“Put it on a post-card and send it to last week…”

…may have been some people’s experience of customer service. But according to a survey done by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), more and more customers are voicing their complaints through “social media”.

One third of the customers who were surveyed said that they dealt with bad service, by writing a bad review on the company’s website.

When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. The process of making a customer complaint gives rise to a highly confrontational situation. Not only are you making a criticism of that company TO a company rep, you’re also voicing anger or dissatisfaction to a person who you’ve never met before. I’m not surprised that it may make a fair few people feel uncomfortable or nervous.

Doing it via the internet takes away the conflict element of the complaints procedure. The outcome may also be less personalized, and therefore less satisfactory, but it gives shy customers a way in.

What are the implications of this for social media and the news? Well, I think that shows us a key point about the psychology of the internet, useful for news-gathering. The relative anonymity of social media means that nervous people may be more willing to speak up, or get in touch to talk about an issue, if first contact is made online. For news-gathering, this provides a new way of getting good interviewees to come forward, when they may have otherwise felt a little startled by being phoned up or approached in person.

Lydia

SOCIAL MEDIA investigation & LEARNING EXPERIENCE

This blog is a record of our investigations and learning in relation to the question set to the group;

WHAT IMPACT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA HAVING ON ESTABLISHED NEWS GATHERING TECHNIQUES AND OUTPUT?

The Twitter feed is dialogue on our blog – hence the name Diablogue and is a feed from mediatress.

We would be delighted to receive your comments and invite you to take our poll:

 

 

 

 

The influence of Social Media

by Sharon Robins

 A cop in Washington DC pulled a gun during a snowball fight.  It became UK news on 22^nd December as reported in a free newspaper for rail users, The Metro

The Metro, 22 Dec 09

Shown circled in the photo above, editorial by Miles Erwin reads; “… organised a mass snowfight via Twitter on Saturday..”    with further down  “Washington DC police department initially denied a gun was drawn but backed down after various YouTube posts proved the opposite.

Washington City paper blogged about it with pictures and video sent in.  It is not clear whether the contributors, described as eye witnesses, were infact journalists out looking for material or geniunely citizens on the street.

Whatever the origin of the video footage, certainly many people saw it and it did influence the Police department’s final version and has made international news.

Showbiz

Radio Jackie target South West London with hourly 3 minute bulletins containing national and local news with half hourly summaries at peak times. 

They currently use Twitter to follow a couple of their local MP’s and report accordingly but at this stage they are not crowd sourcing. 

News & Sport Editor, Rod Bradbury believes that Twitter and Facebook are an invaluable tool for any journalist focusing on showbiz;

“..you know then you will be on Facebook and Twitter the whole time and you will be using those as sources.”

Click for the full Radio Jackie interview.

Skype

The immediacy offered by social media websites provided basis for the early coverage of Haiti following the earthquake that decimated their infrastructure.

Pressgazette.co.uk reported how various news teams scrambled for coverage with one of the first interviews being via Skype.  Although Twitter messages were coming through, broadcasters had difficulty verifying whether messages and images were genuine.

After making contact via Facebook and while mobiles and telephones were down, Skype enabled people to give their own live eye witness reports.

Public not private

Returning to Twitter and it’s influence on news, that is to say keeping people informed or indeed being the news, consider the updates from SkyNews which came an hour apart:

SkyNews Good morning all. Another busy day – Sky’s team in Haiti still coming up with great stuff. It’s all here: http://www.skynews.com/haiti about 10 hours ago from TweetDeck

 SkyNews Apologies to those offended by my newsspeak – maybe “powerful, compelling stories” is more appropriate. JG (@scook94, @corneiliuz, @hjames) about 9 hours ago from TweetDeck   

I don’t imagine the majority of the public would think pictures of amputees, reports of lack of food and water, not to mention dead bodies piled up, to really be ‘great stuff.’

It would be interesting to know whether that statement influenced any readers to no longer follow SkyNews.

SM Challenge; violence not condoned – not even any leather

Sharon Robins – Desperately scanning social media between 4:30 and 7pm – on a Sunday!

The most interesting thing that I found was a picture that might make a great ‘And Finally’ story.  And it hadn’t been there earlier that I’m aware of!

Batmobile in Cambodia - posted Digg 17:40

Yes, extraordinary how I found this picture when I was in fact looking for Cornwall, Cornish and focusing on Falmouth or Penryn. 

But that’s the interesting thing about social media and the influence on news – how easily the web provides related links that draw the crowd somewhere else.  

The news searcher/voyeur can be a news butterfly jumping where ever they want to go pulling whatever ‘news’ interests them.

Back to the challenge

http://www.kathijoonmyfamilyandothera.blogspot.com/  16:30 found blog from Twitter

Had a look to see if there was a hidden story in there somewhere but nothing particular.

16:35 Twitter “Bulldoza A little sore and hungry need ride to Falmouth ” 43 mins ago from myspace

Oops, Falmouth but not UK

Is there a Falmouth in the states? Still could be a story??  I twittered back to see if I could find what the story was but got no reply.  Quelle surprise. Who am I?

Facebook: Laura Tonkin: has had an excellent day and is now one step closer to achieving her aim of walking the entire coast of Cornwall!    Probably not a new story but maybe a new angle?  Possible prospect.

Facebook 18:23: Michel Maheu: last night was not a good night for me I hit a deer coming back from Cornwall    Poor deer.  And how annoying; Ontario.  But might have made a little story if not.

http://cornishzetetics.blogspot.com/2010/01/housing-plans-lib-dems-speak-with.html

17:50 blog search/google as above re housing in cornwall.  Not exactly new but a new angle.

http://itinerantwargamer.blogspot.com/2010/01/back-from-falmouth.html

18:00 blog search/google   Story about grown men and a week hol to play war games (21 hours ago though).  Def could do an article on this behaviour that is probably not common knowledge.

Throughout the time , I also checked Flickr and Technorati but found nothing of interest (to me).

Conclusion

Too small a search area and time span to be of significance – unless during that time there had been a major disaster, which thankfully there was not.

The rise of Twitter in Journalism

I was weaving myself around the web this weekend and came across an interesting article on the evolving relationship between social media and newsgathering.

A conference session was held back in summer 2009 entitled ‘Twitter as a News Gathering Tool‘.  It was attended by various high-profile news journalists, including Ann Curry of NBC and Rick Sanchez of CNN.  All were Twittering and providing their followers with their take on the news.

Some members of the panel though were concerned how this increasing phenomenon might be undervaluing the quality of news.  According to Robert Scoble (a professional Twitterer), ‘actual news is now coming from citizens versus journalists’.  Here comes a crucial debate: will Twitter (and other social media) replace the standard newsgathering methods we have known for so long?

The traditional panel journalists relies on ‘no, but’.  Though social media may inform the audience faster and easier then accessing traditional broadcast news outlets, it is (as exemplified with citizen journalism) unverified, unconfirmed news reporting.

Here comes the bridge between a journalist and a member of the public.  It is argued that it is the professional journalist that members of the public trust more and rely on for accurate news output, rather than the citizen journalist.  It’s the issue of credibility….BBC, ITN, Sky, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc are all trustworthy and reliable sources. Citizen journalism is not.  Yet the power of social media IS increasing.

All the panellists are Twittering, and like many organisations, see this particular medium as easy-access and a free method of contacting the world at large.  I personally now subscribe to around 10 Twitter feeds, including CNN, AP, Nick Robinson (BBC Political Editor) and the Daily Telegraph, each providing a quick news story update throughout the day.  It used to be that the public had to buy newspaper to read the news, then it was check the internet to keep up with the latest stories, before moving onto mobile phone WAP.  Now, though social media, anybody (including professional journalists) can keep their audience of ‘followers’ right up to date with the news at the simple sending of a text.

As one panellist said, it is better to be ‘rather late and right, than early and wrong’…though this is in contrast to the traditional race of the news agencies – who can be first and accurate.

Read the full article here.

Jason

First Date: Impact of Social Media group

by Sharon Robins

Getting together for a first date was no easy task for five busy MA journalism students; James, Jason, Lydia, Shan and Sofia.  But we managed it, pulling wheelie chairs into a huddle at the back of the media centre to get started.

Our task, to plan the way forward to complete a group assignment: A 15 minute live multi-media presentation followed by 15 minutes for questions and discussion.

And the subject?  What impact are social media having on established news gathering techniques and output?

A tasty pot full

Into the pot went what we knew and we shared what we had found out, e.g. blogging – effect/risk to news, Al Jazeera listening posts – how social media works,  wikileaks, Twitter- quick way sharing research, Digg – voted by readers not news corporations, facebook – a photo stolen for a news article?,  Prezi – could it be a useful presentation tool?

What are established news gathering techniques?   What is happening now?   What about the future?

Horse's Mouth

Between us we came up with names of social media guru’s and journalists in different media that we are all going to contact, the aim being to interview them. 

Timeline

Count 11 weeks from First Date to Baring All (the presentation).  Not a lot, if it then becomes 7 weeks if you skip the Christmas break wherein some of us are on work experience. 

Others will be, hopefully, wrapped up in Christmas shenanigans and we’ll all be studying for the lovely law exam upon our return.

A Leader or Two

Our Producer is Jason.  It was not democratic since Sofia was attending a tutorial for a few minutes but hey, you snooze – you lose.  But of the remaining group, those who wanted to be Producer let it be known.

Jason (tells us he) makes a great completer/finisher and will feel most comfortable knowing he is in control of being sure there is a final product, i.e. the presentation.  Sounded great to me.

Lydia is Assistant Producer/Chairwoman and will keep us on the straight and narrow.  Her main task is to drive the meetings and keep us focused on the subject.  Secondary she will assist Jason in producing the presentation.

The group blog Administrator is Sofia who will also develop the design as we go along.  Sofia has specialism in this area and will share it with the group.

James and I (Shan), along with Sofia, are neither shy nor retiring so we will stick our finger into the pie whenever we feel the need.  Lydia will ensure we stay on track.

ACTION

• Create Blog – Sofia 
• Conceptual flow of how we will focus – Lydia 
• Make contact with guru’s and journalists – All
• Dream up blog name – All
• Set up Twitter account related to subject for stream on Blog & info sharing - All

All actions to be completed by next meeting.

And another thing, although these are minutes of the first meeting, the next and last one will be after ‘Baring All’.