcase how user identity shapes editorial strategy, marketing messaging and drives revenue. It will look at the impact specific technologies are having on what data can be captured as well as the complexities around data capture in general – standardization, preservation, storage, relational data opportunities and data optimization.

Research Methods, Data, and Analytics

Media organizations deliver news services online employing various design techniques and technologies to make services useful, usable, and effective for news consumers. How people use news services, their perceptions of them, and how their design impacts the user experience (UX) is an important area of study. In this chapter, the authors examine service design, UX, and related research methodologies and their importance for online news. Additionally, they report on a study that examined how the type of news provider (TV versus newspaper) and associated services affected user behavior and perception of the user experience. Participants perceived news websites differently based on the type of news provider and their interactions with services differed based on type of provider. The findings have implication for the UX research, specifically UX related to online news.

Using Market Research as the Basis for Successful Content Product Decisions

For publishers and content providers, basing content decisions on one's own perception of what users need can be fraught with peril. Adopting an “outside-in” approach to product development – in which customer needs, not internal desires of the organization, drive product development – leads to the greatest chances for success. When it comes to understanding the audience, content providers and product teams have a variety of methodological approaches from which they can choose. These methods fall into two overarching approaches: qualitative and quantitative research. This chapter provides descriptions of several qualitative and quantitative research approaches that are frequently used to inform publishing business decisions. The authors discuss the importance of researching a target audience and present methods to discover their needs. Through two case studies, they provide an example of how research methods are employed in real-world situations.

Computational Journalism

In this chapter, the use and application of big data in the news gathering process is discussed. The author explains how the combination of journalism, computer science, and social research introduces a new paradigm to the news industry and academic programs. The chapter explains how the impact of computational journalism on the news product and the use of big data analytics are applied to assess trends and habits of human interaction in all aspects of news coverage. The author purports that big data is essential to the news industry to make predictions and/or draw conclusions to produce a better news package. The author stresses the point that shaping news in a big data world challenges the foundation of journalistic principles and practices but the credibility and integrity of the news product must be maintained. The chapter introduces the Z Wheel communication process model as a new tool for shaping news in this big data environment.

Transformational Content and Relationships

This chapter outlines the trend toward research within news organizations based upon big data and the increasing emphasis of growth-oriented companies on promoting a positive and passionate User Experience (UX). It discusses the implications of digital research techniques developed by successful technology and consumer merchandising organizations, and links the 24/7 nature of digital research methodologies to the development of more user-responsive and successful news organizations. A journalistic organization that wants to grow in the digital age must revamp its operations to take advantage of the continuous big data research cycle. This means creating a feedback loop from the organization to the information consumer and back, viewing journalism as content to be shaped to the UX through constant modification and change based on growing sets of user behavior and preference data.