Hollywood has never been short of ideas about what the future of news might look like. We’ve all seen The Daily Prophet in the Harry Potter movies but now a collaboration between UK researchers and a printed electronics business is beginning to turn science fiction into fact.

Interactive Newsprint is a new research project led by the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and funded by the Digital Economy (DE) Programme.

Working with technology company Novalia and colleagues from the universities of Dundee and Surrey, the Preston-based project aims to revolutionise the way we consume media.  They are developing an entirely new platform for community news and information by connecting paper to the internet to create what is believed to be the world’s first internet-enabled newspaper.

The aim of the new technology is to bridge the digital-gap, giving people access to the internet through a new platform and also to encourage new forms of community news, communication and social engagement.

The platform is capable of capacitive touch interactions, which means that by touching various parts of the page, readers can activate content ranging from audio reports, web polls or advertising – all contained within the paper itself.

But the developments in printed electronics do not stop there. Digital devices and microphones, buttons, sliders, colour changing fibres, LED text displays and mobile communication can all be used in an interactive newspaper. Existing forms of local journalism and content are being used as part of the project to develop a range of interactive paper documents.

The team will test them out in both a lab and field setting to explore new forms of digital storytelling and more effective ways of connecting communities to the content they’re most interested in.  They have already set up two workshops in Preston to introduce a range of interactive paper prototypes to individuals, groups and local businesspeople.  These included a sample hyperlocal newspaper – dubbed Preston News, a music poster featuring a local music producer and sample classified ads page.

The Interactive Newsprint project’s design teams, journalists and user interface experts wanted to collaborate with Preston-based groups, organisations, businesses and individuals to identify how the technology could to meet their own needs or interests in the future.

Paul Egglestone, project lead and Head of Digital at UCLan, said: “We are actively prototyping and testing radically new forms of interaction between people and the internet that have not been seen before.  Through these workshops we are looking at how communities would develop this technology rather than how boffins in a laboratory would develop it. That’s such a strong element of what we’re doing.

“Being able to place the paper in the middle of the internet opens up a whole new ball park in the ways we can both tell stories, but also how we can collect data. Who’s holding the paper, who’s touching it, how are they interacting is part and parcel of the kind of stuff this project will explore.”

UCLan is continuing to work with Your Prescap, a local organisation that uses a wide range of art forms to support regeneration, social cohesion and community development, to foster community journalism.  Dundee and Surrey will now appraise the outputs from workshops and begin to establish common threads and themes that will be investigated further over the next few months.

As part of the project, the team are also taking their work to the world’s leading technology festival: South-By-Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. SXSW showcases cutting edge innovation and ideas in digital film, music and interactive media and describes itself as “a nine-day marketplace of ideas, relationships, and products for the Music, Interactive Media, and Film industries”.

On the 13th March leading UK academic and researcher on Interactive News, Dr Jon Rogers, will host a panel session with some outstanding talent from the music industry. The Mercury Prize nominated King Creosote and the award winning band Found will be joined by the world’s leading innovators in delivering printed electronics solutions, Novalia and award-winning UK based design consultancy, Uniform. Together, they will ask: ‘Can printed electronics save the music industry?’

Dr Rogers, Head of Product Design at Dundee University, said: “We’re going to debate and show prototypes of how printed electronics could save digital music in the context of connecting communities to record labels and artists. Printed electronics is an emerging technology with the potential to change how we interact.”

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A recent report exploring the contribution of Universities to enterprise and propsperity beyond traditional Knowledge Transfer and business incubation features the work of Meld - originally delivered in 2007.

Incase you missed it altogther at the time – ‘Meld’ was a collaboration lead by UCLan’s School of Journalism, Media and Communication. Funded through the now defunct RDA’s Northern Edge scheme Meld brought together SME’s from the creative industrioes sector,  freelance journalists and connected them to 3 major industry partners; Sky TV,Haymarket Publications and Johnston Press,  in a five day workshop delivered in Sandbox, UCLan’s creative industries centre.

The aim of Meld was to encourage journalists to work with interactive designers, programmers and games designers to develop new forms of none linear digital narrative story telling – or adapt existing software applications and technologies to create new methods of disseminating content. Meld was an exciting and useful ‘adventure’ into an interesting space between ‘geek’ and ‘hack’.

Simon Bucks, Associate News Editor at Sky News was delighted with the results

“I’ve seen more good ideas in a day at Meld than I’ve seen all
year”.

Meld Technology Director Andy Dickinson spent much of the week in the ‘blogosphere’ documenting the entire process with a series of regular postings. “The lab session provided rich source material for anyone engaged in the debate about the impact of digital on the future of journalism. No one has tried to do what meld did in quite the way it did it so there was plenty to post about’.

Catalyst is a £1.9m research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Research Council looking at how different communities use technology to make ‘the world’ a better place. It’s lead by Lancaster University and promises (mainly local) communities’ access to money, staff and facilities to build their better world.

At the obligatory launch event back in late November invitees were given a roadmap of the process which includes an opportunity for communities to bid for ‘launch-pad’ or ‘research sprint’ funding.
Three weeks later marked the real start of the project at the first Ideas Lab on December 14th. In contrast to the grey December day around 30 handpicked participants from voluntary organisations, community groups, Lancaster City Council, small businesses and academics met in a light, airy space at the Storey Gallery in Lancaster to kick the process off. Those present earned a place in the lab after submitting an idea for a community based project that broadly answered one or both of two big questions, framed by the research team;

• what stimulates people to participate in civic actions and why,
• and what next generation digital technologies best support how people want to innovate in a civic action setting?

Jez Hall was at the Ideas Lab. Jez is a community activist and director of ‘Shared Future’. He also works freelance for the participatory budgeting unit, a charity promoting citizen led democracy – which seems to fit perfectly with the aspirations of the research team. He came to the Lab with two clear ideas of what he’d like out of Catalyst. Both stretch way beyond building tech to the far trickier real world implementation raising the question of how citizens can improve their lot by co-designing, valuing and delivering activities within the social or public economy, to create a more sustainable, just, responsive society.

The Catalyst team are promising people like Hall the financial, human and technological resources to work with academic research teams on his projects. Project leader, Professor Jon Whittle from Lancaster University is keen to point out that the bulk of this resource will take the form of support from University staff offering their expertise in computing, environmental science, design, management and social science. However, there will also be smaller amount of cash for equipment and expenses.

The next step down the road requires community groups to submit a second, more refined proposal to the Catalyst team by 22nd December. At least they won’t be busy writing this funding application over the festive break.

Communities from across Preston came along to Interactive Newsprint’s first set of co-design workshops in the heart of the city in November. Taking place in the light and airy surrounds of community arts organisation Prescap, two afternoon workshops introduced a range of interactive paper prototypes to individuals, groups and local businesspeople.

We showed a selection of examples of how the paper could be used by Prestonians to receive a wide selection of community news and information. These prototypes included a sample hyperlocal newspaper – dubbed Preston news, a music poster featuring a local music producer and sample classified ads page.

But, these prototypes are just the beginning. Attendees then generated their own ideas of how the paper could be used, based on our prototypes, but taking them in new and innovative directions.

The aim of the workshops was to not only show three early-stage demonstrators, but for our design teams, journalists and user interface experts to collaborate with Preston-based groups, organisations, businesses and individuals to identify how the technology could to meet their own needs or interests in the future.

by John Mills (This post first appeared in www.interactivenewsprint.org)

Community reporters from Callon and Fishwick take the stage at the Victoria & Albert museum to talk about their role in the Bespoke project. Steven Robinson AKA Dub P and Darren ‘Dhee’ Burr joined researchers from Dundee, Falmouth, Surrey and UCLan at the London Design Festival where the project team are exhibiting work developed in a unique collaboration with residents from Preston’s Callon and Fishwick estate.

Using a new approach to participatory design called Insight Journalism designers studied stories created by a team of community reporters from the estate. Dub P and Dhee Burr, regular contributors to the ‘Newspaper!’ and local news website BespokeNews reflected on their involvement in Bespoke telling a busy auditorium about the importance of making sure that projects like Bespoke deliver real benefits to the people participating in them.

Singling out the Viewpoint as a good example of design that represented the aims of Bespoke community reporter Dhee Burr explains, ‘Viewpoint grew out of the journalism. As we went round the estate talking to people about life in general it became obvious that people didn’t feel connected to those who made decisions about their lives. This story came up a lot so the designers built a machine that allowed people from the estate to ask a question and other residents to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ by pushing a large button on the front of the machine. Loads of people used it’.

Three Viewpoit machines were installed at different locations across the estate. The first in a a small shop near the estate, the second at the YMCA on the estate and the third at Contour Homes – the housing association that owns properties on the estate.

Paul Egglestone who headed up the Insight Journalism process in Preston was also at the V&A and shared Burr’s enthusiasm for Viewpoint. He said, “Viewpoint works because everyone who’s involved, from the families on the Callon and Fishwick estates, to the councillors, housing officers, and researchers, understand the importance of commitment and communication. For example if someone asks a question about whether dog fouling is a priority issue for the area then the recipient knows it must be answered quickly and honestly. Their answer is not only communicated to everyone but is followed up to ensure promises are kept.”

‘For me, Viewpoint is the project’s defining moment. It represents the difference between empty political rhetoric and grass roots reality. Rather than connecting the community to a formulaic, centralised and faceless bureaucratic process it links people to people enabling everyone to change things for the better’.

For Steve Robinson it wasn’t the designs so much as the project itself that had the biggest effect on him. Steve talked about what it felt like to work with designers as they built a larger than life statue of him to promote his music production featuring local artists from the estate. Whilst he’d been excited about the process as the idea became reality he explained how `Bespoke’ had given him a new set of skills and enabled him to find work as a video maker and renewed his passion for the estate.

Viewpoint was one of the most successful designs to evolve through the process of Insight Journalism on the Bespoke Project hosted in Preston.  I liked it because Viewpoint combines two basic elements of journalism; content and design. The former comprises gathering the sort of information people need to make better informed decisions about issues that directly affect them – whether it’s housing, vandalism, plans for a new community centre or where a litter bin should be placed on their street. Like all grass roots journalism it strives to ensure that decisions are open and transparent. The design should create a vehicle which gives this journalism and the community it represents a voice. But it’s a voice which is not only heard but loud enough to demand a suitable response. A considered reply which shows a genuine understanding of what’s needed.

Some were rightly sceptical about Viewpoint’s aim. Would it simply raise expectations and fail to deliver any tangible benefits?

Viewpoint works because everyone who’s involved, from the families on the Callon and Fishwick estates, to the councillors, housing officers, and researchers, understand the importance of commitment and communication. For example if someone asks a question about whether dog fouling is a priority issue for the area then the recipient knows it must be answered quickly and honestly. Their answer is not only communicated to everyone but is followed up to ensure promises are kept.

For me, Viewpoint is the project’s defining moment. It represents the difference between empty political rhetoric and grass roots reality. Rather than connecting the community to a formulaic, centralised and faceless bureaucratic process it links people to people enabling everyone to change things for the better.

Technology, it’s argued, defines how media is created, consumed and distributed. At the same time it can determine the strength of an individual’s political voice. Followers of the debate about the decline and fall of the newspaper industry will be well-versed with the notion that print isn’t dying, merely evolving and that a workable business model will be found. But if journalists and newspapers disappear who or what replaces them? Who will hold local government, business and the police to account?

Cynics frequently say the press rarely holds anyone to account because it’s part of a political system designed to maintain the status quo. There may be a few hiccoughs such as Murdochgate or Expensesgate but they are soon forgotten.

After the Bespoke project you might expect me to argue that nature fears a vacuum and a new breed of community reporters will fill the void left by this imploding news media. But there’s a problem and, like the one facing all media, it’s economic.

Community reporters are essentially volunteers who rely on substantial professional input from training and equipment to legal support – the stuff of “old media companies”. Most volunteers are unlikely to be university graduates and many are unemployed. In fact they are unlikely to regard journalism as a job.

Projects like Bespoke are pragmatic responses to a call in a changing community, legal and media environment that emphasises the importance of investing in community journalism.  Because if these volunteers replace the old journalistic model they will need to be properly equipped. They will need to become critical thinkers, have the confidence to ask difficult questions and the tenacity to get answers. In December, when the Localism Bill looks like finally receiving the Royal assent community reporters may be best placed to report on its impact in their neighbourhoods.

A delayed flight from Gatwick to Dundee after a meeting in Surrey with the Bespoke research team left time for just one quick pint with messrs Rogers and Chinniah who’d invited me to give one of the opening presentations for the Knight Mozilla news challenge tour. If the brief chat over a beer was anything to go by Jon Rogers, head of product design at Dundee had pulled off one of the most interesting and exciting experiments in the seemingly flagging debate on the future of news. As the whole news media industry recognises the challenge of trying to lift itself by its own bootlaces the influx of new ideas from a range of different practices outside journalism is rather more welcome than it might’ve been even just 2 or 3 years ago.

This time the new ideas were provided by 150 or so product designers who pitched up at the student union for a brief introduction to the day and a series of intense workshops eventually leading to the production of short films uploaded to a website as entries for the Mozilla Knight Foundation News Challenge competition.

What is the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership?
The Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership (aka “MoJo”) is a three-year partnership between the Knight Foundation and Mozilla to harness open Web innovation for journalism. Through a series of innovation challenges and community events, we will identity 15 fellows that will be embedded in leading newsrooms around the world. These fellows will create new tools, ideas, and news experiences that benefit both readers and newsmakers—all using open technologies. Learn more.

To stay informed follow @knightmozilla on Twitter and sign up for our community list to stay up to date with the challenges.

A key element of the AHRC funded Connected Communities

Work Home project is listening to stories from residents living in social housing in East London about how they would redesign their homes to make working and living in them better. The aim is to get their input into the development of design briefs for building affordable work-homes in the future. The project is being driven by Frances Holliss from London Met team working in partnership with sociologist Carol Wolkowitz [Warwick University] and Paul Egglestone.

Egglestone who has been filming much of the process thinks the combination of methods the research team are using is going down well with the local residents. “We have heard some great stories already. Concert violinists who would like their homes soundproofing so they can practice without annoying their neighbours, artists who’d like to be able to open their homes for private views, chefs who’d like communal community kitchens. These are all good ideas that are really practical’.

One thing conversations have revealed is peoples need for help and support setting up their businesses. The project team have been able to respond to this need by inviting local business mentors and support services to the John Scurr community centre in Limehouse to offer advice and practical help. The event will take the form of a community fayre and has been designed with the community to be a none threatening introduction to starting a business.

This session will be followed by a workshop on 16th July when local residents will be shown how to set up and run their own website for free by Blog Preston http://blogpreston.co.uk/about/ web entrepreneur Jo Stashko and Paul Egglestone.

The event will be at the John Scurr community centre in Limehouse and starts at 2pm.

About 12 months ago I was asked by a colleague if I’d like to participate in a project called Big Society research.

After the political rhetoric in the run up to the election last year it seemed at the very least like an opportunity to find out how the legacy of people working together to create better neighbourhoods, improve public services and adapt to constantly changing economic, social and cultural situations was somehow different to the way they might do that in Cameron’s so called ‘Big Society’.

Four themed workshops for researchers and none academics aim to collect together the raft of existing research which might provide some pointers to what Big Society might be about – whilst recognising that the vast majority of work in this area substantially pre-dates attempts by any political party to badge it as a policy initiative. And this is where most of the tension lay as researchers and others disassociate themselves with the party political posturing in order to get on with the business of collating evidence through past papers, case studies, interventions and ongoing projects by people who never thought they were doing was anything other than trying to work out why things don’t work as well as they might – and in some cases – how this could be changed so they did.

Amidst the media ripples of discontent among colleagues in the research community over the relative distance between central government (funding) and researchers in relation to ‘Big Society’ a friend of mine offered some helpful thoughts. His view was that intellectually he could not ignore the possibilities of new thinking purely because he was extremely uncomfortable with the ‘language of the right’. He gave me a concrete apolitical example from work he’d been doing in India where villagers – not health professionals – support new mothers and babies. His work identified the response of the villagers as cultural. There to deepen the ties of existing relationships and encourage others to share responsibility for care. Uncovering the essence of how this practice emerged and how it continues is surely a worthwhile intellectual pursuit regardless of its apparent mapping with the cost saving agenda of policy makers. Not exactly a justification for research into ‘Big Society’ but a compelling argument nevertheless and one that ought to persuade some that perhaps the biggest challenge of this new context is how to retain the integrity of work in this area for its own sake and how to frame and present it in such a way that it cannot be hi-jacked by ‘policy wonks’ and political band wagoners to further a spurious cost saving agenda.