Fight against the fake news

Since this is international broadcasters' conference, and majority of broadcasters create news, such as VOA, RFA and RFE/RL, DW, NHK, BBC, RFI, there is a need to fight agains the fakenews.

Good news for broadcasters is, that at least in Europe, the trust in radio is higher than to any other media. 55% of Europeans trust radio, while internet is least trusted, just about 20% by Europeans. Funny thing is that people use internet even though do not trust it.
If you read the news only from the social networks, due to algorythms, all the world seems to be of the same opinion.

To fight agains fake news, many organisations have set up their sites to check the validity and reliability of information. Examples were given sites like CrossCheck, EU Mythbusters, BBC Reality check, Polygraph info for RFE/RL and VOA. Radio France has started even educating children on understanding what is rumor, and is propaganda and what is real news.


Since Prague is the territory of RFE/RL, it was nice to get to know their staff from here, from Russian service and Czech service. They told me that RFE/RL most responsive audience nowadays is Russian and Farsi audiences.

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New findings on Facebook and Twitter

Today was a very good day in terms of learning new research findings about the Facebook. 

The main finding is that facebook is not so good for news. People do not use it for news. This the finding of two separate studies, one from Middle East and the other from several different countries ( India, Mexico and Middle East, and UK).  Both studies concluded the same: FB is not good for news source. Only 10% in Middle East region consider it for news source. 

Even though a broadcaster would post news to FB, the user does not see the news coming from the broadcaster - instead the user sees the news coming from FB or from the FB friend who posted it. So, whoever is the source of news, according to user's experience, gets the credit. 

On average, only 8% people in various countries recognised that the news came from BBC. Most FB users thougth the news came from FB or their FB brand. 

So, after all the strategizing and planning the social media use, and building your brand on it, you may have done a lot of futile work. 

Another finding was about Twitter. DW (Deutche Welle) in Indonesia did a qualitative study on their users.

During interviews, the respondents were following DW tweets, and comparing them to the accounts they normally use. Some Indonesians use Twitter to interact with their fireds, but not so much for news, and Indonesian do not comment much on political topics. DW has chosen as a strategy to post unique news on Indonesian Twitter - for example about benefit of using ginger. DW noticed that their Twitter account is not doing well. If you want Indonesians to follow you, you need to have many followers, good credibility, be retweeted by others, have factual and objective information. 

As a result of the study, DW is considering to use Instragram in the future instead of Twitter in Indonesia.

 

Wise words about making smart choices

This is one of the most important annual conferences of my work. Here I meet other people who are doing exactly the same as what I am doing - trying to figure out who is the audience of international broadcasting, local broadcasting and digital media.

The opening remarks were given by Tom Kent, the president of RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty), which organisation has its office building just next to our hotel. On the sign outside, it says Liberty, and when you walk further, it says Svoboda, the same in Czech language.

Tom Kent's speech was the best content of today. Nothing new, but good repeats...nowadays audience numbers are complicated - shall we call our audience a person who clicks on video for two seconds?
In research, we need to focus on actionable facts, and give answers to questions. Are your findings used? What segments of the audience you want to be reached? What segments of the audience we can sacrifice? Are decision makers listening?
So that research would have a during impact, it has to bring action points, results need to be given.
Content producers need to know what is the audience and track it.

Audience research need to be packed by the management.

To finish his speech, Kent reminded of two things:
1) Our work is long term work. Radio Liberty for example kept the information life line open for 40 years to the iron curtain
2) Behind a number there is a person. Your numbers are not just numbers, they are people - eyes opened, compassion encouraged, information given.

Smart research leads to smart content production. 

Lost in language

Today I was in a country whose language I do not know. And, when I try to speak English, people look at me and push themselves away. They do not like English. They have had enough people (tourists) asking 'Do you speak English'.
There were few young people though that knew English - one was a young lady who showed me how to use the metroticket machine, and after it did not work, she sold her metro ticket to me.

The other helpful person was in the post office. I could not figure out where to put my two post cards that I had written. Orange box is the post office box but I could not find a slot. Maybe the post office lady takes my cards. Wrong. She did not. But another customer, a young father offered to show me how to find the slot where to put the cards into the orange box.

The third helpful person was at the metrotrack. A middle aged lady. I showed her the metro map and asked if I go to Zelivskeho direction  if I jump this train. She told me to go to the opposite side, and she was right.

When I asked the taxi driver, what languages are spoken here, he said Czech, English and some Russian. I would put those language into different order...Czech, Russian, German and English. I am not in Asia, however, most obviously this audience research conference helps me in work in Asia.

There are some things that are unique to Ex-Soviet block countries - such as trams, cheap food and steep, long stairs to metro station.

Korea highlights: warm toilet sheet and soybean stew

My time in Seoul is winding up. I need to say I like this city. It has a lot of parks in between the housing. So, even though there are a lot of high rise buildings, you get to be near the nature as parks are provided in between the buildings. Near FEBC radio station was a hill, which provided beautiful views over the city.

Toilets in Korea are very comfortable. The seats are heated up, and you do not need to flush the toilet. You also can wash yourself with various bidee showers and drying systems. I have never seen such a sophisticated toilets. Here is the control unit of the toilet seat.

Famous Korean food is bulgogi, which is meat cooked in front of you at the gas burner, usually with mushrooms. Since I am not a real meat eater, a soybean stew became my favorite. It is served steaming hot from a bowl, with condiments. Stew is hot also spice wise. So, when I get my bowl of soup, it takes almost an hour to eat, first to cool down and then survive with spices, eating water in between. Here in the picture is the stew on left bottom corner. The rest are condiments, kimchi naturally included.

Tiimipäivä

FEBCin kansainvälinen konferenssi on ohi, mutta minulla jatkuu täällä työt tiimitapaamisen merkeissä. Kuulun FEBCin kansainväliseen palvelutiimiin (International Service Team, IST). Meitä on kaikkiaan 12 kuten opetuslapsia ainakin. Aviopareja on kolme. Useimmat miehet ovat insinöörejä ja naiset taloudenhoitajia tai sihteerietä. Minulla on vielä alatiimi, PAR, joka keskittyy sisällöntuottamiseen, yleisöihin ja tutkimukseen. Minun tiimissäni on neljä henkilöä, joista Bob vastaa sisältöpuolesta, Guy datasysteemeistä, Jeffrey videomarkkinoinnista ja minä yleisöistä ja tutkimuksesta.

FEBCin Soulin radioaseman kokouskerroksesta, joka on asemarakennuksen 7. kerroksessa, on hulppeat näköalat ympäristöön. Rakennus on aivan lähellä yliopistoa, ja siispä kadulla vilisee nuorta opiskelijaporukkaa, ja rakennusta vastapäätä on sokkeloinen katuverkosto täynnä kaikenlaisia ruokapaikkoja. Miten erinomainen sijainti nuorten saavuttamiseen!

Korealaisten kanssa varsinkin huomaan sen että englanti ei ole se kieli millä kommunikoida edes nuorten kanssa. Tänään eksyin juoksulenkillä katujen sokkeloissa. Onneksi muistin osoitteeni mistä olin tullut. Pysäytin ohikulkevan nuoren naisen ja kysyin englanniksi missä Wausan-ro 20 on. Hän ei tajunnut mitä tarkoitin ennen kuin kirjoitin sanan. Sitten hän korean aakkosillaan löysi paikan kartalta ja näytti sijainnin. Olin vain muutaman korttelin päässä kotoa. :-)

Korealainen senioriskootteri

Kävin tänään kansainvälisessä Union -kirkossa. Se sijaitsee kristillisen Yonsei yliopiston alueella. 1900-luvun alun lähetystyöntekijät perustivat Koreaan lääketieteellisen tiedekunnan, ja siitä poiki sitten kokonainen iso yliopistoalue.

Kirkossa laulut ja saarna olivat englanninkielisiä. Tosin koreankielinen englanti on välillä vaikeaa meikäläisen ymmärtää. Kirkossa oli myös maisema-arkkitehtuuria opettava professori. Hän oli käynyt Helsingissä ja kehui miten suomalaiset ovat luontoa rakastavaa ja säästävää kansaa.

Kirkon jälkeen tapasin myös tämän seniorin skoottereineen. Kyseessä on sähköllä ladattava kolmipyöräinen skootteri, jolla voi huristella korkeintaa 20 km/h. Se latautuu 8 tunnissa. Satulan alla olevassa Hello Kitty-laukussa oli sadetakki ja skootterin laturi.

Kirkon jälkeen keskustelutuokiolla tiimiläiseni Bob vaimonsa Barbaran kanssa vasemmalla, ja oikealla on lähettitoverini Saipanin ajoilta Brigit Adams. Keskellä seisoo FEBC-Korean kansainvälinen koordinaattori Yong-soo Kim.

Ja tässä tiimiläiseni opiskelevat karttaa. Kameraan katsoaa filippiiniläinen Vicki, joka meni muutama vuosi sitten naimisiin Saipanilla toimineen insinöörin David Creelin kanssa.