Roadmap

Part of my Phase 01 vision for this project was to have a way to collect feedback from volunteers on the different interview sound bites.

I've been able to successfully upload all of the sound bites from the Bill Plante interview into Drupal.
You can check it out here: http://www.echochamberproject.com/flexinode/table/2.

At the moment, only I'm able to add folksonomy tags to these sound bites, but I'm looking at ways for volunteers to tag these sound bites as well. Currently, there isn't an existing solution, and I'm asking around it anyone has some good ideas.

As a result of my little Drupal tag cloud PR blitz this afternoon, a Drupal developer asked me to pitch some features to him for a development contest that he's entering.

I threw together an elevator pitch for technogeeks of Phase 01

Here it is:

A quick metaphor would be to say that I need del.icio.us-like capabilities within Drupal.

But the way I'd pitch it would be to say that I need a toolkit for Swarm Intelligence Journalism by collecting third-party metadata on soundbite Drupal nodes so that I can collaboratively edit my investigative documentary film about how the mainstream media became an Echo Chamber to the countdown towards war in Iraq.

If I had the Phase 01 toolset that I'm proposing, then I could start to tap into the collective intelligence of a set of diverse volunteers by making their subjective interpretations of politcal material more explicit through folksonomy tag clouds.

By associating pro-war and anti-war identities to third-party del.icio.us-like folksonomy tags on my politically contentious soundbites, then this tool could be used to bring about a deeper understanding to the common ground and points of departure between polar opposite poltical worldviews.

Incorporating this Phase 01 toolkit into Drupal will also facilitate collaborative film editing capabilities within Drupal by using the Final Cut Pro XML interface.

In order to catalyze the First Phase of Development in the Echo Chamber Project Roadmap, I need to align myself with other grassroots media activists using Drupal as well as interested Drupal developers.

Based on the conversations I've had at recent conferences, I think that there is enough overlap between a lot of various citizen journalist and collaborative media efforts that a "Drupal Media Coalition" could help advance the interests of a broad range of projects and the larger Drupal community as a whole.

I initiated a working group at the CivicSpace user's summit in NYC for Drupal developers and site maintainers who were interested in forming some sort of coalition. I actually didn't have a chance to formally introduce this idea to everyone during the working lunch as I had intended because a number of interesting side conversations had evolved -- including one I was having with Brady Jarvis of code0range.net and Aaron Pava of CivicActions.

The Echo Chamber is a documentary on the failures of the mainstream media, and how I produce this film will hopefully provide some solutions to this infotainment bottleneck.

I'm trying to develop more sophisticated techniques for citizen journalism by open sourcing my interview material and collaboratively producing The Echo Chamber on a Drupal/CivicSpace platform. More details are below...

Keywords

* Drupal Modules
* Folksonomy & Taxonomy
* User Interface
* Collaborative Journalism

Flowchart:

Intention:

* Create a Drupal-based infrastructure that facilitates the centralized collection of volunteer metadata on original interview source material.
* Break up interviews into sound bite chunks, number the chunks for ID purposes, and provide links for users to easily contribute qualitative and quantitative metadata.

Keywords:

* Citizen Journalism Toolkit
* Media Reform
* Community of Practice
* Open Source Business Plan
* Symbiotic Relationships
* Ideological, Racial and Gender Diversity

Intention:

* Provide preliminary proof-of-concept by manifesting an infrastructure in Phase 01.
* Build a coalition of partners interested in reforming the mainstream media and developing a Citizen Journalist toolkit for collaborative content development.
* Open Source the Business Plan to make the strategic intentions for The Echo Chamber documentary more transparent.
* Connect this project with larger institutional agenda setters who are monitoring the progress and willing to adopt the best practices developed through the production of this film.
* Create a Community of Practice where there is enough logistical support to manifest the remaining phases of post-production and distribution.
* Create a diverse network of volunteers who are mutually interested in creating a technological infrastructure and citizen journalism methodologies that make the press more democratic.

What I have:

* I have four advisors: 1 Journalism Professor, 1 Film Advisor, 1 Communications
* Practitioner, and 1 Drupal Developer.
* A brainstormed list of groups potentially interested in collaborating.
* Contacts with some New Media leaders, Activist Technologists, and other SXSW panel participants.
* An e-mail list of contacts

What I need:

* Recruit an outreach director to help with building a broad and diverse coalition.
* Recruit producers to budget and help raise required funds for the remaining phases.
* Recruit more academic advisors from a variety of different disciplines who would be interested in the project.
* Recruit additional logistical support -- legal, technology, etc.
* Collaborate with activists and organizations who are interested in helping develop tools for the remaining phases of this roadmap.
* Help with spreading these intentions and desires to your respective social networks.
* Receive vouchers of credibility from trusted sources within the journalistic and blogging communities
* Marketing support from the center and edges of the blogosphere
* To get this project on the radar screen of small, mid-level or mainstream news organizations
* To create opportunities to speak with strategic decision-makers employed by the press as the project progresses.

On to Phase 03 Recruit Volunteers to Contribute Metadata on Interview Transcripts
Back to Roadmap

Keywords

* Beta Testing
* Volunteer Education
* Recruiting Distributive Labor
* Marketing Strategy & Tactics
* Community of Practice
* Diversity

Intention

* Recruit 20 beta testers to test out the user interface and design architecture
* Recruit help in creating podcasts, screencasts and videos to help educate volunteers on the user interface
* Market site to a broad range of audiences (Be transparent with intentions)
* Recruit at least 200 active volunteers to blog and adding tags about the soundbites
* Define user roles to create a vital community
* Analyze scaling issues and requirements for further growth
* Address diversity issues after identity data has been collected in Phase 04

What I have

* Connection to a number of interviewees with influence in the field of journalism and politics.
* Awareness of the project within some of the leaders of the New Media movement who have social capital.
* An opportunity to provide people with the choice for participating in media production.
* A list of groups and organizations interested in media activism and democratic reform

What I need

* Assistance with marketing strategy and tactics
* Best practices for Communities of Practice
* Help with getting the word out to potential volunteers
* To get the project on the radar screen of more journalistic institutions
* Find Node Connectors and Bridge Bloggers
* Tips for community development
* Tips for maximizing diversity

On to Phase 04 Collect Identity Information on Volunteers
Back to Roadmap

Keywords

* Identity Taxonomies

* Political Affiliation / Voting Behavior
* Views on Iraq War
* Geography
* Worldviews & Value Systems
* Race, Gender, etc.

* Drupal Content Sorting

Intention

* Gather some essential identity metrics for the volunteer user group.
* Implement methods and filtering mechanisms to analyze patterns within various different identity subgroups

* What common ground do pro-war and anti-war volunteers share in their grievances about the media?

Keywords

* Collaborative Content Development
* Media Transparency
* Exporting Data from Drupal
* Open Source Business Plan

Intention

* Develop a formal thematic taxonomy for the documentary that is informed by the emergent patterns of the folksonomy tags collected from volunteers in Phase 03
* Open Source the Business Plan to further discuss the target audience and strategic communication intentions for The Echo Chamber documentary.
* Normalize and export the quantitative data on sound bite Source Credibility & Quality, and import this data into Final Cut Pro editing software through Final Cut Pro XML.

Keywords

* Media Content Analysis
* Copyright Restrictions
* Fair Use
* Metadata Collection

Intention

* Find a way to receive volunteer input on the pre-war television transcripts without violating copyright restrictions from ABC, CBS, & NBC news.
* Collect more volunteer metadata on these clips to help inform the editing process.
* Post image thumbnails with the transcripts in order to give the text more depth and context.

What I have

* Transcripts for ABC, CBS, & NBC newscasts from August 26, 2002 to March 19, 2003.