The Centre for Internet Studies and NetLab/DIGHUMLAB are very pleased to welcome Matthew S. Weber (Ph.D., University of Southern California). Matthew is an Associate Professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Matthew is an expert on media industries, organizational change and the use of large-scale Web data. Matthew is leading an initiative to provide researchers with access to the Internet Archives (archive.org) in order to study digital traces of news networks. His recent work includes a large-scale longitudinal study examining how media organizations disseminate news and information through online networks. Additional research includes an examination of the role of technology in local news organizations, and the effectiveness of adopting social media within organizations.

Please see the full programme, including abstracts, below and sign up for the workshop and NetLab Forum meeting by sending an e-mail to Niels Brügger (nb@cc.au.dk) no later than 16 Nov. It is not necessary to sign up for the lecture.

Programme Tuesday 27 November 2018:

10.00 – 12.00: Open lecture, Incuba, Large Auditorium (building 5520, Åbogade 15, room 103)

Challenges of preserving and researching local online news

This presentation will discuss the challenges that exist with regards to the preservation of local news and information, and will highlight resources for engaging with these archives from a research and practice perspective. Dramatic changes in the news media industry in recent decades have occurred in tandem with the evolution of the Web. Archived webpages are a critical source of data for understanding the current state of the news media industry, as well as how the industry has changed over time. A 2012 U.S. survey by the nonprofit Educopia found that most U.S. newspaper respondents maintain digital news records for fewer than five years, without ensuring the longevity of such records; similar trends are echoed in the EU and elsewhere. In turn, although many local news outlets do preserve content and have created their own archives, many of these archives exist in isolation from one another and are challenging for others to access. Taking a global perspective, this talk highlights the need for and challenges of local news media preservation, and discusses approaches to improving access to these archives – both for practitioners and researchers working in the field. 

The event is hosted by the Centre for Internet Studies, AU. 

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13.00 – 15.00: Workshop, Nygaard 295 (building 5335, Helsingforsgade 14, room 295) 

Using Internet Archives to Map, Analyze and Assess News Media

Internet archives provide a treasure trove of data for scholars from a wide variety of research domains. For news media scholars, in particular, internet archives provide a rich and detailed record of event and social life as portrayed by the media. In this workshop, we will review quantitative and qualitative methods for conducting research on news media contained in Internet Archives. Quantitatively, this workshop will introduce a suite of tools and code interfaces for accessing and analyzing archived internet data. This will include a discussion of recently developed interfaces (APIs) for retrieving data from archive repositories. Qualitatively, this workshop will review new protocols for coding content contained in internet archives. The goal of this workshop is to equip participants with the basics necessary to engage in similar research on their own, and to open up a discussion about tools and protocols for future research.

This event is hosted by the Centre for Internet Studies, AU. Please sign up for the workshop by sending an e-mail to Niels Brügger (nb@cc.au.dk) no later than 16 Nov (seats are limited).

Programme Wednesday 28 November 2018:

10.00 – 13.00: NetLab Forum meeting, Ada 333 (building 5342, Åbogade 34, room 333) 

Losing the News: Web Archives and the State of News Media

This talk address the mutual challenges facing news media and web archives, and illustrates how research at the intersection of news media and web archives has the potential to inform future decision on both sides. Increasingly, we are losing the news. Globally, media content is increasingly less original, and less local. Wire services and media conglomerates continue to gain influence in many countries. Indeed, the news media industry faces challenges adapting to new forms of technology, particularly social media and mobile technology. At the same time, we are also losing our record of media as Web archives continue to struggle in keeping pace with the production of content. A social networks perspective is used in order to examine the evolution of the news media industry, focusing specifically on interconnections amongst key partners within the US news media industry but also considering a number of examples across the globe. Particular emphasis is placed on the local context of news, which has experienced a significant downturn in many parts of the world. This presentation also looks at the archiving and preservation of media in general, but of local news in specific, and address how news media is being preserved for both practice and research.

This event is hosted by NetLab/DIGHUMLAB, AU, and the presentation will be part of a NetLab Forum meeting, which will also feature one of two other presentations (TBA) relating to research use of archived web. Please sign up by sending an e-mail to Niels Brügger (nb@cc.au.dk) no later than 16 Nov.