Here are some media stories of note for Thursday, June 6, 2013:

The Guardian summarizes the recent violence against journalists in Turkey and notes the concern by press freedom groups about the country's crackdown on social media and other communications as protests grow. Demonstrations against the development of Gezi Park on Taksim Square have been particularly violent, with reports of tear gas and water hoses, reports The Guardian's Roy Greenslade. Pro-government media have also been the target of public demonstration and violence.

Glenn Greenwald, writing for Comment is Free in The Guardian, argues that reader-funded journalism is an important key to the future of adversarial and investigative journalism. He believes that such work preserves independence of the craft, in that it is not beholden to advertisers or corporate interests, and advances the accountability of journalism to its audience. Moreover, he asserts, the model "elevates the act of journalism into a collective venture."

Taylor Miller Thomas, writing for Poynter, examines the efforts by some science organizations (NASA in particular, in this case) to adopt media platforms to directly communicate with the audience. She writes about NASA's efforts across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Google+ to report its own news. She notes the decline of science reporting in traditional media and the effort by some agencies to report in order to build public support for their initiatives. 

Ken Armstrong, the Pulitzer-winning reporter for The Seattle Times, has a short piece in the latest Nieman Reports that suggests journalists need to enlist the public more in shedding light on reluctant and resistant agencies. He thinks more should be done to identify organizations that are stonewalling reporters (and to positively identify those that are more accommodating). "Let readers know," he writes.

Some media stories of note for Monday, April 29, 2013:

A study by Quantum Media Holdings suggests Americans are spending 16 minutes per hour attached to social media, Australians are spending 14 minutes and those in U.K. 13 minutes. The principal driver in this data is smartphone use. Fox Business reports that Quantum says a lot of the time spent is "ego-centric" generation of photos and messages about personal activities, more so than browsing content.

For years publishers have been pushing for Google to pay royalties for their content. But The Wrap notes another such advocate has entered the fray and he is no shrinking violet. Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein says Google's failure to pay creators for content amounts to stealing, and that technologist are earning billions while artists are struggling. He noted YouTube's dominance as a video site, expressed concern about the fate of newspapers and magazines in this environment, and encouraged Congress to pay a law that would generate royalties for creators.

A Canadian lawsuit stands to test the boundaries of libel in online comments. The former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Brian Burke, has filed a lawsuit against 18 anonymous commenters who posted what he says are libels about him. He intends to unmask the commenters and pursue legal action against them. The Globe and Mail reports that privacy law experts believe it is only a matter of time before other such suits test the limits of what sites and message boards can legally post.

A year-long study from the Pew Research Center sheds some light on the way Americans are using social media differently than legacy media.

First off, nearly half depend on those around them for some of their news, an indication that social media has gained enormous clout but also an indication that friends play a powerful role in broad news consumption.

And any suggestion that social media somehow deliver the same note is challenged in the study. Pew reported that social media tend to highlight very different stories --- not only different from legacy media, but different from each other.

On blogs, the stories are emotive. On Twitter, technology rules. YouTube is serendipitous.

Legacy media still aren't necessarily picking up on the viral hits, either. Pew found only one instance, the so-named climategate scandal, that seemed to prosper in social media then migrate to the mainstream.

Having said that, blogs depend heavily on mainstream media for their source material, the study found.

There are many times you want to share a video on YouTube but not truly share a video on YouTube. Now the service has introduced an option to post "unlisted" video.

By "unlisted" it means available only to those who know a dedicated URL, meaning no public display, no channel availability, and no search engine results. It also means access to anyone you choose, not just someone with a YouTube account.

While Mashable speculates this option will be very valuable for education purposes and for non-profits, it's hard to believe it wouldn't also be useful for services looking to distribute video selectively to certain audiences as a premium or exclusive offering.

The latest monthly figures for video views in the United States suggest Google continues to be the dominant provider.

The data from comScore Inc. says Americans watched 31.2 billion videos online in the month of March, with Google sites like YouTube garnering 42 per cent of the total, or 13 billion. YouTube reached three of four viewers and Google had 136 million unique visitors to video in the month.

Hulu was a distant second at 1.1 billion views.

The data indicates some 180 million Americans (or 85 per cent of the Internet audience) viewed an average of 173 videos in March.

The boom continues for online video in the United States. The audience measurement firm comScore says 178 million Americans watched video online in December.

Some 33.2 billion videos were seen in the month. YouTube is the largest video outfit on the Web, with more than 13 billion viewed, but it was the first month in which Hulu served up more than one billion views.

The math is astounding: The 178 million watched an average of 187 videos in the month.

YouTube Direct is the dominant Google-owned video service's attempt to bridge the gap between news organizations and creators. It permits editors to obtain and assign video from so-called citizen journalists.

A handful of large organizations are testing the service, which essentially serves as a go-between.

It permits a call-out to videographers and links them to newsrooms.