Lecture 3:Text
I must say that within the first slide of this lecture I felt liberated! One simple comment that “text underpins and dominates online news” I think that over the last few weeks, I have been trapped in my own thinking and understanding of what it means to be moving into online news, what it means for print media and legacy media. I have to say that “death of the newspaper” was a phase that came frequently into my thoughts. What I failed to see however, was that it is not text and the skill of writing that has to die with legacy media, but will be the strength of online news providing that our industry harnesses its true potential.
I have found I have been focusing on the connections between online news and social networking and I can more than see the value of the partnership. However, when brought back to the skill of journalism, writing and constructing a story, this partnership now seems very opportunistic and in all its complexities has its own potential and strengths. Rather than adapting legacy media for online news, let’s utilise its own skills and merits.
Text is (and has always been)
· Fast
· Flexible
· Portable
· Searchable
These key characteristics are easily transferred, and yes manipulated to suit a new medium, to online news. The original format of the news triangle is something I recognise if only now consciously making sense of it.
From our ‘Text Is’ points I am now able to map out a basic format in which to construct a story for a newspaper. Key characteristics being
· Headlines
· Stand first
· Body copy
· Captions
· Pull quotes
· Break out boxes
· Links
The rules of the day to remember: “don’t ever repeat a word in the stand first that is in the headline…EVER!”
Now my earlier liberation is further lifted by looking at Hypertext and online structures for news. These new formats are learnable and more effectively harness the potential of online news. By capturing the reader with different pulls such as bullet pointed links to other stories, links for more information, multimedia (e.g. video), online news pages are able to epitomise stories in a few captions with stronger hooks and then allow the reader to make their journey through the news. This new format is organic and ever growing and opens up possibilities of new forms of text, still using text as the central structure and possibly as a more powerful source of news as research shows, from the eyes of the reader, text dominates online.
What continues to reinforce the domination is that now legacy media and the 'new news' redefine the distribution of stories. An example from today’s lecture being ‘Techcrunch’, this online blog not only publish their story on their online page, but simultaneously forum specific notifications are sent out on Facebook and Twitter allowing the story to come to life through reader discussion. This benefit of online news and being able to’ link it all together’ expands a stories potential tenfold, as long as the correct links as used for each forum. For example using tag words for search engine responses and captivating snippets of the story to catch a reader’s eye from their news feed.
Text is …. Powerful.
Lecture 2: The New News
‘The Consumer Machine’
Who would have thought that when the World Wide Web took its first strides into new realms of advertising potential, that we would arrive at a point of mass social communication that enables consumer specific advertising by counting the clicks of a mouse. I am not shocked at the progression of the ‘consumer machine’, it was bound to have unstoppable momentum when suddenly shopping, and ad browsing and consumer reviews are at our fingertips. I am shocked however; to become consciously aware of the restrictions that the ‘Sematic Web’ or ‘Web 3.0’ brings to our general knowledge and the potential it has to fuel a generation of ignorance.
Hyper localisation is a concept that highlights the fact that through my web browsing, I am lessening the scope of my ‘search’ by being specific with multi layered questions. Consequently, indicators from those questions allow me to be used as a marketing and advertising pawn. The idea that through a Google question I can become a target for advertising specifics does unnerve me. However this is not a revelational technique; demographic specific advertising has existed in mass media for a number of years but now because of the fact that our IPhones, HTC’s, Tablets etc. are firmly attached to our fingertips, suddenly the way in which we can have advertising directed at us to me seems rather personal and even intrusive.
It is hugely concerning to me that the worlds of individuals will become progressively smaller as they get their news their way. A worrying side effect of this could be that the circle of links through networking, indirectly spreads this lack of general knowledge or world news because, if the majority choose to click on the latest celebrity fad and spread that news, will it dominate over other important events and not give that story a strong platform to spread from in a social networking context.
Lecture 1
“Journalism is organised gossip”
Edward Eggleston, Historian & Novelist
I’d like to turn this cynical assessment on its head and look at ‘organised gossip’ as journalism and how it affects the spread of news and communication today. With people from various generations taking to Facebook, blogging, the ‘twitter-sphere’ and other social network mediums to break world news, not only does it offer a faster way for wider demographics to find out about current events, but also offers a powerful medium for communication and opinion. Social networks have opened up a world where gossip and valued opinions sit side by side in these ‘organised gossip’ forums.
When asked in our lecture today ‘how did you find out about Osama Bin Laden’s death?’ a significant amount of students acknowledged Facebook as the source. And not only did this news break in this forum, It also provided the means for opinions and discussion to be voiced. The initiation of news into social networking has opened up the floor for people of all ages and with all sorts of interests to take part in the world and its current events from the comfort of their Facebook world.
It has been interesting to see that now news is used as discussion in various social networking mediums that the ‘traditional’ set up of TV news, for example, is altering so as to cater to this trend. For instance, ‘The Project’, Channel TEN News Report and Channel 7 all feature segments or feed through discussion from their ‘Twitter’ page, Facebook and Web discussion. New tablet and smart phone applications such as ‘FANGO’ allow you to “watch, vote, win!” by connecting our home entertainment to a world of social interaction.
“FANGO, the social way to watch”
The ‘FANGO’ tagline alone highlight’s our apparent need to now interact whilst watching our TV shows, anything from drama, sport, news etc. This new trend is a direct result of progressions in mobile phones, specifically the quick progression of smart phones with 3g, 4g, applications etc.
After now realising that most everyone who takes an interest in current events, social news and idle gossip has a definite claim to news, and now have a platform to communicate their views and ‘publish’ their opinions, I feel swept away in this ‘New news’ and wonder must I endeavour to harness the valuable link between The Journalist and The Social Networker.
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