Business session in SMANE workshop: Social Media and News

On 16 April 2012 Jochen Spangenberg (Deutsche Welle) moderated a business session as part of the "International Workshop on Applications in Social Media News and Entertainment (SMANE 2012)", which was held in cooperation with the msnd workshop ("Mining Social Networks Dynamics"), both supported by SocialSensor.

An introductory keynote presentation by Nic Newman, independent media consultant and former BBC staff, portrayed how social media is affecting the business and practice of journalism. This was followed by a panel discussion with:

  - Wilfried Runde, Deutsche Welle
  - Denis Teyssou, Agence France Press
  - Nic Newman

The panelists discussed some of the challenges of and opportunities for the news sector with regards to social media usage. It became clear that numerous obstacles still exist when it comes to effective and user-friendly use of content residing in social networks. Some of the challenges, to name but a few, are to find the "nuggets" that are out there, verify posted content, get in touch with contributors, discover trending topics quickly and efficiently, be alerted about breaking news in real time and many more. However, it also became obvious that, already, Social Media has had a profound impact on journalism and the way media organisations are conducting their business. This will continue to be the case. And with new and enhanced tools and services emerging, the panelists agreed that Social Media will continue to play a significant role in shaping the future of news and information provision.

The program of the entire workshop can be found here.

The workshop was part of the World Wide Web Conference, that was held from 16 to 20 April 2012 in Lyon, France, with keynotes by Neelie Kroes, Tim Berners-Lee, Bernard Stiegler and Chris Welty.