The WSI would like to invite you to attend an informal talk with Matthew Weber, Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information at Reutgers University.

The talk will begin at 11.30, followed by a lunch at 12.30

Media Flows, Digital Technology and Evolving News Ecosystems

The news media industry continues to face numerous challenges adapting to new forms of technology, particularly social media and mobile technology. This work takes a social networks perspective in order to examine the evolution of the news media industry based on interconnections amongst key partners within the US news media industry. Particular emphasis is placed on the local context, which has experienced a significant downturn. Thus, this talk leverages large-scale data analysis and web archive data to create a record of local news content across the United States. The data has been used to examine how various types of local news websites occupy key roles in the local news ecosystem, either influencing information flow or dominating a given community’s news landscape by controlling information flow. Social network analysis was used to conduct a multilevel study of the local news community, looking at the connections between local news websites both within a given community and across the entire network of communities. This presentation will also discuss the archiving of local news and how it is being preserved for both research and practice in order to create a practical record of US news media. The aggregate findings represent one of the first large-scale examinations of the interconnectivity of local news organizations in the United States.

About the Speaker

Matthew Weber is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Information, Director of Rutgers’ NetSCI Network Science Research Lab and a Found Member of the Center for Data Science and Social Systems (CDS3). Matthew’s research examines ecosystems of news media organizations, with a specific focus on the evolution of the news media industry in response to the introduction of new information communication technology. In context, this work extends to consider implications for organizational adaptation to technology, as well as for understanding policymaking in relation to news media. More broadly, Matthew focuses on processes of organizational change and adaptation, both internal and external to the organization. His recent work includes a large-scale longitudinal study examining strategies employed by media organizations for disseminating news and information through online hyperlink networks. Subsequent research includes an examination of the effectiveness of adopting social media within organizations in order to share knowledge and to collaborate with teammates. Matthew is also leading an initiative to provide researchers with access to the Internet Archives (archive.org) in order to study digital traces of news networks. His work is funded by the National Science Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and others. Matthew’s work has been widely published in leading academic journals, as well as in the popular press. Matthew received his PhD in 2010 from the Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Southern California.

WSI Seminar with Matthew Weber, Rutgers University