The Networked News Lab

The Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science undertakes research at the interface between social and technological transformation, asking how a sea change toward intense connectivity is reshaping the way we communicate, and with it the nature of social and political power. Within this sweeping theoretical agenda is a debate about how the shifting communication landscape will affect news production.
My research for a PhD at the Department explores this issue in Kenya and Ethiopia, offering a new perspective by critically examining the changing relationship between international development projects and the mass media. As international development actors increasingly become involved in the production of media, either directly or indirectly through their funding, how has this shifted power in the media landscape? Specifically, the PhD research will ask whether the incursion of a new sector into news production has created the possibility for journalism to become a more 'autonomous field' (Bourdieu 2005). The project will employ mixed methods of semi-structured interviews, participant observation and critical discourse analysis.
The knowledge exchange project allows this research to be embedded at the centre of collaborative work, co-producing knowledge in tandem with the research in order to produce a transformative impact on the policies and practices of journalism in Ethiopia and Kenya.
This project proposes to create a forum where technological innovations and conceptual insights can be explored, experimented with and assessed by leading journalists. A small group or four or five accomplished journalists will be convened in each country, representing a range of mediums and media houses. The project will benefit from a partnership with Twaweza, a ten-year initiative with a strong focus on information and transparency.
The Networked Journalism Lab will then test what can be done in the new communication landscape: accessing new sources of information, connecting with people who could not be reached before, using crowd-sourcing, social media, innovative survey techniques and citizen journalism, etc. (and still going out to speak with people in person).
This experimentation will rely on contributions from various people and organisations at the helm of new media innovations. Many of these organisations are already making efforts to insert their work into the mass media and would welcome the opportunity to engage with a group of leading journalists.
These resource people will be asked to present their work to the journalists of the Networked News Lab. In a discussion facilitated by the co-investigator, the journalists will share their initial ideas about how the given technology could assist with the reporting process. Any changes to the platform needed by the journalists will be supported by the Project Partner. Working independently within their own media house, each journalist will then put their ideas into practice on a feature story.
At the subsequent meeting, the journalists will review each other's stories and share their experience of using a particular technology. In this iterative process of action and reflection, the journalists will be encouraged re-imagine their profession in the emerging communication landscape.
With adequate permissions, the work will be featured by the journalists' respective media outlets and on a Twaweza-funded website entitled the "Networked News Lab." The lessons learnt will be communicated in a briefing, on-line and in print, and at two seminars for wider audiences: one in Nairobi and one in Addis Ababa.
We are at a historic juncture. New technologies have put journalistic models in question, and it is still unclear whether mainstream journalism will emerge any more pluralistic or democratic than it is today. This project aims to involve journalists in Kenya and Ethiopia in finding an answer to this question.

The project aims to have an impact on several non-academic groups, including private firms, civil society organisations and governmental agencies.
First and foremost, it will have a direct impact on the policies and practices of major media houses in Kenya and Ethiopia. These might include the Nation Group, Standard Group, Royal Media Group and the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation in Kenya. In Ethiopia, participating companies may include the Reporter, Awramba Times, Sheger FM and Ethiopian Television. International news outlets such as the Inter-Press Service and the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks have also expressed an interest in the project.
For the journalists who participate from these organisations, the project will give them professional expertise and skill in the application of new communication technologies to news production. It will also help them to formulate new standards of journalistic ethics and professionalism. To carry the impact of the project beyond their own personal practices to the policies of their respective media houses and professional associations, the project will encourage participants, through group reflection, to act as proponents of change in their own right. The project will further empower them by bolstering their credibility with the accomplishments of the project and by connecting them with like-minded journalists and other actors with whom they can act collectively. The project will connect these journalists to developers of information and communication technology (ICT) who have designed crowd-sourcing platforms, data visualisation tools, mobile phone polling software and other new media applications. Project Partner Twaweza will support the developers to adapt these tools to the needs of the journalists.
These individuals and organisations constitute a second target audience, including organisations such as Ushahidi, Sodnet, and Map Kibera, among many others. These organisations almost invariably have an interest, if not an explicit mandate, to influence mass media, though they often lack the expertise or connections to do so effectively. This project will give this group of people a needed opportunity to engage with the media. It will also provide them with constructive yet critical feedback on their projects by turning the engagement between the two groups around. Usually, the new media developers lecture journalists on the possibilities of the technology. This arrangement would be more demand driven, with the journalists assessing the possibilities and pitfalls of new media from a well-informed position.
The project will also aim to have an impact on a variety of policy-makers. Experimenting with new technologies and forms of reporting will likely expose the gaps and out-dated statutes in government laws as well in more informal guidelines set by the media houses or self-regulating associations and guilds. This project would garner important policy lessons for media development organisations like Internews, Panos and IREX, especially related to how to make media training more participatory and focused on promoting local innovation. Finally, the project will shed light on how international donor interaction with journalists - as part of their public relations campaigns or wider communication strategy - can also play a role in promoting a stronger news media (or inadvertently undermine the independence of the media). These lessons will be communicated partly through engagement, but also by a strategy of communication to disseminate the lessons widely on-line, in print and at two seminars targeting members of these audiences.