{"196791":{"#nid":"196791","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Guides the Future of Journalism","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIn the past decade, newspaper readers have been inundated with stories about how print journalism is dying. These stories are often written with a panicked tone, and detail how there is no longer money to be made in the journalism business. And yet, they often fail to mention the increasing strides in quality and organization that journalists have made in the digital realm. From content gathering to distribution models, online journalists are paving the way for an exciting new integration of old and new methods of presenting the news.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s the topic of emerging integration that will be the focus at this week\u2019s \u003Cem\u003EComputation + Journalism \u003C\/em\u003Esymposium, which runs from January 31\u003Csup\u003Est\u003C\/sup\u003E to February 1\u003Csup\u003Est\u003C\/sup\u003E. The Symposium will see speakers from both the academic and journalism worlds come together to discuss how computation has affected the world of news, and where it is going in the future. Topics will include how to incorporate big data into the process of journalism, new methods of distributing the news, and the use of social media in news gathering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIrfan Essa, a Professor at Georgia Tech, is considered on the forefront of studying how computation has affected journalists. He has coined the phrase \u201ccomputational journalism\u201d to describe the exciting new field of study, and is one of the organizers of the \u003Cem\u003EComputation + Journalism \u003C\/em\u003Esymposium.\u0026nbsp; \u201cComputational Journalism describes the impact of modern computational methods and tools on the field of journalism,\u201d says Professor Essa. He describes how people can now receive their news on a wide variety of computing platforms \u2013 mobile devices, laptops, or desktops \u2013 and computational journalism studies, \u201chow journalism can be packaged and distributed most effectively for the purpose of civic engagement\u201d.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Essa was quick to emphasize that computational journalism does not mean the end of the traditional journalist. \u201cThis is about a dialogue between journalists and technologists, \u201csays Dr. Essa. \u201cHistorically, there has been doom and gloom about every technological change,\u201d he says. \u201cNothing is going to go away, but evolution is important.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is the second such symposium that Georgia Tech has held, the last being in 2008. Essa says that much has changed in the past five years for computational journalism. \u201cTwitter just was not a big thing in 2008,\u201d and now it is a large part of the journalistic process. \u201cMost people understand that it has changed the field.\u201d Further, display technologies are changing so that a journalist must keep up with a reader\u2019s expectations for how they can interact with information.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDue to the work of Professor Essa, and many others at Georgia Tech, he believes that the Institute is a leader in the field of computational journalism. \u201cGeorgia Tech is really interested in technology, but also the role of the developers and consumers of technology.\u201d The Institute focuses a great deal on Human-Computer Interaction, and building technology with a human focus. According to Dr. Essa, despite not having a journalism department, their dedication to human-centered computing makes Georgia Tech a natural sponsor for the study of computational journalism.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27197","created_gmt":"2013-03-04 17:34:52","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:44","author":"Renata Le Dantec","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-03-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-03-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"69599","name":"IPaT"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["renata@ipat.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}