Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production is the first comprehensive study of the latest wave of online news publications. The book investigates the collaborative publishing models of key news Websites, ranging from the worldwide Indymedia network to the massively successful technology news site Slashdot, and further to the multitude of Weblogs that have emerged in recent years. Building on collaborative approaches borrowed from the open source software development community, this book illustrates how gatewatching provides an alternative to gatekeeping and other traditional journalistic models of reporting, and has enabled millions of users around the world to participate in the online news publishing process. Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production is the first comprehensive study of the latest wave of online news publications. The book investigates the collaborative publishing models of key news Websites, ranging from the worldwide Indymedia network to the massively successful technology news site Slashdot, and further to the multitude of Weblogs that have emerged in recent years. Building on collaborative approaches borrowed from the open source software development community, this book illustrates how gatewatching provides an alternative to gatekeeping and other traditional journalistic models of reporting, and has enabled millions of users around the world to participate in the online news publishing process. Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction 1(10) From Gatewatching to the Creative Commons 2(9) Notes 10(1) 2 Gatewatching 11(20) Gatekeeping 11(3) Beyond Traditional Gatekeeping 14(9) Librarians and Gatekeepers 15(2) Gatewatchers 17(2) Why Watch? 19(4) Participatory Journalism and Multiperspectival News 23(8) From Participation to Multiperspectivality 24(3) Other Models 27(2) Notes 29(2) 3 Stuff that Matters: Slashdot 31(22) "News for Nerds, and Stuff that Matters" 32(9) The Slashdot Front Page 34(1) Slashdot News Stories: Selection and Presentation 35(3) The Slashdot Approach to Gatewatching 38(3) Users as Editors at the Response Stage 41(5) Allowing the Gates to Watch Themselves 43(2) Karma and Competition 45(1) Slashdot as a Role Model 46(3) Who Owns Slashdot (Content)? 49(4) Notes 51(2) 4 Making News Open Source 53(28) Dialogic, Conversational, Unfinished News 53(2) Mixed Media, Mixed Messages? 55(5) The New Journalism? 57(3) Toward New Journalism 60(3) Open Publishing, Open News 63(6) Open News and Open Source 65(3) The Power of Eyeballs 68(1) Open News as Deliberative Journalism 69(12) Participating in the Deliberation 73(2) Limits to Freedom 75(3) Notes 78(3) 5 Case Studies: Indymedia and Wikipedia 81(38) Indymedia 81(19) Tactical Origins of Indymedia 84(2) Prehistory 86(2) Indymedia beyond Seattle 88(2) Become the Media 90(2) Toward Open Editing 92(8) The Indymedia Community 100(4) From Tactics to Strategies 102(2) Challenging the Gatekeepers 104(3) Collaborative Editing: The Wikipedia 107(12) The "Neutral Point of View" Doctrine 110(3) Notes 113(6) 6 P2P Journalism 119(22) From Participation to P2P 119(5) Interaction and Participation 120(2) P2P Publishing 122(2) Categorizing P2P Publications 124(8) Closed News 125(1) Collaborative News Websites 126(6) But Is It Journalism? 132(9) Participatory Journalism? 134(2) P2P Journalism 136(3) Notes 139(2) 7 Case Studies: MediaChannel, Plastic, Kuro5hin 141(30) MediaChannel 141(9) Closed Gatewatching 144(3) A Hybrid Tier 147(3) Plastic 150(4) Kuro5hin 154(17) Open Reviewing 157(5) Beyond Gatewatching 162(2) Trust Everyone 164(3) Notes 167(4) 8 P2P Publishing 171(30) Blogs 171(9) Uses of Blogs 173(5) Complementary News 178(2) The Community of Blog(ger)s 180(5) Enter the Blogosphere 182(3) Categorizing Blog Formats as P2P Publications 185(6) Meta-Blogs 185(2) Blog Network Channels 187(1) Group Blogs 188(1) Individual Blogs 189(1) Personal Homepages 189(2) A Taxonomy of P2P Publishing 191(3) Sliding Continua 194(7) Notes 197(4) 9 Case Studies: Blogs and Journalism 201(36) Group Blogs: Stand Down 202(3) Blog Network Channels: Internet TopicExchange 205(2) Meta-Blogs: Technorati, Blogdex, Daypop 207(3) Is Blogging Journalism? 210(7) Is Journalism Journalism? 213(4) What's News? 217(7) Smashing the Gates 218(4) Toward a New News 222(2) Changing Journalism 224(14) Whose Truth? 227(5) Notes 232(5) 10 Content Syndication and the Semantic Web 237(26) Toward Content Sharing 238(8) News Syndication 239(5) Limitations 244(2) Beyond Syndication 246(6) Toward a Semantic Web 248(2) Imagining the Syndicated, Semantic, Intercast Web 250(2) Newssharing 252(12) Questions for Newssharing 254(2) Likely Developments 256(4) Notes 260(3) 11 Case Study: Gatewatching as Semantic Metadata Generation 263(16) A Semantic Web? 264(8) Basic Concepts of the Semantic Web 265(2) The Resource Description Framework 267(4) Metadata Aggregation 271(1) Authority and Trust 272(3) The Road Ahead 275(5) Notes 277(2) 12 News Communities, News Ownership 279(28) News Communities 280(12) Online Communities 281(2) Size Matters 283(2) News Communities 285(2) Multiperspectival News Communities? 287(5) News Ownership 292(17) The Role of Site Operators 295(4) License, Please 299(2) Newssharing and Licenses 301(3) Notes 304(3) 13 Conclusion 307(14) Users in Control 309(7) ...But to What Extent? 310(3) Two Tiers 313(2) From Consumer to Produser 315(1) The Active Audience 316(5) Notes 318(3) Bibliography 321