What is CAR and how will it help?

CAR is short for Computer-Assisted Report, and it “refers to anything that uses computers to aid in the newsgathering process " Kawamoto thought CAR could be use the internet to find out information about a specific topic. Stephen Lamble’s claimed that using Computer-Assisted Research can help you create a strong original stories often do not, or can not in any other way, or in a particular time.

Computer-Assisted Report is a tool for journalists. On one hand, the CAR increased the efficiency of journalists’ work to analysis the data with the story. On the other hand, Computer-Assisted Report could help the nonprofessional people, who are citizen journalists and public. The nonprofessionals used computer to do the story.

Reference:

Kevin, K. (2003), Digital Journalism – Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, UK

Media companies in credit crunch

News organisation is changing the distribution models. Some companies will choose the online to maintain profit, and they wanted to use the digital skills to get profit. The SEO is way to get more readership. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, is a technical skill for online marketing (http://www.webconfs.com/, 2009) The SEO help the website to promote itself and it will show the ranking of the website, and the ranking shows the popularity of that website.

The SEO will help media company gain the readership when readers search online. Readers could search online from every place of the whole world, and it is different from traditional market (http://www.primaryposition.com/, 2009). Increased internet exposure is one of the SEO’s advantages. When people search online, they will prefer the high ranking website than low ranking’s, so that, the high ranking website could attract more readership.

The paid form distribution is mainly focus on online because of Murdoch situation. Murdoch thought that:” content is not free and quality journalism is not cheap." Some people from free newspapers and free website are though that charging online will not work because of the power of “sharing”. People will share content on the Facebook or Twitter. The Wall Street Journal’s online made money online, but Microsoft's online literary magazine Slate lost money online. So the charging online could improve the news quality, because media company will pay money to train journalist and create good news.

Reference: http://www.techcn.com.cn/index.php?doc-view-130731

Interview 1 -- Guy Kilty

Guy Kilty, 33, from Manchester, he studies Journalism at University of Central Lancashire. He teaches English as well. As a result, he know the importance of digital journalism.

I asked 3 questions:
1. What do you think aout digital journalism as an English teacher?
2. Are there any different meanings for you as a journalism student?
3.What do digital skills bring to you (the benefit)?

Citizen journalist cf. professional

To compare the citizen journalist and professional journalist, they are different but interdependent with each other. For the quality of news, professional journalist could report in-deepth. The main stream media have money to support journalist to find deep report with a story. But the citizen journalist cannot afford for the money. For the control and training, professional journalist are better than citizen journalist.

However, citizen journalist could have more communication with readers. They publish articles on the websites at the first time, and they can manage their blog, so they can communicate with reader directly. The professional journalist put story on newspaper and online, they can only read the comments late and have little responds. What’s more, citizen journalist could provide a wide range of topics to meet the readers’ needs, so the “long tail” (Anderson, 2006) could work on citizen journalist. But the professional journalist only has their own area to report, and the topics will less than citizen journalist.

In addition, the main stream media are relying on citizen journalist. The professional journalist will look at Twitter or Facebook everyday, and check what the pubic are talking about. So the professional journalist will decide what story to report, and they can touch with people. At the same time, citizen journalist can get some news and professional tips from professional journalist.

Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Reference:

Allan & Thorsen (2009),. In citizen Journalism , Peter Lang, New York,

RSS

By the appearance of web 3.0, which people could not only read and write, but also could publish on the Internet. The RSS will be more familiar with public and helped journalists a lot. The acronym of RSS is stands for "really simple syndication”, and people could find an ‘orange icon’ on mostly websites. RSS can help people automatically to get contents of sites or blogs without the need for manually posting the contents . The RSS is a digital tool to help users can get newest things and articles. And the RSS feed could help bloggers to collect and analysis what the favorite thing of users. RSS allows people to stay informed with the latest content from the interested website easily, at the same time, people could save to prevent visit every individual website.

For the journalists, they can compare reader best loved news, and create more good news for readers, and at the same time, the media company could get more readership. For example, people only search many websites to find useful and interesting articles several years ago, and this is a one-way communication, so journalists could not get feedback for readers. However, people could use RSS to read the articles they interested in, and journalists could have a communication with their readers.

http://websearch.about.com/b/s.htm

Reference:

Kevin, K. (2003), Digital Journalism – Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, UK

http://com.miami.edu/car/cox00.pdf.