ad-free
Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XGTTKJJsEw
it's a strange time to be working in journalism when many Americans including the president and his proxies talk about the media as if reporting the news were a threat to the Republic we can only labeling the results of rigorous investigation a fake news America's founders whether you agree with them or not please journalism on the same level as the ministry or priest they protected both a
free press and the freedom of religion right there first thing in our constitution if that lends a sense of sanctity to the work of the free press well that also means that nothing is sacred because in journalism everything is fair game for investigation I use to have an editor who would say sacred cows they make for great hamburger to deliver on the responsibility that comes with
that freedom the fourth estate needs journalists to be accurate credible and most importantly ethical as a professor of journalism I train my students to live up to those expectations to give voice to the voiceless to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable our reporting our storytelling to try to offer you something try to teach you something offer you an insight even if that something challenges
your existing beliefs but it's not easy the internet and all things digital Prada wave of disruptions that essentially challenges nearly every aspect of what we do but with that wave of disruptions of come new opportunities and new story forms so my additional goal as a professor of digital journalism is to empower my students to inform their communities through new and emerging technologies by paper by pixels
broadcast or broadband journalism needs to remain relevant and how it reaches and informs the diverse communities it aims to serve accurately informing by any ethical means necessary by that I mean using a variety of different technologies like Snapchat brings the grim stories hell let's use minecraft in Pokemon go if we can form a communities that way that's my specialty I hijacked emerging technologies from other fields
and apply them to journalism think coding mobile drones I'm a reluctant Joan owner wearables sensors A. R. VR and Mar those last acronyms they've been the focus of my work for the last few years exploring immersive storytelling DR or virtual reality is the one that most people now but they tend to know virtual reality because we'll spin over promised an over hyped for decades continually under
delivering and only offering bad product simple or experiences but recently virtual reality it's become a legitimate reality this technology is here now and they're great experiences including immersive journalism pieces done by pioneers using this technology these stories help us understand the perspective published close understand what it's like to be a child in a refugee camp or how someone is adjusting to life after solitary confinement or
buzz Aldrin's dream of humanity exploring Mars my students were standing on the shoulders of these pioneers as we to produce these immersive stories like recreating a thirty foot storm surge that scientific predict could wipe out the Houston ship channel or a recent project about California's largest lake the Salton sea which is dying in quickly turning into one of the state's largest environmental disasters we create these
stories under the name it's a vernalis some see what we did then the stupid typos turned into a cute name and we trademarked that there's so much fascinating research around virtual reality an immersive technologies how our brains except there's how you can literally be put into other people's shoes their skin their gender talk about different perspectives there are studies about how our brain believes us immersive
world it doesn't care whether or not we crossed uncanny valley it just knows we've left this reality and have immersed into another a recent Google news lapse study found that we could be shifting from storytelling to story living where we feel and experience these immersive stories holistically but of all the studies that are out there my favorite is the rubber arm test here the researchers have
you sit at a table on the block your arm from view with your with a piece of cardboard and they place a fake arm in front of you looks ridiculous you know it's fake they tell you it's fake and then they begin to touch your real arm and your fake arm at the same time nearly instantaneously your brain adopt sapling and to prove that point the
researchers while the researchers take a stab of the newly adopted to break the researchers take a stab at your newly adopted leaving you naturally pull away the alarming fact is we can be persuaded by what we see even though we know it's fake you may have seen this video they made some news it's been less than a week since the deadliest mass shooting in American history
and foremost in all of our minds has been the loss and grief felt by the people of Orlando but this video it didn't make news because of the tragic shooting it may news because this video doesn't exist this video is fabricated technologists and researchers from the university of Washington had developed the technology lip sinking technology that can take audio and essentially fabricate video on the left
here is the real video on the right is the fate especially our friends were lesbian gay bisexual or transgender I visited with the families many of the victims on Thursday the one on the right is fake I show this to my students and their jaws dropped to and in our discussions about this technology I said well at least one is I don't anything foolish on tape
or there isn't technology that can fabricate me saying something we're kind of faith right %HESITATION professor you don't know this student pulled up to this video on you too it's from adobe Max twenty sixteen or Princeton researchers were demoing their new technology called hashtag Boko using the audio from actor director Jordan Peele who was on stage they demo how the tech works you use audio from
%HESITATION him describing what he did in the morning when he found out he was nominated %HESITATION I jumped on the bed and %HESITATION and %HESITATION kissed my dogs and my wife in that order he kisses dogs and his wife with this technology in a matter of keystrokes not editing the sound waves but just editing and typing out words they made him a better husband and %HESITATION
I kissed my wife and my dog song I kissed my wife and my dogs and then they do demo to what this technology could do they first made a last good husband by changing my wife to his name Jordan and everyone freaked out what got my attention is what happened next this technology which is essentially the Photoshop for audio after it analyzes your your sound your
voice can fabricate words or phrases you didn't say to prove that point they added the phrase three times and %HESITATION kiss Jordan three times I kissed Jordan three times he went from a good husband to a next suspect we live in the future I want you to take a moment to acknowledge how difficult it is to distinguish what is real in this mind boggling future right
now misinformation is being deployed even weaponize for profit for power or simply the troll silicon valley's ethicists Tristen Harris talks about getting your attention it's like a race to the bottom of your brings them it's a stern reminder that outrage fueled by your brains negativity bias it's persuasion and propaganda most potent ingredients fake news or the accusations are fake news is attempting to drown out accurate
and ethically reported information take a moment to think about what's going to happen when this technology goes mainstream and people try to use it a bit not when not if but when people use it for misinformation it could be a lot more dangerous than just a rubber arm immersive storytelling immersive technologies are the next disruption that's why I urge my students and I implore my industry
to become leaders not only in developing new immersive storytelling techniques but also to apply journalism's traditional code of ethics to help shape in frame this emerging plaque for because if this disruption is like any before it it's not going to stop we're not going back this next wave can change the world as we know it we need ethical story tellers we need credible journalist we need
a fourth estate that we can trust and believe is fighting for off and we need you the fact though reporters posting news and information on worldwide social platforms we need you to become more critical media consumers because if you can be fooled by a fake Facebook post we're gonna have to be a lot smarter not to be fooled by an immersive story it can sound kind
of scary but I have to admit you it's also really exciting my students and I were excited at this opportunity to help develop the first draft of immersive journalism and to help shape the future the students are working hard because we believe like America's founders believed that a free press that we can trust is essential to a democratic society accurately informing by any ethical means necessary
