Highlights from #cj2014 opening keynote: Jon Kleinberg

I’m following the Computation + Journalism 2014 symposium via the hashtag and livestream. Below are some highlights I collected from the opening keynote.

by
Fri, Oct 24 2014 17:15:36

#cj2014: Tracing the Flow of On-Line Information through Networks and Text

Keynote by Jon Kleinberg at 2014 Computation + Journalism symposium at Columbia University

  1. Event page:
  2. 2014 C+J Symposium

    We live in a society that is increasingly dependent on data and computation, a dependence that often evolves invisibly, without substantial critical assessment or accountability. Far from virtual, inert quantities, data and computation exert real forces in the physical world, shaping and defining systems of power that will play larger and larger roles in people’s lives.
    Columbia
  3. Highlights from the keynote (in chronological order):
  4. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    Keynote by Jon Kleinberg of Cornell: metaphors of information travelling online include the library and the crowd #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:21:21

  5. Jon Kleinberg at #cj2014 http://t.co/mPoyNMZgeJ

    Jon Kleinberg at #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/mPoyNMZgeJ

    Meredith Broussard@merbroussard
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:22:16

  6. reshamas

    Reshama Shaikh@reshamas
    #Information travels on-line via #library (pages, links, association) & crowd (memes, contagion) | #data #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:22:26

  7. #CJ2014 Vannevar Bush v. Katz+Lazarsfeld in Kleinberg's keynote http://t.co/Tsw544TSxZ

    #CJ2014 Vannevar Bush v. Katz+Lazarsfeld in Kleinberg’s keynote pic.twitter.com/Tsw544TSxZ

    The Brown Institute@BrownInstitute
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:24:08

  8. fergle

    Fergus Pitt@fergle
    Jon Kleinberg opens #CJ2014 with a ref to the classic essay As We May Think.  http://j.mp/ZPWaO1 

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:24:47

  9. kleinberg on sharing information vs storing/accessing it #cj2014 http://t.co/HRlwZ3ChQI

    kleinberg on sharing information vs storing/accessing it #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/HRlwZ3ChQI

    Dan Calacci@dcalacci
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:26:29

  10. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    Jon Kleinberg, speaking right now at #cj2014, did some really cool work tracking chain letters online in 2008  http://www.pnas.org/content/105/12/4633.full …

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:26:46

  11. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    We can track the flow of information temporally, structurally, and in terms of content, says Jon Kleinberg #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:28:22

  12. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    But are crowd & library metaphors dual: people trailblazing through documents or documents transmitted through networks of people? #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:28:35

  13. angshah

    Angilee Shah@angshah
    It’s easier for algorithms to track items (quotes, photos, phrases) than stories. Q: Does that encourage pack journalism? #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:31:47

  14. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    Tracking stories through networks reveals difficulties eg., natural language. But can track quotes to show news cycles #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:32:35

  15. Kleinberg explains tracking essential elements of a story (like phrases) as they move through networks. #cj2014 http://t.co/V1fiFZWUBS

    Kleinberg explains tracking essential elements of a story (like phrases) as they move through networks. #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/V1fiFZWUBS

    Tyler Dukes@mtdukes
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:32:41

  16. reshamas

    Reshama Shaikh@reshamas
    Half of all reshares on FB happen in large cascades (>500) | #paradox #viral #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:43:16

  17. Basic question: how to predict what content will be shared widely? Or, are cascades unpredictable? #cj2014 http://t.co/Q7dCleEkXH

    Basic question: how to predict what content will be shared widely? Or, are cascades unpredictable? #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/Q7dCleEkXH

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:43:24

  18. #cj2014 Is virality predictable? You as poster rarely experience it w your content, but you as consumer see it often http://t.co/IEgOmZtWIv

    #cj2014 Is virality predictable? You as poster rarely experience it w your content, but you as consumer see it often pic.twitter.com/IEgOmZtWIv

    The Brown Institute@BrownInstitute
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:43:46

  19. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    One solution: reframe question as tracking rather than snapshot instant: what are the chances of this being shared further? #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:46:37

  20. mtdukes

    Tyler Dukes@mtdukes
    On whether something “goes viral”: “An important moment in a cascade is the moment it escapes the neighborhood of the root.” #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:48:59

  21. Temporal features most powerful in predicting resharing of photo memes #CJ2014 http://t.co/3ZKFHIzO7Y

    Temporal features most powerful in predicting resharing of photo memes #CJ2014 pic.twitter.com/3ZKFHIzO7Y

    Nick Diakopoulos@ndiakopoulos
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:51:47

  22. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    My thoughts are on how narratives or stories in news, eg images of ‘typical’ migrants, circulate and are widely diffused #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:51:57

  23. Troubling finding here seems to be that actual content has less impact on how likely something is to go viral #cj2014 http://t.co/lver1zx14e

    Troubling finding here seems to be that actual content has less impact on how likely something is to go viral #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/lver1zx14e

    Tyler Dukes@mtdukes
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:52:56

  24. Research to understand discussion and comment threads - #cj2014 keynote by Jon Kleinberg http://t.co/3HUQi1uZj1

    Research to understand discussion and comment threads – #cj2014 keynote by Jon Kleinberg pic.twitter.com/3HUQi1uZj1

    Amy X Zhang@amyxzh
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:55:00

  25. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    Kleinberg now moving from global discussion to local conversations via threads or friends. What makes them engaging, long, short? #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:55:32

  26. Zielina

    Anita Zielina@Zielina
    Tracking the virality of memes: Speed is important. Pics that get the first 1k of shares fast are more likely to go viral after. #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:56:54

  27. angshah

    Angilee Shah@angshah
    Content more likely to spread if strangers share it = good reason for journalists to make sure their networks are diverse #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 13:57:17

  28. #visualization shows 2 kinds of threads: long due to many contributors posting once or convo among few ppl #cj2014 http://t.co/Js2wFv0lyy

    #visualization shows 2 kinds of threads: long due to many contributors posting once or convo among few ppl #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/Js2wFv0lyy

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:00:23

  29. Super interesting question!: why do certain quotes/content stand out? Linguistic markers? #visualization #cj2014 http://t.co/1muOY6tZxI

    Super interesting question!: why do certain quotes/content stand out? Linguistic markers? #visualization #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/1muOY6tZxI

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:02:25

  30. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    For a week in September 2008, Obama commandeered the news media with the line “lipstick on a pig,” says Jon Kleinberg #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:03:11

  31. Movie quotes as viral text #CJ2014 http://t.co/lSU8PyeKpW

    Movie quotes as viral text #CJ2014 pic.twitter.com/lSU8PyeKpW

    Nick Diakopoulos@ndiakopoulos
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:04:01

  32. Zielina

    Anita Zielina@Zielina
    That would be a nice job description for a business card: Meme tracker. #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:05:30

  33. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    Kleinberg compares memorable & unmemorable movie lines as lab setting to see what features contribute to memorable or viral text #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:05:37

  34. How to track virality of content - use movie quotes: "These aren't the droids you're looking for." #cj2014 http://t.co/Z1YqXGlsgM

    How to track virality of content – use movie quotes: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” #cj2014 pic.twitter.com/Z1YqXGlsgM

    Tyler Dukes@mtdukes
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:06:41

  35. angshah

    Angilee Shah@angshah
    Why do we like “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” but not “you don’t need to see his identification” #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:07:27

  36. ndiakopoulos

    Nick Diakopoulos@ndiakopoulos
    Memorable quotes are sequences of unusual words with common part of speech patterns #cj2014 – application to headline writing?

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:10:14

  37. jonhew

    Jonathan Hewett@jonhew
    Memorable quotes are less probable in their word choices but more probably in their sentence (part-of-speech) structure – Kleinberg. #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:10:37

  38. Jon Kleinberg: Socially shared information - how to predict success stories? Try a sequence of unusual words.#cj2014 http://t.co/AVzW3vImS6

    Jon Kleinberg: Socially shared information – how to predict success stories? Try a sequence of unusual words.#cj2014 pic.twitter.com/AVzW3vImS6

    Turo Uskali@TuroUskali
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:10:40

  39. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    Is there an algorithmic pattern to why a movie quote is memorable? Take “you had me at hello.” What’s so special about it? #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:10:53

  40. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    “Memorable quotes need to have a certain portability” _Jon Kleinberg #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:11:34

  41. jonhew

    Jonathan Hewett@jonhew
    Memorable quotes tend to be more ‘general’: more present tense, indefinite articles, fewer third-person pronouns >> ‘portability’ #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:12:09

  42. cbasturea

    Constantin Basturea@cbasturea
    #CJ2014 The ‘You had me at hello’ paper reference by Jon Kleinberg (including movie quotes memorability test):  http://www.mpi-sws.org/~cristian/memorability.html …

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:12:45

  43. reshamas

    Reshama Shaikh@reshamas
    Slogans in #advertising are like memorable quotes. “It just keeps going & going & going.” | #marketing #NLP #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:13:54

  44. williamlallen

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    Is there an analogy of genetics for text: ‘fitness’ of text for sharing, mutation of ‘junk’ parts of quotes while core parts remain #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:16:25

  45. #cj2014 Just as genes have functional parts and junk parts, so does text - Beautiful analysis of content prolongation http://t.co/oFsLnMmrN7

    #cj2014 Just as genes have functional parts and junk parts, so does text – Beautiful analysis of content prolongation pic.twitter.com/oFsLnMmrN7

    The Brown Institute@BrownInstitute
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:16:53

  46. lachancenaomi

    Naomi LaChance@lachancenaomi
    “Genetic analogies for memes are becoming increasingly rich” -Jon Kleingberg #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:17:21

  47. jonhew

    Jonathan Hewett@jonhew
    Sharing on social networks: “Can cascades be predicted?” — paper by Jon Kleinberg et al  http://bit.ly/1nCkspI  #cj2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:17:36

  48. Kleinberg wraps up his fascinating talk with new avenues for computational insight into info flows #CJ2014 http://t.co/vTloP7pllJ

    Kleinberg wraps up his fascinating talk with new avenues for computational insight into info flows #CJ2014 pic.twitter.com/vTloP7pllJ

    Will Allen@williamlallen
    ·

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:18:14

  49. angshah

    Angilee Shah@angshah
    Great question: What are the features of content that make people STOP watching/reading/commenting? #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:26:14

  50. angshah

    Angilee Shah@angshah
    Another great question: Are there computational ways to evaluate WHO gets to be quoted in the first place? #CJ2014

    Fri, Oct 24 2014 14:32:37

Images of inspiration: The visual genealogy of Kon, Jodorowsky and Friedrich

Watch this video essay by Tony Zhou about filmmaker and animator Satoshi Kon (h/t Robin Sloan on Snarkmarket).

First off, Zhou’s piece is absolutely wonderful.

One thing I find particularly fascinating is when you’re shown the original scene and a scene inspired by it — e.g. Inception and Black Swan.

The documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” which I watched last weekend thanks to Sandro Mairata, offers similar examples in the context of science fiction, which are mentioned near the end of the trailer (1:42) — e.g. Alien, Blade Runner and The Matrix.

It also reminds me of “The 19th Century Painting That Most Blockbuster Movie Posters Are Based On.”

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich (Courtesy Wikipedia)

It would be awesome to have a tool that maps the genealogy of visual imagery. Maybe something to incorporate into the Visipedia project.

Tell me: What are some other works that reveal the visual inspiration of a painting or a movie scene?

This piece is based on my comment on Robin’s Snarkmarket post.

Running for ONA board re-election

[Update: I won a second term, yay! Congrats to everyone who was elected/re-elected!]

It’s almost time for the ONA14 conference (yeah!) and that means another board election approaches.

My first term on the board is almost complete and I’m running for re-election. It’s been an honor to serve on the board with such a wonderful and talented group of journalists. ONA continues to make great progress and I’d love to continue serving the members and the organization. If you’re a member (or not yet a member, you should join) — I’d greatly appreciate your vote.

Here are some highlights from my candidate page. I also want to know what you would like from ONA going forward, so please drop me a line in the comments below, on Twitter or privately here:

Vision for ONA and skills I would bring to the board 

ONA members include every type of journalists in every type of news outlet. As an organization we deal with subjects that affect a wide spectrum of the industry — such as leadership, ethics and diversity — and more specific topics — like how to protect sources, use a new tool or adopt new reporting methods.

In order to best serve our members and take advantage of ONA as platform (see http://bit.ly/GLonaboard12), we need to include more voices.

We need more members and participants who are in business, advertising, sales. They also work in the news business and are a notably absent group in our conversations about the present and future.

We similarly need to expand our community to include others outside of news — professionals and academics whose fields share similar fundamentals, themes and practices or who have methods we could learn from and apply to journalism. We should recruit them as associate members.

Artists and architects. Biologists and book-creators. Filmmakers and forensic accountants. Game animators and geographers. Industrial designers and improv actors. Linguists and librarians. Mathematicians and musicians. Poets and philosophers. Sociologists and screenwriters.

We have so much to learn from our peers and colleagues. But, beyond learning from each other, we have even more to learn from those outside our field — the subject-matter experts and specialists.

What are their processes? How do they solve problems? How have they been disrupted? How have they adjusted their business models? What have they made? How have they spearheaded change?

It’s like you’re writing a story. You have the seed of an idea, so you ask a reporter in the next pod if it sounds worth checking. Then you start contacting sources, asking them for other experts and broadening the scope of what you know.

That’s the same kind of expansion we need.

Invite them to local meetups. Ask them to speak at annual conferences. Include them in dCamps and leaderships breakfasts. Appeal to them for guest posts on journalists.org.

Let’s update our rolodex.

 

Quick history of ONA involvement:

  • Member/conference attendee since 2008
  • ONA DC participant and volunteer since 2009
  • Conference video stream team leader 2009-2012
  • Conference speaker in 2012 and 2013
  • Board member since 2012
  • Helped plan dCamp in DC in 2013
  • Board’s point person for journalist.org redesign
  • Conference karaoke instigator since 2011

Blockchains for News

Anil Dash’s piece on applying an underlying concept of Bitcoin to track digital art has me thinking about the potential applications of  blockchains for news. As he writes:

What the technology behind Bitcoin enables, in short, is the ability to track online trading of a digital object, without relying on any one central authority, by using the block chain as the ledger of transactions.

What if we built a blockchain system for news? Recording and verifying facts, data, updates, quotes, people, etc like the Bitcoin protocol tracks transactions in a database that no one owns, but of which everyone always has the same copy. (Update: This is meant more as “inspired by blockchains,” but it would be different kind of system because we’re not dealing with transferring or owning the units.)

How useful would that be in the reporting and dissemination of information? With all the noise introduced during breaking news and even long, complex story arcs, it seems like there’s a lot of potential here.

The nature and task of art is different from news, but there’s much we can learn (stay tuned for more posts on that topic). Consider this from Anil’s piece:

Reblogging is essential to getting the word out for many digital artists, but potentially devastating to the value of the very work it is promoting. What’s been missing, then, are the instruments that physical artists have used to invent value around their work for centuries — provenance and verification.

Think of these two key terms he uses.

Provenance. 

Verification.

In the context of news, provenance could be the source of information — or it could be who first reported something. Verification, of course, is already a common term.

The next question then is: What instruments do we have to give our work value?

Not methods. Instruments.

All this — you guessed it — also makes me think of GitHub for News (more here). That idea would make tracking updates, contributions, feedback and even facts more structured by incorporating them in a versioning system like git.

Neither GitHub for News nor Blockchains for News would solve all the problems they aim to tackle. Anil’s piece smartly notes in the art realm:

as with any new idea, it can be difficult to reckon with the implications. Steven Melendez asserted that monegraph could “eradicate fake digital art”, when this is exactly backwards. In fact monegraph makes it possible to have “fake digital art”, because prior to this we had no consistent way of defining an “original”.

So, where should we start?

UPDATE: More discussion and explanation…

PoW = proof of work

Also, just for fun and more Bitcoin background: By reading this article, you’re mining bitcoins

Jorge Luis Borges on “the task of art”

“The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something that can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. You are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed, and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working, even when he dreams.”

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