A presentation by Seth Lewis and Nikki Usher at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, May 26, 2012, Phoenix, AZ.

1. Open Source and Journalism:
Toward New Frameworks for
Imagining News Innovation
Seth C. Lewis, Ph.D. Nikki Usher, Ph.D.
(U of Minnesota) (George Washington U.)

2. Intersecting phenomena: The rise of
programmer-journalists in the newsroom

3. Intersecting phenomena: The rise of
Hacks/Hackers and similar collaborations

6. Intersecting phenomena: The tech sector’s
interest in journalism as a ‘problem space’

7. Underlying all of this: Open Source
• Many of these ventures (but not all) focus on
open source computing framework
• Also emphasize pro-social hacking culture from
the open source software movement — i.e.,
doing good by making data open and accessible
• But the history of ‘computational journalism’ is
one of normalizing tools to suit existing practices
• How might a tech-focused approach to open
source lead to rethinking journalistic norms?

8. Open Source: What is meant
• “A collective noun for all software with
available source code, adaptable by all, under
the limitation that the adaptations should be
made available to others”
– (Wynants & Cornelius, 2005)

9. Open Source: Architecture & Culture
• Code structured as “open”
• Infuses a culture
– Software works best when it is collectively created
– non-market, non-contractual transfer of
knowledge

10. Open Source: Normative values
• Transparency
• Tinkering
• Iteration
• Participation

11. Normative values: Transparency
• For open source, it’s the idea that you’re
coding in the open….
• For journalists, transparency has traditionally
been about other institutions
• Can journalism be more of a process rather
than a product?

13. Normative values: Tinkering
• Playfulness, “maker culture”
• Small changes – just for fun or for the better

14. Normative values: Tinkering
• Journalists are makers
• But too often they get caught up in same old
patterns of storytelling
• And their organizations are afraid to play with
the traditional model just to see what
happens….

15. Normative values: Iteration
• The freedom to fail
• Beta-testing
• Community feedback is crucially important

16. Normative values: Participation
• Open source: distributed collective input
– “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”
• Journalism: to what extent can the ‘software’
of news go beyond token forms of user input?

17. New frameworks: Story as code

18. New frameworks: Journalism as
knowledge management

19. In closing: Caveats
• Open source tools may normalize journalism
• Open source projects may fail
• Many of them are cathedral, in the end
• Silicon Valley culture might be toxic to the
newsroom
• Who is behind all of this, and why?

20. Open Source and Journalism:
Toward New Frameworks for
Imagining News Innovation
Seth C. Lewis, Ph.D. Nikki Usher, Ph.D.
(U of Minnesota) (George Washington U.)