Multi-Media Journalism

The new breed of journalist, the mobile journalist. These days a journalist can capture an entire story with nothing less than their mobile phone. This concept is also itself becoming “news” as in the article, “Why the media is on the move”

Advances in mobile technology have allowed journalists to capture and report on more events than ever before. Mobile phones are now equipped with cameras, video camera’s, internet, email and Bluetooth technology. This means that these journalist’s or “mojo’s” can capture a story, interview people, take pictures or video and can get that back to their editor and into the newspaper or online version of the newspaper or television or radio broadcast without even having to return to the office.

This weeks reading, 5 video blogs that do it right introduces the concept of video blogs. My blog is primarily based on the written word with links to video or websites to support my ideas. A video blog is entertaining and has strength of being able to physically show emotion and has a different ability to engage the audience. However I feel that video blogs lack in the area of being able to support arguments. In this blog I can provide links to websites, video’s, articles, slideshows and other blogs. This cannot be done with a video blog. The lines between online television programs and video blogs become blurred, many blogs out there with daily updates almost become like a daily news or television program. An example of this is mobuzz TV, this is classified as a blog but even the name of the blog suggests that it crosses the line to being TV.

This week’s reading discusses Singapore’s online newspaper, http://www.stomp.com.sg/. This online newspaper is one of the biggest online papers that are comprised with majority of content being user generated content.

An exciting element of stomp is that it values the stories that user generated content can add and it encourages the citizens of Singapore to use the technology they have available to them to capture any sort of newsworthy events that occur on a daily basis.

In addition to citizens photo’s, videos and stories making it into their online version, many of the stories also make it into their actual print version. I explored stomp and have included here some interesting examples of how user generated content is being used and how citizens are capturing stories that otherwise would have gone untold. This style of news means that we do not have the constraints that journalists face, in that I mean journalists cannot be everywhere and cannot always make it to big stories. Usually the first people on the scene are citizens and with increases in technologies such as these we have greater access to more news than ever before.

Here are just a few examples of stories sent in by citizens on stomp:

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=34325

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singaporeseen/viewContent.jsp?id=33939

This week we looked at the “newer” forms of multi-media journalism, ones that perhaps have not quite made it into our everyday lives as yet, but with growing popularity and increased access to better technology they will be “it”. An example of this is podcasts which are growing in popularity but research shows that they are not used on a daily basis as are some other forms of multi-media. However this is a very easily accessible form of multi-media, you just need to click the link to the podcast you wish to subscribe, for example: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/listen/podcast.htm and hit subscribe and it is all yours.

I also had a play around this week with making a slideshow and I found that http://www.slide.com/ was the easiest tool for me as a beginner. Follow the below link to see my attempt.

Miley