Raquel Herrera

From Knowledge Federation

I'm a communication teacher, researcher and translator based on Barcelona. I teach online for Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and I'm writing my Phd dissertation on the intersection between digitality and narrative.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE

I recently taught a session on journalism and innovation at UPF-IDEC (http://www.idec.upf.edu/web-2.0-para-periodistas-aplicaciones-tecnologias-y-herramientas).

You can also find the related .ppt presentation here (http://www.slideshare.net/tfugit/sesin-sobre-innovacin-y-periodismo-en-idec-8565048). Sorry it`s in Spanish only, but I can translate any of the information if needed.

I based my teaching presentation on practitioners such as Media 140 (http://media140.com/en/) or the research on cultural innovation undertaken by YP Productions (http://www.ypsite.net/investigaciones.php).

I'd like to delve into the intersection between journalism and innovation as a teacher and researcher and this is the reason I'm giving my input here.

REGARDING YOUR QUESTIONS ON THE TRANDISCIPLINE TRACK:

Difference – What are the key characteristics of an ‘innovation ecosystem’ or a ‘transdiscipline’?'''' Its ability to grow rhizomatically, adapting to change by updating its preexistent contents and making them as modular as possible and expanding and including new contents with the same features (that is, adaptability and modularity),

Transdiscipline dynamics – How, and with what technologies as ‘Lego blocs’ should the ‘innovation ecosystem for good journalism’ function? They should not be based on "walled garden" metaphors but open systems. They should be able to grow on local communities and expand globally. They should be able to be replaced by bettered tools so that contents are not lost or excessively dependent on market-driven only tools.

New journalism dynamics – How, and with what technological building blocs, should the new media channel function? Narrative aggregators such as Storify or Storyful seem to be making a good job at facilitating the creation of social media entries based on a textual backbone. Visualization tools are all the rage at the moment when it comes to creating visual representations of emerging and/or quantitative phenomena.

Both these two non-linear narrative tendencies seem apt at establishing digital journalists as information scientists, but ethical and pedagogical concerns are more challenging than ever and can't be reduced to specific technologies.

Transdiciplinary focus should not only address teaching the right tools but also giving some kind of ethical framework which accounts for both the mass media and the new media landscape, which is reflective on ownership rights and economic gain for the journalistic sector. In other words, I believe that a transdiciplinary approach to current journalism transcends specific building blocs understood as tools.. they also have to be understood, in more than one way, as compasses.