A presentation delivered at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism on leveraging new media for provincial news managers.

1. Social & new media tactics: Generating and
curating provincial news
Sanjana Hattotuwa
Editor, Groundviews (www.groundviews.org)

2. what is social media?
• Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform
broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues
(many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and
information, transforming people from content consumers into content
producers. (Wikipedia)

3. what is new media?
• New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital,
computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in
the later part of the 20th century. New media is not television programs,
feature films, magazines, books, or paper-based publications. (Wikipedia)

5. new media and foundations
• Blogs
• Social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace)
• Google Maps
• Mobiles: SMS, MMS, Mobile photography and video
• VoIP: Skype, Google Chat
• And making it all possible are ADSL, 3G HSPA wireless broadband

6. what’s new
• Ubiquity of two way communications
• Addressable peoples, even those who IDPs or refugees
• News generation and dissemination linked to new media
• Disintermediated models vs. traditional media model
• Citizens as producers
• Low resolution content broadcast on high definition media

7. what’s old and enduring challenges
• Impartial, accurate coverage still vital, increasingly hard to ascertain
• Torrent of information. Trickle of knowledge.
• Veracity / Verifiability?
• Post-disaster communications can be unreliable and difficult
• New media / technology illiteracy

8. What is out there?

9. online video: Vikalpa YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/vikalpasl

10. kottu: blog aggregation
www.kottu.org

11. sinhala bloggers union: blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

12. sinhala bloggers union: blog aggregation
www.sinhalabloggers.com

13. online video: Perambara YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/internewslanka

14. online news from provinces: Vikalpa
www.vikalpa.org

15. online news from provinces: Perambara
www.perambara.org

16. twitter: new perspectives

17. flickr content on sri lanka: www.flickr.com

18. Producing content from the
provinces

19. essential email account: Gmail

20. essential sinhala unicode tools
http://ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/services/feconverter

21. wordpress.com: blogging

22. ustream.tv: broadcasting via a PC

23. bambuser.com: mobile phone broadcasting

24. drop.io: reports through audio

25. Pulling it all in and keeping
abreast

26. google maps in elections monitoring

27. google search: Updates from social media

28. google reader: a web based RSS reader

29. google docs: web based document management

30. google calendar: web based document
management

31. know your twitter hastags (#slelections)

32. twitter: desktop aggregation via Seesmic Look
seesmic.com/look

33. spy: http://spy.appspot.com

34. news management toolkit

35. key points: recap
• New technologies potentially give voice to all citizens
• Be sceptical of new information, but use new media to push and pull content
• Develop media literacy to embrace new technologies

36. Thank you