The Copenhagen Project

Our model has been cleaned up a bit. We now have 8 structural categories that we think apply to all medias:

Organization: Non-profit / for-profit
Object: Link / Original content
Presentation: Prioritized / Flow
Conversation: Conversation / No conversation
Editing: Editors / Voting
Editor type: Human / Algorithmic
Frequency: Continously / Regularily
Object provider: User / Editor

To illustrate where we are heading with this model let’s take three different types of media: The New York Times (offline version), Global Voices Online and NewsTrust. Just by looking at the frontpages we can see that these three medias are quite different in structure, but how are they different? Our model gives us this answer:

NewsTrust and the two others are fundamentally different, because NewsTrust doesn’t create any content it self. What is created on the site is meta content like ratings and comments. The difference is so big that the only shared characteristic with The New York Times is the prioritization of news and that the editors are humans (in contrast to an algorithm).

It’s also worth noting that Global Voices, which basically is a group weblog, has quite a lot in common with The New York Times - yes, blogs and newspapers are different, but they aren’t that different. The model can be used for making a lot of interesting points, which I will start doing by analyzing different medias in the coming time.

As it is now, the model is capable of describing 512 different types of media. We have tried to create something that makes sense across a wide range of media, from traditional offline media, to online news sites, but also to services like Twitter and del.icio.us.

What we need now is some feedback from you. Does it make sense? Is there categories we should add? Can you see how this could become useful in idea generation? What do you think about the names of the media elements?