Overview: Politics

imagine instead if news were a service whose aim is to help people improve their lives and communities by connecting them not only to information, but also to each other, with a commercial model built on value over volume... select communities that identify themselves as communities (that is: not fake, demographic labels like “millennials”) and th…

This isn’t the first time I’ve covered the impact of social media on news; technologies like augmented reality; and the impact of both on society. It is the first time these Top3ics have meshed so perfectly in one month.

we provide an overview of concerns that have dominated the public information policy discourse, and review the main insights from empirical research We conclude ... there is no empirical evidence that warrants any strong worries about filter bubbles. Nevertheless, the debate about filter bubbles is important. Personalisation on news sites is stil…

Facebook’s reputation for neutrality took a major hit...not all of the examples cited by the employee indicate journalistic malpractice. Curators were told to not “trend” a story if only Newsmax or Breitbart... reported it. This is just good editorial guidance: Breitbart and Newsmax have a reputation for playing fast and loose with xenophobia and …

Trump staged a rally in which three girls–called “The Freedom Kids”–lip-synched a pop song praising the brutality of their incumbent leader. “... Deal from strength or get crushed every time!” they sang... Many Americans found it baffling. For those familiar with the decadent patriotism of Central Asian national performances... it was disconcertin…

journalists can engage their audiences as contributors, advisors, advocates, collaborators and partners. This study describes in detail how newsrooms and independent journalists can grow their readership, boost their relevance and find new sources of revenue by listening to and learning from their audiences.... This is about how journalists can ge…

EurActiv.com is opening one of its media innovations to other media interested in increasing competitiveness through translated syndication. (Update, 31/3/16: this project was covered, among many other things, in an interview with professional EU interpreter Alexander Drechsel in his podcast Demos ex machina? Multilingual communication with Mathew…

A short post on the financial costs of not having a European Public Sphere.

My sadly underwhelmed response to @sidewireinc’s gr8 “Today’s Internet is Optimized for Noise”

Social activity on a website can increase users’ commitment to the site and willingness to pay for its services... social engagement could solve the conversion challenge ... users enjoy free content that the website provides but are unwilling to contribute to the site monetarily. The bad news is that it’s not enough to just add participatory optio…

The afternoon session at Future Media Lab 2016 showed that while European media are warming to the idea of using advanced language technologies to share content across borders, their audiences are already well ahead of them.

We first noticed how Trump stories drove traffic—and thus revenue—at TheStreet.com last summer... if a website earns $20 for every thousand page views, it can make, say, $20,000 on a Trump story, but only $2,000 on an article about Cruz, Clinton, Sanders or Rubio... giving him even greater leverage over the media... even the smallest items of Tru…

With independent journalism increasingly looking like an endangered species, a EU communication strategy that helped European media build the European Public Sphere would be a smarter longterm move than propaganda and brochureware

The European Political Strategy Centre gathered a select group of leading international academics to provide input to the ongoing public consultation on a regulatory environment for online platforms.

Attacks by Islamic militants, unjustified arrests, assaults, harassment, threats and tougher legal restrictions made it harder for editors, reporters and photographers to hold the powerful to account across the region this year, according to media organizations and NGOs.Hopes that politicians would increase protections for independent media after …

We are creating open-source tools and resources for publishers of all sizes to build better communities around their journalism. We also collect, support, and share practices, tools, and studies to improve communities on the web. All of our tools are open source and free... small, flexible tools that plug into each other and also work with exist…

most politics coverage is about politicians, not the things I care about and the actions I could take... Political journalism could imagine the audience as agents, people who act. Political journalism could be genuinely empowering, if it started from the concerns of the people it’s supposed to serve and not the spectacle of elections... In t…

NYTimes' “verified commenters.”... few hundred people whose comments are posted without moderation can end up dominating the reader commenting system... causes quite understandable resentment among thousands of others...Because they go up first, their comments are almost guaranteed to get the most exposure, “and hence rise to the top and be seen …

The Politico founders certainly can’t be accused of lacking in hubris. But they have the track record to back much of that up: Since they left the Washington Post in 2007 to join the new company, which was backed by broadcasting executive Robert Allbritton, Politico has become a significant force on the national media landscape. - Politico want…

My first subscribers, surveyed last week, were equally split between the diverse formats and styles of my first four editions, so here’s a 5th.

The digital counterrevolution is underway in Europe... Jean-Claude Juncker has stressed the need for European competitors to the Silicon Valley giants. Juncker’s election was widely credited to the efforts of an influential press baron: Mathias Döpfner... Corey Pein interviewed Döpfner for CJR in October... A month later, Axel lost a round whe…

In this week’s newsletter I return to the “3 Topics, 12+ links” template of week 1, but present things a little differently…

An array of sophisticated language technologies could help ideas flow across EU borders, link national conversations together and support the EU Online Public Sphere - the demos the EU needs. But BloggingPortal is unlikely to feature them. [update (17/5/15): I finally decided to kick Medium's tyres by reposting this there, with less history. …

"The much fussed-over crisis in media isn’t the crisis of journalism. "Printing yesterday’s news on paper and slapping an ad on it — that’s a 19th-century formula, and in 2015 there are reporters and executives who are surprised the model isn’t working. The nostalgia for a past that was a very comfortable one at the beginning of our careers and so…

Before you obsess over your next analytics report, read the recent article by Ev Williams (Twitter and Medium cofounder) on measuring what matters.

An interview with Jim Bankoff, who just raised another raised $46.5 million in funding for Vox Media ("the fastest growing Web brand of 2014"), caught my eye.

"POLITICO and Axel Springer, the owners of the POLITICO joint venture in Europe, announced today that they have acquired EUROPEAN VOICE and will rebrand the respected Brussels publication as POLITICO in the spring of 2015." - POLITICO & Axel Springer Announce Joint Acquisition of European Voice - POLITICO Press Release

"... renamed European Voice ... a series of subscription-based newsletters à la Washington and a web site with free content. ... “Our subscriptions are with individuals, companies, trade associations, lobbyists, they’ve got a lot of money ... This is not news for your mother, unless you’re mother’s a lobbyist. Or your father, unless your father’s…

"The new publication, with a mission of "covering the politics, policies and personalities in the EU and the continent's most powerful nations," according to POLITICO C.E.O. Jim VandeHei, will take the flagship's model of high-volume politics and policy news and tailor it to a European audience through a combination of free digital content, a subs…

"Cell phones and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are playing an increasingly prominent role in how voters get political information and follow election news, according to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center." Interesting that Republicans are more suspicious of "traditional media filters", given Fox News. - Cell Phon…