At the GEN Summit in Portugal, Emily Bell teased research from Columbia’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism conducted over the past two years on the relationship between technology platforms and journalism. (The full results will be announced in two weeks.) The research draws on surveys from over a thousand American and Canadian respondents, 94 percent of which were local newsrooms. The American Press Institute helped develop the surveys, and NORC at the University of Chicago conducted them.
“Newsrooms feel distrustful of social media,” Bell said. “But if you look at data of how they’re using platforms we’ll see a different picture.”
Today I talked about some new research from @TowCenter at #GENSummit …one of the most unsurprising yet potentially complex findings was this pic.twitter.com/2voagR3CZn
— emily bell (@emilybell) June 1, 2018
The survey also found that platforms have brought newsrooms and audiences closer #GEN2018 #towpnp pic.twitter.com/bbbrnwcN7l
— Tow Center (@TowCenter) May 31, 2018
One key finding:
A surprising number of US journalists think social media platforms should take some responsibility for financially supporting quality journalism – Tow survey shared by @emilybell #gensummit pic.twitter.com/FQR9fLNdIf
— Sarah Marshall (@SarahMarshall) May 31, 2018
There’s also this meaty chart of how publishers have been using (27!) platforms during the Tow Center’s research period (and more previewed charts in GENSummit’s writeup here):
Bell also said that the vast majority of newsrooms see Facebook as the “key villain” in the misinformation/fake news battle, but “interestingly, Google’s cultivation of the journalism community seems to be paying off.”“Everything wrong with journalism in one slide,” says @emilybell. #GENSummit pic.twitter.com/vobaNfA5PH
— Greg Barber (@gjbarb) May 31, 2018
