Social Media & International JusticeApps and tools to track information & strategies for content distribution and community engagement

Robin Johnson, Ph.D.

Twitter: @go4robinjohnsonFacebook: facebook.com/go4robinjohnsonEmail: robin.johnson@shsu.edu

Outline

Today we will be discussing the use of social media to:1. Track sources and information2. Engage with sources and news consumers3. Distribute stories over multiple platforms

TRACKINGTwitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Twitter• Twitter is a social networking tool

in which users post 140 character updates of what is going on in their lives along with links to things they think are interesting, funny or useful to their followers

• “Following” makes it a very public network since you don’t have to be someone’s friend to follow them, although there are privacy controls

Twitter• People use Twitter in many ways– As a newsfeed by following prominent people or

networks– A pseudo-chat room by limiting their followers & whom

they follow to close friends and family– As a microblog for updating people about the work they

are doing and their personal lives• 200 million active users, most relevant social

network for journalists

Tracking on Twitter• One Twitter tracking method is to find experts,

organizations, journalists, bloggers and activists that you already know from their work elsewhere.

• Once found on Twitter, conduct an information excavation of who they talk to, who they follow, what lists they are on, and what lists they have created.

Twitter Info

Excavation

Conversation with another

user

Link to blogger with blogger’s

username

Excavation• Professional summary that

lists the blogger’s interest and blog site

• 1.7k Followers• 6k tweets• Followed by shows others

like the user, whose information can be excavated

Following listThe following list includes everyone the person or organization follows. Read names and information to determine who to follow. Select the username to learn more information • number of tweets• number of followers• what kind of information is tweeted• and how often the user tweets

1,364 is a lot of accounts to wade through, but it will yield thorough results

Another strategy is finding expert/official accounts, who often only follow a few key people or organizations

https://twitter.com/gemattioli

Tracking tweets with lists• Twitter lists sorts users into common categories• Lists are generally public, which means you can

track another user’s list and others can follow your lists

• The larger the list, the more difficult it is to track relevant information. The limit is 500 members to a list, but I try to cultivate mine to 100 or less

My lists covering International Justice

• IntlCriminalLaw&Justice (there’s a character limit!)– This list follows developments in international criminal law, justice and the

ICC– I use this as an initial category if I’m not sure where someone fits or if I’m

in a hurry, I can go through and recategorize later• IntlCrime&CourtOrgs

– This is a list of NGOs and other organizations that tweet about international criminal law and the courts

• IntlCrime&CourtNews– This list contains journalists and bloggers who cover issues of international

crime, wars and the ICC– This is where a lot of news breaks

Lists, continued• IntlCrime&CourtsExperts– Lawyers, activists & academics with expertise &

experience in International Law, Courts & Justice– This list has people who can be used as sources for

stories. It also includes people working at the ICC and other courts and tribunals

• IntlCrimCourtsOfficial– Official accounts of criminal courts, tribunals & their

spokespeople

Finding lists

Twitter Trial Monitors• @icctrialmonitor– Open Society Justice Initiative– Monitors the International Criminal Court

• @KRT_monitor– Asian International Justice Initiative– Monitors Cambodia Chambers ECCC

• There should be more trial monitors!

Using Twitter’s Search• Finding and using #hashtags in Twitter

searches will generally yield users who want to be involved in the larger Twitter conversation about an issue

Advanced Twitter search• Twitter.com/search-

advanced• Use to track specific

hashtags, exact words and search terms by location, by account

Advanced Search• Twitter’s Advanced Search doesn’t search all

of Twitter’s archive, just most recent• Topsy.com– Provides an archive of all Tweets

• Monitter.com– Sort and track tweets in real time, filtered by

location

https://twitter.com/_CICC

Topsy.com

Monittor.com

Tweet Deck• Once lists are created, good

search terms found, how do journalists keep up with all the information?

• TweetDeck is app that you can download on mobile, use as an extension on Google Chrome, or use online for monitoring real-time searches, lists, mentions and activities

TweetDeck Chrome Extension

Adding a column to monitor

Adding a list

Adding notifications

Adding a search

Outside Twitter, you can see who has tweeted a story

• Facebook is a modern day phonebook that is searchable by name, occupation, network

• 800 million active users• Downside– Limited search function– Journalists and users have been slow to embrace

changes to make commenting more public

Facebook

• Follow people (changed from Subscribe)• Groups/Pages• Facebook Interest Lists• Graph Search (beta, English language only),

announced Jan. 15, 2013

Efforts to open Facebook content

Facebook Follow

Facebook Pages

International Criminal

Court Group

Facebook Interest

lists

• Four initial categories, phrase-based searching– People

• People who like the international criminal court in Beirut

– Photos • Photos friends of friends have taken in Egypt

– Places• War zones covered by journalists I follow

– Interests• International law and justice covered by journalists

• Search result page can be given a new title for the page. This creates a custom view of the content on Facebook.

Facebook Graph Search

LinkedIn• Find international law

sources and their professional connections

• Searchable through business, organization & occupation

• 160 million active users

List of groups

of lawyers working

in the field

Search by occupation such as legal officer or legal intern

• Tweetbeep.com and nutshellmail.com can be used to set up email alerts for multiple topics at multiple frequencies

• Twitter for SMS

Mobile tracking

ENGAGINGContacting sources and building community

• Frequent, polite conversations build source trust• Make sure your summary is clear & professional• Find the active part of a community & add your

Tweets to their conversations using reply and RT• Use Post/Tweet history and summary to check initial

trustworthiness of a potential source

Engaging sources

• Share your stories through your personal social media accounts in addition to having the media organization distribute through its official accounts– Consider using Facebook’s public option

• Respond to comments, likes and retweets as much as possible to develop relationships

Sharing stories to build community

• Crowdsourcing places some of the newsgathering responsibilities on your followers who might enjoy tracking down information and being included in the storytelling process

• Follows the ideal that many users will know more collectively than a single reporter

Crowdsourcing

• Publish a “rough draft” of a developing story, link it to SM and ask for feedback

• Expect 1-2 percent of your follow base to participate

• Make it simple to participate and have a clear focus on what you want users to find

• Reward the most active participants

Crowdsourcing tips

YouTube Direct• YouTube Direct allows

users to upload video to a news organization’s or a blogger’s web site

• Videos are monitored, approved and displayed on the website

• Customizable

• YouTube Direct Lite can be implemented relatively easily on any website without needing to know how to configure and manage a Google App Engine

YouTube Direct Lite

• YouTube account, create or navigate to playlist you want to use to receive video submissions

Instructions

• http://code.google.com/p/youtube-direct-lite/wiki/AdminInterface– This website will launch the submission

administration interface, where you can get the code to put on your site and review submitted videos to approve them for display

– It also provides instructions and help• This is the link directly to the admin interface– http://ytdirectlite.appspot.com/static-min/admin.

html

Direct Lite website

This is the admin interface with tabs for embed codes for the submission widget and the display widget

Pending tab for submissions that are awaiting review

Approved and rejected videos

• Twitcam.livestream.com allows you to live stream video to your Twitter account

• Very simple to implement

Twitcam.livestream.com

DISTRIBUTEWriting and posting strategies & curating content

• Posts, tweets, etc. should all be brief and have as many of the following attributes as possible– To inform: Timeliness, relevance, unique, credible– To persuade: credible, generous– To engage: pose questions, be provocative/evocative– To entertain: occasionally funny, play on conventions

• Colorful observations of breaking or trending news tend to get retweeted and shared more

Composing the message

• Twitter provides the ability to embed code onto any website– Settings, Widget – Create new– Stream all your tweets, your favorites, lists you

follow or manage, and searches

Embedding Twitter on a web site

• To curate a topic is to grab news stories, images, comments from SM and arrange them into a meaningful narrative, site or context

• Curating content deals with the immense amount of information available online

• Curating content is based on the idea of a museum curator – presenting the most relevant information to users who are interested but can’t see or monitor everything

Curation

• Spundge.com allows users to create “books” under categories of information

• Two ways of putting content into a book– Google Chrome extension– Social media stream

• Other Spundge users can subscribe to your books, you can share your books through social media, and you can embed the code onto a website

• Some users of Spundge grow books, but updating daily with new stories and deleting non-timely stories gives social media users a reason to visit more often & not get overwhelmed

Curation Apps and Tools

• Paper.li works in a similar fashion as Spundge, but it creates news “editions” in an engaging format that looks like a news site.

Curation tools

• Storify – Storytelling through social media• Storify is just beginning to be used by

journalists and bloggers, and it is geared specifically toward journalism

• Best use so far:– Storytellers using Storify re-create a timeline of

breaking news as it unfolds via social media

Storify