Today's lecture by the lovely Susan Hetherington was on the phenomena of crowdsourcing. Although not a topic I tend to think about regularly, I was quite interested in how this technique can be used by journalists and the news media as a tool for recovering information.
Essentially, crowdsourcing allows for the division of labour between an information seeker and the public. By asking the public for information or calling for data base contributions, information can be gathered or found in half the time.
The downside to crowdsourcing is the legitimacy of responses and information contributions aren't known to be legitimate at first. If a journalist was to use information gathered from a third-party source without confirmation, there's the potential for legal repercussions especially if the information falsely implicates someone. However despite the obvious down-fall of a lack of monitoring around crowdsorced information, there's great value in what it can provide to journalists, especially with the 24 hour news cycle.
One way Australian's have become involved in crowdsourcing is Magpie Alert, a map which is filled out by people around the country to track Magpie attacks. Online mapping and easy website access lets people use their own information to create a data base.
One way Australian's have become involved in crowdsourcing is Magpie Alert, a map which is filled out by people around the country to track Magpie attacks. Online mapping and easy website access lets people use their own information to create a data base.
Crowdsourcing can be a journalists best tool but without the input of factual information it can also be a stepping stone to inaccurate reporting. So it's important that crowdsourcing is only one type of information sought out by the news media.
On a lighter note, I found this video on Craked.com about the other implications of crowdsourcing particularly in regards to how free outsourcing can and will implicate job prospects. (In a funny way of course).
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