USC Annenberg News

275 students attend workshop and panels for High School Journalism Day

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:54:14 GMT

By Jonathan Arkin
Student Writer

Hundreds of high school students visited USC Annenberg on Nov. 20 for a program of workshops and panels hosted by award-winning journalists that offered them introductions to the world of newsgathering, editing and reporting.

This year’s High School Journalism Day, sponsored by the McCormick Foundation, brought 275 students and teachers from more than 50 schools and gave them hands-on experience performing the kind of work they can expect to find as professional journalists themselves.

“Take advantage of the day and all these terrific folks from our profession and our faculty,” School of Journalism director Geneva Overholser told the students. “It’s a great time to be in journalism. We’re re-inventing it every day, and you’re going to be an important part of that re-invention.”

Statistically, Overholser said, working on high school newspapers is the number one indicator of a future career in journalism – a truism taken up by many of the day’s panels and presentations, as the young reporters and on-air personalities heard Annenberg faculty and guests speak about investigative journalism, ethics and multimedia storytelling.

“Students coming out of USC get hired because they’re multimedia reporters,” journalism professor Judy Muller told an auditorium filled with high school students instead of the typical USC classmates.

Willa Seidenberg , who directs Annenberg Radio News and advises the multimedia Intersections project, spoke to roomful of high school instructors and advisors on the need for adding diversity to the next generation of journalists and to their work in the field.

“We need to provide media literacy and to provide students in the community opportunities to contribute,” Seidenfeld said of Annenberg’s efforts to cover the community at large and to attract a diverse body of students to do so. “Geneva talked about this experimentation with new forms of journalism …We wanted to really have a dialogue with community people. We can be a place where people in the community can get involved, and we can become an aggregator of content for South Los Angeles.”

There were several simultaneous choices of labs, talks and workshops for the students to attend during the day. While journalism professor Marc Cooper and public relations professor Jennifer Floto hosted workshops on news writing and public relations, respectively, Cal State Fullerton professor Tom Clanin held a discussion on the importance of journalistic ethics.

“Credibility – that’s all you really have,” Clanin said. “You have to be credible, because otherwise you’ll die. Nobody will listen to you … And, you have to be accurate. Today, reporters have to be experts at everything.”

In addition to the roundtable discussions and press conferences, students were treated to a special hands-on lab at Annenberg TV News – the student-run broadcast news operation at USC – and visited both the newsroom and the studios where the newscast are taped.

“We have them come into the newsroom and we sort of run them through what we do,” said ATVN’s sports director, Alex Goldsmith (Broadcast Journalism ’10), one of USC’s most recent Chick Hearn Memorial Scholarship award winner. “We show them a highlight reel, take them into the studio and we train them in 10 minutes on every studio position and have them put on a little show, switch positions then we run it again. They had a great time.”

The visiting students’ advisors also participated – with some of them returning for the second and third time.

“I always look forward to it every year,” said Timothy Ritenour, a journalism and English teacher at John F. Kennedy Senior High School in Granada Hills, “because it gives them a chance to meet their peers, but also to get acquainted with a collegiate environment.”

One of Ritenour’s students, Savannah Smith, grabbed an Annenberg application on her way out to a campus tour.

“Anything that says ‘journalism’ on it is all mine,” said Smith, who came with her journalism class and has already been writing for several years. “Annenberg’s got a good essence about it. It’s got a good aura, it’s extremely prestigious and it’s one of the top programs. If you want to be a journalist, this is the place to be.”

Annenberg scholars present research at 2009 NCA Convention in Chicago

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:17:04 GMT

USC Annenberg was well represented at the 2009 National Communication Association Convention from Nov. 12-15, with dozens of faculty members and doctoral and graduate students making the trip to Chicago to chair discussions, present papers and serve as respondents.

"This was a successful conference at which Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism faculty and students were a notable presence," School of Communication director Larry Gross said. "Our joint party with the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania was, as usual, the social highlight of the conference."

The 95th annual NCA Convention, themed "Discourses of Stability and Change," drew 5,871 attendees. USC Annenberg faculty who participated include:

Communication professor Sandra Ball-Rokeach co-authored a paper titled “Effects of Integrated Connection to a Neighborhood Storytelling Network (ICSN) and Education on Chronic Disease Knowledge Gaps among African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles" that was presented in the session “Racism, identity and health." The paper presented a current study that attempted “to explain the relationships among education, access to community based communication resources (ICSN) and chronic diseases knowledge. With random samples of blacks and Latinos, we found that ICSN plays a mediating role in the cases of breast cancer and diabetes, but not in the cases of hypertension and prostate cancer. ICSN does not moderate the relationship between education and CDK in any of the chronic disease cases tested in this study.”

Communication professor Janet Fulk participated in three different sessions at the NCA Annual Convention: “Cyberinfrastructure, Virtual Organizations, and the Next-Generation Internet in Action: A Multidisciplinary Dialogue among Computer Scientists and Communication Researchers," "Networks and Communities: The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Action," and “Tech-Savy or Tech-Sorry Organizations." She presented a paper titled “A Technology Acceptance Model of Online Community Participation," which outlined a study that identified driving factors of online community participation that is based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) on Nov. 12 that communication professor Margaret McLaughlin co-authored with doctoral students Helen Wang (first author) and Jae Eun Chung and Ph.D. alumna Namkee Park, now at University of Oklahoma. Fulk and communication professor Peter Monge also contributed to a paper titled “Emergence of Social Networking Sites as a Legitimate Organizational Form, which was authored by Ph.D. student Matthew Weber and presented during a Nov. 13 session called “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organization."

Communication professor G. Thomas Goodnight presented his papers, “David Ricardo and the Aesthetics of Wealth Production”, “Imagining a Green Public Culture in China”, and “Police and Politics: Ranciere, Agamben, and Baidou, Migrating against the Public Sphere” throughout the convention” during the convention. He also served as respondent for two sessions titled, “Locative media and urban spaces: New discourses on politics, community construction, journalism, and individualization” and “Re-imagining Rhetorical Theory Through Music."

Director of the School of Communication, Larry Gross held a roundtable discussion on Nov. 14 titled, “Spotlight Panel on the History (and Future) of the Caucus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Concerns”, which served as a forum of discussion of the future of LGBT studies within communications.

Communication professor Randall Lake served as a respondent for a session titled “Revisiting the Rhetoric of Red Power on the 40th Anniversary of the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969-1971)” on Nov. 13.

A paper co-authored by communication professor Margaret McLaughlin titled “A Technology Acceptance Model of Online Community Participation” was presented by doctoral student and author Helen Wang during the Nov. 12 session “Networks and Communities: The Internet, Social Capital, and Civic Action.” Other co-authors for the paper were communication professor Janet Fulk, doctoral student Jae Eun Chung and Ph.D. alumna Namkee Park, now a professor at the University of Oklahoma.

Communication professor Peter Monge co-authored “Emergence of Social Networking Sites as a Legitimate Organizational Form," which was presented during a Nov. 13 session called “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organizations." The paper, co-authored by communication professor Janet Fulk, outlined a study that addressed “the emergence of social networking sites as an organizational form, grounded in theories of organizational ecology. The ecological perspective on organizational forms provides a foundation for understanding how forms emerge as a result of interactions within the surrounding environment. This is applied through a framework for examining the emergence of online communities as a legitimate organizational form, and is then applied to a case study of the growth of social networking sites.” Monge participated in the “Tech-Savvy or Tech-Sorry Organizations” session. He also presented a paper with Annenberg doctoral alumnus Seungyoon Lee (now an assistant professor at Purdue University) titled "Interorganizational Networks and Knowledge Sharing: Towards Sustainable Development Projects." The findings indicate that organizational networks increase the potential of development projects to create synergies with existing projects through which successful technologies and applications can be replicated or scaled up.

Communication professor Stephen O’Leary presented his paper titled “Locke’s 'Letter Concerning Toleration': The Ground Rules for Religious Rhetoric in the Marketplace of Ideas” on Nov. 14 during the session, “Religion, Politics, and Tolerance in the Public Square: Diverse Approaches to a Critical Issue”. His paper offered a “self-contradictory argument for religious tolerance, justifying anti-Catholic bigotry while preparing ground for that bigotry to be overcome,” according to the provided abstract.

Communication professor Patricia Riley served as a presenter during the session, “ALTA- 2009 Conference on Argumentation Planning Meeting: The Functions of Argument and Social Context” as well as the chair session organizer for “Organizing Virtual Organizational Communication—Living the Dialectic of Bursting Boundaries and Rebuilding Community," which both took place on Nov. 14.

Communication professor Stacy Smith presented a paper titled “Marginalized and sexualized: A content analysis of black characters in top-grossing films from 1990 to 2006” during the Nov. 13 session called “Top Papers of the African American Communication and Culture Division”. Her paper assessed “the demography and hypersexualization of black characters in 400 top-grossing theatrically released films in the United States and Canada between 1990 and 2006."

Communication professor Gordon Stables presented during two sessions on Nov. 13 titled, “CEDA Business Meeting” and “Council of Forensic Organizations Business Meeting." He also chaired several sessions at the NCA session for the Cross-Examination Debate Association. Additionally, Stables is the president of the Cross-Examination Debate Association this year.

Other graduate and doctoral students representing USC Annenberg at the Convention include:

Shoko Hayashi Barnes, Susana Smith Bautista, Beth Boser, Nien Tsu Chen, Jae Eun Chung, Fan Dong, Ryan Gillespie, Jinghui Hou, Charlotte Lapansky, Jingfang Liu, Meghan Bridgid Moran, Michael Park, Joe Phua, Nicole Usher, George Allen, Onas Villanueva, Don Waisanen, Hua Wang, Matthew Weber, Diana Winkelman.

National Communication Association Convention

Chick Hearn Memorial Scholarship awarded to two USC Annenberg journalism students

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:05:31 GMT

The Los Angeles Lakers announced that undergraduate USC Annenberg journalism students Trevor Thompson (pictured, below right) and Alex Goldsmith (below left) are the winners of the 2010 Chick Hearn Memorial Scholarship, which will be awarded on center court at halftime of the Lakers-Oklahoma City Thunder game on Nov. 22.

The annual scholarship is funded by an endowment established by the Lakers in memory of Hall of Fame sports broadcaster Chick Hearn (above left), who died in 2002. In addition to major gifts from the Lakers and Hearn’s widow, Marge Hearn, hundreds of fans have contributed to the scholarship fund at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

The Lakers, Marge Hearn and Geneva Overholser, director of USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism, are scheduled to make the official presentation to Thompson and Goldsmith during Chick Hearn Night, the game closest to the date of Hearn’s birthday. In addition to a $5,000 scholarship, the students also have the opportunity to intern at Fox Sports Net and work on the network’s Lakers telecasts as part of the scholarship.

“Of all the honors that Chick received, I believe he would have been most proud of this scholarship,” Marge Hearn said. “He never was able to complete his own education and he would have been very pleased that students like Trevor and Alex have the help they need to pursue their dreams.”

Thompson, a junior from Valencia, Calif., and Goldsmith, a senior from Santa Fe, N.M., have had a passion for sports broadcasting for years.

Thompson has been sports anchor at USC’s Annenberg TV News (ATVN) for two semesters, where he has also been the news anchor and sports reporter, and has written, shot, and produced day-of-air sports packages. He has hosted sports programs on USC’s KSCR Radio, and is an intern at KCAL/KCBS in Los Angeles, where he assists reporters and Web editors with the production of sports stories. He has also interned at WTVF News in Nashville. “Since I’m not playing competitive sports every day anymore, commenting and reporting on sports is the way I still feel like I’m in touch and have a connection,” he said.

Goldsmith got his sports broadcasting start in 2004, when he was a 15-year-old host of a public radio show and part-time ticket taker for the Santa Fe Roadrunners hockey team. When the team’s public address announcer didn’t show up for a game, he was tapped on the shoulder while taking tickets and picked to be the replacement. He is the sports director of ATVN, where he has also been on air as a sports anchor and reporter. He is the head of team media, lead broadcaster and official team blogger for the USC ice hockey team, and has been play-by-play broadcaster, color commentator and reporter for USC football, baseball and women’s soccer on KSCR.

“I haven’t been content to just sit on the sidelines and observe when it comes to sports,” he said. “I’m now in the middle of my fifth season as a hockey play-by-play announcer and still relatively early into my two-semester term as sports director at Annenberg TV News. The more involved I get, the more my love for sports journalism has grown.”

The two student journalists’ paths cross often on campus, and Goldsmith was the first person Thompson ever met at USC. While visiting the university as a high school senior, Goldsmith hosted Thompson. Now the two will unite again, with their families and Overholser at their side.

“To be associated with Chick Hearn in any way is unbelievable,” Goldsmith said. “I don’t think there’s been an announcer who has done as much for their sport as Chick Hearn. His passion lifted the sport of basketball.”

The Chick Hearn Memorial Scholarship was established in 2002 at the request of the Hearn family and the Lakers in tribute to the legendary announcer. In addition to his more than 40 years with the Lakers, Hearn spent 1956-61 as the announcer for USC Trojan football and basketball games. In 1959, he was inducted into USC’s Skull and Dagger Society as the “Voice of Troy.” To continue the legacy of Hearn, this scholarship provides talented broadcast journalism students at USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism with the opportunity to further develop their own unique voices.

The public may continue to contribute to the fund to help deserving journalism students seeking careers in sports broadcasting. Donations may be sent to USC Annenberg Chick Hearn Fund, USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281.

2008 pre-game interview
2008 Photos

Galbraith recommends no troop surge in Afghanistan at Day 2 of Global Communication Leadership Forum

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:57:41 GMT

By Kirstin Heinle
Student Writer

Former U.N. Deputy Special Representative to Afghanistan Peter Galbraith (pictured) criticized the U.S. government’s handling of the war in Afghanistan and said because of the country’s recent presidential election, he does not recommend sending more troops.

"The core issue is that Obama's strategy relies on having a reliable partner,” he said. “A president who is not believed to be legitimate is not a reliable partner. We have to remember that troops are a valuable resource, and if the resource cannot be effectively used, it shouldn't be used. As you can see, I'm not wildly optimistic."

Galbraith’s talk came on the final day of the Nov. 6-7, 2009 Global Communication Leadership Forum in Los Angeles. The Forum, Obama's Afghanistan: The Media and the War was presented by USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) and Occidental College’s Office of Global Affairs. Day two of the conference featured presentations by distinguished journalists and policymakers, including Galbraith, Richard Reeves, Robert Scheer, Jeremy Curtin and Kathy Spillar.

Galbraith spoke out about his recent dismissal after criticizing the way in which the U.N. was handling Afghanistan election fraud.

"There's been a very exaggerated account in the press of what my role was," Galbraith said.

Galbraith said he pressured his boss, U.N. ambassador Kai Eide, to more closely examine "ghost polling centers" in Afghanistan where thousands of fraudulent ballots were being cast. Since leaving his post, seven members of Galbraith's former staff have resigned from the U.N.

During his presentation, Galbraith defended himself, saying he felt the Afghan elections should be transparent because they were funded in part with U.S. tax dollars. The elections were also critical to the U.S. military mission, he added.

"They were supposed to be a step to democracy,” he said. “(Ultimately), it made the country much less stable."

USC Annenberg journalism professor and CCLP senior fellow Reeves shared insights as a keen observer of White House politics. During his presentation, "Presidents and the Press," Reeves highlighted the role the press plays in the president's decision-making process. Reeves shared a story from the Clinton administration demonstrating the importance of the press.

"I once asked Bill Clinton when he was in office, 'Do you get more information from The New York Times or the C.I.A.?' Reeves said. "He said, 'There's no comparison: The New York Times. Our information bank is the (four major newspaper outlets).'”

The president is the one figure who still dominates the news, Reeves said.

"It is that audience of one that determines much of what happens in Washington and much of what happens in the press,” he said.

Now news breaks instantaneously and there is coverage in multiple outlets, which has made it more difficult for the government to shape public perception. "Often the public has already made up their mind before the president can speak or act," Reeves said.

Reeves reminded conference attendees the relationship between the press and the government can be driven by self-interest.

"They want to use us, and we want to use them," he said, citing advice former president John F. Kennedy gave to his campaign staff. "Kennedy said, 'I wanna say something about the press. These are all nice guys; I love their company. (But) never forget there comes a point where they're going to go their way and we're going to go ours.'"

Following Reeves’ and Galbraith's presentations, a panel examined steps both the government and press may take with the war in Afghanistan.

Jeremy Curtin from the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Information Programs argued against the conception that the Afghans are out-communicating the U.S. government and its allies.

"That's not fundamentally accurate,” Curtin said. “We do have ways of reaching the Afghan people. We have assets, especially in radio that do reach large amounts of Afghan people.”

Curtin said the challenge the United States has is effectively using the established outlets. He described what he considers to be the two biggest communication errors in the war in Afghanistan, one of which is the amount of time it takes for the government to respond to events.

"In one case, it's the fault of trying to be honest," Curtin explained, describing the government's lengthy fact-checking process. "I think also in Washington there is a problem with our information system chain. It's a basic problem of internal coordination. We're slow. That gap, I think, is serious."

Curtin also said the United States has also failed to establish and maintain a narrative that speaks directly to the Afghan people.

"We have a narrative. We're freedom loving. We're on your side. We treat women nicely,'" Curtin said.

The extremist narrative, like that of the Taliban, is seen as more effective, he said. Until the United States establishes a narrative for the Afghan people and also narrows the time gap between events, it can be at a disadvantage, he continued.

Feminist Majority Foundation's Spillar explained that Western media coverage of Afghanistan is incomplete.

"Afghanistan is often portrayed as a 14th-century culture. It is simply not true," Spillar said.

She reminded participants that, prior to the Taliban coming into power, women had rights. Even now, Afghanistan is more advanced than people realize, she said.

"They have communication ability, so to think that this country is not plugged into technology is simply to ignore reality."

Spillar said the press must examine the role the U.S. has played in Afghanistan and cover the human rights angle.

"We have looked the other way as warlords and people have committed crimes against humanity. We act like we don't know who these people are and from where they came," she said. "Our own policy up until now has been largely to look the other way."

Spillar also urged the press to focus on solutions outside of military options. "We need a surge in civilian aid. If we fail to do that, we will fail to help this civilization after these last 30 years."

Ultimately, the press must "broaden its discussion" of Afghanistan and stop comparing it to the war in Iraq, Spillar said. "(The press) cannot forget (the) past. Without the context of the history of the region, we are going to continue to keep making mistakes."

Following Spillar's call for a deeper examination of human rights violations in Afghanistan, USC Annenberg professor and TruthDig.com editor Robert Scheer agreed. Above all else, he said the conversation about the war must reach the people.

"We need to rescue these discussions from the experts," Scheer said. "The Internet is a reality. Who is going to go to these foreign countries and cover? It's very difficult. We should let the public be in on the discussion."

Scheer offered a strong reaction to General Wesley Clark's speech from the previous day, calling it "shameful" and a perfect example of why experts need a "timeout."

"We seem to have almost no capacity for shame or apology,” Scheer said. “If we are going to intervene, we should do it in multinational ways. We should be very cautious. And we should challenge ourselves. And most of all, be accountable for (our) errors.”

Imperial ventures and use of the military in Afghanistan "are incompatible with democracy and should be abandoned,” he concluded.

He then brought his discussion back to the role of the press, saying old media has been replaced.

"There (have) always been failings, certainly with foreign policy,” he said. "The Internet is a reality. Who is going to go to these foreign countries and cover? It's very difficult. We should let the public be in on the discussion."

Day 1

USC Annenberg remembers Doug Ring

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:24:46 GMT

USC Annenberg students, faculty and staff mourn the death of philanthropist Doug Ring, executive director of the School's Selden Ring Award.

"I am deeply saddened by the death of Doug Ring," Dean Ernest J. Wilson III said. "Not only has USC Annenberg lost a great supporter, but Southern California has lost a tremendous philanthropist and civic leader. He will be missed by the entire community."

The Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting was established in 1989 by Doug's father, Selden Ring, a Southern California business leader and philanthropist. He started the award to honor journalists whose investigative reporting informed the public about major problems or corruption in society and yielded concrete results.

"We will always be grateful for Doug Ring's steadfast dedication to and support for this award, which honored his father's passionate conviction that investigative reporting is central to the health of our democracy," said School of Journalism director Geneva Overholser. "Many a beleaguered newsroom has seen its mood lifted by this recognition. More recently, many a struggling Web site has felt its hopes quicken at the possibility of winning it. The generous sum changed the fortunes of its recipients; this has truly been the 'genius grant' of the journalism prize world."

Innovator in Residence Wladawsky-Berger calls for creation of design studios at universities to build prototypes for innovation

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:18:18 GMT

By Jonathan Arkin
Student Writer

USC Annenberg’s first Innovator in Residence, Dr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger (pictured, above left), led a Nov. 3 conversation focused on innovation, saying universities could help their own causes by building design studios and prototypes to attract interest and support (Watch the video).

Dr. Wladawsky-Berger used examples from his time as head of IBM’s Internet strategy to give schools such as USC Annenberg advice on how to innovate and stay ahead of the technological curve.

“IBM totally shifted in recognizing that the forum was in the marketplace,” he said. “To be part of that forum, you have to be brave enough to get out into the marketplace. If you stay in your castle, in your labs, in your university and you don’t go out there, that’s not where the game is being played. You have to go out there. … The key lesson was, keep inventing stuff, but you have to change your way and move from the research lab to the marketplace.”

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III (pictured, right), who invited Wladawsky-Berger to visit the School for a week to discuss innovative ideas, said the innovator in residence is well-versed on making positive and impactful changes.

“Dr. Wladawsky-Berger participated in one of the great innovation experiments in the history of modern media and modern industry,” Dean Wilson said. “When working with CEO Lou Gerstner of IBM, he turned that large important company and helped them change direction when he had responsibility for the Internet and Internet strategy in the early 1990s.”

Wladawsky-Berger pointed to the viability of Los Angeles as a possible center for innovation and marketing, using Annenberg’s immersive journalism projects as an example.

“There has to be a university,” said Wladawsky-Berger, hinting that USC might lead the way by mimicking the idea of a consortium of schools and developing a “design studio” that could create prototypes. “You cannot be a major entrepreneurial area without a major university…it would be really good to see a prototype of (an immersive journalism project). The talent to build prototypes like that is all over Los Angeles.”

He added that the idea of such a design studio would be to provide opportunities for students to take innovative ideas to the prototype stage.

“They produce the ideas, we give them the facilities to create prototypes,” he said.

Wladawsky-Berger led a number of company-wide initiatives during his 37 years at IBM such as Linux in Grid Computing and the On Demand Business initiative. He currently advises both IBM and Citigroup on strategy.

“When Dean Wilson contacted me and asked if I would spend a week at the Annenberg School as the Innovator in Residence, it would be like the Yankees saying ‘Would you like to come to a fantasy baseball camp?’…Wow, I get to come to the Annenberg School and spend a week here. That is a real treat.”

Wladawsky-Berger discussed his history with IBM, its forays into research and development before and after the Internet changed computing, and he offered advice about becoming more effective in creating collaborative marketing to promote efforts in innovation, research and at conferences – where innovation is shared with colleagues. He said he encouraged a “near-death” IBM to embrace the Internet as a relevant partner to business – at a pre-Internet time when distrust of many new technologies was coupled with a tendency by competitors to appropriate original IBM inventions.

Wladawsky-Berger said any time a new idea was developed and pitched to others, a common question was “Do you have a prototype?” – something he said should be answered in the affirmative at USC Annenberg as well.

"I came across a number of other interesting communications and media projects," Wladawsky-Berger wrote in his most recent blog. "I could sense that an innovation and entrepreneurial culture is beginning to take hold at USC Annenberg. The new ideas they come up with need to be further prototyped in a kind of design studio, so you can actually conduct experiments with real users. A major next step will be to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem around the school, so the ideas they come up with will find their way into the marketplace through both new and existing companies. This won’t be easy, and much work remains to be done, but I came away from my week at USC Annenberg with the feeling that the school is well on its way to making it happen."

Watch the video
Wladawsky-Berger’s blog about time at USC Annenberg

Annenberg panels explore "Social Media: Platform or Provocation for Innovation?”

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:20:54 GMT

By Lara Levin
Student Writer

To explore the increasing use of social media and its implications on the media landscape, the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism recently hosted a conference titled "Social Media: Platform or Provocation for Innovation?” (Watch sessions 1 and 2.)

“At a moment of convergence in the media industry, a time when digitalization and the combination of print and online platforms are coming together, this is a school that encourages all these kinds of discussions to take place,” Dean Ernest J. Wilson III said in reference to USC Annenberg’s dedication to investigate these issues.

Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts Henry Jenkins moderated a panel discussing the social and technological innovation surrounding social media.

Citing his most recent research, Jenkins noted significant changes in the relationship of production and consumption and the circulation and distribution of media on both a local and international level. Taking the examples of singing sensation Susan Boyle and the widespread use of Twitter to disseminate news from Iran, Jenkins challenged the notion of viral media, which is often defined as unknowing and involuntary spread.

“This is the wrong way of thinking about it,” Jenkins said. In both of these cases, individuals “responded to information they thought was compelling, actively moved this information into their communities, and used these communities as resources of communication.”

Jenkins called Boyle and Iran examples of “spreadable media” instead of "viral media," as the public has taken responsibility for the distribution of news and entertainment they deem worthy of circulating themselves, and moreover assign value to it.

Engaged in research on how to assess this value, social computing researcher at IBM Research Julia Grace offered an example of social media challenging old tools of market research. Grace cited a study of the Billboard music chart — the established indicator of what is popular on the music scene. This chart only takes into account physical album sales, disregarding digital purchases and downloads. By recording view and listening counts from MySpace Music and YouTube as well as analyzing commentary content on those sites, Grace and her research team compiled their own list. In a survey of college students, they found 90 percent considered IBM’s list to be more representative of their taste while the Billboard chart was not as indicative of what the public wanted.

Returning to the question of distribution, communication professor Dmitri Williams touched upon this idea of what the public wants — and he asserted the public has been largely paying for content they don’t want at all. Citing the common practice of media distributors selling content in bundles, these organizations give audiences a small percentage of what they are actively seeking as well as a large amount of residual content that is of no interest to them. According to Williams, social media are defined by the disaggregation of these bundles of content, as audiences are able to choose what they produce, consume and distribute, lending to a relatively unknown but significantly different future model, where the role of the distributor as the middle man will fade away.

“To me, the future model is going to look something like a vast army of writers and a vast army of readers,” said Williams, and as the panel’s resident provocateur, he went on to ask, “But how are they going to connect?”

While Williams also suggested virtual worlds are a niche and the biological barriers will ultimately prevent them from becoming an integral part of mainstream media, Annenberg senior research fellow Nonny de la Peña said these virtual worlds, such as Second Life, can bring an element of the experiential to media consumption in a model she labels “immersive journalism.”

“Immersive journalism is a novel way to utilize the gaming platform and virtual environments to convey news, documentary, and nonfiction stories,” de la Peña said. “You move through the narrative in the virtual spaces with content based on traditional reporting, using news material from the physical world but offering a first-person interaction with the reportage… Why would we always be interacting in these spaces in 2D when we could interact in these spaces in a 3D way like we’re used to?”

Other key quotes from the first panel:

“These online social network technologies at their best supplement existing relationships to make them stronger,” Williams said. “A weak is absolutely better than no connection, but you must think about how much space is in your life for the amount of connections and space… A day is a zero-sum equation, and when you take existing connections and you turn them into Facebook ones and they become shallower, that’s a negative.”
“If we think about Twitter, the central messages of Twitter are, ‘Here I am, and here it is,’ and ‘it’ is information that you otherwise might not see," Jenkins said. "I am proclaiming my daily existence, no matter how unimportant it may seem,” and it is this knowledge of relatively banal details of others’ lives that offer a more intimate look at the personae of our peers.
Williams on the challenges of diversity and inclusion in the social media platform: “The good news is, it’s possible, the bad news is that it doesn’t seem to be what people are doing when people have the power to self select,” Williams said.
“We’ve worked hard in the real world to be diverse and inclusive, and we’re still working hard to do so," de la Peña said. "Perhaps we should take those lessons and apply them to our use of social media.”

A second panel moderated by Irving Wladawsky-Berger, head of IBM’s Internet strategy during the mid-1990s and USC Annenberg’s Innovator in Residence, came together to examine the implications of social media on the business model, specifically in the realms of entertainment and journalism.

“There is no question that social media is having a gigantic impact on companies and institutions,” Wladawsky-Berger began, noting also that most companies have seen this impact as a threat. “It’s so naïve — if people are going to say something, they are going to say it whether you like it or not. You may as well embrace it and have a little more ability to influence it, and there is a cultural change that companies have to get through to truly embrace it.”

Melissa Cefkin, ethnographer and research scientist at IBM Research, agreed with this assertion, and challenged the idea that this social media platform is reflecting new behavior. She noted the “tremendous continuity with what we know about society.”

“People have always found ways of connecting and finding each other,” Cefkin said.

Other key quotes from the second panel:

“That’s what people do anyway," Cefkin said about employees and consumers using social media to voice grumblings and complaints about a company. "Organizations would be foolish to try to outright condemn or forbid the use of social media.”
“A lot of our parents and grandparents got on Facebook and Twitter before big media got involved in social media,” USC Annenberg executive in residence David Westphal said. “And it has something to do with the near-death experience that big media is going through right now.”
“They really don’t know what to do with it, and there is perhaps no other industry that is so directly threatened by social media than traditional journalism," journalism professor and director of Annenberg Digital News Marc Cooper said about traditional media.
“Social networks preexisted IBM and Twitter, and of course we’ve amplified them and electrified them, but in many ways the lateral or horizontal nature of the social network is a much more natural form of social communication than the vertical form that we’ve seen in modern media," Cooper said.
“We all learn that value comes from scarcity, and when we live in a world where there is no scarcity, where advertising is everywhere, the value of each one declines,” communication professor Jonathan Taplin said about the challenges social media face in terms of generating revenue.
“The consumer has the same amount of time to consume content as ever, and with an avalanche of content, this leads to fragmentation,” said Steve Canepa, general manager of the IBM Global Media and Entertainment Industry Division, adding that organizations thus find it difficult to retain their core audiences.
“Without sugarcoating it," Cooper said. "I do think that at least for those of us of a certain age and a certain experience, it’s a privilege to be surrounded by so many young people that have such a different perspective on this than the one that we grew up with.”

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Day 1 of CCLP Forum: Press and policymakers need to probe more deeply on rationale for war in Afghanistan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:49:55 GMT

By Kirstin Heinle
Student Writer

Policymakers and analysts called on the press to dig much deeper into the strife that engulfs Afghanistan, and to provide better analysis on the policy options now before President Obama as he weighs whether to send thousands more American troops.

Former Ambassador Morton Abramowitz (pictured, right), who previously headed the State Department’s intelligence unit, accused the press of “hit-and-run” coverage that has substituted for serious consideration of policy in Afghanistan. His observations, along with presentations and dialogue among top journalists, scholars and government officials, were presented at the inaugural Global Communication Leadership Forum, held November 6-7 in Los Angeles.

“I have followed with increasing anger the way the media has covered the policies of the Obama Administration and their inadequacies,” Abramowitz said. “In Afghanistan, after the initial victory, the media and thus the country [U.S.] virtually abandoned their interest, turning attention and resources to the bigger issue of the day: Iraq. The press gave a virtual bye to Obama's Afghanistan strategy in March. No one pursued the real questions: Who is the real enemy? How many forces should we send, for how long, with what strategy, to what end?”

“If the press doesn't do anything to generate interest among the public or the government, maybe another sort of watchdog is needed,” he concluded

The Global Communication Leadership Forum on Obama's Afghanistan: The Media and the War was presented by USC Annenberg's Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) and Occidental College's Office of Global Affairs.

Speakers at the weekend meeting also urged Obama to be extremely cautious in seeing a military buildup as an answer to the Afghanistan war.

In order to win this challenge, said retired Admiral William J. Fallon, the U.S. needs to have a more accurate understanding of the needs and wants of the Afghan people. Part of this begins with the press. "One of the challenges for the media is to stay away from making this white or black," he urged. But even if all the pieces come together, Fallon said there is no doubt in his mind the war will last longer than currently anticipated. "The very idea that we think it could happen soon seems pretty preposterous," he said.

The conference, organized by Geoffrey Cowan, USC University Professor and CCLP director, and Derek Shearer, former U.S. Ambassador, Chevalier Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs and director of global affairs at Occidental College, also featured distinguished journalists and policymakers, including Marjorie Miller, Peter Galbraith, Roy Gutman, Bill Schneider, Jeremy Curtin, and Cinny Kennard.

Retired General Wesley Clark (pictured, left), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, spoke at the end of the conference's first day, urging journalists and policymakers "to ask some tough questions" to help guide President Obama's decisions about the war in Afghanistan.

"We're up against some really difficult problems and yet, it is not about troop strength. But that's all people are talking about," the general said. He suggested the press should ask about the defeat mechanism in Afghanistan instead of focusing on troop size.

Earlier, Afghan journalist Nushin Arbabzadah, currently a senior fellow at UCLA’s Center for India and South Asia, highlighted the media revolution in Afghanistan, citing the emergence of 21 new television stations, 27 new newspapers, more than 900 new web blogs and countless radio stations since 2001.

"Now media freedom is part of the (Afghan) constitution," said Arbabzadah, describing a previous society in which the press was not allowed to criticize the president.

She has seen major changes within the mindsets of the Afghan people as a direct result of more press outlets.

"I think the most important consequence of the new media in Afghanistan is the demystification of politics," she said, adding the press has also provided a forum to discuss issues that were formally considered social taboos, like sexual abuse, drug addiction and prostitution. "The Afghan public opinion is now accessible in a public way."

Shearer opened the forum with an explanation of the reason behind the gathering. "The media was not doing a very good job reporting and analyzing the war in Afghanistan, particularly the United States' involvement. Has there been adequate debate?"

In his presentation, "Public Opinion: How Americans See the War," CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider summarized what is seen as a lack of public opinion about the war. "To many, many Americans, this year Afghanistan is a new war. We've been there for eight years. Afghanistan became the forgotten war."

Schneider thinks the lack of American opinion and interest in Afghanistan stems from the popular view the war is a risky fight for someone else's corrupted government.

Because the American public interest level is so low, it is unlikely the U.S. will have the resources to make informed choices, said former CENTCOM commander, retired Admiral William J. Fallon.

He stressed the Afghan people will ultimately create their own destiny saying, "We can do all kinds of things, but it doesn't matter too much if they decide they want to do something different."

Unlike Arbabzadah's positive portrayal of Afghan media, Fallon painted a different picture.

"Trying to communicate with those people is the biggest challenge I've seen anywhere in the world," Fallon said. "Afghanistan is not a place that lends itself to, 'We're here to help.' There's ample evidence that we need to be very, very careful about how we introduce military presence."

Fallon said the U.S. needs to have a more accurate understanding of the needs and wants of the Afghan people to win this challenge. Part of this begins with the press.

"One of the challenges for the media is to stay away from making this white or black," he said.

Even if all the pieces come together, Fallon said there is no doubt in his mind the war will last longer than currently anticipated. "The very idea that we think it could happen soon seems pretty preposterous," he said.

During an open discussion following Fallon's address, Arbabzadah agreed with his suggestion that the U.S. must understand the Afghan people.

"People don't listen to us! The image of Afghanistan in America is stuck," she said, reminding the room "these are people who haven't decided" with whom they side.

McClatchy foreign editor Roy Gutman delivered a presentation on "How the Press Can Miss the Story" in which he stressed the importance of reporting from the "ground level" to capture the full story.

Gutman offered suggestions to the press to "master this story." He said the press must cover the human rights angle, citing the United States' silence when thousands of civilians were killed in 1998 after the Taliban returned to Mazar, among other examples.

Despite the incredible difficulty to attain accurate information, Gutman asked the press to examine the Taliban and its actions. He also described the importance of "reminding the public of the big picture: the disastrous past involvement of Pakistan and the calamity that will follow a collapse of Afghan central power."

Not only must the media examine happenings abroad in Afghanistan, it needs to look domestically at the way in which people closest to the president publicly debate his decisions, Gutman said.

"We can ask him why he runs his shop this way, without giving leadership," he suggested.

The media must ask the government how it can risk military lives "if it cannot answer questions from the independent news media," Gutman said. "It's not just because we have a historic debt. It's because finding out what's really going on at the ground level is our job description anyway."

Los Angeles Times' senior writer Marjorie Miller agreed with Gutman's call for more "boots on the ground reporting" but said the economic downturn has greatly hindered foreign coverage.

"It's the job of the journalist to look at what the governments are doing, not what they are saying," Miller said during a panel discussion with CCLP's Cinny Kennard and NPR's Mike Shuster. "In order to that, we need resources and we need access."

Shuster said not only are media outlets denied access, but also they are bullied by the administration. "The government has a great deal of power, whether Democrat or Republican, to intimidate the press…particularly in matters of war and warfare," he said.

All three journalists highlighted the expensive nature of traditional foreign reporting, especially in a country like Afghanistan, which is becoming more and more dangerous. They agreed new methods are needed. "In all this grimace what is emerging are new ways to cover the news," Kennard said.

Kennard offered a solution to the conference's focal question. "Instead of shooting the messenger, we need to encourage the American public to find other ways to access the information."

During his presentation and overview from the position of the military, Clark compared the war in Afghanistan to the Vietnam War saying the way in which the "big institutions" interact has changed very little in the last several decades. "The military is very loyal," Clark said explaining the military's relationship to the President.

"That's the way you want the military, but it doesn't always ask the questions you want it to ask," he said emphasizing the press' imperative role in influencing the decisions our government makes in foreign policy.

"These questions have to be asked from the outside as well as on the inside," he stressed.

To help emphasize his point, he played a memorial video featuring footage and pictures of fallen troops from the Vietnam War.

"These were my boys," he said with emotion."That's why the president better take some time to get it right," Clark said after the video. "And he's not going to get it right unless you help him."

USC Annenberg sponsors Democracy Video Challenge

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:14:52 GMT

USC Annenberg is sponsoring The Democracy Video Challenge, a global call to action celebrating democracy that launched its second annual competition.

The Challenge invites citizens from around the world to create video shorts that complete the phrase: "Democracy is..." in an effort to enhance the global dialogue on democracy.

“For our communication, journalism and public relations students, the critical role of democracy is at the heart of their studies, the service projects in which they are engaged and their future," Dean Ernest J. Wilson III said. "Without communication there is no democracy, and vice versa. This annual competition provides an innovative outlet for young people to tell their stories and affect change and increase the likelihood of democracy’s spread. We are pleased to partner with The Democracy Video Challenge to encourage and enhance dialog on this topic from voices around the world."

The Democracy Video Challenge is a unique partnership comprised of democracy, and youth organizations, the film and entertainment industry, academia, and the U.S. government. In its inaugural year, the Challenge attracted more than 900 videos from 95 countries around the world.

Each year, the Challenge honors winners from every region of the world: Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe, the Near East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. Contestants may also submit videos anonymously for special recognition. The winning videos are selected by global online voting. The video platform is provided by YouTube here.

The winners will participate in screenings of their videos in Hollywood, New York, and Washington, D.C., hosted by partners, including the Motion Picture Association of America. In New York and Hollywood, the winners will spend time on TV/film sets, and will meet with directors, film technicians, professional talent agents, and new media experts. They will also receive tickets to the Universal Studios theme park in Los Angeles. In Washington, D.C., the winners will meet with democracy advocates, the media, and U.S. government officials.

Democracy Video Challenge Partners include: the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Youth Foundation (IYF), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), NBC Universal, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, the Recording Industry Association of America, TakingITGlobal, the U.S. Department of State and YouTube.

Putting on his game face

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:19:31 GMT

Communication professor Dmitri Williams, whose ongoing work on the social and economic impact of online gameplaying has received considerable nationwide attention, shared findings from his recent studies at the 59th annual conference of the International Communication Association, held in May in Chicago. Annenberg Agenda asked Williams about his research.

Annenberg Agenda: You’ve released a lot of new research in the last year, finding similarities between economic models in online games and the real world, as well as troubling portrayals of minorities in virtual worlds. What has been most surprising about the results?

Dmitri Williams: To be perfectly honest, there haven't been a lot of surprises to the research team. Games have such strong stereotypes and associations that those who study them have very different expectations than the general public. We expected to see complex social worlds with both good and bad things going on, and that's exactly what we found. There have been some oddball findings here and there that none of us saw coming. I think the most interesting ones were finding that the players were healthier than the non-players, and that men and women have very different happiness outcomes when playing together.

AA: You were the first researcher to use online games for experiments, and to undertake longitudinal research on video games. How did you start to see the connections between behavior in video games and behavior in real life?

DW: Back when I was playing games using a dial-up modem in grad school, I was using them to keep in touch with friends back home. It struck me that this was a new and kind of odd form of relationship, and might be worth looking into. Everyone else was looking at aggression, but it always seemed to me that the big picture was about social networking – for better or worse.

AA: Describe the experience of testifying before the U.S. Senate on video game violence, as you did in 2006. What’s your opinion of the process of translating your research into government policy?

DW: The political process is obviously just that – political. There were some people who were interested in learning about the science, but many already had a preconception or a position and they were merely looking for information to back it up. Research institutions like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health do a good job at creating and supporting basic research which can inform policy, but they can't make policy makers read it or take it into account.

AA: You have shared a vivid picture of the past and present of video gaming with your peers and with the public. What kind of future do you see for this industry? How do you think it might look?

DW: I see a continued expansion of social factors and networking, where playing with people becomes more and more common and accepted. I also see a continued rise of mobile platforms for gaming. And future technologies will continue to change the human experience. New streaming and cloud-based games are going to eventually change the industry, and will probably also have some impact on how we play together.

AA: Is there an area of online behavior you have not yet touched upon that you would like to explore now?

DW: I'd like to look more into what makes female gamers tick. There appear to be two very different kinds of them, playing for different reasons and in different ways. I'd also like to explore how the medium can bring people together for a richer social experience. Right now there are a lot of shallow, surface relationships forming online, and if they take the place of solid offline ones, that's going to be a net negative.

AA: What kind of role can Annenberg play in presenting the world of gaming behavior to a new generation of users and perhaps even designers?

DW: Annenberg is well situated to connect the professional and the academic aspects of gaming to harness the troves of data that games now generate. We can understand behaviors, outcomes and motivations in this space in a way that has been infeasible for older media. And if we understand these things, we can offer solid policy and family advice about how to best use the medium, as well as solid results to developers about what works.