EPISTEMIC MODALITY IN COMPUTER-MEDIATED DISCOURSE: THE CASE OF AOIR-L

Abdul-Mageed, M. M. (2009). Epistemic modality in computer-mediated discourse: The case of AoIR-L. Illinois Language and Linguistics Society 1: Language Online (ILLS 1: LOL). Friday, May 29 - Sunday, May 31, 2009 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

MEDIA WAR BLOGS: INSIDE THE ISRAELI AND LEBANESE BLOGOSPHERES

Abdul-Mageed, M. M. & Ringrose, P. (2009, October 7-11). Media Warblogs: Inside the Israeli and Lebanese blogosphere. A paper accepted for presentation at the 10th annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (Internet Research 10.0 - Internet: Critical). Milwaukee, WI, USA.

Online News Sites and Journalism 2.0: Reader Comments on Al Jazeera Arabic

Abdul-Mageed, M. M. (2008). Online News Sites and Journalism 2.0: Reader Comments on Al Jazeera Arabic. TripleC: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation, 6(2), 59-76.

Abstract

The current paper investigates reader commenting on news sites as one facet of journalism 2.0. Specifically, the themes, frequency, and regional coverage of readers’ comments—and in general, their activity levels and distribution—are considered, with a goal to increase knowledge of convergent media and computer-mediated communication (CMC), as well as shed light on the interactivity strategies adopted by influential news producers. The corpus is collected from the Arabic news site of the controversial Middle East-based, bilingual network Al Jazeera. Reader commenting was found to be a regular occurrence on the site but distributed unevenly across stories. The stories focused mostly on themes related to military and political violence, politics, and foreign relations, and covered events related to the Arab world more than other regions. Also, patterns of commenting varied according to day of the week and position of the story on the web page. Overall, these findings suggest that citizen journalism—journalism is performed by lay persons—on Al Jazeera tends to be shaped by the coverage and layout of the news site. Moreover, citizen participation in online news sites such as Al Jazeera is still far from ideal, in that commenters are given neither the access nor the facilitation to use modalities other than written text. These limitations are critiqued in light of contemporary discourses about media convergence and journalism 2.0.

Full Paper: http://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/78/70

Editorial row engulfs Wikipedia

From the BBC:

The online user-generated encyclopaedia Wikipedia is considering a radical change to how it is run.

It is proposing a review of the rules, that would see revisions being approved before they were added to the site.

More -->http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7851400.stm

Wikipedia has 97% of the online encyclopedia market

From E-consultancy:

Online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia has a massive 97% share of internet visits among the top five reference websites, highlighting the amount of work that rivals like Britannica.com have to catch up.

Britannica.com announced some new Wikipedia-style community features last week as it attempts to make up some of the ground lost to Wikipedia. According to stats from Hitwise, it currently has just 0.57% of US internet visits to the encyclopedia category.

More --> http://econsultancy.com/blog/3185-wikipedia-has-97-of-the-encyclopedia-market-online

BBC under fire for refusal to air Gaza appeal

From Al Jazeera English

In London, around 400 people gathered for a rally outside British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) offices to protest the media giant’s refusal to broadcast a charity appeal to raise emergency funds for people in Gaza.

The crowd was addressed by speakers including Tony Benn, a former Labour cabinet minister, and George Galloway, an MP, who accused the BBC of bias against the Palestinians.

The protesters chanted "BBC, shame on you" and a few threw shoes at the BBC office.

The numbers later swelled to at least 5,000 for a march through central London.

The Stop The War Coalition, which organised the march, estimates that the ban on broadcasting the appeal could cost up to $14 million in donations.

The group had organised big rallies opposed to the violence in Gaza in London over the past few weekends.

Around 5,000 people also took to the streets of Birmingham, Britain's second biggest city, for a pro-Palestinian demonstration, while around 100 Cambridge University students have occupied the law faculty there in protest at Israel's attacks on Gaza.

More --> http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/01/200912505644521678.html

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From the BBC

The BBC's decision not to air a charity appeal for aid to Gaza has come in for fierce criticism.

Director general Mark Thompson has said by airing the appeal the BBC would risk reducing public confidence in its impartial coverage of the conflict.

But politicians have urged a review of the decision, and a crowd of 2,000 protested outside the BBC's London HQ.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7849554.stm

Al Jazeera Announces Launch of Free Footage under Creative Commons License

Al Jazeera Network today announced the world's first repository of broadcast quality video footage released under the ‘Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution’ license. Select Al Jazeera video footage – at this time footage of the War on Gaza - will be available for free to be downloaded, shared, remixed, subtitled and eventually by users and TV stations across the world with acknowledgement to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera will release its exclusive Arabic and English coverage produced by the Network’s correspondents and crews in the Gaza Strip online at http://cc.aljazeera.net. The ongoing war and crisis in Gaza, together with the scarcity of news footage available, make the repository a key resource for anyone producing content on the current situation.

This the first time that video footage produced by a news broadcaster is released under the ‘Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution’ license which allows for commercial and non-commercial use.

Mohamed Nanabhay who headed New Media at Al Jazeera and launched the project stated, “As one of the only international broadcasters in Gaza, our coverage of the war has been unsurpassed. The launch of Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository means that our Gaza footage will be made available under the most permissive Creative Commons license (CC-BY). With the flexibility of the license we expect to introduce our outstanding coverage to an even wider audience across the world. This means that news outlets, filmmakers and bloggers will be able to easily share, remix and reuse our footage.”

Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons organization and Professor of Law in Stanford University, stated, "Al Jazeera is teaching an important lesson about how free speech gets built and supported. By providing a free resource for the world, the network is encouraging wider debate, and a richer understanding".

Joichi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons and a world renowned Web 2.0 entrepreneur, added, "Video news footage is an essential part of modern journalism. Providing material under a Creative Commons license to allow commercial and amateur use is an enormous contribution to the global dialog around important events. Al Jazeera has set the example and the standard that we hope others will follow".

As a pioneer in news and media Al Jazeera is always looking for ways to make its unique content accessible to audiences across the world and the launch of Al Jazeera’s Creative Commons Repository is another concrete step in this direction.

From ->> http://cc.aljazeera.net/content/launch-press-release

BBC news 'favours Israel' at expense of Palestinian view

By Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor

THE BBC’S coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implicitly favours the Israeli side, a study for the BBC Governors has concluded.

Deaths of Israelis received greater coverage than Palestinian fatalities, while Israelis received more airtime on news and current affairs programmes. The references to “identifiable shortcomings” surprised BBC News executives, who are more used to accusations that their coverage is routinely anti-Israel.

Only “a small percentage of Palestinian fatalities were reported by BBC News”, the analysis, published yesterday, noted, while “the killing of more than one Israeli by Palestinians either by gun or bomb was reported on national broadcast programmes”.

At the same time, there was “little reporting of the difficulties faced by the Palestinians in their daily lives” and a “failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, reflecting the fact that one side is in control and the other side lives under occupation”.

More _>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article712471.ece

Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

In a move to take on Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version.

New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today.

He also used the opportunity to take a swipe at Britannica's upstart nemesis and Google for helping to promote Wikipedia via its search rankings.

More here:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/battle-to-outgun-wikipedia-and-google/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

BBC criticized for 'unbalanced' coverage of war on Gaza

A number of activists demonstrated in front of BBC office in London for what they saw as 'unbalanced' coverage of Israeli war on Gaza. This Al Jazeera video covers event:
http://www.aljazeera.net/Channel/KServices/SupportPages/ShowMedia/showMedia.aspx?fileURL=/mritems/streams/2009/1/21/1_887831_1_12.wmv

Scope, Completeness, and Accuracy of Drug Information in Wikipedia (December)

Kevin A Clauson, Hyla H Polen, Maged N Kamel Boulos, Joan H Dzenowagis

Results

 Wikipedia was able to answer significantly fewer drug information questions (40.0%) compared with MDR (82.5%; p <> on dosing, with a score of 0% versus the MDR score of 90.0%. Answers found in Wikipedia were 76.0% complete, while MDR provided answers that were 95.5% complete; overall, Wikipedia answers were less complete than those in Medscape (p <> factual errors were found in Wikipedia, whereas 4 answers in Medscape conflicted with the answer key; errors of omission were higher in Wikipedia (n = 48) than in MDR (n = 14). There was a marked improvement in Wikipedia over time, as current entries were superior to those 90 days prior (p = 0.024)

Wikipedia Arabic: Linguistic and Community Issues

Abdul-Mageed, Muhammad. (2008). Wikipedia Arabic: Linguistic and Community Issues. (Talk). The Fourth International Wikimedia Conference (Wikimania'08), Alexandria, Egypt, July 17-19.

Hey, I think perhaps we should: Disciplinary interactions in Wikipedia’s articles and talk pages

Abdul-Mageed, Muhammad. (2008). Hey, I think perhaps we should: Disciplinary interactions in Wikipedia’s articles and talk pages. A paper presented at The Fourth International Wikimedia Conference (Wikimania '08), Alexandria, Egypt, July 17-19.

New Tools, New Schools: Using YouTube to Teach Foreign Languages

Abdul-Mageed, M. M. (2008, April 24-27). New Tools, New Schools: Using YouTube to Teach Foreign Languages. A paper presented at the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages'11th International Conference. Wisconsin: Madison, USA.

Abstract

The use of authentic video inside as well as outside the language learning classroom can be very rewarding and can help accelerate students’ learning rates and put them face to face with ‘real’ language spoken in ‘real’ speech communities. The number of online videos generally, and YouTube videos specifically, have recently phenomenally grown and their variety has unprecedentedly increased. Thus, it is perhaps no longer acceptable to ignore these videos and not to make use of them in foreign language learning programs. This paper hence focuses on deploying YouTube videos in the teaching as well as the learning of foreign languages generally and less commonly taught languages particularly. Arabic is used as a medium of exemplification in this paper.
There are many reasons why YouTube videos should be considered as a powerful pedagogical tool. First, these videos are readily available online and will cost institutions almost nothing if these were to be integrated in the curricula. Second, a majority of the videos are authentic, and authenticity is to be valued in language learning, if learners are ever to master the target language as it is spoken by its native speakers. Variety of the videos available is a third strand: with the huge number of videos available, instructors can find material on almost any language situation. Fourth, the material increases ceaselessly and phenomenally, which guarantees the continuing improvement of the resources and even more variety of the resources. Fifth, these resources are easy to use and with some simple training both instructors and students can make the best out of them. Sixth, the videos are accessible to anyone with a fairly good Internet connection, which makes them ideal not only within the language learning classroom, but also for resource centers and autonomous learning goals.
One significant issue is how these can be selected, and prepared for use either inside or outside the classroom. Obviously, the phenomenal growth of the YouTube site makes searching for a specific kind of content a bit complicated and a simple search will yield a huge number of videos. Another issue is how to make sure that such videos will be readily accessible for use inside the classroom, or how learners can easily locate certain content for autonomous learning. Deriving insights from various disciplines including linguistics, information science and education, I offer a number of solutions to these problems. Specific ways of using the videos in foreign language instruction are also provided along with the associated pedagogical underpinnings. Finally, I discuss the issue of instructor as well as student literacies.
Most importantly, I suggest specific and practical ways of how to use YouTube for collaborative language learning by the various language programs across the nation. Such suggestions, if applied, are expected to have a notable pedagogical pay off.

ARABIC AND ENGLISH NEWS COVERAGE ON ALJAZEERA.NET

Abdul-Mageed, M. M., and Herring, S. C. (2008). Arabic and English news coverage on aljazeera.net. In: F. Sudweeks, H. Hrachovec, and C. Ess (Eds.), Proceedings of Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication 2008 (CATaC'08), Nimes, France, June 24-27. Preprint: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/catac08.aljazeera.pdf

Abstract.

The controversial Al Jazeera network, with its Arabic and English news websites, is an interesting object for comparative study. This study compares the two language versions in terms of their layouts and the structural features, regional and thematic coverage, and ideological perspective reflected in the headlines of news reports. Content analysis and critical discourse analysis revealed differences between the two versions for all aspects except for thematic coverage, indicating systematic biases in coverage, alongside efforts to present ideological balance.


Link: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/catac08.aljazeera.pdf

Media Revolution

Television-mediated conversation

Zelenkauskaite, A., and Herring, S. C. (2008). Television-mediated conversation: Coherence in Italian iTV SMS chat. Proceedings of the Forty-First Hawai'i International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-41). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Press. Preprint: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/hicss08.pdf

“This study investigates the frequency and coherence of viewer-to-viewer textual exchanges on an Italian iTV SMS program, employing methods of interaction analysis and the visualization tool VisualDTA to represent interactional coherence” (p.1). The authors define convergent media by stating that it is media “in which traditional media combine with the Internet, the World Wide Web, and/or mobile technologies” (p. 1) and state that convergent media is the newest trend in CMC. After introducing iTV and the variables that govern communication mediated via it, the authors state the goal of the paper: to investigate “to what extent and in what ways these factors affect viewer-to-viewer interaction via iTV SMS. Do viewer exchanges occur via iTV SMS, and if so, what properties do they exhibit? How does iTV SMS chat compare with other modes of computer-mediated chat?” (p.1). The research questions are formulated later (p. 3) as follows:

RQ1: Do viewer-to-viewer text exchanges occur via Italian iTV SMS, and if so, to what extent?

RQ2: How interactionally coherent are iTV SMS exchanges? How do they compare in this regard with exchanges in Internet chat modes?

To address these ends, the authors analyze a corpus of 6,455 messages archived over a period of six days on the Italian iTV music channel www.allmusic.tv.

To identify interactional patterns Zelenkauskaite and Herring analyzed all participation and response patterns over two consecutive days and classified the content of a sample of SMS. They then analyzed the interactional coherence of some selected exchanges over the six-day period using VisualDTA. It was found that viewer exchanges occur in iTV SMS, “albeit relatively rarely and with considerably more fragmentation and disruption than in Internet-based chat” (pp. 1-2). The authors thus conclude that “despite numerous factors that discourage it, some users adapt the medium for interpersonal exchanges, at the same time that their options and choices are constrained by broad structural elements” (p. 2). Zelenkauskaite and Herring also propose design recommendations for fostering more coherent iTV SMS interaction (p. 10).

Schultz, T. (2000). Mass media and the concept of interactivity: An exploratory study of online forums and reader e-mail. Media, Culture & Society, 22

Schultz, T. (2000). Mass media and the concept of interactivity: An exploratory study of online forums and reader e-mail. Media, Culture & Society, 22(2), 205-221.

Mass media interactivity

This article is guided by insights from the Frankfurt School propositions to discuss the position of mass media as related to the Internet. Supportive of a multilateral, democratizing communication, the Frankfurt School is said to have generated an ‘open-minded’ approach to new media. While Schultz believes that technology has opened up new vistas for active citizenship, he still maintains that there are some problems that keeps us miles away from any such a time when a new ‘elite’ of ‘netizens’ take over society. However, it is maintained that “criticism of mass media power and centralization does not necessarily deny their immense achievements” (p. 208). Schultz consents that the integrational role of mass media is a benefit of modernism and is significant for a vivid public sphere in complex societies.

New Media Online

The author shows how sites related to well-established media can play a vital role as forums of “valid information and serious debate” (p. 208). He also points out that one problem of professional mass media sites is still that these have an interest to keep a ‘tightest reign’ on the advertising market. He shows how calls for interactive communication between these sites and their audiences amassed and surveys some of the ways these sites can develop to foster interactivity. Rafaeli and Sudweek’s (1997) definition of interactivity in terms of “the degree to which communication transcends reaction” is entertained and Rafaeli’s model of interactivity is said to suggest that a lot of use of the new technologies is far from interactive.

Interactivity via E-mail

Schultz appraises e-mails sent to journalists, such e-mails being a type of interactivity. He tried to explore the state of communication between the readers of the New York Times and its journalists. Only 19 of the 50 journalists that Schultz contacted for insights on this type of communication responded. It was found that most journalists evaluated e-mail communication with readers in positive terms. The average number of e-mails sent to such journalists by readers was found to be manageable and journalists responded to e-mails in various ways.

Interactivity via Online Forums

Online forums hosted by mass media sites are introduced and the results of Schultz’s survey of the online forum of the New York Times are given. Schultz describes the discussions taking place in this forum as vivid. A random sample of 100 participants in these forums was chosen and contacted for some survey of the sort of interactivity going on in the forum. Only 59 participants responded and it was found that participation in the forum postings ranged from 1 to 1500 postings over a period of 10 months, with a misleadingly’ high mean of 89 postings. The mean is said to be misleading since certain participants sometimes dominated the discussions. Forum discussions were also found to be extended to e-mail threads between certain participants.

Limitations and suggestions for increasing interactivity

Finally the author briefly suggests some measures to increase interactivity and spells out some of the study’s limitations

Emigh, W., & Herring, S. C. (2005). Collaborative authoring on the Web: A genre analysis of online encyclopedias. Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Haw

Summary

The goal of the Emigh and Herring’s (2005) study is to compare entries in the two online user-produced encyclopedias Wikipedia and Everything2. They substantiate their work by referring to an interaction between two forms in communicative situations.
They maintain that “technical specifications predispose users toward certain communicative choices, social dynamics, and normative outcomes, which in turn enable them to realize their situationally-grounded goals” (p. 1). They create their research space by cogently arguing that how this interaction ‘plays out’ is a question of interest and that for their study they are specifically interested in bringing out the type of interaction between user choices and system features as well as the implications of such an interaction for emergent digital genres. The expertise of authors as well as their writing abilities in the case of online encyclopedias are brought to the forefront, along with accompanying concerns related to ‘appropriateness, accuracy and clarity’. After showing that the two encyclopedias employ different systems, the authors spell some of the study goals. Emigh and Herring (p. 3) set out to uncover:

• How similar or different the entries in these two encyclopedias are?
• Which system gives rise to better quality entries?
• What social processes underlie the production of "good" entries, and how do they shape the conventions of the online encyclopedia genre?
• Do sites such as Wikipedia and Everything2, which differ in their authoring and editorial mechanisms, produce communicative content that can be characterized as belonging to a single genre?

After giving some background about the two encyclopedias, the authors cite two interesting studies on Wikipedia.


Methodology:


-Data

The authors describe the collection of the nodes (=entries in traditional encyclopedias) they collected from Wikipedia and Evrything2 as well as the entries from the Columbia Encyclopedia. (I made a quick search and found that the node Puffy AmiYumi is now added to Wikipedia—it was not during the collection of the study nodes). Wikipedia discussions are also collected and compared to other data.


-Analytical Method


Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed. Formality, as an indicator of genre, was measured in the data as some sort of quantitative analysis that pinpoints style variation. Qualitative observations of the entries/nodes were also made.


Findings and Suggestions for Future Research:


The results “reveal a continuum of formality and standardization, with the traditional encyclopedia and the interactive discussion at opposite extremes. Wikipedia and Everything2 differ significantly from one another, with Wikipedia towards the formal, standardized end, and Everything2 towards the informal, variable end of the continuum. Surprisingly, Wikipedia is statistically indistinguishable from the print encyclopedia in terms of the formality features measured in this study. (pp.8-9)

Because of such differences, and others, the authors suggest that Wikipedia and Everything2 are “both members of the 'online knowledge repository' genre, but that they represent different genres (or sub-types) of online collaborative authoring environments” (p. 9). Emigh and Herring also add that each of these systems “has its limits and appropriate uses; an understanding of these can improve the future design and implementation of such systems” (p. 10).

Authors hold that analyzing the evolution of entries in online knowledge repositories over time would be useful. Comparing Wikipedia with open-access wikis that lack ‘explicit guidelines for appropriate content’ is also suggested for future research.