>> Andres Monroy-Hernandez: Welcome, everyone. My name is Andres
Monroy. I'm a researcher in [indiscernible] and I have the pleasure to introduce
Heli Vaataja. She is currently a researcher at Tampere University in Finland.
She's part of the Department of Pervasive Computing. Her recent interest is on
mobile crowdsourcing. She was very active at running HCI, she was formerly a
researcher at Nokia Research and so she's going to talk to us about hunters and
snappers in action, mobile crowdsourcing for hyperlocal news. All right. Thank
you.
>> Heli Vaataja: So we have been -- for the past four years we have been
working in close connection with hyperlocal news produced in Finland in
metropolitan Helsinki area, which is the capital city, and what I'm presenting now
is kind of an overview and parts we have done in that research. And I've picked
some things that might be interesting for larger public generally from that.
Okay. And all of the pictures that I have and the material in the sense of these
kind of photos and stuff, these are from the actual site, online site, or the printed
upload. So it's not my pictures.
All right. Okay. So what I'm going to talk about, I'm going to first talk about the
context of our studies, then I'm going address why these readers that participate
in news-making, why do they do it, some of their motivations, then what
influences the participation when we're using mobile crowdsourcing, so basically
mobile tasks or assignments that are sent to them in one way or the other. And
then depending on the discussion that we have ongoing, so looking at some of
the how to motivate the participation and manage the quality of the content.
Okay. Context of our studies. As I mentioned, we have been doing these
studies in close cooperation with the hyperlocal news publisher in Finland in
metropolitan area, so one of the well-known is what they publish now is Metro, so
they have both online and print upload of Metro, which is -- Metro, you can
access it at the railway stations or bus stations so when you're commuting you
can read those. And then earlier they had [indiscernible], which is quarter of an
hour, which was a weekly tabloid which was sent to the people's homes. It was
free of charge also. And they used kind of the material jointly in the sense that
they shared the stories that were also in the weekly tabloids that were on online
sites and so forth.
Okay. And looking at the figures, what we're talking about is that in 2010 when
we started these studies with this company, they had over 20,000 readers'
photos coming in at that time, and these readers' photos were then already used
as tip-offs for the journalists to write news about. So they used the actual content
and they used the photo that was coming in as a tip-off for the story.
And then in 2012 the figure was already over 35,000 photos coming in, and then
looking at how many contributors in 2012, we had 35,000 photos coming in, so
there were over 30,000 contributors sending this material, which means that
most of these people sent only one photo. It's a long tail. And then these like 20
to 50 more active people who sent daily or weekly photos in.
And this is actually an example from the Fix My Street type of photo that they
have a specific section where you can sent in reports on issues that need to be
fixed in the environment and this was this dirty stuff around with the photo and
the explanation what was it about.
All right. And then they publish about 4,000 news items or news stories in 2012
and most of these were based on the readers' photos that were coming in.
So, for example, here there was originally somebody sent in this photo of this
bird which was the only one left in town of this specific species, and then there
was a short text -- it doesn't really show it well -- but a short text with it that was
like a sentence about -- a comment that the reader who sent the material in
commented about this, that this is the last one or the only one in the city and
stuff.
And so what the journalists do, they have this incoming stream of photos. They
pick up one of these photos that they find interesting, then they go and work on
that one and find more information and then they write a story. All right.
And how this all started up was that they first had -- in 2004 they started with this
news company, they started to get in readers' text messages. So they asked
people to send in comments about life and everything in. And they published
these text messages in the printed tabloid which was the Metro, for example, in -actually at that time it was called something else, but later on Metro, and they
printed these on the actual thing. So they had almost two pages of these text
messages that were funny stuff. And people were reading those on the Metro or
bus or something and they were talking with each other, with their friends about it
and laughing about it and stuff. So people got used to kind of this kind of
creating content for this company.
And then they started -- they made their decision in the company in 2005 that -or the news publisher made a decision that there's going to be at least one
reader's photos in every tabloid that's printed, and they had this reward that they
paid for it with like two mobile tickets, and it was put on the -- however bad
quality was the photo, but it was something funny or interesting or something,
they printed it, and it was marked that it had gotten the prize and then they also
started asking send in more pictures. And when people saw that this was
happening and you could get something for it, they started to engage into the
activity.
And then, of course, then when you go into -- online was starting to come up also
for news sites, so they had this online gallery for the incoming photos so that
everything that people sent in that was okay to be published online was
published online and you could see what the others were producing.
And they had this opportunity for the people who comment on the photos also.
So the comments kind of -- when there's a funny picture, you know, people start
commenting on the topic and stuff. So there was this kind of interaction between
the people online.
>>: You said there's a review process to make sure that the photos were
[inaudible]?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, so they basically go through -- they come in as
multimedia messages mainly and then they are -- the online journalist is looking
through and it's published if it's okay.
>>: So it takes a few hours or days for this?
>> Heli Vaataja: No.
>>: So there's always somebody checking?
>> Heli Vaataja: Somebody checks it, yeah. And during the nighttime when
nobody's there, they don't publish news.
And then -- because this was -- they were getting the text messaging, then they
were getting the multimedia messages, and then they had kind of everything
online, and then they also started to enable the online submission of content so
that you could send in the material, for example, if you took photos with a
[indiscernible] camera or something, you could send it online and it doesn't cost
you as much as multimedia messages, because some people sent, like, 10
photos a day. So it can be really costly.
And then also they started to enable sending in readers' stories and this kind of
Fix My Street type of thing. And then going forward, it's kind of evolving into this
kind of an online community thing. But I have to say that it's a bit different than a
normal online community because it doesn't have the -- it's not actually in the
sense of community. It's content-based community. The content is in the center
of the community, not the people, in a sense.
>>: When people send a text message, obviously you don't know the name.
You know the phone number, but not the name. How would that division work in
that case? Like when they printed the text message does it say from number 1,
2, 3, 4, 5?
>> Heli Vaataja: No, it doesn't say the numbers. No. I think they had the, how
do you call it, pseudonym for the person. So you can say that I'm, for example,
somebody, you know --
>>: You say something and then John or whatever?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. Or then you don't have anything. It's just a thing. Yeah.
>>: You mentioned this is like a transition, an evolution. How many years
passed from the text messaging to this?
>> Heli Vaataja: This started in 2004, and then now we are in the -- Fix My
Street started, I think, 2011 or 2010. And so it's kind of evolving into it.
And so there has been also more kind of stuff going on, but this is kind of the
basic stuff that's there.
All right. And so how it looks like this -- how they encourage to you send in
material is that -- this from the online, but you basically have kind of a similar
thing in the print is that you have this kind of -- you have this specific number for
sending in the multimedia messages and the photos and the text with that, and
then this is kind of the -- how the gallery looks like when they come in and then
there's going to be more here.
And then the other one is that you are enabled to do your own story. Here when
you click you can get to the site where you can send in photos and write at story
or send a tip-off. So that's basically how it works.
>>: Is there someone whose job it is to constantly be sort of reviewing for if the
photos are appropriate?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, there is online journalists who are doing it. So basically
they follow the incoming material. Most of the photos coming, as I said, as
multimedia messages, so they're coming as a stream. But then you can also
send in material through the form and then you can also send -- you could send
email, but I think they don't have it anymore because it's too much of a job to
handle it all.
>>: What percentage would you say comes from the multimedia message?
>> Heli Vaataja: What?
>>: What percentage of the content would you say comes from the multimedia.
>> Heli Vaataja: Most of it.
>>: Do you know if it's an approval or a rejection process? So they have to
approve everything or everything goes on the site and only if they spot a photo
that's inappropriate they reject it?
>> Heli Vaataja: I think that they do the rejection only. So if it's inappropriate,
they just reject, but I don't think that they approve everything. It's more kind of a
thing that if you spot something that's not okay, then you reject it, because
otherwise it would be too much of a job to do.
All right. Then here's an example of a reader's story, what you can create online.
This is a typical example, I guess, where you have three sections. It's quite
short. This one doesn't have a photo but it has this place where this happened.
And then what you can see is that here you can see that there are 56 comments
to the story, then 141 people have shared it on Facebook, and then you have the
discussion, so you can comment on the story, and this is an example of how it
looks like.
>>: So in this case all the text is produced by reader?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. This is somebody that's kind of a -- not real name here,
but, yeah, it just says it's [indiscernible], and where it is, it says it's a reader's
story and so forth.
>>: What does the story say, just for --
>> Heli Vaataja: Oh, okay. There was a bus driver who saved two kids from
being run over. They were in the middle of the busy road, and he stopped the
bus and put the lights on and took the kids by hand to the side of the road and
stuff like that. So people are thanking the driver and -- you know, that's a happy
story.
>>: All this text was typed a mobile phone?
>> Heli Vaataja: No. This is typed online. So people tend to write their stories
afterwards online and not on their mobile phone. So what's easiest on the mobile
phone is to take a photo and then send it with a short text possibly, sometimes
no text at all, and the text in case of -- when you send it from mobile phone, it's
quite short. It's like one sentence usually.
>>: And then how do you link -- you send it SMMS and then you go home, you
go on the computer and then you say, by the way, that text message, that SMMS
that I sent, now it gives a story --
>> Heli Vaataja: It's a total different process. So basically if you want to write
this -- if you have a photo of this, what you do is that you would go online and
then, of course, you could also do it with the web browser of your phone if you
would want to. But basically what people do is that they go home, they download
the picture from their phone or camera and other camera and then they write a
story, put the photo in, and it's a complete thing done with one device.
All right. So what we have been doing is that these are the kind of the main
things that we've been running. In 2010 we did interviews and a questionnaire
with nine reader reporters. The 10 is in the parentheses because one of the
interviewees turned out to be 14, and they didn't have the parents' permission to
have him there. So we couldn't use the data as such.
And then in 2010 we also experimented with a mobile solution, mobile app, for
sending the material with the location-based assignments, and we tried the first
time the text messages as a way of doing the assignments or sending the
assignments.
Then in 2011 the news organization recruited from 90 most active readers who
have sent in material to them, they recruited 60 active ones to participate to the
study so that we used the text messages as a way to deliver the mobile
assignments. And it was a two-month trial, so it was June and August, because
July in Finland, everybody is off to the countryside. So it was enough. But
two-month study.
And then 2012 we had this -- we used this Scoopshot mobile crowdsourcing
platform, and then there were 104 participants recruited from the online site so
that there was about banner for every third visitor that said that -- participate in
the study and then 104 were recruited for this study. And so there was just
anybody who was interested.
>>: Is this website primarily for Finland?
>> Heli Vaataja: Which one? The Scoopshot? No, it's international.
>>: I see. So it will show assignment to everyone in the world?
>> Heli Vaataja: No. So Scoopshot was a mobile crowdsourcing platform, so it
has a mobile app and an online solution for the newsrooms or whoever is using
the platform. So it's a third-party platform, and then the news company, on their
own site, they had the banner for their readers to participate. So it was from that
one, so it would be now the Metro site.
>>: I see. Running on the Metro brand, but it's --
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. So there were real readers who were in the -- targeted
for the banners. And then we also looked at what kind of feedback mechanisms
could be used to motivate people or what would be motivating for them and then
also how to handle the quality or get better quality photos in.
>>: I do have a question. It says five assignments with varying validity. What
are you referring to with the varying validity?
>> Heli Vaataja: So how long the assignment is valued for being able to submit.
>>: Oh, I got it. I thought it was like some of the stories were true and some
weren't.
>> Heli Vaataja: No, no, no. It's kind of the time that you are able to submit stuff.
>>: Can you say some examples of the assignments?
>> Heli Vaataja: [Indiscernible] coming to it later, yeah.
Okay. Then I explained some of this already, but let's go through the
news-making process that this company is using with the readers and kind of the
one that's the main one, the current one, and then the trialed one. And here's
also an example of a typical accident photo that is sent in. And here's an editor
explaining how they see this process. So it's like a coffee filter when you get in
these photos as a tip-off for the story. So you have this material coming in and
then you choose something and you kind of get it out.
Okay. So how this works is that in the traditional process before we had this
intervention with tasks, it's not what the reader reported. They know that you can
send in material to the site. They spot something or they search for something
and they shoot a photo and send it to the company.
And it may have some information and a [indiscernible], for example, on the -with the photo when they send it. Then the online journalist or the editor chooses
from the incoming stream a photo that's interesting or newsworthy, they acquire
and check information, they may call the reader reporter for more information,
and they usually also, for example, in the case of accidents, they call the police,
or in case of something else, municipalities or find somebody who knows
something about the topic.
Then they go and write the story and publish it first online and then in print, or
some of them in print.
And what you then have, you, of course, have the audience who consumes
comments, reads, shares. All right.
And then finally in this case this company is using these monetary rewards for
content that is published in print. So if you have a photo sent in and the photo is
used for the print tabloid, then you get a reward for the photo. And then there's a
process of getting the reward.
All right. And here's an example. There was of a photo in the gallery, 10:27, the
online journalist or editor spotted it, the first published story was 10:35, which
was eight minutes after the material is sent in, and then you have the story and
it's updated at some point then, and then there are 22 comments to this one. It
shows that this material -- this from online, so this material is from the reader and
then the story is below. And then you have the comments in the very bottom.
>>: And the story is from the journalist?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. The journalist is writing this one. So you have -- this is a
multimedia message that's coming in and you pick it from the flow and then you
start to find out what's going on.
>>: So the journalists have to go to the location --
>> Heli Vaataja: No, no. No, they don't go to the location. They just call and find
out the information and then they write it after this.
>>: Who do they call?
>> Heli Vaataja: In this case probably police, and ask for information, yeah. And
they -- of course, they have the basic facts, what happened, when, who was
involved or, you know, was there casualties or was it just -- whatever. So they do
the basic stuff. So they check that information and -- but it was eight minutes
when it was first online as a story. So it's very fast. They don't go there. They
just check the facts and write it.
All right. So here's a comment about this kind of process from one of the
participants from our studies, and he explains that, well, it's like that kind of
effortlessness, absolute anarchy and voluntarity. There are no expectations so
that I can just decide that this is what I offer. It's so easy, simple, straightforward.
So it's very easy for the people to participate in this way and engage into the
making of the news.
So that's I think one of the things why it works.
Okay. This is then what we have trialed in the various studies that we have is
that basically this is otherwise exactly the same, but it doesn't start with the
reader reporter, it starts with the a journalist or the editor who ideates and
creates a story that they want to cover, they create the assignment, and then
send it to the people who are involved in the trial.
And then whoever from the reader part wants to carry it out goes and carries it
out. Anybody from these who are involved can go and do it. And then the online
journalist again picks the one or the ones that are most suitable for the story and
most illustrative and whatever. So it otherwise goes, in a sense, the same way,
but it starts with the journalist thinking about this is a story that we want to make.
And they can even do is so that when they create the mobile assignment, they
may have a kind of story line already there, and they just illustrate it with the
readers' photos.
>>: How many people does the mobile assignment get sent out to?
>> Heli Vaataja: Sorry?
>>: You said, from how I understood it, in the beginning is that a mobile
assignment was sent out to someone, but then here you said it was sent out to -is it sent out publicly and then anyone can upload photos for that story and the
best is chosen?
>> Heli Vaataja: Well, in the trials that we have done with them, it's so that we
have these specific people who have been recruited for the studies. So in 2010,
for example, it was 60 people with the text messages SMS and then with the
Scoopshot trial it was 104 people who were able to get the assignment, and then
anybody could go and do it. So it's basically anyone can take up the assignment.
And there are several people who do that in the best case, if they are interested.
There are several people.
>>: So you send this notification to everyone and then anyone can pick it up?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: Do you know that they are -- do they tell you --
>> Heli Vaataja: No.
>>: I see. So until you receive the content, you don't know how many people are
working on it?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, in this -- what we have trialed. Of course, it would be
ideal to know is somebody going to do it or not if you really need the material.
>>: Do you ever have the situation where nobody picked it up?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: So with Scoopshot, do people get paid for submitting content?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: But not with SMS?
>> Heli Vaataja: With both. Yeah. So basically it's exactly the same as the
previous one. So if your content that you have submitted to the assignment is
chosen for the story and it's printed in the tabloid. Then you get the reward. But
if it was published online but not in print, you wouldn't get the reward.
Okay. So basically the print is kind of the main thing. It has been so far.
All right.
>>: I just want to talk -- I know you mentioned that on Scoopshot there are
micro-tasks where people get a dollar or two. In this case they wouldn't?
>> Heli Vaataja: In this case they would tell in the mobile assignment what is the
reward. So it varied from 20 to 80 euros or something like that.
>>: Per assignment?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: Wow. That's a lot.
>> Heli Vaataja: But it can be only one who gets it. So not everybody is getting
it. Because if you would have 1,000 or 10,000 people you could get like a
thousand pictures. So you couldn't pay -- yeah. But compared to what you
usually get on Scoopshot, this is a high price, but it was high because of the fact
that the company is paying for and printed photo at least worth two movie tickets
which was in the -- 2010 it was like 15 euros about, or 16, and I think the
minimum that you now get -- they don't give the movie tickets out anymore. It's
in money. So I think the minimum is 20 euros, which is $23 or something. Yeah.
Something like that.
And if you get your photo on the front page, I think it's usually -- it could be a
hundred euros for the front page on print.
All right. So that's now clear.
>>: Do you know if -- so while they send these photos, they get posted online,
and then one gets chosen for print?
>> Heli Vaataja: Uh-huh.
>>: So do you know if people check the online site to see what other examples
they --
>> Heli Vaataja: Well, actually in this -- with these assignments one of the things
that we found was that there was -- it was not possible to post them online. So it
was kind of app separate process from what they do usually. So they were not
online, so you could not check. But the people would like to check what the
others are posting, so they would like to see what the others post. Because it
also -- it's interesting, and it also gives you ideas that, okay, nobody has gotten
this idea for the photo. Yeah.
>>: That's what I was thinking [inaudible].
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, but actually, I think with Scoopshot you would use it as a
normal -- how they do it as a third-party platform for the customers, I think you
are able to, nowadays, see the content that's coming in if it's integrated into a
site, and then you just -- the ones that are being picked for kind of the payment
are rewarded for, so those are just marked differently. But you can check it
online, because it's an English site.
>>: And do you have an install an app?
>> Heli Vaataja: For the mobile phone, yes. So they have for the iPhone and
Android. I think they might have it also for Windows. I haven't checked lately.
All right. Okay. So that's kind of the difference. So what we were bringing in
was this kind of a different process on the side. So starting with journalists. And
our role as researchers was just to look from the distance what's happening. So
we didn't get involved into making all the topics or anything. We just studied the
readers, how they found it, which was for us really nice because it lets you
concentrate on the actual experience of the people. You don't have to think that
you have made the topics and stuff like that.
All right. So this is an example of what you get in from -- when you have the
tasks. So these have been the ones that have been getting the reward, so they
have been printed. So this was on dog parks, one of the assignments from the
studies.
Not very fancy pictures, but -- yeah.
>>: And what was this assignment?
>> Heli Vaataja: It was something like the best dog park in the city or whatever.
Yeah.
>>: And right up there a text was sent along with it?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. They also asked for -- give a reason for why it's nice,
yeah.
All right. Okay. So then looking participation styles and activity of the
participants, so we have these snappers who are randomly acting. They shoot a
photo whenever they come across something interesting. They don't plan. It's
just that it happens and they snap a photo.
And here's an example from -- there was a taxi who was -- which was on fire, and
somebody was passing by in a car or bus or whatever, and they took a photo and
sent it in. So it's a typical thing.
And these are kind of the things that you get. People just come across
something, and this is an online gallery of park a couple of days ago, what you
get. So just anything. It can be signs, it can be something about nature, it can
be a fire. Anything.
All right. Then we have the hunters. These are people who are the really active
ones usually, or they are experienced in doing this kind of thing. And they are
intentional and they actively seek for the topics to shoot photos of and send in as
tip-offs for phone use. And, for example, this photo is one of the ladies that we
interviewed. She's over 70, and she goes every day and walks in the city, and
she seeks for things to send in as material. She wants to share what she sees,
but she also wants to have extra income on top of her pension. So she really
seeks for some reward from this.
And also she says in the interview that it makes her -- because she wants to
exercise, doing this on the side of the exercise is -- makes meaningful to do the
exercise. So she goes to different places different days and sees what's
happening and that's the way she does it.
>>: Do you find that anyone takes photos with a really nice camera so that they
can they can get more -- they're more likely to win the reward rather than a cell
phone camera?
>> Heli Vaataja: Actually in these hunters you have people who use either kind
of these zoom cameras where you have a better lens or something, and they
usually -- because they may send in also this kind of material which is not so
time-critical as an accident is to send in directly from the mobile phone. So they
take these photos with their own cameras and then they send it online. But it
depends on whether they come across something which needs really fast
sending or whether it's this kind of photograph where something is happening but
can be delayed in the sense of sending.
And this is actually from one of her -- one of the days that she was strolling
around the city. So all these which have the red around them, these are from
her -- this is only part of what she sent or captured that day. So she was doing
some stuff, seeing some stuff on the streets. It was a funny comment also
included in that one. And then she was looking at the construction sites and then
she was looking at -- there was something in the nature, there was kind of a tree,
there was something coming out of it, and it had frozen, and then something
been the -- kind of a street view. So I think she had about 10 to 15 photos from
one day that she uploaded to the site.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Heli Vaataja: No. This is online gallery. So it's all of the stuff that's coming
in.
>>: So the readers don't necessarily know that this comes from the same
person?
>> Heli Vaataja: No. No, they don't know from what you see here. You only see
the photo and the time and the day -- or the date that's coming, and then if you
click on the photo, if the person has shared the name, then you can see that. But
otherwise you don't know. And that's one of the things that might be something
to kind of also, when go forward with the development of the site, that you could
actually look for. For example, click this and find all the pictures by the person or
something like that. Because that would be really interesting. But I think it might
be -- there might be some problems because people don't share their
information, many people.
>>: She's looking for income?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: I'm sorry [inaudible] what's the model of revenue that she gets from that
one?
>> Heli Vaataja: Okay. So basically how it works is that for a photo that's
chosen for a story and it's printed in a print tabloid, you get paid for. And it's
about from 20 euros to 100 euros depending on what page it is, and -- which is
like $23 to a hundred and something dollars. Yeah. So if your photo is chosen
for print, then you get a reward.
Okay. So then looking at -- this is from 2011 study where we had the 60 active
readers involved. So we asked them -- we described whether you go and snap a
photo when you see something interesting or do you plan or do you do both. So
people -- 97 percent said that they snap a photo if they see something interesting
and about 36 percent hunt. So they look for topics.
And, of course, this is now the most active ones participating in the study, but if
you would go for the long tail, you would have lots more snappers in there so that
just send in, you know, one photo a year or half a year or something like that.
>>: You said that in the study you had specific assignments?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: And so presumably when you have an assignment, you're a hunter --
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. But this is -- we asked them the general before the
study, we asked how do you -- without the assignments, how do you act. So
basically, of course, if you have the assignment, you hunt. Yeah. But this is the
kind of normal profile, without the assignments, how they work.
All right. Then looking at kind of the activity, these are the 60 most readers who
sent material in. This is also from 2011 from the text message study. So this
is -- we asked them before the trial how often do you send in material. And so
over half of these people than answered the question that we sent, they sent at
least weekly material. But there was only one who sent daily, and there were
seven who sent at least four times a week.
So it's like you can already here see that there are very few of those who are
very, very active.
>>: What was the never -- I mean --
>> Heli Vaataja: Okay. So basically we asked for three things. So we asked for
the company that we studied. This is -- I think it seems like gray. Probably it was
blue. And then do you send to other media, like the broadcasting companies or
anything else, and I think Scoopshot was the one that we studied then the next
year. It was a mobile crowdsourcing platform that we studied the next year. But
we asked already then have you sent to that one. And the never means that you
have never -- have you ever sent to these other media or Scoopshot. And then
we also wanted to see if they sent for this company also because we would have
the wrong profile in the sense that we would think that they had sent. But this is
for the other companies. So all of these who answered this questionnaire were
part of -- they sent monthly or less, so less frequently or then more often than
weekly.
And looking at the length of the participation they had as a profile. So it was
mainly one to five years involved in this kind of reader participation, but there
were kind of two outliers in the data. One was 21 years had cooperated with
different companies, not this one, but with different companies at some point and
then the other one was 23 years. So they had kind of a long history of being
involved in cooperation with the news companies.
And then why do readers participate? What are their motivations? This is one of
the stories that was made in print. It was basically based on the -- completely on
the photos. It was about your favorite places in the city to see or something like
that.
All right. Then looking at the motivations, based on what we had learned
previously in our studies, we made these kind of categories for asking, choose
which motivations are the ones that motivate you in this case. And this is the
general. This is not the task-based motivations. These are the general
motivations to send material in to the news company.
And so basically from these predefined categories, they expressed fun, it's fun to
participate, opportunity to get a reward if your photo is chosen was one of the
main motivations, and then informing others of issues, happenings in the town,
was the third most often mentioned. There was no difference between the
changes in this basically.
But then where the difference was that -- for the opportunity for extra income, the
men reported more often that as a motivation.
>>: What's the difference between opportunity to get a reward and opportunity
for extra income?
>> Heli Vaataja: Extra income means that it's actually income on top of their
normal income. And opportunity to get a reward is that it's nice to get a reward if
your photo happens to be chosen.
>>: You mean acknowledgment?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, it's kind of an acknowledgment that you have sent in
good material, and it's nice to get it, to get the reward, but they don't depend on it
as an income.
>>: Talking about the same thing as like the 20 euros if their photo makes it onto
the page? Is that what a reward refers to or is there like --
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So for some people it's nice to get it, for
some people it's really that they depend on it as extra income.
>>: [inaudible] enjoys participation, activity versus fun?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, I have [indiscernible] a bit. So basically enjoys
participating to the news-making activity, but basically the fun is more like they
enjoy the actual kind of carrying out the activity by themselves and taking the
photo. So it's kind of a difference in the sense of being part of the news-making
or that it's just fun to go and take a photo and send it in. So they see it in a
different way in a sense, whether they are part of the activity as real contributors
or whether it's just fun to do it.
All right. Then about the participation style, so the hunters and the snappers,
and this has been divided so that those who reported only snapping photos or
shooting photos when they come across something interesting and so we chose
those as one group and then another group was those that said that they hunted
for topics. So we separated this because some of the hunters were also
reporting that they shot photos when something interesting came across. But we
separated them to see the difference between the groups.
And basically there's no -- for the main motivations, there's no difference, but
then, again, the opportunity for extra income and improving as a photographer is
more often reported for the hunters as motivation than for those who would just
snap a photo when something interesting comes along. All right.
Okay. So here are some quotes from the participants of our studies. So some of
them reported this, bringing out important issues in their interviews as the
motivation and then it was combined with getting the reward. It's nice. So, for
example, this one is I can bring out to the public some issues, since I like to
shoot photos of topical and interesting issues. That is the best thing, but I also
like movies, referring to the movie tickets, so that is all right also.
So they may have this combination of motivations to participate. So the reward,
it's still important even though they may have another motivation, so it keeps
them going in a sense and producing again and again and again.
>>: So I see that in the demographics that these are people that are older than
one would expect --
>> Heli Vaataja: Actually, I realize -- I have quotes from younger ones, so -- well,
the youngest is 15, so it's actually kind of almost flat. But it just happened that
kind of the best quotes now happened to be the oldest in the sense of explaining
the motivations. I just picked a couple. So basically you can see later the
demographics from this. This is from the text message study. So basically kind
of the group, it's quite even.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, it is. I was also surprised because I was thinking it would
be all of the people.
All right. Then there's another one. This one comments about the participation
to news-making and usefulness of the contribution as motivation.
So it is participating to the news-making -- to the making of the news tabloid and
it is nice to read the comments by others. Then, of course, that you have
accomplished something that is useful. So somebody's using what you produce.
Okay. Then -- it's a bit dark. So next to what influences participation when using
tasks.
That's kind of a complicated picture, but basically what it says is that when you
think about the factors that contribute to experience of participation and the
actual participation and the activity in the participation. So basically the
characteristics of the reader reporter, characteristics of the system, and
characteristics of the context of use influence both experiences and participation
activity, how active people are and whether they will produce or not.
And within the context of use, as one dimension of context of use, you have the
task. So basically the task that you create, they have different characteristics --
>>: How define a task? I'm sorry. Who defines the task?
>> Heli Vaataja: In our studies the tasks were defined by the news room, the
editors or the journalists. But, of course, in different cases you have different.
But in our case it was the newsroom who was doing this, so we didn't touch them
at all.
And so basically what we found was that when we looked at the different studies
that we have done, the reader's age, their gender, their expectations for the
cooperation, the motivations to participate, whether they want to make money out
of it or is it just a fun activity for them or similar other skills that they have,
whether they are experts already, maybe they are -- you know, they have been
journalists at some point of their life or worked in the media business or
whatever, and then the hobbyist background, especially now in the case of
photography. So they seem to be those characteristics that influence.
Then about the system, we also have found that depending on what you use as
the technology, as the means to send or deliver the assignments, it makes a
difference to the experience. So this is connected, actually, to age, for example.
And so, for example, we have used the text messages, which is really simple, as
a way to deliver assignments, and then Scoopshot, for example, as a mobile
crowdsourcing platform where you install an app, it's a different thing. So
different people find different types of solutions to both of them for getting the
assignments.
Then, of course, the multimedia features of the phones. Those that are more
experienced with photography, they are not so happy with the quality of the
photos and they want to use something else for photographing. Then we have
looked at the using of the geolocation, for example, what's the way of geolocating
people if you want to deliver location-based assignments.
Then feedback mechanisms, that you would also need to have mechanisms to
get feedback through the mobile phone if you're using it as a way to get the
assignments and then send the material.
And then also connectivity to other systems and services. So kind of this
ecosystem where you can in, because nowadays everything is connected, social
media and stuff. So how does this connect those aspects.
Then context of use. Of course you have the physical context, which is the
actual -- we have looked at when do people want to receive assignments. So is
it dependent on whether they are at home or at work or wherever they are. But
in the physical space. And how close they are to the place where they shoot or
carry out the assignment. So that also is one of the things that affects whether
they would like to participate or not.
Then the temporal stuff, whether it's a weekend, whether it's a morning, whether
it's an afternoon, these kind of things affect whether they are willing to take the
task. But it depends on the person, of course, their lifestyle, what's okay for
them. Then the task. Let's go to the task later.
Then the social, it's whether you are willing to carry out the task when you are in
the company of somebody else or whether -- when your pasting time, for
example, waiting for somebody or waiting for the bus or whatever and when you
are alone.
And then the technology and information context otherwise related to -- than the
actual system that you are using. So connectivity to internet, whether you have
WiFi or whatever available for sending or do you have to send it as a multimedia
message and so forth.
>>: So all these things are questions you ask in a survey?
>> Heli Vaataja: Well, we haven't asked it, all of it, in a survey. Some of it, it's
coming from the interviews that we have made. Some of it's from the
questionnaires. And so this is kind of an overview of what we have found. So it's
not one study or one questionnaire. It's kind of a -- put together.
And then about the tasks, of course, well, the topic is one of the things that
affects whether you would like to participate or not, whether it's interesting for
you. The information that you give in the task, how clear and accurate it is, how
clearly it says that you have to do specifically this thing, there, and then, or
whether you are given -- whether it says that you are given freedom and you can
use your own imagination in carrying out this or whatever. So you have to say
that people know what you expect so that they don't do the wrong thing and they
don't get the reward because they didn't understand what you are asking.
And then what kind of incentives and other motivation mechanisms you use. For
example, social feedback. Then the selection of the tasks that you have
available, whether you have only one task or whether you have several to
choose from. So people would like to have several to choose from because it
would give them more freedom to do what they are interested in.
Then how frequently you sent the tasks. It seems to also have influence. So
basically, for example, in our case the tasks wren sent weekly in all of the studies
that were carried out with the news company and their readers. And you only
had one task per week. So the participants found it to be not enough. So it may
also influence whether people stay kind of engaged into the activity.
And then the validity is again referring to how long it's possible to send something
in. So is it half a day, and when does it end that you have to submit. Location,
it's related to, of course, whether an assignment is somewhere close to you or
whether it's further away. And then there's lots of other stuff related to the tasks.
>>: If you were to pick only three things that you thought were the most
important --
>> Heli Vaataja: In tasks?
>>: Well, what would you focus the most if you were to do this for another
paper? What would you put most attention to? Focus on younger people who
have apps or the topic [inaudible]?
>> Heli Vaataja: I probably would -- it depends on what is the audience. So
what kind of content you want to give to the audience, because the audience is
the one that defines what is interesting, and through that -- and who you want to
be the audience. And through that I would look at the topic and then through that
I would look at whether -- the technology and kind of the demographics of the
people that I want to contribute to this specific topic are right. So they are kind of
interconnected in that sense. They are not separate. So you kind of have to
think about the whole thing.
For example, in our case we found that when we interviewed people in 2011 who
were the active submitters, very few of them had smart phones. So they wouldn't
have been able to have an app on their phone. Many of them were considering
getting one because they were getting cheaper and cheaper at the time. But
they still at that point didn't have that. And if you think about the demographics,
for example, we have from 15 to 75, they are very different in the sense of their
technology use and stuff. So you have to think how to get involved the people
who want -- yeah. So there's no clear answer, actually. But this is the best that I
can give. Yeah.
Or do you have a thought yourself about it?
>>: No. Just not sure -- for the kinds of things we were saying, we were kind of
relying on a particular platform where there's definitely more demographics there,
but the reporter is already defined by the --
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Usually that's the way it goes,
yeah. Text messages, of course, almost everybody is able to use that. But when
you have the, for example, mobile crowdsourcing platform, all of the people who
have the phones that can have it and who are able to download the app and so
forth, and so it kind of puts the constraints on.
All right. So what we found was that when you think about how people perceive
these tasks, so we found that they were expressing kind of the task significance
is one of the issues that they consider when they decide whether they will do the
task or not.
So whether it has impact on something that they see kind of valuable to do work
for.
And then another one is that how relevant the task is for the people who are
participating. So that's related to the background and demographics, of course,
and the motivation, so the user.
And then the task, how engaging and enjoyable the task -- carrying out the task
is. So how fun, motivating, interesting, playful and are there some kind of
competitive aspects that the person finds in this kind of activity. So those affect
how they perceive the tasks and how active they will be in this type of
participation.
And then they also consider this needed effort and the benefit that they expect
from what they do. So whether it's a personal benefit, so you get, for example,
the money out of it, whether it's informing others or having a possibility to
influence the environment, for example, and how the city is looking and how
comfortable and nice it is to live in. So these kind of things are kind of -- they
look at kind of the balance. And also they kind of calculate what's the chance
that I will get the reward.
Okay. Then we also found that creating the topic for the assignment, there's kind
of a balance that you need to take into account that you have these hyperlocal
news criteria and the benefit for the news-making and the audience. And then on
the other hand you have the task-related issues that you would engage the
people into the activity.
So basically if you think about the hyper local news criteria, so these are
basically traditional news criteria that I used. It's timely, it has impact on many
people, and so forth, and then on the other hand because these publications are
different, whether this is somehow interesting and unique content that you get
with the assignment for that specific newspaper in question. And that also -- the
newsroom is also considering that the topics that they create could be something
that they have a hard time accessing themselves. So they would get content that
they cannot go and do the story themselves or take the photos themselves, but
the readers have more closer access to -- and it's easier for doing this in
cooperation with them to get the content.
And then thinking about the task-related issues, so the newsroom, the editors
were describing that they -- these tasks, when they created them, they tried to
find topics that were easily accomplishable and accessible to the readers, but still
would require them some effort so that they just couldn't go around the corner
and take a photo of the next car on the parking lot or something, that they would
need to do some processing also when doing this stuff.
And that the topics would be somehow -- the editors were trying to find topics
that would be inspiring for the reader reporters and, on the other hand, would be
timely in the sense that it's motivating also by that to carry out a reporting.
And the editors also had kind of an idea that these reader reporters, they really
are willing to put themselves out to get good photos if the topic is interesting.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Heli Vaataja: So sending it out -- maybe that's a wrong -- so they are willing
to put themselves into -- willing to put effort into carrying out the assignments.
So if the topic is interesting, you are willing to do that and use much effort.
>>: Is there a model that it's not task-based, so I'm just -- I saw an interesting
topic, took a snapshot, and then they decided to use my picture?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah.
>>: So there's also this model?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, that's the main model.
>>: That's the main model?
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah. That's the main model.
>>: So randomly --
>> Heli Vaataja: Yeah, randomly acting.
>>: And this news organization, is it only one news organization can use their
content or there are multiple user organizations that can leverage that content?
>> Heli Vaataja: In this case, this is one news organization who is cooperating
with their readers, and they want to hold onto their readers in a sense because
they are an asset.
>>: So who owns, really, the picture?
>> Heli Vaataja: Well, basically I think nowadays it's so that if you send it in in
multimedia message, you already give the rights to the company. I'm not sure. I
haven't checked the latest kind of -- and then with Scoopshot, which was the
mobile crowdsourcing platform, with that one I think it's like after three days, if
nobody buys your photo, you get the rights back. At least that was at some
point, but I haven't checked the latest because these always evolved, you know,
and it may also depend if it's used by some certain company, organization, news
organization, it might be that they have their own rules. So it might depend on
also kind of who's the actual user of the data that you send in. But basically it
depends on how the organization defines. But in this case we have been -- it's
basically if you send in the photo, the rights are turned in, I think. Yeah.
Okay. Then looking at the Scoopshot study that we have done, so Scoopshot
was the mobile crowdsourcing platform that was trialed, I wanted to take this as
an example of our study specifically as one of the cases because this is showing
something that you might want to do better.
So the setup of the study was that this hyperlocal news publisher that we are
collaborating with, they trialed this third-party platform crowdsourcing platform,
Scoopshot, and, again, the newsroom was doing the assignments, and we were
just following up.
And it was a five-week trial with one assignment per week, and there was an
online question after the trial, and then we also had five interviews. And this is
kind of what it looks like or looked like at that time on the phone, the application.
So this is the main view. When you open the application, have downloaded it,
then it has the tasks, it has also in different parts of the world tasks. It can also
have location-based tasks so you can search for the tasks that are closest to you
or then there are general tasks anywhere in the world or anywhere in Finland or
whatever, how they are defined.
And then this is one of the tasks that was sent in. This is actually the dog park
assignment. So it says that -- here there's time left, 24 hours, until it ends. Then
it asks where is the best dog park in the city, remember to -- sorry, I have to
translate this. So remember to state where this dog park is located, and then
why pets and their owners like the park or what is wanted to make it better.
>> Andres Monroy-Hernandez: We have 10 minutes.
>> Heli Vaataja: Okay.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Heli Vaataja: Okay. The assignments, there was this editorial staff that was
responsible for planning the assignments, sending them through the online portal
from Scoopshot, then selecting the content that's purchased for the stories and
then publishing the content online and in the printed weekly news tabloid. And
how long these were valid for being carried out as assignments, it was 12 hours
to one week.
And the assignment topics in this study were need for cleaning the environment,
then there was ships that go from Helsinki to Tallin, which is in Estonia. It was a
location-dependent task. Then need for noise barriers in the environment where
some were close by. And then the best dog park in the city and then the kind of
Fix My Street type of thing, potholes in the road. It was during springtime that we
ran this study.
And now here you can see the difference between the demographics of the
participants in this study and the previous where we used the text messages. So
the green bars are for the Scoopshot study where we have the mobile
crowdsourcing platform and you have to install the app on the phone. And then
these blue ones are the ones that are the basic active reporters that we recruited
for the study, so they're kind of the 60 active ones. So it's quite even with ages in
the way you use the text messages, but when you have the Scoopshot there's a
clear difference in who's participating. But the point is that we had 104
participants and only 17 answered the question. So we don't know who the rest
are. We have no access to them.
And also there was a difference in the gender. So in the Scoopshot study with
the mobile crowdsourcing platform, the participants were male. There was only
one female. But these are the questions and responses. We don't know the
rest.
And then -- okay. These were active in photography. Over half of them
photographed daily in Scoopshot study, and the rest of them reported weekly, but
they had not sent material prior to this study to this company. Only one I think
had submitted content actively to this media. But they had used the Scoopshot -most of them had used the Scoopshot crowdsourcing trial for other
crowdsourcing stuff. So they were familiar with the platform.
All right. So looking at the activity in the trial, here we see the views. This is five
weeks and five assignments. So 104 is the one that's the whole number of the
people. For the first assignment, 87 viewed the assignment and then it dropped.
And looking at how many submitters there were, for the first, you have nine
submitters. For the rest, it was two or three.
And then looking at how many photos were created for the assignments, for the
first one, for the cleaning of the environment, it was 15. For the second one,
Tallin ships, it was 27, but I think 25 were from one person. And then for the rest
it dropped.
And then comparing -- there was also this group that had been participating last
year or the previous year for the text message trial. They were also involved that
year that we studied the Scoopshot, and they were sent exactly the same
assignment with the text message. And basically when these photos were
chosen for the news tabloid to be printed, so basically there was lots of activity in
this text message group which were the active -- prior active readers, but then
there was the only one that was chosen from this Scoopshot trial. So the activity
was much lower in this group that we studied with Scoopshot.
Okay. So why is that? Then we -- when we did the questionnaire, we looked at
whether -- okay, whether they found it positively or negatively, the whole trial,
because they were not active. Well, they found it nice, they found it positively,
but they didn't submit. Okay. So what's the reason?
Basically then we asked those that have submitted from prior defined categories,
the reason for submitting. The assignment interested me was the most often
reported. So it was 70 if you look at the percents, 7 from 10. Then searching for
a suitable subject to photograph, it's nice. And then they wanted to earn some
money. And then the rest.
And then looking at those who did not submit during the whole trial anything, they
said that they didn't find a suitable topic to photograph or they were not near a
suitable location.
And then we look at, okay -- we asked them how they found the topics of the
assignments, and we looked at the different age groups. So we divided the
groups to two parts, so it was 15 to 25 years and 26 to 53 years.
And we found that the older group, the 26 or older, they found the topics
communal and useful, but the younger ones didn't. They found them boring and
demotivating. So maybe that was the reason. So it just shows me some
experiences. Okay. So people liked it. This felt like a sensible activity, so it was
liked. And then 19 year-old girl, more tasks concerning the young. We are the
future, hey? So the topics just didn't touch them. It wasn't the right topics for the
group that was participating.
And then looking at the engagingness and enjoyment as described by one of the
participants, always when I notice or the phone notifies when there is an
assignment, I check it. I find it fun. It makes you feel kind of important. Your
own contribution really is somehow useful. To me, it gives pleasure. It's like
playful that you wait for an assignment to carry out, and it feels really good. So
he was participating.
And then there's about the reward. And this person has -- he likes to impact the
environment and issues in the environment. It's the main motivation for him to
participate. I think I got 50 euros from it. It's not that. I got more satisfaction of
the mess being cleaned up.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Heli Vaataja: Okay. So wrapping up. So basically the perceived task
significance, task relevancy, and task engagingness can contribute to
participation and enjoyment. The audience, use of the generated content for
creation of news, and the comments and sharing by the audience make the
activity meaningful. So it has to be meaningful for people to participate.
And then the characteristics of the reader reporter, system, and are the context
of use can contribute to both experience and the participation.
And money in this case is one of the motivators or motives to participate, and it's
also one of the initial triggers for people to participate. I didn't touch it, but it's in
our data.
And there's usually more than one motive to participate. So people have several
motives, two to three main motives. All right. Thank you.
>> Andres Monroy-Hernandez: Thank you.
The presenter won't have much time, but she'll be around.