Feature story about Vlogger: Recording? No. Living — A life of vlogger

Name: Lin Chen       SID:440555788

Tags: #vlogger #life style #social media #Bilibili #Fulinfang

 

Self-recording and self-publishing are trending online! Take Australia and Youtube as example, a 2014 report  from The Daily Telegraph writes: ‘AUSTRALIAN YouTube channels now rank in the top two per cent of channels globally, with more than 50 boasting 200,000-plus views.’ Among those group of recorders and publishers, some of them evolves to what we now call ‘Vlogger’.

But is it only Australia and Youtube are showing that trend?

Probably not.

This time, I am going to write a feature story about vlogger. To be specific, a feature story that would reveal the life of a vlogger or should I say, a ‘professional’ vlogger. Then the story would  move to discuss the potential of vlogger being as a profitable career in the future.

The headline might be: Recording? No. Living —  A life of vlogger. Which means that Vlog isn’t just an action of recording but more important, a choice of life and a way of living. And it also indicates the story’s preference on unveiling the life of a ‘professional vlogger’.

Source of interview

By interviewing the English vlogger ‘Fulinfang’, this feature story would try to draw a picture of modern times vlogger and show the readers how life could be chang when one becomes a vlogger.

Then to dig the topic further, this feature story would present reasons for the rise of vlogger. Then go mention about the potential of vlogger keep being a profitable career in the future by interviewing the media professionals.

Initial structure design

Ideally, the whole story would be broke into 2 sections.

          1. The life of a vlogger —- use Fulinfang as an example.

           In terms of the presentation of text, first, regarding the overall structure, I’m thinking about a form that’s close to script writing. For example:

           6.30 am    London

           Fulingfang wakes up and starts his day.

           . . .

           Second, in order to make the story more interesting, I’ll insert parts like aside into this section. For example, after depicting Fulingfang’s action, I might include parts in which he explains the meaning of the action or some fun facts about it or just some old memories that’s related to the situation.

            This part would definitely includes pictures and videos. But the specific display is not decided yet.

           2. Vlogger as a profitable career in the present and in the future

           For this part, I’m thinking about using the inverted pyramid structure to sort out the order of importance.

Target audience and Online publication

‘Fulinfang’ is an English vlogger who’s active on Chinese social media. He’s currently focusing on delivering content related to the difference between English and Chinese society using English and Chinese. One of his most common use social media is the video sharing platform called ‘Bilibili’ in China. Which means the majority of his viewers are Chinese.

Judging from the above research on the target interviewee and the previous background research, there might be 3 types of potential audience.

1. Social media users in China who’s into ‘Fulinfang’ or English culture.
2. People around the world who’s interested in vlogging and the real life conditions of vloggers.
3. People who’s into managing social media accounts or websites or generally speaking, a career related to the areas online for audience from another country on their own.

In order to reach the potential audience, a few publications are under consideration:

1. If the feature story is delivered in the form of video, the publication might be Youtube and Bilibili.
2. If the feature story is delivered in a combined form of texts, pictures and video, the publication might be Vlog Nation.

Pinup girls vie for beauty prize that’s more than skin deep

In a time where skirts are getting shorter, some women are challenging the modern perception of beauty and empowering themselves through vintage fashion.

For my narrative feature I would like to explore perceptions of beauty for women in Australia. I will be looking at the women involved in the pinup community, specifically focusing on the Miss Pinup Australia pageant.

Miss Pinup Australia is one of the largest pinup competitions run in the world, but says it is different from the traditional beauty pageant, priding itself on being focused on each entrant’s journey of self-worth and confidence rather than judging solely on looks.

With this in mind, the pageant has different categories to include a range of different ages and sizes of women.

The pageant also believes in fostering strong comradery and friendship between entrants, creating a community aspect. Social media is used to connect people within the community, so people can interact and build relationships online.

For my feature I would like to create a video project, using establishing shots of the NSW Miss Pinup Australia Meet and Greet event, and also include video interviews of pageant entrants. I think the fashion and colours of the pinup style will lend itself to the video feature nicely.

My piece will be strongly based in the exploring characters of the interviewees. I would like to explore how each person got into pinup, what pinup and the pinup community means to them, and their own values of self-worth and beauty.

I think because the competition has various categories, with many types of women, it will be interesting to gain different perspectives and personal stories.

After establishing strong characters, I would like to relate pinup back to general perceptions of beauty in society today, and expectations of beauty for the modern woman. I will encompass statistics and data on body and confidence issues for women in Australia of different ages.

I would then like to explore the media’s perception of beauty, such as the use of photo shop in magazines or advertisements, and how this affects Australian women’s perception of self-worth.

I also think making a comparison to more conventional beauty pageants, such as Miss Universe, and their portrayal of entrants will provide great perspective for the reader, on perceptions of beauty.

This article would be aimed for online publication on women’s interest sites such as Mammamia in the Beauty and Style section.

Keyword tags:#beauty #pinup #pageant #bodyissues #community #confidence

Understanding Depression in Australia

Keyword tags: # Depression  #Australia   # Black Dog Ride

Background of the Black Dog Ride One-Dayer

Black Dog Ride One-Dayer is an annual event held by a national suicide prevention charity to raise public awareness of depression and suicide prevention. Each year, thousands of motorbike enthusiasts across Australia come together to hit the road on one single day in support of raising public conversations on mental health issues.

Existing Research on Depression

Depression is a prevalent issue in Australian. In the light of a national survey in 2014, 2.1 million Australians have suffered depression and more than 6000 Australians with depression attempt to take their own life in any given year. More seriously, few people have recognized the seriousness of depression. Only 39 percent of Australians view depression as a mental health issue. As a result, the majority of people with mood disorders did not receive treatment in a timely fashion although effective treatments are widely available in Australia. A national survey shows that only 28 percent of Australians attending specialist treatment services in the year of onset. The delay to help-seeking has contributed to the increase in the severity of mental health problems.

Proportion of persons with depression or feeling depressed   Source(s): National Health Survey: First results, 2014-15

 

Story Angle

In the feature article, I will focus on three aspects. First of all, I will explore the reason why organizers started these rides and how these rides contribute to the suicide prevention. Secondly, I will further explore the influence of this event on participants. Thirdly, I will explore the seriousness of depression in Australian. Furthermore, I will give in-depth analysis of triggers and some possible treatments. Moreover, focus will be put on the factors that lead to the delay of treatment.

Interviewees

In order to elaborate further on my story, an interview will be conducted with David Peach, the coordinator of Black Dog Ride One-dayer. Questions for David are about what lead him to start the ride. And how do these rides contribute to the suicide prevention. In addition, I am going to interview Jess Siegle as she is a participant of the ride and has been affected by depression. A close look at her may help me understand some barriers that depression suffers faced with. Furthermore, to learn more about the issues of depression, I will interview Caroline Hunt who is a professor of Faculty of Science in the University of Sydney. She has conducted extensive research on the treatment of mood disorders.

Target Publications and Audiences

My preferred online publication for this feature story is Medical News Today. It is a leading internet-based magazine aims to providing the latest mental and health news to healthcare professionals and general publics.

The feature story targets three groups.First of all, it targets those whose families and friends have affected by depression. Secondly, it aims to reach patients who want to seek some advices for depression. In addition, some mental health experts may be interested in article related to depression.

 

References 

Highet, N. J., Hickie, I. B., & Davenport, T. A. (2002). Monitoring awareness of and attitudes to depression in Australia. Medical Journal of Australia, 176(10), S63.

Thompson, A., Hunt, C., & Issakidis, C. (2004). Why wait? Reasons for delay and prompts to seek help for mental health problems in an Australian clinical sample. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 39(10), 810-817.

 

 

 

 

The Pursuit of Happiness – Stories of Chinese gay & lesbian immigration

Name: Dongsi Liu  | SID: 440462475

Tags: #gay immigration  #Chinese-Australian  #gay and lesbian  #Chinese immigration

 

Source: http://www.hkpride.net/2015/tc/

 

Background and My Initial Curiosity

Australia has welcomed immigrants for two centuries, and Chinese people have a long and continuing role in Australian history. Millions of Chinese choose to immigrate to Australia for different reasons: career opportunities, quality of life, better education, political environment, unpolluted air and also, for love. Heterosexual people may not realize that Australia is ‘the lucky country’ for same-sex couples, as it is one of the first nations in the world to accept same-sex immigration. Therefore, many homosexual people today decide to move to this beautiful but totally strange country only because they want to pursue their right of happiness.

I met someone whose experience inspired me to begin this research. She had a decent job in China as an IT engineer for China Telecom until she felt too tired of hiding her sexual orientation from the family and colleagues. So she has achieved permanent residency in Australia in order to get the opportunity to live with the Chinese girl she truly loves and be seen openly as a couple someday. As China is a country with patriarchal family system, and our society is still not very open to homosexuality, especially the older generation. Thus sham marriage is very common within the gay community in China, as they cannot come out to their family. In this context, for people like my friend, they have tried everything they have to escape from that environment, and immigration is their final move. And for my friend particularly, she is hoping she can get through the whole same-sex immigration process someday with her girlfriend, who now live in Hong Kong and end this long-distance relationship.

Therefore, I would like to explore more about their life in Australia, including their gay immigrant experience, relationship status, future life plan, and stresses such as cross-culture adaptation that they have to deal with.

 

Existing Research Materials and My Approach

Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force in Australia is an organization whose aim is to obtain equality for same-sex couples in the migration process and enable them to live together. They provide services like general information session, discussion and support meeting every week, which could be very helpful to my research.

The book Stories of Gay and Lesbian Immigration, Together Forever?(2002) by John Hart examines the process of Australian government recognizing the validity of same-sex couples, and social impact of these policies for gay and lesbians, which is very informative as well.

At the moment, I have three interviewees that are willing to tell about their immigration stories and identity stories as homosexual. They are all Chinese that acquired Australian permanency by their own efforts.

My preferred online publication for this story would be GNN (Gay News Network), as it is Australia’s largest gay and lesbian publishing house. GNN aims to connect the community together, and I believe this story could reflect the interest of the LGBT community as a whole.

 

References

Mashable (April 27, 2016). The Gay Immigrant Experience | Mashable Docs [Video file]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/nmu3Jlj5NGg

Jpbon1 (April 27, 2016). What it’s like to be gay in China [Vedeo file]. Retrieved from:https://youtu.be/PVfeLeTKeJA

De Waal, P., Gay, & Lesbian Immigration Task Force, N. S. W. (2002). Lesbians and gays changed Australian immigration: history and herstory. Darlinghurst, N.S.W: Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force NSW.

Hart, J. (2002). Stories of gay and lesbian immigration: together forever? New York: Harrington Park Press.

Erickson, M. (2016). How to Write a Feature Article. Retrieved from: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Feature-Article