Thursday, February 24, 2011
5-7 p.m.
3-270


Abstract

The digital age has been heralded but also pilloried for its impact on journalism. As newspapers continue their mutation into digital formats and as news and information are available from a seeming infinity of websites, what do we actually know about the dynamics of news-consumption online?  What does the public do with online news?  How influential are traditional news outlets in framing the news we get online? 

Speakers

Joshua Benton is director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Before spending a year at Harvard as a 2008 Nieman Fellow, he spent 10 years in newspapers, most recently at the Dallas Morning News. He has reported from 10 foreign countries, been a Pew Fellow in International Journalism, and three times been a finalist for the Livingston Award for International Reporting.

Pablo Boczkowski is a Professor of Communications Studies at Northwestern University where he leads a research program that studies the transition from print to digital media. He is the author of Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers (2004) and News at Work: Imitation in an Age of Information Abundance (2010).

Moderator: Jason Spingarn-Koff is a New York-based documentary filmmaker and journalist, whose work has appeared on PBS (NOVA, Frontline/World, History Detectives, LIFE360), the BBC, MSNBC, Time and Wired. Spingarn-Koff is a 2010-2011 Knight Journalism Fellow at MIT.

Co-sponsor: MIT Anthropology Program

Audiocast

An audio recording of Online News: Public Sphere or Echo Chamber? is available.

Podcast

A dowloadable podcast of Online News: Public Sphere or Echo Chamber? is available.

Video

Video of Online News: Public Sphere or Echo Chamber? is available.