Innovation Journalism Initiatives
The Innovation Journalism Initiative hosted by Stanford University started in 2004 as a collaboration with VINNOVA, resulting in the creation of the VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism in 2009 (renamed in 2010, the Center for Innovation and Communication at Stanford University). The activities included starting up innovation journalism as academic research, an international Innovation Journalism Fellowship program, with participants from several different countries, a yearly global innovation journalism conference.
The core 'innovation journalism' concept is to consider two specific facets of journalism: innovations in journalism, e.g. the use of the Internet or other digital media in addition to traditional print, and journalistic treatment of innovation in various disciplines such that the 'vertical' consideration of specific innovations, for example their technological, business, sociological or political influences, could be embraced on a 'horizontal' basis that would more completely explain to audiences the relevance of such advances. Almost all earlier journalism has focused on one or other of the 'vertical' areas of journalism, commonly found in the popular media. Innovation journalism thus makes much broader demands on journalists, in that their narrow specialties cannot adequately capture the full spectrum of influence brought about by innovations themselves. This, in turn, calls for new approaches to journalism education.
The purpose of the Stanford initiative was to co-develop the concept and community of innovation journalism, including the role of communication in innovation ecosystems, recognizing journalists and communicators (and other attention workers) as actors facilitating the creation of shared language across stakeholder groups in innovation ecosystems.
There have been national innovation journalism initiatives including Fellowship program in collaboration with Stanford University in Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Mexico and Pakistan.
Innovation journalism was introduced to Finns by Kimmo Ahola and Dr. Seppo Sisättö in spring 2004. University of Tampere organized the very first course on innovation journalism for the Finnish journalists and researchers (N=12) during Fall 2004 and Spring 2005. The first undergraduate course on innovation journalism was organized in University of Jyväskylä in Fall 2005 by Dr. Turo Uskali,. Later, 2011, Uskali also published the first text book about innovation journalism in Finland, Finnish innovation journalism fellowship program started in 2006 and ended 2011, a year earlier than planned. It was co-funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation and Sitra. The experiences of the Finnish innovation journalism fellowships and innovation journalism courses were published in an article in Journalism and Mass Communication Editor in 2011.,. In addition, the last two years of Finnish innovation journalism fellowship (2010-2011) were researched by Marko Lindgren in 2012.,.
Innovation journalism has been from 2006 actively stimulated also in Slovenia, through InCo movement. InCo movement is a movement for an innovative breakthrough whose aim is to promote active interstructural dialogue and development of tools for sustainable development of an innovative society. From 2007 to 2011 InCo movement handed out InJo Awards for journalists (Slovenian media), editors (Slovenian media; for systematic approach to raising innovation awareness), PR officers and communicators (internal media of Slovenian organisations), university students and secondary and primary school students. Additionally to raising awareness about the importance of innovation and communication among journalists, editors, media specialists and in educational systems, InCo movement launched also InCo Corp. - the program for the promotion and implementation of innovation communication within companies, InLoCom - the program for the development of an innovative local community, InCo Gov - the initiative for the promotion of innovation and innovation communication in the state, and state institutions, InCo NGO - the initiative for the promotion of innovation and innovation communication in Non-Governmental Organisations, InCo SCi - the initiative for the promotion of innovation communication within R&D institutions and InCo Ar] is the initiative for the promotion of innovation communication among artists and the creative world. InCo movement organized also 4 InCo conference] aiming to facilitate an open dialogue for the development of new views, methods and tools for promotion of creativity, and implementation of innovation (among them were 2 international) and published two yearly publication] InJo-InCo Manifesto 2009 and InJo-InCo Manifesto 2010 that offer the initiatives for the development of innovation journalism and communication.
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