Is the machine really using us?

Remember that video I embedded along with my first post? Well, after searching YouTube today I found some interesting responses to the questions the video posed, and thought one provided an interesting rebuttal, which has sparked whole conversations on YouTube about the future of how we communicate. Who do you agree with? Or do your thoughts differ entirely? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Essentially, the rebuttal’s author (CoryTheRaven) sees the original “The Machine is Using Us” video as an exaggeration of the truth. CoryTheRaven agrees that the web (or, more specifically, Web 2.0) has made the transfer of information almost instantaneous, but at the cost of true human interaction. It may make gains toward fully imitating real life, but it will never be as good as the real thing. We may have to rethink our concepts of communication thanks to these gains in technology (that’s where you budding information architects come in!), but as of yet, there’s no need to rethink ourselves and our existence.

The most outstanding part of all of this is that this video reply sparked its own reply, creating a video conversation of sorts. Check it out:

This series of videos just goes to show you how communication is currently being rethought, and how user-based it really is. In itself, it’s a case for information architecture, and multimedia journalism as well. The exchange of ideas has entered a new platform, and it’s time we take note and adjust accordingly.

Tips for transitioning your articles onto the Web

 

While perusing Introduction to Online Journalism by Roland DeWolk, I came to some important things to keep in mind when writing for the web, so I thought I’d post them here. True to today’s “I-want-my-news-now-and-quick!” mentality, I sifted through the book’s 205 pages to glean its gems for you (and for my own personal reference). Here are the essentials, as paraphrased by moi:

• Be wary of animated gifs and videos. Sure, that frolicking bear is cute, but does it really lend anything to your story? Only include videos and animations that help tell the story. If that moving image says enough to spare you an additional 250 words (or more) of additional copy, then by all means, include it!
• Brevity is key. Keep it short and entertaining, or people will “X” out of your page before you can show off your sweet skateboarding accident slide show.
• People don’t “read,” they “scan.” Our eyes immediately search for the “nuggets” of a story, or the parts that will intrigue us.
• Make your point even faster than you would in print. It’s a miracle for people to spend more than 60 seconds looking at an article online.
• Think e-mail, not investigative clip. I especially have to keep this in mind. People don’t like to see loads of text, and they especially don’t want to have to scroll all the way through it. Break it up into sections for a greater ease of use, or simplify your speech even more than it already is. (Save the diatribes for your research papers!)
• Connect the dots of your story and photos. The human brain favors images to words, so your words will resonate better with readers if they reference the photos in your story. (It will be clearer in their minds.)
• Use pageturners! Or, in our case, link-clickers. End your story in such a way that it leads the reader on and makes him/her want to know more (and click that link to go to the next page).
• Just like high school, people will stereotype your web site. Its presentation will determine what people expect from your web site, just as people expect to be entertained with gossip and scandals by glancing at Star magazine’s cover, or expect serious news and educational features from Time’s rigid front page design. In order to create an effective web site (no matter what you aim on covering), keep these tips in mind:
  • Make sure there’s one central, eye-catching element on each page. (Like a dominant photo or banner across the top of the page.)
  • Eliminate any overwhelming elements on the page that distract visitors from the main point of the page. Our eyes stop on the biggest, most colorful part of the site, and you must decide what you want that object to be, and why it should be that.
  • Like print journalism, have a DOMINANT feature. Don’t let your readers scour the page, looking for something to focus on (they’ll be more apt to get overwhelmed that way).
  • Visual hierarchy: mix up the sizes/weights of photos and graphics in a story, lest you once again confuse your visitors.
  • Choose complimentary colors.
    • Time to bust out the color wheel:
    • Rather than explain the various color schemes that could work well together, check out this handy informational table.
    • Colors/tones should upkeep the mood and point of view of the story. (Remember, just because your story is somber doesn’t mean the page has to be doom-and-gloom shades of gray. That could just as easily turn your visitors away, if it’s visually unappealing.)

The perks and pitfalls of citizen journalism

When I found the web site Make Internet TV, I immediately got excited. It’s essentially a tutorial for creating your own video feeds and uploading them online, taking you from explaining the best way to shoot whatever you’re interested in, what editing software you can most easily access, how to properly license and publish your work, to ways to promote your new video. My excitement dulled a little when I read the site’s tagline, however: You make the news.

That shouldn’t seem like a mood-dampener, but it reminded me of what I left out when discussing how the Tampa Tribune laid off 5 percent of its workforce: the rise of citizen journalism, and the resulting waning of professional journalism. It’s cheaper for big publications to promote “you choose the news” or “you create the news” features instead of hiring more reporters to cover the news in various areas. While citizen journalism allows the people to record and post the latest goings-on in their neighborhoods online, its empowerment often comes at the cost of others’ jobs.

Another problem with citizen journalism is that it becomes a tool for PR and often blurs the lines of what’s newsworthy. For example, just because John Doe thinks that his little princess’ Sweet Sixteen at the bowling alley is the biggest event of the year — nay, decade — doesn’t mean that it should be the lead story (or that the rest of the community wants to wade through post after post about it). In addition, it can easily become a way for PR to reach the masses, because all Pete’s Rib Shack or Joe Schmo’s Car Wash has to do is upload their business information and post it as news, and voila! Suddenly an advertisement becomes the “news.”

Information Architecture may be able to fix all that, by employing multi-skilled journalists who can aggregate this information and edit out the advertisements and bury the unnewsworthy material that’s submitted. From there, the journalists can view these citizen-submitted ‘articles’ as tips, or things to look into and create possible in-depth articles or multimedia packages out of them. (Who knows, maybe John Doe rented the entire bowling alley for his daughter’s birthday and all of her guests will knock down gold-plated bowling pins while sipping soda out of crystal stemware imported from Italy and listening to Justin Timberlake crooning in the background. That could be newsworthy.)

The bottom line? It’s not enough to know how to write and edit articles anymore. Skillsets must expand, for the scope of this profession is expanding dramatically. Employers need to stop seeing the limitations of journalists and the price-cutting techniques of citizen journalism, and start seeing the unbridled possibilities that exist by using information architecture to build upon one’s foundation of journalism to net a wider audience.

By the way, here’s some interesting information on IA, and how it can be overlooked in many professions. Please ignore this guy’s seriously creepy way of presenting the information, but note his discussion on how great information architecture is often overlooked because the web sites or projects designed flow so smoothly that nobody needs to take note of them (it’s a lot easier for the untrained eye to notice things that are going wrong with a web site than the intricacies of design and development that haven’t posed problems):

IA Journalist Profile: Mindy McAdams

She may have nothing to do with the Gators’ national championships in basketball and football, but when it comes to helping the Gators excel in online journalism, she’s all over it. Since 1999, Mindy McAdams has served as a professor at the University of Florida, teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses on the subject. Before entering the Swamp, McAdams worked as both a content developer for the Washington Post’s first online newspaper, Digital Ink, and then as the web strategist at the American Press Institute.

I didn’t mention her though to revel in her resume, however. Her real accomplishments lie in the gains she’s made for multimedia journalism courses at UF. She’s authored the book Flash Journalism, which combines XHTML and flash coding with reporting to teach budding journalists how to create their very own multimedia packages.

She’s created a plethora of helpful web sites for beginning information architects (though they aren’t labeled as such, she’s still teaching visitors how to aesthetically design and organize data to display online), which can all be accessed through her main web site, MindyMcAdams.com. She also maintains her own blog, which features her thoughts and notes on online journalism, along with tips and tutorials to help visitors learn the latest digital tricks. She also regularly links other helpful web sites and blogs for learning editing styles as well as mastering digital media. Here are some tidbits from her recent postings that may be of interest:

• She explains how Flickr could help budding photojournalists’ careers because the program has made displaying digital photography available to all. That means that photo buyers (like those for newspapers and magazines) are now sifting through the average joe’s photos to purchase the pictures that fill their pages!
  • Discussion point: Although it’s great that this program has made it easier for people to enter the field of photojournalism and become published, couldn’t this also skew people’s idea of the professionalism of photography and become less apt to hire major photographers? Or does it have no bearing on the profession whatsoever? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
• Multimedia packages are so popular right now, simply because of their multi-faceted, in-depth coverage and cutting-edge design. I know that this is the way of the future, but since each package requires hours upon hours of work, I wondered how any publication could afford to consistently create those, and how tiring that process could be. Well, possibly without intending to, McAdams answered my question by making a post for people to compare two web sites honoring the recent Virginia Tech victims. One was created by the New York Times; the other, by the Roanoke Times. Though McAdams admitted that it seemed a bit insensitive to analyze these tributes, I must agree that by comparing them we’re also learning how to handle these situations — what works and what doesn’t.
  • From there she mentioned the possibility of using templates in the future for profiles of important people.
  • Discussion point: What did you notice about the two web sites, and what do you think works best? Would templates help simplify certain multimedia packages, or do you think they’d hinder the creativity that made them so cutting edge and exciting in the first place?
• Online innovation starts small. In one entry McAdams references Web.aan.org’s 5 keywords for bringing journalism (and other forms of communication) to the world wide web: “Small. Storytelling. Experiments. Collaboration. Workflow.”
  • Want to know what those words could possibly mean to you (and how you can implement them to create great things)? Click here.