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Toward a more perfect union: the case for culturally responsive computational journalism

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The slides below are from a presentation I gave today as this semester’s Faculty Senate Colloquium lecturer at The College of New Jersey. To be chosen by one’s peers to deliver such a research talk is a singular honor. I am particularly grateful to my English department colleague, the distinguished scholar and pundit Cassandra Jackson, whose introduction made me sound like someone I’d like to meet.

Here is the presentation abstract:

I moved from industry into academia 25 years ago because I had come to an understanding that the “hollowing-out” and flattening, of corporate, political and cultural hierarchies would make the role of professional communicators more central to the effective functioning of businesses and communities. As the expansion of the Internet and online technologies upended the news and communication industries, I became increasingly engaged with understanding how professional communicators could adapt to these seismic changes. This ultimately led to my current research in the development of culturally responsive models for teaching and practicing computational journalism. In this talk, I will draw upon that research to articulate a vision for a culturally responsive journalism. I will argue that culturally responsive computational journalism is essential to realizing the constructive potential of the seismic changes that computer science has visited upon the news industry. Properly crafted and implemented, culturally responsive journalism could:

1. Create an inclusive epistemology of journalism that moves beyond naive empiricism and the current propagandistic journalism of assertion
2. Democratize access to media technologies by broadening participation in the development and deployment of civic media
3. Deepen and broaden critical user engagement with the news
4. Deepen and broaden civic engagement
Computing technology and networks afford almost everyone the opportunity to be a publisher, but they also reward those who are computationally fluent with superior access to the public square. For this reason, I envision a future in which broad application and refinement the pedagogical models being developed here and elsewhere can actually empower citizens and strengthen democracy.

Here are links to sources for the presentation:

“Newspaper Newsroom Workforce Continues to Drop.”  Pew Research Journalism Project. March 20, 2014

“Broadband technology fact sheet.” Pew Research Internet Project.

Computer and Internet Use 1984-2012 US Census

Closing the Digital Divide: Latinos and Technology Adoption Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project

The State of Digital Divides. Pew Internet Research Project. Nov. 5,2013

“The Digital Divide is Still Leaving Americans Behind.” Jessica Goodman,  Mashable,  August 20, 2013

“Yahoo Latest Tech Icon to Reveal Lack of Diversity.” Jessica Guynn, USA Today, August 15, 2014

Interactive Journalism Institute for Middle Schoolers

CABECT research website

CABECT in a nutshell (flyer describing the project, with some preliminary data)

Kevin Michael Brooks, Technology Storyteller

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A pioneer in the field of interactive storytelling has left the earthly stage. Kevin Michael Brooks — designer, author, researcher — lost his battle with pancreatic cancer March 28, 2014. He was 55. His death was announced by his wife, fellow storyteller Laura Packer, who also posted this online obituary.

I only interacted directly with Kevin a few times in person and online, and I would not presume to count myself among his intimates. He made friends easily, and had many admirers among the his colleagues at the various places where he studied and worked (degrees from Drexel, Stanford and MIT, and positions at Apple, Motorola and Hallmark.), and in the vast community of oral storytellers and audiences at events such as Massmouth. But I feel privileged to have been in his presence, to have experienced his enthusiasm and expansive intellect and to have been warmed by the light of his smile. And so, I did not want to let this moment pass without encouraging those who are interested in computational thinking, interactive journalism and user experience design to delve into his work.

Take the time to watch this 2012 eMedia chat in which Brooks explains his evolution as a storyteller, and how he came to understand the centrality of storytelling to effective user experience design, and the importance of understanding audience (or users) to effective storytelling.

For a deeper dive, Brooks’ 1999 doctoral dissertation for MIT Media Lab, Metalinear Cinematic Narrative: Theory, Process and Tool is worth reading. In this work, Brooks proposed the term metalinear narrative to describe the underlying structure needed to make multithreaded user-defined stories work effectively. He was grappling with the central problem of how to translate the building blocks of a story into structured data that a reader can assemble in multiple ways without losing its coherence. He created a software tool, Agent Stories, that was intended to assist storytellers in creating metalinear narratives. While software has move on since then, most notably in game design, the questions raised in Brooks’ work are still relevant.

Brooks’ post-MIT work applied these insights to user-experience design. I recall sitting in the audience as he explained how he created an interactive film to help Motorola’s engineers think through the design of its OnStar(TM) navigation service. He also coauthored a book with Whitney Quesenbery, Storytelling for User Experience: Crafting Stories for Better Design.

Kevin’s personal journey is also inspiring to those of us who are concerned with broadening participation in computing. He was an African American male who matriculated through Philadelphia’s public schools in the 1960s and 70s. He had aspirations to work in two fields – film and computer science – where few people looked like him. Not only that, but he had those aspirations at a time when students where told that these interests were mutually exclusive. Now, computer science educators strain to find ways to help students understand the creative potential of computing, and the use of media as a pedagogical platform and strategy is far more common.

It is my profound hope that people in the field of computational journalism, organizational communications, news design and user experience design will study Kevin’s work and build upon it. Rest in peace, Kevin, and thank you.

I’ll leave you with something fun: