What is News? Platforms, Audiences, and Algorithms

The core common ground between the two institutions is the question of how societies get informed in a digital age. There will be a particular focus on the concept of news, informing actors, and preference-based platform environments, which both groups see as a core element of successful scholarship in this area. Through a combination of research presentations and discussion sessions, the workshop will provide an opportunity to learn about new perspectives and find starting points for future collaborations.  

The workshop is open to researchers at Weizenbaum Institute.

Day 1 - November 18 - Concepts and Methods

12:30 pm to 1:00 pm  
Welcome, light lunch and coffee 

1:00 - 2:00 pm 
Field and Research Overview Presentation 
Both groups give a short presentation on their work and how they see the field of research developing.  

2:00 - 3:30 pm 
Session 1 - Platforms and definitions of news  
Discussion facilitator: Richard Fletcher  
This session will focus on the question how platform environments have changed the understanding of news, both from a reception and production side. The goal is to discuss and potentially find common ground on different conceptions of news, and how articulating these can usefully move the field of journalism forward. 

Input presentations by:

• Lion Wedel, Concept of Informativeness
• Tali Aharoni, paper on how platforms and news definition

3:30 - 4:00 pm 
Coffee break  

4:00 - 5:30 pm  
Session 2 - Influencers and the definition of news
Discussion facilitator: Christoph Neuberger (tbc) 
Journalism has lost its monopoly over informing the public. This session focuses on the question of who informs audiences in platform environments and how their information practices change our understanding of news. The goal is what information different informing actors do supply to their audiences and how this potentially changes the demand on what people want to be informed by.  

Input presentations by: 

• Nic Newman, Mapping News Creators and Influencers in Social and Video Networks
• Anna-Theresa Mayer, The (public) value of news on social media platforms

5:30 - 6:00 pm  
Summary and Closing 

7:00 pm  
Workshop Dinner 
Tba 

Day 2 - November 19 – Actors and AI 

9:00 - 9:30 am  
Welcome and Coffee 

9:30 - 11:00 am 
Session 3 - Measuring news content and exposure in a platform environment  
Discussion facilitator: Jakob Ohme 
Platform environments constantly challenge the measurement of news, no matter what method is used. This session showcases different approaches to measuring news and discusses their potentials and shortcomings. The goal to answer the question, how a contemporary and future-oriented measurement of news can look like.  

Input presentations by: 

• Felix Gaisbauer - A Political Cartography of News Sharing
• Lion, Yangliu, and Anna - Classifying news content in digital trace data - past, present, and future plans

11:00 - 11:30 
Coffee Break  

11:30 - 12:30 pm 
Hybrid Lunch Session - Changing news, changing journalism?  

Discussion with researchers and potentially journalists and influencers on whether the journalistic profession need to adapt to a changing understand of news in the population or uphold traditional journalistics practices and standards. 

Panelists:

• Jan-Georg Plavec (Stuttgarter Zeitung)
• Richard Fletcher
• Christoph Neuberger

Moderator: Jakob Ohme  

Join the panel via zoom, Meeting-ID: 623 2725 3499, Code: 877457

12:30 - 1:00 pm 
Summary and Wrap-Up 

1:00 - 2:00 pm 
Lunch break 

Time for 1-1 meetings in the afternoon 

List of Participants

Reuters Institute: 

• Richard Fletcher, RISJ, Director of Research
• Tali Aharoni, RISJ, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
• Amy Ross Arguedas, RISJ, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
• Nic Newman, RISJ, Senior Research Associate 
• Kirsten Eddy, Pew Research Center (and former RISJ), Senior Researcher

Weizenbaum Institute:

• Yangliu Fan, Digital News Dynamics, Postdoctoral Researcher
• Felix Gaisbauer, Digital News Dynamics, Postdoctoral Researcher
• Anna-Theresa Mayer, Digital News Dynamics, PhD Candidate
• Christoph Neuberger, Director and PI, Digital News Dynamics,
• Jakob Ohme,  Digital News Dynamics, Research Group Lead
• Lion Wedel,  Digital News Dynamics, PhD Candidate