As mentioned above, despite the underwhelming results that the tool yields, Dichtbij was very positive about the general direction of the tool and how it could support its newsrooms in their daily routines, and in realizing its ambitions to better leverage its communities. The tool could support them in activating users to participate in the process of content creation, but also with the distribution of the content and, subsequently, with increasing the overall audience. Also the principle design choices, which are very important in terms of the overall usability and the likelihood that the tool will be used, were received positively. Furthermore, the experiences and feedback from Dichtbij are very insightful to identify and explore further development of this specific tool, but - more important - also tools in general that strive to support the collaboration oriented approach.
The actual analytical engine of the tool is a very important domain that would need further development. It is vital that the tool is able to distinguish information-heavy content from irrelevant content. One aspect would be the incorporation of different sources, including user participation on websites from other news providers, to combine topics with related keywords in the news, the analyses of possible links in tweets and personal information from the user. Furthermore, it would be valuable if the tool is able to distinguish individual users from commercial companies or organizations.
The tool should also be able to learn, and to develop itself as it is being used. On the one hand it should be able to improve results by recognizing and incorporating social cues like retweets and other forms of crowd sourcing, such as ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’, or the number of reactions a comment from a user inspires. These are all endorsements (or the opposite) and tell us something about the value of content and, subsequently, the creator. Furthermore, the newsroom should be able to provide input as well by allotting a level of expertise to a user on a specific topic. The element ‘time’ can be an important aspect as well, because the relevancy of a user can change over the course of a specific period. On the other hand the tool should be able to learn more about (and increase) the (potential) community that it includes in its analyses, both automatic (incorporating the concept of retweets, for instance, and content analysis and profiling techniques) or manually by Dichtbij community managers.
Another interesting aspect would be the option to classify users in various ways – possibly both automatic and manually, which would make further exploration of a group of users and their content easier and more effective. One alternative way of profiling would be the analysis of the interaction between different users and the different networks within a community. Such an analysis could provide a better grasp of the possible impact of different kinds of user participation, and the effect of the communication between the newsroom and (a subset of) its users.
As described in chapter five, this tool is mainly focused on content analysis and user participation for user profiling purposes. However, for future development it would be valuable to also include functionalities that support the activation of users. The idea is to use the analyses of content and user participation (and possibly user networks) to address the right user with the right message that suits their interests and their willingness to participate on a certain level. This means that different users
will be targeted in different ways, based on automatic suggestions from the tool, in order to better leverage the community. As described in chapter one, although there are users who contribute and create on a regular basis, many users who decide to participate do so as the result of a coincidental, ad hoc combination of personal, social and content-related motivational factors that suit a specific context and the input that is required to participate. Ideally, the tool can collect and analyze relevant data to provide a better understanding of this complex interplay between context and motivational factors, and translate this in more effective next steps to motivate its community.
However, it is important to consider 1) the legal requirements and ramifications and 2) how such communication would be perceived by the community. Regarding the legal requirements it is important to observe the rights to data protection and privacy as well as the copyrights of amateur journalists, as well as the persons amateur journalists report about. Tweets and contributions on blogs can, under certain circumstances be considered personal data (see section 2.2.4.1.). In such a situation, the automated collection and re-publication of tweets through the tool is only lawful when either the user has given her consent or if the interest of the public to read the contribution weights more heavily, respectively the news exemption applies (see more extensively in section 2.2.4.5.).14 Re-using material from tweets and blogs, moreover, would need to take into account the privacy of the user as well as those he or she reports about. Particular critical (and hence not advisable) in this respect is using material from profiles that are protected against unauthorized access or that are clearly targeted at a very specific group of addressees. If the blog or tweet reports about others the journalist would, moreover, need to check
carefully compliance with privacy and data protection law before re-publishing the material. To the extent that tweets, blogs and other forms of UGC are sufficiently original to qualify for protection under copyright law (as to when this is the case see section 2.2.5.1.), the re-use of such content would moreover need to observe the copyrights of the user. In other words, the (automated) copying or republishing of such material can require the prior authorization of the user. The re-use of tweets will in many cases be covered by the quotation exception (providing the original source is indicated, together with the name of the author) (see in more detail section 2.2.5.5.).
Furthermore, one has to deal with values and attitudes in the community. The news provider has to make sure that it averts the possible perception of ‘Big Brother’ who is watching and tracking everything a user does on the website of the news
provider, and possibly on other platforms as well, such as Twitter or other news providers. It has to tread a fine line in which it knows how it can approach different kinds of users in what kind of context. It is expected that the most active users will be less bothered by direct communication from the news provider than casual contributors or people who have only infrequently shared content within their social network.
Based on the analysis of different news sources, content analysis of Dichtbij data, Twitter data and possible other sources, it could also be interesting to create an overview of ‘hot topics’ which would help a community manager to start the day with
14
One may wonder, however, whether the latter already justifies collecting and republishing tweets without authorization because the public could read e.g. the tweet also on twitter.
an overview of what is happening in the community regarding the most important items in the news.