This could be through social media platforms, via peer-to-peer or user-generated content.
Weiss, A. (2013). Exploring News Apps and Location-Based Services on the Smartphone. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 435-456.
I find using Twitter extremely useful as a healthcare professional with an advocacy role (via @VerranDeborah).
You should think about possibly undertaking some qualitative research on this topic via the use of an online survey (eg Survey Monkey). In addition it would be best to target a defined group of individuals such that you can obtain enough meaningful data for subsequent analysis.
Thank you for your response, Deborah! This specific article by Weiss that I'm referencing focusing on individuals ages 18-29. I'm also curious as to how other age groups contribute content in breaking news situations. Very great area to do some qualitative research in!
Found this study about the future of breaking news: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461670X.2014.882080#.VgHQrY9VhBc, which includes a section on participation (probably a lot more like this out there). Your question raises several interesting points, including how people experience breaking news today (mostly on mobile) but also how they participate in it (from sharing with friends to actually adding contributed content, such as photos from the scene). Those are two possible paths to explore in greater depth, but there are many others, including verification issues (of contributed content in breaking news situations), how to handle mistakes (when information changes as more is known about the news that has broke), and the effects on people who participate in breaking news, through sharing or adding content, and maybe how that changes the ways in which they think about the news, how that agency changes the way they interpret the news, and how that immediacy affects an audience, especially in the case of being an insider or outsider in the knowledge domain.
FYI the Pew research sub site for social media is also worth having a look at-
http://www.pewresearch.org/topics/social-media/
I once used Periscope to live stream a lecture that was being held in Kaka'ako. It definitely wasn't "late-breaking" news but through my experience using this application I can see how (if you're quick) it can be used to live-stream breaking news.
While Weiss focused primarily on how young adults consume news on their smart devices, I know of a lot of friends and colleagues who use apps like Periscope to share and consume not-so-late-breaking news but more so to share human-interest or lifestyle news. For example, Honolulu Star Advertiser food and style writer Nadine Kam (@nadinekam) often uses Periscope to live stream food or style-related events. I assume the Star Advertiser operates on a limited budget and cannot afford to invest fully in developing a geo-location feature on their mobile app, so having individual reporters and writers use social media apps seem to be the next best option.
Kapio, Can you please post some links of these Periscope examples that you found interesting? I'd like to see some of the best practices.
Cynthia,
That's interesting you chose to text message rather than Facebook or Twitter (or Google Plus, or whatever); some social media platforms offer closed conversations (if that's the issue), so why did you choose text message as the channel?
While I don't contribute much about breaking news stories online, I use snapchat to show friends some interesting things happening around me. For example, the other day, I sent a video of a car accident to a friend near their house. It was my way of telling him to avoid that road because it was causing traffic.
Prof. Brett: I also use text message to start a discussion with close friends. For example, if I'm browsing through the internet and I see something interesting, I would take a picture of the article and/or share the links with friends. We then discuss and comment about the news via text message.
OK, Godwin, why not through social media? Just curious as to why one channel over another. Is it to keep the conversation private, rather than public? Or just a matter of convenience? Or what?
Usually breaking news situations occur when you are on the road, or at locations away from home; thus, in order to alert your friends and family about what it going on, you must use your mobile device in order to do so. I have done the same thing that most people do in terms of alerting people about car accidents that shut down key roads on the island. To do this, I post a photo using my smartphone to Facebook so that people in my network will see it and hopefully will adjust their commutes accordingly. However, I have also posted breaking news updates about sporting events. I remember, in particular, during a major UH volleyball event back in 2011, the game was shown exclusively on ESPNU. And at the time, most residents did not have access to that channel because it was part of an upgrade package. So, I posted updates of the game that I attended to my Facebook page with subsequent photos. This allowed my friends and family to get updates of the game even if they weren't able to see the game on TV. And I did this all with my mobile device.
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