Text analysis of politicians and the news, games in the newsroom

The first Hacks/Hackers meetup of 2013!

The first two talks will be focussing on text analysis, looking at how interesting trends, relationships, and stories can be extracted from large bodies of text data.

The final talk will explore how video games can provide inspiration for new forms of journalism.

We're also going to organise a post-budget datavis deathmatch, where people can vote for their favourite budget datavis or interactive on the night.

Speakers (more details to come):

1. PartyLines: Taking political analysis beyond conventional wisdom

Michael Safi, B.J. Rossiter and Jamie Ferguson, The Global Mail

What exactly do politicians spend their time in Parliament talking about? On PartyLines (http://partylines.theglobalmail.org/), TGM's hacks and hackers collaborated to build a tool that would bring Hansard to life and use it to add another dimension to political analysis.

2. How to make a panda fizz

George Wright, Future Services, Fairfax Media

Will Radford, School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney

The tale of how Fairfax Media and Sydney University had adventures in computational linguistics land. Creating a modern news media entity linker to improve reader engagement and editorial workflows.

3. Games in the newsroom

Nick Evershed, Multimedia Editor at Fairfax Regional

How the aesthetic and format of video games can be used to create engaging and informative interactive features.

Venue

The ABC have kindly offered to host the talks and provide some refreshments, so RSVP'ing is essential. We'll head to a nearby pub following the talks to continue discussions.

When you arrive at the ABC, please go to reception and collect a visitor pass. Someone will be there to direct you to the venue on Level 7.

The Hacks/Hackers mission is to create a network of journalists (“hacks”) and technologists (“hackers”) who rethink the future of news and information and bridge the gap between tech and media.