Tuesday 25 January 2011

Towards ubiquitous journalism?

Mark Weiser coined the metaphor of ubiquitous computing while working as Chief Technologist of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) around 1988-1989. Since then the phrase has been used globally.

Now it is widely believed that ubiquitous computing, indeed, will be one of the main trends in future societies. It is linked to other concepts like ambient intelligence, internet of things, and real-time web.

The role of the news media is important in disseminating new ideas and innovations, but we know only little about how ubiquitous computing is presented in journalism. Therefore, we founded a multidisicplinary research project for answering the question: how news media have covered and cover topics of ubiquitous computing?

Furthermore, it is interesting to see, how journalism adapts the ubiquitous computing to its news practices. Will journalism evolve into ubiquitous journalism? The metaphor ubiquitous journalism was coined by Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008.

The research is part of Finnish innovation journalism initiatives started already in 2004.

In brief, innovation journalism is journalism about innovations. It was coined in Sweden by Dr. David Nordfors in 2003, and since 2004 he has lead the development of the concept, and community from Stanford University, California.

The consortium consists of three leading research institutions about innovation journalism in Finland: Department of Communication at University of Jyväskylä, Journalism Research and Development Centre at University of Tampere, and Finland Futures Research Centre. The research is funded mainly by Tekes - the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

The research project will report its findings via academic forums, as well as different social media outlets. Please, be free to comment, and give us feedback during the next two years.