Fwd: [Data & Society] March 10 Databite | C.W. Anderson | "Our Audience is a Machine": Structured Stories and the Computation of Journalistic Context

[Chris Anderson]

Dear all,

As some of you know (you were there) I was hanging around the Structured Stories experiment in NYC this summer, and this talk at Data and Society will be the first time I publicly discuss my thoughts. It will be pretty informal and will also be "old" as I have not had time to follow up with David and Bill about how they are now thinking about the basic concepts (I *will* do this before I go to Japan).  

I know a lot of you (all of you?) will be at NICAR but the talk will stream on the D&S website. If love feedback of you tune in. And also as Bill and I discussed, while he and David are mentioned the project participants are anonymized and not identified in any way!

Let me know if you will make it. 

Chris 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eszter Csicsai <esz...@datasociety.net>
Date: Monday, March 7, 2016
Subject: [Data & Society] March 10 Databite | C.W. Anderson | "Our Audience is a Machine": Structured Stories and the Computation of Journalistic Context
To: eve...@lists.datasociety.net

WHO: C.W. Anderson (http://www.cwanderson.org, @chanders) presents "Our Audience is a Machine": Structured Stories and the Computation of Journalistic Context: 

In recent years there has been much excitement about "data journalism" - the use of large and small datasets to tell news stories differently or visualize information in compelling ways. This talk discusses an emerging future of journalistic work, one that reverses the order of operations described above. Instead of using databases to craft narratives, so-called "computational" or "structured" journalism turns narratives into databases; basically, it creates structured data out of unstructured events and uses that structure to inform journalistic work and produce new news products. Politifact and Homicide Watch are often pointed to as examples of structured journalism.

This talk describes the findings of three months of field research on the computational journalism project Structured Stories. It discusses the operations, ideologies, and institutional routines of Structured Stories, and analyzes the underlying computational cultures that seem to intersect with the larger belief patterns of traditional journalism. It concludes with an analysis of some of the ways that a deeper understanding of the work routines of Structured Journalism might help us understand general trends, tensions, and critical junctures common to digital news production in general. The talk will focus on four aspects of Structured Stories worthy of notes: the ontologies of evidence imagined by Structured Stories, the changing epistemologies of journalists participating in structured stories, the manner in which notions of journalistic professionalism might be changing in a world of computational journalism, and finally, the economic imperatives driving work in Structured Stories.

Chris was a participant in a recent Data & Society workshop and initiative titled, “Who Controls the Public Sphere in an Era of Algorithms?” His work on computational journalism raises important questions on how adopting technological and data practices can be used to supplement the accountability and ‘check to power’ function of journalism and the fourth estate. 

For some background on Chris' talk, please take a look at the following articles:

"A Place For Homicide Watch" 
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/homicide-watch-can-a-local-blog-fill-in-the-gaps-of-dcs-homicide-coverage/ 

"Learning to Write Again"
http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/06/learning-to-write-again-a-duke-team-tests-a-new-way-of-reporting-on-new-york-city-government/  

WHEN: Thursday, March 10, 12-1:30pm (lunch provided)

WHERE: Data & Society, 36 W. 20th St., 11th Fl. OR on our live stream at http://www.datasociety.net/databites/  

RSVP REQUIRED!! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/databite-no-72-chris-w-anderson-registration-22504637978 

Databites are Data & Society's weekly lunch conversations focused on unresolved questions and timely topics of interest to our community. Upcoming and past Databites, including videos, can be found online at http://www.datasociety.net/databites/   

————

Thanks for joining us at last week’s Databite featuring John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany! This Thursday, we welcome C.W. Anderson, who will be discussing the possibilities inherent within computational journalism.

As ever, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

See you on Thursday!

--

Eszter Csicsai

Manager of Community Programs

Data & Society Research Institute

www.datasociety.net

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--

I try to answer emails before 7am and between 5pm-7pm on weekdays, and occasionally on weekends.

--

C.W. Anderson, PhD (Communications), <http://www.cwanderson.org>
Assistant Professor of Media Culture, College of Staten Island (CUNY)

[David Caswell]

Wow! I'm very much looking forward to this and will watch the streamcast from a quiet corner somewhere at NICAR. Look for feedback from me a few days later.. :-)

It's really great that you're introducing this work at Data & Society - a good place to sound an 'early warning' on an alternative conception of journalistic knowledge.

On Monday, March 7, 2016 at 3:16:28 PM UTC-8, heychanders wrote:

Dear all,

As some of you know (you were there) I was hanging around the Structured Stories experiment in NYC this summer, and this talk at Data and Society will be the first time I publicly discuss my thoughts. It will be pretty informal and will also be "old" as I have not had time to follow up with David and Bill about how they are now thinking about the basic concepts (I *will* do this before I go to Japan).  

I know a lot of you (all of you?) will be at NICAR but the talk will stream on the D&S website. If love feedback of you tune in. And also as Bill and I discussed, while he and David are mentioned the project participants are anonymized and not identified in any way!

Let me know if you will make it. 

Chris 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eszter Csicsai 
Date: Monday, March 7, 2016
Subject: [Data & Society] March 10 Databite | C.W. Anderson | "Our Audience is a Machine": Structured Stories and the Computation of Journalistic Context
To:

WHO: C.W. Anderson (http://www.cwanderson.org, @chanders) presents "Our Audience is a Machine": Structured Stories and the Computation of Journalistic Context: 

In recent years there has been much excitement about "data journalism" - the use of large and small datasets to tell news stories differently or visualize information in compelling ways. This talk discusses an emerging future of journalistic work, one that reverses the order of operations described above. Instead of using databases to craft narratives, so-called "computational" or "structured" journalism turns narratives into databases; basically, it creates structured data out of unstructured events and uses that structure to inform journalistic work and produce new news products. Politifact and Homicide Watch are often pointed to as examples of structured journalism.

This talk describes the findings of three months of field research on the computational journalism project Structured Stories. It discusses the operations, ideologies, and institutional routines of Structured Stories, and analyzes the underlying computational cultures that seem to intersect with the larger belief patterns of traditional journalism. It concludes with an analysis of some of the ways that a deeper understanding of the work routines of Structured Journalism might help us understand general trends, tensions, and critical junctures common to digital news production in general. The talk will focus on four aspects of Structured Stories worthy of notes: the ontologies of evidence imagined by Structured Stories, the changing epistemologies of journalists participating in structured stories, the manner in which notions of journalistic professionalism might be changing in a world of computational journalism, and finally, the economic imperatives driving work in Structured Stories.

Chris was a participant in a recent Data & Society workshop and initiative titled, “Who Controls the Public Sphere in an Era of Algorithms?” His work on computational journalism raises important questions on how adopting technological and data practices can be used to supplement the accountability and ‘check to power’ function of journalism and the fourth estate. 

For some background on Chris' talk, please take a look at the following articles:

"A Place For Homicide Watch" 
http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/05/homicide-watch-can-a-local-blog-fill-in-the-gaps-of-dcs-homicide-coverage/ 

"Learning to Write Again"
http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/06/learning-to-write-again-a-duke-team-tests-a-new-way-of-reporting-on-new-york-city-government/  

WHEN: Thursday, March 10, 12-1:30pm (lunch provided)

WHERE: Data & Society, 36 W. 20th St., 11th Fl. OR on our live stream at http://www.datasociety.net/databites/  

RSVP REQUIRED!! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/databite-no-72-chris-w-anderson-registration-22504637978 

Databites are Data & Society's weekly lunch conversations focused on unresolved questions and timely topics of interest to our community. Upcoming and past Databites, including videos, can be found online at http://www.datasociety.net/databites/   

————

Thanks for joining us at last week’s Databite featuring John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany! This Thursday, we welcome C.W. Anderson, who will be discussing the possibilities inherent within computational journalism.

As ever, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

See you on Thursday!

--

Eszter Csicsai

Manager of Community Programs

Data & Society Research Institute

www.datasociety.net

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:

To be removed from the list, send any message to:

For all list information and functions, see:

[Paul Rissen]

Greatly looking forward to this - I'll be tuning in on the live stream, hopefully.

Wish I could be at NICAR for the Structured Journalism chat, but maybe next year. Enjoy!

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