New technology is changing the way journalists are doing their jobs, the structure of the news industry, and the way audiences get the news.

The traditional style of journalism where newspapers and newscasts are produced by a hierarchy of editors and reports is changing. This new modern model of journalism is largely shaped by technology; affecting the role of the journalist, the content being produced, the structure of news organizations, and the relationship between journalists and the public.  In today's digital age, journalism operates in new ways that would have been unimaginable decades ago.

With the move from traditional journalism practices to using new digital technologies, the prominence of web publications has emerged. News organizations are recognizing the importance of going online, to make their stories available on a global scale over the Internet. There are even some news organizations that are completely online.

Recently news sites are producing more original content on their online publication, rather than just reposting stories from the day's paper or newscast. This graphic shows the percentage of newspapers and magazines that have original work for at least half the content on their sites, comparing the percentages from this year and last year. 

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Journalists utilize many new technologies such as phone interviews and online research tools to help in their reporting.

The way journalists do their job has changed with the introduction of new technologies. They are generally spending less time out in the field and reporting, and more time interacting with technology to produce the best work. These days journalists are blogging, tweeting, posting photos, and making interactive graphics, as a way attract an audience to their stories.

Many journalists are using telecommunications to conduct interviews over the phone, or even over email. This is can be a great way for journalists to gain access to people they may not be able to meet physically. A journalist can call and interview a professor in Japan for a story they need to have out by the end of the day. However phone and email interviews pose a question of accuracy. As a reporter, you are missing out on any nonverbal communication. And there is also a chance that you may not be speaking with the right person. The person on the other end could be lying about their identity.

Reporters can use online tools to gather information, check facts, and even find sources. With the large amounts of corporate information and public records available, the Internet is very helpful to reporters who need. A great resource for journalists covering political campaigns is the Federal Elections Commission. The site collects campaign data and is a highly reliable and timely source.

Today's technology makes it possible for journalists to work right up to their deadline. This opens up new opportunities for journalists, whether it's having more time to shoot video, to write copy, or to edit before submitting their story to their newscast or to their editor.

Before, everyone in the newsroom had a specific task of changing tape or making an edit, under strict rules from the director. But now, thanks to advanced technologies, journalists can make any sort of editorial or production decision on their own video without having to rely on other people. A negative aspect is that this can put pressure on some reporters who feel like a one-person news and production crew, but the technology is so easy to use this is not much of a problem. 

New technologies allow journalists to present the news using interactive and immersive multimedia , and with a quick turnaround. 

Technology has also influenced the content of news covered by reporters. The world is connected with through the Internet, so when a story breaks it breaks internationally. News travels very quickly, and so the coverage of the news must consider that as well.

Prior to the use of video, television news reports features very long shots, few edits, and a slower paced narration. Then when video was introduced, network news changed to much shorter shots, quicker edits, and the narrative was much faster paced

One critique is, does fast-paced journalism necessarily meany better journalism? Journalist A.J. Liebling said, "I can write better than anyone who can write faster, and faster than anyone who can write better.

It is a case of, would you rather hear about an important piece of breaking news, such as a shooting, the next day with the paper having enough time to check their facts. Or would you want to hear about it on the Web, right after it happened, with little time for fact checking and the possibility of some errors.

More and more publications are going online. And the articles that are getting published are taking on the style of interactive and immersive multimedia reports, that give the audience a feeling of being a part of the news event. The traditional inverted pyramid style of writing is being replaced by a much more engaging style because the technology of online news sources has the capability for it.

Technology has helped journalists to push the boundaries in the news that they cover. In 1999 an immigrant from West Africa, Amadou Diallo, was gunned down by four police men and shot at 41 times. Students from Columbia University used a 360-degree video camera, developed by one of the professors, to document the scene of the crime. APB News published these 360-degree photos, which allowed the viewer to move around the scene and examine the crime themselves. This gives the viewer the opportunity to try and find any details the reporters and the police may have missed.

This form of journalism is much more engaging, compared to the linear narration from traditional news reporting. The developments in technology are helping journalists to deliver news that is closer to the truth. By making the news immersive and interactive, the journalist's own level of filtering through their reporting, is removed and the audience is allowed to come to their own conclusion. 

With new open online communication, news organizations are restructuring to close the traditional gap between editors and reporters. 

With over 5,000 news sites publishing content on a global scale, the Internet has become a medium of mass communication. This means new competition for radio, newspapers, and television news. 

News is growing in diversity at a national and international level, with the public being able to access the news online at any time. News distribution is available on such a broad scale, but that also leads to a decrease at the local news level. 

The Internet is changing the traditional, rigid, hierarchical structure of news organizations. Traditionally newsroom or newspapers have a new director or an editor who commands control over the organization's operations, and the reporters and workers below them. But online communication is changing the structure newsrooms to be flatter. The ease of online communication allows people working at the bottom of the newsroom to communicate regularly with the director or editor. 

Economics and technology are also changing the traditional separation between the editorial and business side of news. The lines between editorial and advertising are blurring, and this has received some major critique. For example if a newspaper were to do an online book review, in the article a link to online sellers of the book may sometimes be provided. Although this is convenient for an online customer, this does raise into question whether there was any influence on advertising in the editorial content. 

A recent practice, used by CNN, The Tribune Company, and Bloomberg is the combined newsroom, or combined news-gathering operations. This is where stories are assigned to reporters, then the information that they gather is packaged for distribution to media outlets such as television, radio, newspaper, and the Internet. This method is very efficient and cost-effective, and utilizes the opportunities that new technology has given to news organizations.

Journalism has shifted from it's traditional role of informing and persuading, to engaging in discussion with readers on issues in the news.

Now with the advent of a digital network of communication, journalism is becoming a dialog between the press and the public. With online publications, readers are joining in discussion online with reporters and editors to debate and discuss coverage of important events. In his book The Press and Foreign Policy, Bernard C. Cohen said, “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling us what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” What he wrote in 1963 is still true today. The media has the power to set the agenda of society.

Historically the relationship between journalists and their publics has been communication from the few to the many, with little feedback from the source to the receiver. It is an unbalanced relationship because the communication between journalists and the public is very one-sided, with the journalists dominating the conversation. And the objective of that communication is a combination of persuading and informing the audience. Especially in opinion articles and columns, journalists are trying to influence the reader’s opinion on matters of public importance, such as their voting choices.

As a result of increasing technology, journalism has changed from a one-way asymmetric model of communication to a two-way symmetrical model, where there is a flow of dialog between all parties. Instead of journalists dominating the process of persuading and informing, all parties influence each other. Now, a reader can email a reporter and shape the reporter’s knowledge and attitude on an issues just as much as an article from a reporter would have influenced the public. It is a much more engaging form of journalism and is attracting younger audiences as well.

With the help of technology and the Internet, the idea of who is a journalist is being redefined, because anyone is able to publish content and reach a global audience. In a networked world anyone can provide news, journalists are no longer the only gatekeepers of news. Individuals can publish sources of information and set the agenda of news for the public.

The role of journalists in this situation is to fact check and report the sources of news. The public realizes that a source of information will have a vested interest in putting themselves in the best light. So this is where the public relies on journalists, for impartial reporting.Surveys show that the public views online news just as credible as traditional forms of journalism.

The role of journalism is changing in this age of technology, and it has not yet been completely solidified. The public is increasingly looking to primary sources for news. In order to gain the trust of the public and reconnect their relationship to journalists, news organizations must re-establish their credibility and impartiality.

Technology has made journalism more competitive and fast-paced for journalists that are trying to balance being right with being first. 

Washington D.C. Bureau representative for Newsday, Long Island's daily newspaper, Tom Brune, explains how technology has changed journalism throughout his career. Brune said that since the beginning of journalism there has always been the idea that, "you want to be first with the news." Now with the increased technology, it is only more competitive for journalists to break the news.

 

By definition, news is something people don't know. If you are the first person to tell someone something they don't know, you become a more trusted source. This helps you to build your own credibility as a reporter and to develop an audience.

However in the drive to be first, journalists can get the facts wrong. It is trying to find the balance between reporting accurate and newsworthy material. An example that Brune cited was the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act. Many journalists and online users assumed the act had been struck down. After reading the first page of a two page summary, many people were jumping to conclusions, and did not bother to read the second page. Brune explain how he tackled the case as a journalist.

"You want to be first but you want to be right," he said. "And being right is more important than being first." Brune realizes that when journalists try to go fast in their reporting they are prompted to make more mistakes.

As journalists, we owe it to our audience to be honest and transparent. "If you're not fair and accurate, you don't have credibility," said Brune.



The most important role of a journalist is that of verification, even before the digital age and the new technologies. Verifying the facts and presenting them to the public has always been the job of the journalist.

Jared40's two clips

Kerrigan's favorite donut is from a local shop that has unique flavors such as German Chocolate

My interview with Kerrigan52.

Scientist Vedran Lekic integrates computer science in his geological studies of the vibrations in our Earth's tectonic plates.

As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates and their evolution, Lekic said.

Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.

From this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core.

“What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound let’s us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”

Lekic collaborated with McDonough to develop additional research on our Earth's tectonic plates

“We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said.

Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth

Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.

Lekic also studies a new field of geological science, known as neutrino geoscience

Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscience.

Neutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said.

“It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos.

To further his seismic research, Lekic intends to use his grant money from the Packard Fellowship

In recognition of his efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week.

Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure.

“If you look at the field of those who get it and try to figure out from their research summaries and letters which are the strongest candidate, it’s a difficult task,” said Franklin Orr, chairman of the Packard Fellowship panel. “We always run out of fellowships before we run out of wonderful people to give them too.”

“The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor. “It is an incredibly valuable fund and gives the researchers an opportunity to take off with a good idea instead of waiting a year or more for federal money.”

Nearly 2 million data lines fill the screen of Vedran Lekic’s computer every day, each representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700 seismic stations around the U.S.

Now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said.

By Susann48 and Lauren19

Good interactivity defined by Kerrigan

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A study done on personalized communication, involving the different characteristics of participants, measures the effectiveness of personalization.

Personalized communication is getting increasingly popular as a means for companies to target an individual's self, but is it effective?
With today's technology there is an overflow of resources and services that can be found online. In order to focus this overflow and make it easier for individuals to sort through and access the information they want, some companies have tried using personalized communication to reach their consumers. Personalized communication is where a company takes information on an individual, like their name, their age, their gender, their interests, or their purchase history, to tailor a unique message to the person. By referring to specific aspects of an individual, the company hopes to make their message more noticeable and persuasive. However the effectiveness of personalization is unclear. There is limited research on the subject and the results have been mixed.

This study was aimed at finding the effectiveness of personalized communication, while factoring in characteristics of the individual subjects.
In this study, the researchers wanted to find the effect of sending personalized emails versus generic emails to a sample group. But they also wanted to take into account the different characteristics of the subjects. The sample was broken under three different characteristics: the consumers' need for uniqueness, privacy concerns, and trust in a company. Each participant in the study was labeled as either high or low for the three characteristics. The sample size was made up of 109 Dutch undergraduate students, 73.4% women, and between the ages 18 and 31, with an average age of 21.20 years old. Everyone participating in the study received an email from the University Sports Centre. It was randomly assigned whether they would receive the generic newsletter, or the personalized version that included the recipient's name three times throughout the text.

The participants' reactions to the USC newsletters were measured through a survey to see the effect of the personalization.
At the end of the email the participants were told to take a survey. They were asked if they wanted to return to the USC website to get more information, to measure their behavior. They were asked how thoroughly they had read the newsletter, to measure their attention. They were asked how likely it was that they would contact the USC and how likely it was that they would join the USC, to measure intention. Additionally their evaluation of the newsletter, their attitude towards the USC, and their personal characteristics were also measured in the survey

The results showed a significantly more positive evaluation of the personalized rather than the generic newsletter. 
The results of the study show that the subjects evaluated the newsletter more positively and had more positive thoughts when they received the personalized email rather the generic email. This proves that a personalized message is more persuasive than a generic message. However no major differences in attention, attitude, intention, and information-seeking behavior were expressed between those that received the personalized or the generic message.

This first graph on the top left shows that for subjects with a high need for uniqueness (or high CNFU), it was no surprise that they evaluated the personalized email much higher than the generalized email. And subjects with a low need for uniqueness (or a low CNFU) gave both the personalized and generalized emails similarly good evaluations. The next graph on the top right shows that subjects with a high privacy concern measured a higher intention, that they were more likely to contact and join the USC, when they received the personalized email. For subjects with a low privacy concern it was the opposite. They measured a higher intention, to contact and join the USC, when they received a generalized email. The third graph on the bottom left shows that subjects with a high privacy concern measured a higher behavior response, to go to the USC website to get more information, to the personalized email. And the subjects with a low privacy concern measured a higher behavior response to the generic email. Finally the last graph on the bottom right shows that subjects who had high trust in the USC company measured a more positive attitude response to the generic email, whereas those subjects that had low trust in the company measured a more positive attitude to the personalized email. 

Unexpected results show that personalization is not always the most effective tool, depending on the characteristics of the audience.

For the personalized characteristics, the results were not what the researchers had expected. The researchers predicted that the participants measured as high for a need for uniqueness would show a higher persuasiveness for the personalized rather than the generic newsletter. However, participants with low privacy concerns, had a significantly stronger intention to contact the USC in the generic message than the personalized. The personalization did not make low privacy subjects more inclined to contact the USC. And for participants that had trusted the USC as a company, they expressed a more positive attitude toward the company after reading the generic, rather than the personalized message. Despite not getting the results that they expected, the researchers explained possible reasoning for the study's results. When personalization is not justified or necessary, it is not seen as genuine. Therefore people's attitudes can be less positive, especially if people had trusted the organization originally.

The issue of the effectiveness of personalization is not over yet, more research can be done focusing on the stages of information processing.
The study concluded that although personalized communication can positively influence a person's attitude towards the message, it does not really affect their behavior or their attitude towards the company. Even though the results from the study show that personalization is not that effective, the researchers say that more research needs to be done before any definite conclusions can be drawn. As a next step the researchers say that the focus should be on personalization in terms of the stages of information processing, to find what the effect of personalization is on an individual's perception of a company.

Study on undergraduate students to find how they perceive the benefits of using technology in their academic study

This graph shows the data collected from a study conducted on undergraduate students to measure students' use of technology for academic work, how students perceive of using technology in their academic study, how students perceive their level of technology use, and any differences among students from different disciplines. This graph shows a small portion of the results found in the study, the students' perception of the benefits of using technology in their learning. Most students strongly believed it was beneficial, to use the technologies shown in the graph. An interesting aspect of the data results is that although 65% of students believed that using blogs was beneficial and 52% of students believed that using wikis was beneficial, only 60% of students believed that creating their own blogs would be beneficial to their learning.