Was lucky to be able to go see Yochai Benkler this morning at the University of Ottawa. He spoke fast for an entire hour because the event started a bit late – I didn’t get to stay around for the Q&A unfortunately. But I recorded and took notes the best I could!

Please be patient as always because the audio is a bit slow to load.

I’ve created my top 25 list – I added a few extra people because I couldn’t narrow it down to 20. These are non-group accounts and people that discuss the future of the news at least once a day.

http://twitter.com/caitlinkealey/statuses/9557944081

Hope it’s helpful!

Thanks,
Caitlin

So I’ve actually put up my list of the top 30 because I remain undecided about whether or not I will include Twitter accounts that are either aggregators or group accounts. It is to be a discourse analysis so I’m still working out whether these accounts play an important role in the discussion on the future of the news. They do and they don’t. In terms of sharing information they are invaluable but at the same they don’t necessarily join in the conversation. What do you think?

I’m also hoping that if you think anyone is missing from my list please let me know. I’ve averaged each user’s Klout and Tweetlevel scores. The last column is whether or not the user discusses the future of the news every day or not, if they do not regularly talk about it, I will have to pull them off my list = which is unfortunate because it means that someone like @cshirky will not be on the list. Obviously I will still use his stuff in my thesis but just not as part of my data set.

Please feel free to let me know what you think so far!

Thanks.

***edit: I’m having problems putting the excel table into html so I’ve attached it as a pdf but the names, without the data, are:
@scobleizer (doesn’t talk about media’s future daily so not usable)
@davewiner
@jayrosen_nyu
@jeffjarvis
@mathewi
@cheeky_geeky
@cshirky (doesn’t talk about media’s future daily so not usable)
@journalismnews
@digiphile
@ajkeen
@dangillmor
@jdlasica
@poynter
@themediaisdying
@mediatwit
@journalistics
@yelvington
@knightfdn
@harrisj (doesn’t talk about media’s future daily so can’t use)
@iwantmedia
@stevebuttry
@kirklapointe
@NYT_JenPreston
@thefutureofnews
@digidave
@hermida
@david_a_eaves
@steveouting
@bxmx (doesn’t talk about media’s future daily so can’t use)
@CodyBrown
@howardweaver

twitter_data Sheet1

Today the University of Ottawa’s Communication Graduate Students’ Association hosted a seminar for its graduate students presented by Jaya Peruvemba. For those who couldn’t attend, or any other grad students feel free to take a listen. The stars in the margins, denote bookmarks so you can skip through to the parts that you are think are particularly interesting or relevant to you.

Enjoy!

****please note the audio is fairly slow to load so please be patient****

For my thesis I’m trying to crowdsource suggestions to make a list of the top 20 experts who are using Twitter to discuss the future of the news.

In brief, my thesis will look at:

The proliferation of the Internet is challenging mass media’s age-old arrangement of producer and consumer as well as the economic models on which the centuries-old industries have relied. These factors in combination with a worldwide recession and its resultant drop in advertising revenues have caused a crisis in the newspaper industry; a crisis in which they question their long-term survival as a viable news delivery system. This study will apply a discourse analysis to explore how the online debate on the future of the news, and more specifically newspapers, is structured, and will look at what that says about the issue. These conclusions will then be used to build a framework of the major concepts in the current discussion. The purpose of this research is to explore, describe and evaluate the scope of existing discourse in order to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the issues surrounding the debate on the future of news and newspapers.

To do my discourse analysis I am going to to track 20 Twitter accounts for 2 months. So my question to you, helpful readers, is who do you consider to be the most influential, interesting, verbose, engaged/engaging people on Twitter who are discussing the future of the newspaper?

Once I’ve finalized the list I will put it on listerous and make a Twitter list for others to use.

*edit*

Suggestions thus far (thanks all!):

From Leems:
@jeffjarvis
@buzzmachine
@knightfdn

From @memeticbrand:
@wemedia
@the_standard

From @CNWgroup:
@kirklapointe
@mathewi

From @laheadle:
@jayrosen_nyu
@niemanlab
@megangarber
@jny2
@steveouting
@howardweaver
@chanders

From @bxmx:
@david_eaves
@cheeky_geeky
@bxmx

Yesterday I attended a speech given at the University of Ottawa by Dr. Homer-Dixon entitled “Convergence, Crisis and Creativity: The possibility of a humane world in a Turbulent Age” – it was an interesting speech and my first time using my wonderful Christmas present. I forgot the headphones so I apologize for the sound of the pen writing – it won’t happen again!

Let me know what you think!

Does Twitter Create a Daily Me or a Daily We

Here is a copy of a research paper I wrote for my directed study last semester – this is my first time opening up my scholarly work to anyone outside of my profs, friends and parents so please be somewhat gentle. That’s not to say that I don’t want your impressions and ideas – far from it – I’d love to hear what you think about my arguments, how you think I can improve the existing arguments, what you think I was crazy for leaving out etc … just try not to make me cry!

And of course I didn’t write this without help – thanks to my stable of editors/tormentors: Ellen, Mom, Dad, Dave and Steve! It wouldn’t be anywhere near as lucid without you guys!

Thanks,

Caitlin

For my thesis I need to first successfully write and defend a proposal which I’ve been working on for a while now. I’m currently writing my methodology section and I’m struggling. I turn to you dear readers for suggestions. I know that you can help me out!

My question is – how does one rate influence on Twitter? I know there is Tweet Grader but I’m not sure it gives me a reliable enough way of measuring someone’s influence, amplification and impact. I need to be able to pick the Top twenty commentators on a subject – any suggestions on how to figure that out? Presumably there is a way to look at a user’s number of followers, combine that with how many people they follow plus the amount of times their posts are re-tweeted to get an idea of their influence. A further thing to think about is to understand someone’s influence on Twitter do you need to then track the RTs of their RTs? Presumably this tool already exists!

Please and thank you for your help with my methodological woes!

So the time has come for me to launch a blog. I’m in the midst of an MA program at the University of Ottawa, studying Communication and am planning to use this blog to help develop my ideas and arguments. For my thesis, I’m researching concepts surrounding the future of news and newspapers. After I’ve put together a semantic mapping of these concepts I will be translating them into IEML:

IEML (Information Economy MetaLanguage) is a regular language that provides new methods for semantic interoperability, semantic navigation, collective categorization and self-referential collective intelligence. (taken from: IEML website)

Hopefully my Wordpress skills will develop but for now I apologize for all the weird, non-visually pleasing formatting. Also, presumably, my blogging skills will develop. This is a first for me (which seems weird too!) but I was of the impression that there were more than enough blogs out there and that my voice would not add any new content, but now that I am spending my days reading, writing and researching I figured I could add something of value to the discourse.

For now this blog will most likely focus on my musings surrounding what other people are saying in the often fiery, always interesting, debate on the future of the newspaper. Although I’m a bit of a goldfish so there will definitely be other things appearing from time to time!

p.s. I don’t really have a problem. Well maybe I do – I think it’s my thesis