"Virtual Journalism" a new documentary by Dancing Ink Productions (click image to watch).
By Rita J. King
Today at the Virtual Journalism Conference at the Murrow School of Communication at Washington State University (WSU), Dancing Ink Productions (DIP) is proud to premiere our latest documentary: “Virtual Journalism: Inside the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo.” The documentary is part of an ongoing project in collaboration with Lawrence Pintak the director of the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism and Research to explore the transformation of the business and culture of journalism in a global context. It was produced in conjunction with Ill Clan Animation studios. It describes a news conference in Second Life organized by DIP and AUC which brought together James K. Glassman who was then US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and a group of eight Egyptian bloggers.
Inside the AUC Virtual Newsroom
The AUC Virtual Newsroom project idea was hatched by Pintak and DIP’s Joshua Fouts over tea in Amman, Jordan at an Aspen Institute Retreat on U.S.-Arab Media. Fouts and Pintak were interested in trying to explore how blogging and other evolving Internet-based technologies could be used to illustrate how journalism is changing and what role these technologies, especially virtual worlds, can play in empowering and training journalists worldwide. Second Life, in particular, had a robust user base with a diverse global population.
That retreat also produced an article DIP wrote for the Aspen Institute called, “Virtual Pilgrimage to Mecca: Building Dialogue with Avatars,” about an encounter DIP had at a virtual hajj to Mecca while conducting research for the Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds project.
The newsroom was designed in coordination with the bloggers and AUC.
This project, which was funded with support by USAID, was the second part of a larger project that brought the group of bloggers to the US throughout the fall of 2008 to cover the US presidential campaign season.
In the initial leg, the bloggers reported via their blog about their observations on the campaign. After the election, DIP built them a virtual newsroom. Shortly thereafter we hosted the first press conference in the newsroom. Coincidentally, while learning about Second Life, some of the bloggers were able to attend a rally on which DIP reported about the recent conflict in Gaza. Their first public news event was the press conference with James K. Glassman.
The Flickr Gettr is one of the tools in the AUC Virtual Newsroom. It enables visitors to search for Flickr tags. Images tagged with a match are projected into the virtual newsroom to demonstrate a snapshot of the collective global consciousness.
The documentary produced from that event and subsequent interviews examines how journalism is changing and what potential opportunities for journalism came out of that experience. As Pintak offers at the end of the video, “Journalism adapts to its environment.”
DIP has a longstanding interest in understanding the upheaval in the journalism industry. The company was founded in 2006 when I had a realization that the industry had changed in ways that required me to approach it in a radically different way in order to continue delivering investigative reports on complicated issues.
My past work includes long-term investigations of the energy and nuclear industry, the relationship between corporations and regulatory agencies, potential voting fraud on Diebold machines, studies on the history of the civil rights movement, the evolution of multinational corporations and the economic effects of such develpment and extensive reportage on post-Katrina corporate profiteering in the Gulf Coast, which yielded “Big, Easy Money: Disaster Profiteering on the American Gulf Coast” and the recently published book that I co-authored, “Race, Place and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina.” It is my belief that corporate culture must evolve in order to serve the greater public good and make a profit as awareness of complex social issues continues to grow within the digital culture. We work with a growing number of Fortune 500 clients, think-tanks, global governments and institutions that are looking to amplify their efforts to achieve this goal.
DIP’s Joshua Fouts first began chronicling this transformation as editor of OJR the Online Journalism Review — the first Internet-based journalism review — which he co-founded in 1998. We’ve both been watching and participating in this evolution since the late 1990′s. My 2001 Village Voice cover story, “Terms of Service: Sweaty Scenes from an AOL Censor,” contributed to a new conversation around identity and the consequences of anonymity in online communities. Our primary mission is to enhance knowledge of physical world systems that affect millions of lives through sophisticated, creative use of Internet technologies.
The AUC Virtual Newsroom includes multiple zones which show both ancient and modern Egypt.
We have watched with interest the important work of industry leaders; Dan Gillmor, whose guidance led to the Pulitzers finally accepting digital journalism;Clay Shirky, who is a concise, visionary leader on the subject, and Jay Rosen, who recently was tapped by the Huffington Post to head up their investigative journalism fund. I started blogging for the Huffington Post the week I found out about Second Life, back in 2006, and I’m amazed at how far the field has advanced since those early days. Now I’m writing case studies for Linden Lab to document the business enterprise use of Second Life, and we can’t write them fast enough.
Media coverage of Second Life has consistently missed the mark on the business value of the platform, mistaking the visibility of random Pamela Anderson doppelgangers for the population of a world that continues to dazzle through the resourcefulness and creativity of its population, which today includes the illustrious Bob Schieffer and Helen Thomas, both of whom are participating in the WSU Virtual Journalism Summit today from the physical and virtual world. Keynote will be delivered by Erica Driver of ThinkBalm (the company published a special report for the event that includes our work).
It is our hope that the AUC Virtual Newsroom project and documentary will move thinking forward toward a more nuanced understanding of the utility and value of virtual worlds for journalism.
A scene from the AUC Newsroom space.
The Egyptian bloggers meet to discuss the press conference.
DIP assesses the value of potential experimental models for funding and delivering world-class journalism and works with clients to create new models for both. If you’re interested more, please contact us. We also conduct media strategy for projects that work toward a new global culture and economy. DIP is frequently featured globally. Click here for a sample of recent press.
