University to fund Twitter-based Australian election coverage
Sydney’s Macquarie University has announced it intends to fund the first twitter–based election coverage by a professional journalist.
Margo Kingston, who tweets as @MargoKingston1
Journalist Margo Kingston is to work with the University to cover the upcoming Federal election using social media.
Kingston says she sees the work as “a successor” to her Sydney Morning Herald- based website Webdiary.
“It will be grounded in the same charter, values and ethics,” she said.
“It will be based on the citizen journalism model where I will work with citizens to report the news, investigate stories, comment and involve others citizens in commentary”.
Professor Catharine Lumby said she will work with Kingston to analyse the opportunities and challenges that Twitter and social media present to professional journalists.
“Social media is changing the way news is reported and analysed and this is a terrific opportunity to explore its impact on political reporting and democracy,” she said.
“The media landscape is changing rapidly and it’s an exciting time to be researching the impact of new media technologies and platforms on journalism and public debate.”