Overview: Content Strategy

a bias likely to cloud the minds of the audience – the halo effect.... when we see something we like or dislike, and associate this emotional reaction with something else... “illusory truth effect.” This bias causes our brains to perceive something as true just because we hear it repeated... the illusion of control bias occurs when we perceive o…

I’ve been meaning to blog about the ‘backfire effect’ cognitive bias since first coming across it last December. It went to the top of my ToBlog list thanks to a little serendipity...

This comic was inspired by this three-part series on the backfire effect from the You Are Not So Smart Podcast.

a comprehensive Electionland case study. This 66-page playbook provides a detailed account of how Electionland was conceived, planned, and executed as the teams involved worked to track and cover voting on Election Day in 2016.

We went to Antarctica to understand how changes to its vast ice sheet might affect the world.

someone that saw a Facebook native video had a higher likelihood of clicking on a link post in the near future ... we look at top performing articles and then see if we can turn them into short form videos for Facebook... we strive to be original storytellers... We understand what the mission is. It’s not just to get views... it’s always to be tel…

for your most cherished beliefs about things like climate change or vaccines or Republicans, instead of changing your mind in the face of challenging evidence or compelling counterarguments, you resist... your challenged beliefs then grow stronger.

"Internet subcultures take advantage of the current media ecosystem to manipulate news frames, set agendas, and propagate ideas..." plus a lot more: it's a 100+page report

there are more than 1.97 million blog posts published online every single day... four (specific) ways that marketers can fix their broken content marketing and social media programs...

A communications strategy answers the question, “Why are we doing these activities?”... if you’ve been doing customer discovery and using the value proposition canvas, you know a lot about each customer/ beneficiary.

combat fake news by combining professional journalism with volunteer fact checking... professional journalists will be paid to write “global news stories,” while volunteer contributors will “vet the facts, helps make sure the language is factual and neutral... transparent about the source of news, posting full transcripts, video, and audio of in…

every individual picks their idea, we vet it ourselves and make sure the data’s there, that it’s interesting, and we just go off and do it... We specifically seek out stories that aren’t news related, because we don’t want to compete in that space

Interactive and participatory media allows viewers to get involved, to become expressive, and give voice. It is inviting and contagious for those who share views—seeing enough notes and posters in public makes it more welcoming to add your own... civic action... moves from digital support to public support only when it is clear that such actions h…

an extensive list of projects, initiatives and tools created to fix trust in journalism and false/fake news and misinformation

if everyone has the same information, the crowd is no smarter than a single individual... a diverse collection of opinions, especially including minority views, is crucial for creating a smart group... we have an innate desire to imitate our peers... it may also be because of a rational, profit-seeking motivation... The more complex the situation…

Storytelling and EU projects - some guidelines I wrote for the 2017 “EU in my Region” blogging competition, which I’m managing for the EC’s DG REGIO.

in hot pursuit of the perpetrator, we discover a trail of evidence leading to our own doors... the issue of fake news ... an opportunity for public reflection, political economic imagination, and more thoughtful... interventions around the organization of the platforms and infrastructures which pattern our lives in the digital age... a shift from…

Google News determines whether an article might contain fact checks in part by looking for the schema.org ClaimReview markup. We also look for sites that follow the commonly accepted criteria for fact checks.... use that markup in fact-check articles.

Brilliant piece of data journalism

Each side of the climate debate accuses the other of exaggeration and suffers from its own... sometimes feel like a shouting match in a roomful of children wearing earplugs... We have allowed our political, national, economic, and cultural narratives free play ... where... are the narratives from science itself? Where is the science teacher?... p…

Every great company story must be anchored in a human story and told through a personal human lens.

A Field Guide to Fake News explores the use of digital methods to trace the production, circulation and reception of fake news online.

science has become as horrifically politicized as any other aspect of American life.... If we truly want to endorse the idea of science, let’s break up into groups and fan out across America:

What distinguishes Pulitzer Prize-winning stories is not only painstaking journalistic work ... but also the use of emotional storytelling... because objectivity tends to be seen as emotionless, emotional storytelling tends to be viewed as anathema to good journalism. The winning stories... show that it’s possible to retain objectivity and also st…

For every man-made crisis event... we found evidence of alternative narratives, often shared by some of the same accounts and connected to some of the same online sites. These rumors had different “signatures” from other types of rumors... rose more slowly, and then they lingered, ebbing and flowing ... sustained participation by a set group of Tw…

the Facebook Pages seeing the biggest average engagements per post across news, interests, politics, and more

The objectivity that matters so much in science is not primarily a characteristic of individual scientists but of scientific communities. Scientists rarely refute their own pet hypotheses... Their fellow scientists will be happy to expose these hypotheses to severe testing... Not being afraid of being wrong... is a value we could promote... Intel…

Fake news is too big and messy to solve with algorithms or editors — because the problem is….us... Racing to implement Band-Aids may feel good, but ... creates a distraction while enabling the underlying issues to flourish... I mostly see “fake news” being deployed by folks as a new frame for pushing long-standing agendas and commitments... coun…

Instagram, Facebook, virtually all news sites… their MO is to keep you on their website for as long as possible... advertisers love  eyeballs.... The scrolling keeps us going... a gravitational force field... takes a lot of energy to escape...premium Medium isn’t an endless feed... It isn’t about keeping us on the website or the app as long as pos…