Digital Media Mash Up Highlights
Weekly highlights from the world of digital media. Sign up here for the full version of CIMA’s weekly Digital Media Mash Up for a comprehensive list of resources on digital media.
The Open Society Foundations’ Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs. The report on Serbia came out in December 2011. Here are some highlights:
Over the past five years, digitization has impacted significantly on the range and consumption of media content in Serbia. An increasing number of Serbians go online, and most media outlets invest in their online presence. Serbia has a strategy for switching over from analog to digital broadcasting, prepared with broad public consultation. Broadband internet has had by far the most significant growth among the available distribution platforms over the past five years. All that said, Serbia remains a television nation, with almost all households owning a TV set and three quarters of the population still using television as their main source of information. But the internet is catching up.
- Internet penetration: 23% of households (2009)
- Broadband: 82% of households with internet (2009)
- Television consumption: (2010) Terrestrial: 50%, Cable: 41%, Satellite: 9%
- Digital broadcasting: (2010) Terrestrial: <1%, Cable: <1%, Satellite: 7.7%
- Social media usage: Facebook: 2.02 accounts (2009)
- Mobile phones: 132% of the population (2010), 3G: 11.5% (2009)
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Journalism in the Digital Age
Should Social Media Be Taught in Journalism or Business School?
Over the last couple years there has been a surge in the number of universities and colleges offering some form of social media marketing classes and/or certificate programs as part of their curriculum. (10,000 Words, 2/6)
Blair Jenkins: Better Journalism in a Digital Age
Journalism is a profession based on trust. The quality of our national debate and discourse is directly related to the integrity and reliability of our news media. Vigilant journalism helps to prevent the erosion of civil liberties and provides significant benefits for wider society. (The Journalism Foundation, 2/8)
The Vital Role of Global Journalism in the Digital Age
A new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists shows the new challenges they face around the world. (The Atlantic, 2/7)
The Role of the Journalist in a Globalized World
VIDEO: Interview with Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University at the PICNIC conference in Amsterdam. (European Journalism Center, January 2012)
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Research
ITU StatShot - Who Can Afford Broadband?
VIDEO: In October 2011, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development set the target that basic broadband service should cost less than 5% of average monthly income in all countries worldwide by 2015. How many countries already make the grade? And what are prices like in the poorest parts of the world, where broadband could be the critical catalyst for meeting the Millennium Development Goals in areas like education and health? (International Telecomms Union, January 2012)
Researchers Reveal What Goes into a Good Tweet
An analysis of 43,738 tweets from 1,443 users offers some valuable insights into emerging communication norms on Twitter. The study (PDF) by researchers Paul André of Carnegie Mellon, Michael Bernstein of MIT, and Kurt Luther of Georgia Tech aimed to uncover what makes for a good message on Twitter. (Reportr.net, 2/6)
The Pulse of News in Social Media: Forecasting Popularity
A new study claims it can predict the popularity of a news story on Twitter with an 84 percent accuracy rate by looking solely at four factors that affect content. The study, led by Bernardo Huberman of the Social Computing Lab Group at the Palo Alto-based HP Labs, examined the content of an article before it was published in determining how popular it would be on Twitter. (Social Computing Lab Group, February 2012)
Mobile Phones Central to Developing Countries’ Economic Success, Quality of Life: Global Poll
BBC World Service, January 2012
CHINA: Internet Companies in China: Dancing between the Party Line and the Bottom Line
The paper starts with an overview of the landscape of the Chinese Internet industry, followed by a review of the developmental trajectories of three important search companies in China – Baidu, Google, and Jike (the national search engine), whose stories are illustrative of the experiences of domestic, foreign and state Internet firms operating in China. The paper then outlines the Chinese government’s regulatory policies towards the Internet industry, which it is argued have undergone three stages: liberalization, regulation, and state capitalism. (IFRI, January 2012)
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Global Censorship Update
View Global Censorship Update – February 2012 in a larger map
