Kealey Communications

My website rejuvenation project is almost complete and as you can see I’m now set up as a consultant with much less emphasis on my research. That being said, you can still go through the archive of the blog (all the way back to it’s inception in November 2009) to find much of the work I did over the last few years for my thesis research.

As a consultant my goal is to help small businesses and not-for-profit organizations with their media and social media outreach. I very much enjoy the problematic of how best to communicate and to whom that these types of organizations face in their outreach goals. Social media is especially interesting, as it is an ever expanding world with many, many different platforms. I’ve heard more than once that “we need to be there” without any thought given to why, how or where. It is fun to jump on bandwagons and try new things out, but thought needs to be given to the why. Tools are not strategies and the many different social media platforms often distract you from your actual goal. Always remember the why and then you can figure out the who, what, where, when and how.

As my thesis is officially submitted and I near the completion of my MA in Communications from the University of Ottawa, I find myself wanting to redirect this website. It will be less about my thesis and more about my future. While the old blog and thesis existed under the name “The Future is Not Black and White,” I feel that the future is indeed full of promise and lots of colour!

Stay tuned for news about what’s next in the world of Kealey Communications!

I haven’t posted in a while – I’ve been busy trying to figure out ways to conqueror my insane amount of data (as well as quite possibly repeatedly banging my head off my desk). For my discourse analysis on the future of newspapers, I was going to use the tweets of the top media experts including the first level links that they tweeted (including comments where available).

Sounds big but manageable, maybe!? Well … the original data set is over 18,000 tweets from 25 people over a two month span. I always knew I was going to narrow that down to the top 20 experts but that still leaves me with 16,000-odd tweets. After having several mini-strokes and maybe a few drinks I went to see one of my committee members who quite rightly pointed out that it just wasn’t doable by hand. He smiled and knowingly said “Get Nvivo”.

Nvivo is a qualitative data analysis software that is apparently going to make my life easier but thus far I’ve found out that it won’t run on my mac, costs $200 and is only installed on four machines on the entire University of Ottawa campus. Nonetheless, I’ve recalled all the books from the library on the program and have set out to try and figure out how to parse my data into the program. Thus far I have had no luck. I am desperately hoping to find someone who actually knows how to use the program!

So yeah, if you know Nvivo and want my undying love (or some reasonable facsimile) please let me know!

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.

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****

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