Attached is the two short responses and the project proposal.
As traditional printed news media such as newspapers have declined in terms of their
readership, online news sources have grown in popularity. There are many questions,
however, about the viability of online news, including the business model as well the
quality of original online news. What do you think are the most important issues facing
online news in the coming months and years? The Project for Excellence in Journalism
(Project for Excellence in Journalism www.journalism.org) is one organization
committed to quality journalism in the future, both online and off.
Experience journalism stories in 360 degree video format, a type of virtual reality,
created by The New York Times, either on your smartphone, desktop or immersively via
a VR headset: The Daily 360.
Augmented Reality (AR) has moved from the realm of science fiction into mainstream
media reality. What do you think of the potential utility, popularity or effectiveness of AR
as a storytelling or even educational medium? If you’re not quite clear on the power of
AR, play Pokemon Go! It uses geolocated AR very effectively.
Experience AR from The New York Times via your mobile or desktop device…you will
engage 3D, interactive AR content in immersive form,. Developed using the Apple AR
Kit, USA Today has a special reporting unit devoted to AR stories. Here are three worth
checking out: Check out this article from USA TODAY:
1) Mission to Mars: Explore the Perseverance rover in augmented reality
https://www.usatoday.com/story/augmented-reality/2021/02/12/interactivestory-experien
ceid-mars/4452739001/
2) Explore how COVID-19 vaccine works: An augmented reality journey into the body
https://www.usatoday.com/story/augmented-reality/2021/01/27/interactivestory-experien
ceid-mrna/6701446002/
3) Learn more about the vandalized Frederick Douglass statue, in Augmented Reality
https://www.usatoday.com/story/augmented-reality/2020/07/07/interactivestory-experien
ceid-douglass/5390813002/
Your 100-word proposal should include these three elements:
? one: a general description of the bold idea for your prototype
?
?
two: a name or title for your prototype, something distinctive
three: a timeline for how you will proceed and what steps you will follow in carrying out your project
Experimental Digital Media Project Ideas.
This is a list of ideas to choose from for your digital media innovation project, although you are free to develop your
own original digital media innovation idea not on the list.
1) Improvisational journalism project
2) Xtranormal or vyond animation project
3) Ishowu news project
4) Geotagged news photo project
5) Digital media game via Shockwave Flash, or ppt project
6) News Copy prototype
7) News fact/source matrix, data-driven journalism
8) News text AI editor per Newsroom, or Digital Assistant
9) Pavlik’s News Almanac
10) Apply combinformation to media
11) Mobile media or hyperlocal news project. You might incorporate geo-locational features such as via the GPS Tools
App.
12) iPad or other e-reader/Kindle/Nook app
13) 3D or 4D printer in NYC makerbot
14) Dragon speech recognition for reporting, or text-to-speech for mobile or visually impaired news/media consumers
15) foursquare or Facebook location service as reporting tool
16) Google Glass or other wearable technology app
17) Augmented Reality journalism and media projector
18) Virtual Reality (VR) or Mixed Reality (MR) immersive media project
19) Pulse project (customizable or aggregator journalism)
20) Social media innovation in media app
21) Cloud Computing
22) Gesture-control media interface project
23) Live blogging, curating from social media
24) Drones and media
25) Data-driven, coding media project
26) Smart device (e.g., smart speaker such as Amazon Echo with Alexa) for journalism and media
27) Smart glasses
28) Wearable digital devices (e.g., Apple Watch)
29) Topical newsletters are an emerging opportunity for journalists and media professionals to create a platform to
engage a public interested in a particular topic. Some entrepreneurs are using Substack as a platform to create such
newsletters. Might you do something innovative in this arena?
30) Podcasting. Podcasting has emerged as an exciting 21st-century platform for digital media innovation via audio
(although video is also an increasing part of the podcasting mix). What might you do innovatively in this mobile arena?
31) NFTs are shaking up much more than just the art world How might you do something innovative with a
Non-fungible token (NFT)?
32) Diversity and inclusion in digital media: analog media have long been deficient in matters of diversity and
inclusion. How can you creatively apply any of the above ideas (e.g., might you apply AR or VR to create more
inclusive media storytelling?) to improve diversity and inclusion in the realm of digital media?
34) Innovate in the realm of ebook publishing.
35) Develop an innovative approach designing non-profit digital news. Digital technology has disrupted the economics
of journalism and some innovative efforts to transition from profit to non-profit journalism have emerged. Some
examples include Outlier Media and the Ohio Local News Initiative (Detroit). One strategy has been to hire and train
local citizen “documenters” to cover online public meetings. Some of these have sought and obtained funding from
the American Journalism Project (AJP). AJP is called “venture philanthropy.” Its goals include promoting equity,
innovation, serving a community and building relationships and public trust. How might you use digital technology
creatively to develop successful non-profit digital journalism?
36) Utilize drone technology employing artificial intelligence to help automate media production in an innovative
fashion. The Air Neo mini-drone does this to automate the creation of selfies. How might you expand on this in
producing video more generally?
37) Generative AI, such as Dall-E (AI-generated visuals) or ChapGPT (AI-generated text) from OpenAI or
Pleplexity.ai, are transforming a wide spectrum of human activity. Envision a manner in which you can apply a
generative AI tool to create media content effectively, ethically and innovatively.
See below for more details on some of these project ideas.
Experimental Project Ideas
1) Improvisational journalism/media project: Journalism and media can utilize media to be as adaptable as jazz,
which by definition is improvisational. Or, like improvisational comedy, can be adaptable in real-time to the situation or
feedback. How could social media or other data or observations be used to create a form of improvisational
storytelling? What technologies could be used? (see http://mashable.com/2010/09/13/future-social-media-journalism/)
2) Goanimate (or other digital such as vyond) animation project. (http://www.goanimate.com/) How can digital
animation tools be used to create news or media reports in near real-time? Satire? It’s never been so easy (or so
cheap…free, even) to create professional-quality digital animations in virtually real-time).
3) Ishowu news project. Capture video and audio for reporting via computer.
(http://store.shinywhitebox.com/ishowuhd/main.html
4) Geotagged news photo project. Location-based narrative tools may transform news and other media.
(http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/for-educators/digital-storytelling/)
5) Digital media game via Shockwave flash, or ppt project. How could software such as Shockwave Flash
(http://www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/) be used to create animations for storytelling in location-based
mobile environments?
6) News Copy prototype. How could natural language processing tools (a branch of artificial intelligence) be used to
identify plagiarized content in news? (seehttp://newsblaster.cs.columbia.edu/ http://turnitin.com/static/index.php) Can
you say “Siri”? See also the work of MIT’s Dan Schultz, who is creating software to automatically detect false claims
in published articles. See Report on Dan Schultz’s Truth Detecting Software.
7) News fact/source matrix, data-driven journalism. How could digital tools be used to analyze news quality in terms
of facts, or data reported in news stories, accuracy, timeliness, source diversity and overall quality? Might this help
with detecting fake news? (See from The New York Times: Computers That Trade on the News; Traders are using
software to track news, blogs and even Twitter posts to identify shifts in market sentiment. http://nyti.ms/fCXLJ9).
Data-driven journalism is transforming journalism in the 21st century. See this award-winning interactive data-driven
news visualization from The Guardian in the U.K. about how rumors spread on Twitter during recent riots.This topic
could include “Fake News” detector/preventer project.
8) News text AI editor per Newssim (this is a news reporting simulation created by Prof. Pavlik and colleagues, see
http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/newssim/introduction.html). Can natural language processing (a branch of artificial
intelligence, or AI) be used to “edit” news stories? (see http://statsheet.com/ This is a new sports news service where
the stories are “written” by computer; see also
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/business/28digi.html?_r=1&ref=technology). Similarly, how might you innovate in
media using a digital assistant such as the Amazon Echo with Alexa or Google Home?
9) News Almanac. Traditionally, it is said the news is unpredictable. But, in reality much of the news is highly
predictable, cyclical, and follows patterns. For example, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, there will be
extensive news coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Election coverage is similarly predictable.
Coverage of holidays, government reports issued periodically (e.g., the census), is similarly predictable. The AP
publishes for news organizations a so-called “day book” (see http://www.apdigitalnews.com/news.html) that outlines
the next days expected news events, and is used as a guide to the next day’s news assignments and coverage
patterns. How might digital tools be employed to create a news “app” to predict future news coverage trends and
patterns?
10) Apply combinformation to the media (see http://ecologylab.net/combinFormation/about.html). How can media use
so-called intelligent computer agents to find, search images and other objects on the web, via Firefox or other
browsers via the semantic or meaning-based web, using meta-metadata, deriving image and text surrogates.
11) Mobile media and hyperlocal news are transforming how people access and participate in the realms of news and
media, whether through social media (e.g., facebook.com … see www.facebook.com/convergingmedia or
youtube.com) or patch.com or the New Jersey Hyperlocal News Association. There are many ways to go here,
creating your own innovative blog, twitter feed or mobile media app…but be creative because the digital media
landscape is highly competitive and littered with less-than-innovative new media failures. FYI, Prof. Pavlik sits on the
advisory board for the New Brunswick Patch, New Jersey Hyperlocal News Association, and the New Jersey Press
Association.
12) iPad or other e-reader/Kindle/Nook app. (see http://developer.apple.com/ipad/sdk/) What experimental apps can
be developed for the ereader technology available today? Released on 1/19/2012 is the new Apple iPad developers
ibook authoring tool http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/ It’s free and very exciting.
13) 3D or 4D (self adapting) printer in NYC makerbot (http://www.makerbot.com/). 2D printers have been around for
more than a century. 3D printers are now available. What ways can they be used in media, for storytelling?
14) Speech recognition for reporting or media (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt=8).
Dragon’s naturally speaking dictation software is available in free form as an app on the iPhone or iPad and works
reliably. How can it be used in news gathering or other media forms? Or, consider text-to-speech tools for mobile
news or media consumers, or for the visually impaired. One existing technology is very effective for automatically
reading any digital text, either online or on mobile devices. It is ReadSpeaker You can see/listen to a demonstration
of ReadSpeaker on a media site at WebMD Text to Speech Example When the story on Generalized Anxiety Disorder
opens, click on the word “Listen.”
15) foursquare or Facebook location service as reporting or other media tool. Foursquare is an interesting
location-based social media service with potential implications for news gathering or media (see
http://foursquare.com/). Other social media are adding location-based features, with geo-tagging of photos, and
more. What are the privacy implications?
16) Google Glass or other wearable technology; there are a growing number of wearable devices . How might this
be used in journalism and media?
17) Augmented Reality project, using one of several AR technologies, including layar AR app (http://www.layar.com/),
(http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-augmented-reality-apps/or Aurasma, which is now used by The New York
Times or The Philadelphia Inquirer (install Aurasma on your iPhone 4, iPad or Android device and experience the
printed New York Times as augmented reality…it might remind you of Harry Potter’s newspaper, The Daily Prophet.
Or, scan with Aurasma the back of a $20 bill. Make sure the sound is turned on.
18) pulse project. Pulse is an aggregator news project
(http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pulse-news-reader/id371088673?mt=8 Could a similar project be developed for news
sources in New Jersey? College news sites?
19) Social media innovation for media. What app for social media would you most like to see…that doesn’t exist, or
doesn’t exist in the form you would like? What innovative approach might you develop for social media?
20) Cloud Computing. Simply put, Cloud Computing refers to using the Internet to conduct the tasks you typically
perform on your computer or digital device (e.g., mobile). Here’s a useful article to explain About Cloud Computing.,
with 5GB of free cloud storage from Apple. Think about how you could creatively use Cloud Computing in journalism
or the media to create a more efficient media organization. Prov. Pavlik has written aboutthe virtual newsroom as one
example of a news organization based on Cloud Computing. Could citizen journalists be organized using Cloud
Computing? How about Hyperlocal news media?
21) Gesture-control media interface project. Advances in computing technology are making possible new, more
intuitive forms of hand gesture or other natural interface control of computers and other digital media. For details,
read this article Hand-Gesture Technologies Wave Bye to Mouse (if the article doesn’t load online in its entirety, you
can download a complete copy from the DocSharing; it’s titled VascellaroHandGestureArticle). How might you
creatively apply this more intuitive form of natural hand-gesture or other user interface designs in news or media
applications?
22) Live blogging is cutting-edge storytelling, including curating content (Flickr photos, Twitter feeds, etc.) drawn from
social media, creatively using technology that enables reporting in real-time via social media, potentially incorporating
video and other media types.
23) Drones and the media.
Drones and media. Drones, or remotely piloted aerial vehicles, are often thought of in a military context. But today
they are rapidly entering the commercial arena, both in the US and internationally. Among their uses are drones
equipped with cameras or other sensors that can collect video from the air. If you saw the James Bond
movie Skyfall and recall seeing the video of Bond racing on motorcycle through the rooftops of Istanbul, Turkey, then
you’ve seen drone video (via a system called Flying Cam). Commercial drone video is allowed outside the US, but is
still under review by the FAA in the US. Increasingly, camera-equipped drones are being used in journalism and the
media. What innovative uses of drones might you envision for the media?
24) Data-driven, coding media project. Big Data are transforming the media. From data-driven visualizations in
journalism to computational models that can write stories or predict award-winning screen plays, data and
algorithm-enabled computer code have dramatic implications for media in the 21st century. See the Knight Center’s
Beginner’s Guide to Coding for Journalists for details.
25) Virtual Reality (VR) or Mixed Reality (MR) immersive media project. This is a growing form of media with many
possibilities, from cinematic VR to immersive documentaries and immersive games.
26) Smart Devices (e.g., Amazon Echo with Alexa, Google Home) are increasingly widespread and powerful. Running
off the cloud, these platforms feature increasingly sophisticated capabilities, not just voice recognition and immersive
audio, but high definition displays and cameras with facial and voice recognition (e.g., Echo Show 10) and robotics.
But at the same time, these smart devices raise important privacy concerns. Can you develop an innovative use while
protecting user privacy?
27) Smart glasses (e.g., https://www.vuzix.com/technology/next-gen) are increasingly bringing high-tech and high
fashion into the consumer marketplace, with powerful LED displays and high definition audio and interactive voice and
gesture control. How can you develop an innovative journalism and media application?
28) Wearable digital devices are becoming standard apparel with advanced functionality (e.g.,
https://www.apple.com/watch/) What innovative media or news application might you develop?
29) Innovate in the realm of ebook publishing. Ebooks have become increasingly popular in the digital age (in the first
half of 2021 one of six books sold was an ebook,
https://www.npd.com/news/press-releases/2021/2021-ebook-sales-data/), and they are published on multiple
platforms (Kindle, Apple). Is there some aspect of ebooks you could reimagine in a compelling fashion? See:
https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/ebook/how-to-publish-an-ebook/
Prototypes have great value in media innovation. Creating prototypes can enable innovators to generate
new ideas and demonstrate their viability without investing enormous time, resources or risk in their
development. Yet, they can still show colleagues, partners, prospective investors or journalists the
potential value of these proposed innovations. There are generally five types of prototypes. In this class,
your assignment will be to generate the first type of prototype, a proof-of-principle, or proof-of-concept
prototype for an experimental media opportunity or problem in the digital age.
Proof-of-Principle or Concept Prototype. A proof of concept prototype may not work at all. It is
employed to demonstrate some aspect of the intended design, rather than trying to create the exact
properties of the final product, its visual appearance, materials or manufacture. It may function (or have
functional qualities), at least in part, but it is not necessary for an experimental digital media proof of
concept prototype.
Form Study Prototype. This category of prototype enables designers to study the size, appearance and
feel of a product rather than create the product’s actual features, function or look. The form study
prototype might be hand-crafted from inexpensive materials to simulate the final appearance.
User Experience Prototype. This prototype enables users to test the interface and features of the design
and employs research testing.
Visual Prototype. This prototype features the actual design aesthetics, including color, textures, and
other product characteristics, and allows user-testing of product mock-ups.
Functional Prototype. Often called a working prototype, this in fact functions as the final product and
allows full user experience and testing, marketing trial and evaluation.
You can read more about prototypes at this web site:
http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/rapid-prototyping-tools-revisited
Rubric
Proposal (about 100 words)
Criteria
Ratings
Pts
4
pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome
4 pts
General Description of Idea
0
pts
A general description of the bold idea for your prototype.
3
pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome
3 pts
A Name or Title
0
pts
A name or title for your prototype, something distinctive.
3
pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome
A Timeline
A timeline for how you will proceed and what steps you will
follow in carrying out your project.
Total Points: 10
3
pts
0 pts