prof.irfanessa.com

Join us for the 2nd Computation + Journalism Symposium 2013 in Atlanta, GA on Jan 31 – Feb 1, 2013

What role does computation have in the practice of journalism today and in the near future? As computer-driven forces like automation and aggregation increasingly alter the role of journalists and journalism in society, how can computation become a force of deliberate, positive social impact in journalism and civic life? Five years after the first Computation and Journalism symposium at Georgia Tech, this event brings together leaders in both journalism and computation to discuss and debate current trends and future opportunities.

Join us for the second Symposium on Computation + Journalism to be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta on Jan 31, – Feb 1, 2012. Visit this site for additional details.

N. Diakopoulos, S. Goldenberg, I. Essa (2009). “Videolyzer: Quality Analysis of Online Informational Video for Bloggers and Journalists.” ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). April, 2009. [PDF] [Project Site] [Video] (CHI 2009 – Digital Life New World – CHI 2009 Advance Program)

Abstract

N. Diakopoulos, K. Luther, I. Essa (2008), “Audio Puzzler: Piecing Together Time-Stamped Speech Transcripts with a Puzzle Game.” In Proceedings of  ACM International Conference on Multimedia 2008. Vancouver, BC, CANANDA  [Project Link]

ABSTRACT

We have developed an audio-based casual puzzle game which produces a time-stamped transcription of spokenaudio as a by-product of play. Our evaluation of the game indicates that it is both fun and challenging. The transcripts generated using the game are more accurate than those produced using a standard automatic transcription system and the time-stamps of words are within several hundred milliseconds of ground truth.

An Online DEMO of Videolyzer, a project by my PhD Student, Nick Diakopolous.

Videolyzer is a tool designed to help journalists and bloggers collect, organize, and present information about the quality (i.e. validity, reliability, etc.) of online videos. It makes it possible to evaluate and make sense of things like comments, claims, and sources as they relate to the video. Users can comment and annotate pieces of the video (called “anchors”) to provide a more fine-grained description of the information in the video. The interface also incorporates a tightly integrated transcript of what’s spoken in the video to make it easier to navigate the dense information there. Finally, Videolyzer allows for collaboration among many people. Users can build off of each other’s annotations and rate each other in a form of distributed vetting and peer-evaluation.

N. Diakopoulos, I. Essa. (2008) “An Annotation Model for Making Sense of Information Quality in Online Videos.” Proceedings of the International Conference on the Pragmatic Web. 28–30 Sept. 2008, Uppsala, Sweden (To Appear)

ABSTRACT

Making sense of the information quality of online media including things such as the accuracy and validity of claims and the reliability of sources is essential for people to be well-informed. We are developing Videolyzer to address the challenge of information quality sense-making by allowing motivated individuals to analyze, collect, share, and respond to criticisms of the information quality of online political videos and their transcripts. In this paper specifically we present a model of how the annotation ontology and collaborative dynamics embedded in Videolyzer can enhance information quality.

Audio Puzzler Alpha (ONLINE DEMO)

By Nick Diakopoulos (My PhD Student)

Audio Puzzler is a new kind of puzzle game based on unauthored content found online. The audio for the puzzles is taken from popular or interesting video clips from different genres such as news, documentary, or television. The audio puzzler is the type of game that harnesses people’s play to also provide valuable data which enriches the content played with. This is in the same vein as the ESPGame, the Listen Game, and PhotoPlay, which are all games which gather data in the process of game play. But while the data collected by these other games is useful for machine learning, the data collected with audio puzzler is immediately valuable as a transcription of the speech in the video. A similar effort (but in a much grander domain) is the Fold It project which seeks to harness playtime to solve protein folding problems. Much more detailed information about the evaluation of the technology will be forthcoming in a paper to be published at ACM Multimedia in October.

Journalism 3G: The Future of Technology in the Field (A Symposium on Computation and Journalism) was a huge success.

• We had over 230 registered attendees. Thanks to all participants, panelists, and speakers.
• Use our Social Network (http://cj.crowdvine.com/) to continue the conversation.
• Join the FACEBOOK group (http://git.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18427444784)
• Use the tag “CnJ” on all blog posts and photo/video posts on the web, so we can collect them
• Videos of the event are now available here.

Working with Brad Stenger (Wired), Nick Diakopoulos (GA Tech), Sergio Goldenberg (GA Tech), we are organizing a Symposium on computation+journalism, to bring together computationalists, internet/media experts, and journalists together for a series of panels, presentations, and discussion around how computing technologies are effecting (and changing) journalism practices. We have over 180 people registered and it promise to be a great first-of-its-kind event. This event is being hosted by the GVU Center at Georgia Tech.

A. St. Clair, M. Fong, N. Diakopoulos, I. Essa. (2007) “NARC: The News Article Revision Comparator.” In Proceedings addendum of User Interface Software Technology (UIST). Newport, Rhode Island, October 2007 [Abstract] [Poster]

ABSTRACT

Currency of information in news consumption is an important facet of information quality which involves both the journalist providing updated information and the consumer being aware of updates and changes to the news stream. We are addressing information quality and currency in online news articles from the viewpoint of news consumption with the intent of reducing the consumption effort involved in getting the most up-to-date information on a breaking news story. The goal of this research is thus to develop a web-based user interface which (1) allows users to easily and quickly see updates to news articles online and (2) blends into existing consumption patterns by integrating into news websites. We have built NARC to address these issues by providing an integrated interface which allows users to quickly perceive changes to news
articles using an inline text visualization.

N. Diakopoulos, K. Luther, Y. Medynskiy, I. Essa (2007) The Evolution of Authorship in a Remix Society, ACM Hypertext 2007 Conference, Manchester, UK, September 2007 Abstract

Authorship entails the constrained selection or generation of media and the organization and layout of that media in a larger structure. But authorship is more than just selection and organization; it is a complex construct incorporating concepts of originality, authority, intertextuality, and attribution. In this paper we explore these concepts and ask how they are changing in light of modes of collaborative authorship in remix culture. We present a qualitative case study of an online video remixing site, illustrating how the constraints of that environment are impacting authorial constructs. We discuss users’ self-conceptions as authors, and how values related to authorship are reflected to users through the interface and design of the site’s tools. We also present some implications for the design of online communities for collaborative media creation and remixing.

• N. Diakopoulos, K. Luther, Y. Medynskiy, I. Essa. The Evolution of Authorship in a Remix Society. In Proceedings of Hypertext and Hypermedia. Manchester, UK, September 2007[PDF]
• N. Diakopoulos, K. Luther, Y. Medynskiy, I. Essa. Remixing Authorship: Reconfiguring the Author in Online Video Remix Culture. Georgia Tech, Technical Report. GIT-IC-07-05. 2007. [PDF]