David Bowie Dead at 69 – Blog post

http://bobby30531552.newsvine.com/_news/2016/01/11/34938274-david-bowie-is-dead-at-69-cnncom?lite

1.  The first sentence is wordy. It would read better and have more impact as two  sentences, with the first as:“David Bowie has died.”

2. The photograph has no attribution. It is a mural or painting based on the cover art from David Bowie’s 1973 album Aladdin Insane. Explaining its relevance, along with the appropriate attribution, would assist the reader. Proper attribution reduces the risk of the author, or publisher, being at unnecessary risk of copyright breach.

3.  The article allows for comments (User Generated Content; UGC). This UGC links You Tube videos and GIFs to demonstrate the users connection with the David Bowie. Their comments suggest to me that an opportunity was missed by the author. Linking music or video would enrich the user experience, especially as Bowie’s primary language to the world was music. The article briefly mentions Bowie’s final (and lesser known) album, Blackstar. The UGC shows that Bowie has an extensive body of work that users resonate with. The absence of audio and visual multimedia for the users to interact with makes for a bland and limited experience.

4.  There are several typographical errors which demonstrate poor editing.

 

Word Count: 192  |  Karyn Bloxham  |  SID:  460419901

Comparative Online Journalism Analysis: Part One

Hannah Plummer | SID: 305134418

 

This piece is difficult to fault in terms of its online delivery, but not impossible. The headline, whilst informative, could be more concise. An important environmental piece denotes an equivalent headline. The use of alliteration is attention grabbing but also clouds the significance. A more direct heading could be “Great Barrier Reef: dying in a sea of pollution”.

The standfirst is arduous to discern, albeit for its placement, larger font size and grey tone. The use of a bold font would increase its noticeability more effectually.

Hypertext has been used succinctly to link with relevant pages in context, thus improving the articles credibility, although further thought could be given to selecting more significant words to hypertext other than avoiding for example.

The graphic, while synonymous with topic, contradicts the pollution problem in question. An image of the pollution or a Government representative would convey the severity of the issue more effectively.

The scannability of the article is notable and has been facilitated through the good use of chunks of texts, whereby each paragraph is one to two sentences, consisting of approximately 30 words, allowing the reader ease of passage.

The article demonstrates merit in its sharing capabilities to social media platforms, link to authors twitter and interactive audience participation via a comment box but fails in terms of multimedia modalities with the absence of any videos.

Word count: 226.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/21/great-barrier-reef-pollution-prevention-too-slow-says-queensland-government

Instagram Update- Blog Post

Name: Ko-Ning, Hu (Nisa)

ID:440480996

 

On March 15, the company announced that it was testing a change to its news feed. Rather than the reverse chronological order, Instagram said it was trying out an algorithm-based feed that would show the “most relevant” content to users first.This news aroused amounts of users’ feedback. Engadget  discussed this issue on its blog and tried to explain the situation –

Instagram says it’s not changing your feed… yet

Here are some suggestion improvements:

1.There is only one picture to correspond the news. It is hard to arouse the reader’s sympathy. it should attach some photos that users encourage their followers to “turn on post notifications”.

2.The news created some users rebound, however, this blog did not talk about this aspect. This is essential to give readers both positive and negative messages.

3.The blog can provide some Instagram users’ statements. It only aimed the declaration from Instagram. This form is more like a news report not blog.

Strong points from the blog:

1.The topic is quite clear, especially the subtitle is humor. This can catch readers’ attention.

2.The insert links are useful for readers who want to understand causes and effects.

Hornsby Westfield stabbing-Blog Post

The news from Daily Telegraph, and the article mainly talks about A man charged with murder and attempted murder over a stabbing attack on a couple at a shopping mall. The hyperlink of the news as follows:http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/hornsby-westfield-stabbing-man-killed-woman-injured-in-attack/news-story/7b9f80d2d1b605344afc2c342ab306af

There are some suggestions about this article:

1. Although the heading of the article is clear, I still very confused when I read this article. In general, reporters put the most important information in the first and second paragraph, in order to let readers quickly understand what happened. In this news, the reporter can use the inverted pyramid style rather than novel format. Readers will be going to lose their patience if they have to read the full article to know this event.

2. It is unwise to put reading links of other stories in the middle of the article. On the one hand, it can interrupt the readers when they are reading. On the other hand, if readers are likely to be attracted to other articles and skip reading this news, this news will be worthless.

3. It is a very controversial social events, may be can set a comment section at the bottom of the article.

Yanxi Li

SID:450048036

 

Blog Post- Newsvine

Name：Xiaoyang Liu

SID:450012978

I prefer to cover the news “Donald Trump says he wants to punish women who have abortions, making him just like every other “pro-life” politician-Salon.com” on Newsvine.

(http://an-uncommon-scold.newsvine.com/_news/2016/03/30/35331584-donald-trump-says-he-wants-to-punish-women-who-have-abortions-making-him-just-like-every-other-pro-life-politician-saloncom).

To this news, the headline is too complicated for readers to take a brief glance at it. A news heading should be concise and informative to the points, by contrast, wrong format makes this news story too long-winded to be read at one sitting. Also readers need to scroll down to see a full list of the article, it probably become unclear and unambiguous. For users, they can “seed” articles, but they should install a button on browser before seed articles, and to create an account and using the site is more confusing and intimidating than other sites.

Some good points are Newsvine allows users to submit, vote for, and comment on every articles, and enable users to both post their own articles and create their own news columns. In addition to the character of UGC, Newsvine provides a wide range of topics by using news feeds such as the Associated Press. Once viewing the full story, users can vote for and comment on the article much like other social new sites.

Brussels Attack – Blog Post

Name:Wen Cai

ID: 450457135

On March 22, Brussels was attacked by suicide bombs. 26 people were killed and more were injured. As a widely used participatory media, Wikinews immediately reported the news – Explosions at Brussels airport and subway system

The title was short and clear, but it lacked attraction to the readers as there was no significant information contained, such as “terror attack”, “suicide bomb”, “26 was killed” etc.

Only two photos were put aside the text, both of which were small and not strong enough – Map and a normal photo of the subway could hardly attract readers’ attention. Hypertext was widely used in the text, which could be a useful approach for readers to get more background and knowledge about the locations or people that mentioned in the text. However, it was overwhelming to see so many blue hypertext mixed with the text, badly influencing reading experience.

Listing “source” and “sister links” added more credibility to the article. It also offered an approachable opportunity for readers to explore more information by themselves.

To click “Post it!”, there was a link for users to discuss more about the the news. However, when you clicked it, another page would automatically open up and replace the news article. Feedback and discussion could not be seen right below the news, which largely reduced the interactive function.

A comment on CNN’s iReport article

A screenshot of the CNN news by Eliott C. McLaughlin, Holly Yan and Ian Lee

On 30 March, a man hijacked the Egypt plan flying between Alexandria and Cario and ordered the pilot to divert to Larnaca, in Crypus. CNN’s iReport is closely following this incident. In the assignment one, I am going to explore several aspects that will help improve the news article “EgyptAir hijacker in custody, all passengers evacuated, official say ” on the CNN.com. The hyperlink of the news as follows:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/29/europe/hijacked-egypt-air-jet/index.html

Suggestion improvement:

1.The heading of the news could be more concise and short, which is  beneficial for search engine optimization. In addition, it is inappropriate to quote officials in the title.

2.Relevant videos are embedded in the article, which allow readers to visualize this incident. However, the advertisement played before the start of the video is annoying, which readers might not bother to watch.

3.SEO is a problem that should be improved. It should be tagged some relevant topics such as Egypt, Air transportation and hijack, which will make it easier for readers to search the article.

4.In terms of interactivity, there is no comment area at the bottom of the page. Readers cannot engage with journalists and leave comments.

A screenshot of the CNN news by Eliott C. McLaughlin, Holly Yan and Ian Lee

5.Tweet of Cyprus MFA was embedded in the article, which might make the article convincing by citing the official in the very transparent way. CNN also provides readers with the opportunity to share the news by social media and e-mail.  

6. The link of the CNN’s iReport is problematic. When readers click the ‘news ’button from the homepage of the CNN’s iReport, it directly led them to the CNN news, which may mislead audiences. 

Name: JIE ZHU        SID: 440111311 

Vaccine Scandal: Illegal Vaccines Sold Throughout China

Name: Xiao Chen

SID: 450433276

 

This article on WhatsonWeibo mainly talks about a recent vaccine scandal in China. This is a case involving vaccines worth more than $88 million. The vaccines were not properly refrigerated or transported and they have been sold in at least 24 provincial  areas. And it has sparked widespread anger in China.

Firstly, it uses keyword tags, pictures and hyperlinks to present the news. Also, the author’s information can be found easily at the end of the news. Another thing I like is that it makes connections with the latest Brussels attack as well as other food safety issues in China.

However, it still has some shortcomings.

• The headline is short and clear, but not impressive enough. It might add the exact number of the worth of vaccines ($88 million).
• The first sentence is too long. The first half sentence seems unnecessary.
• It may diminish the amount of hyperlinks, such as “Weibo”, “Says”, and “CCTV state media”. Since a Weibo account is needed for seeing the content. However, most of its audiences are not Weibo users.
• Both two pictures are of low-resolution and look burry.

#A4 waist challenge on The Guardian – Part 1

Name: Dongsi Liu

SID: 440462475

The Paper Waist Challenge, also known as #A4 waist, is a photo fad in which women pose for photographs while holding a sheet of the A4-size paper in front of their body as to highlight their slim waistline. This new craze in China has been criticised and mocked on social media, as it encourages body shaming and promotes unhealthy beauty standards. So I am going to cover the article Chinese women compete to be as thin as an A4 piece of paper on The Guardian.

Source: The Guardian

First of all, the headline is not very attractive for an ‘online craze’ type of news. There are so many keywords could have used to grab reader’s attention, such as ‘#A4 waist’, ‘crazy challenge in China’ or ‘new dumb online craze’. Or it can also show its attitude toward the trend directly via the headline: The #A4 waist trend has seen a major backlash – here ‘s why. In either case, the headline would be more vivid and specific than the original one.

Source: The Guardian 

Then, because of its plain headline, the ‘related content’ on the bottom seems not quite relative. The only keyword here is ‘Chinese’. But actually this news should lead us to some other Internet viral phenomena or social phenomena, for example, there were some similar fitness fads before all over the world, like the ‘bikini bridge’ and ‘thigh gap’.

Thirdly, although The Guardian has made a video explainer for this article, it is kind of useless. Because there is nothing new in the video, and it is quite dull.

Last but not least, there is no comment section for the readers. Topic like this is very worth discussing, so I guess this is one major disadvantage for mainstream journalism.

CNN.com – A lot to take in

CNN.com is closely following U.S. Politics right now in the lead up to the presidential election this year, and conveniently have a section on their website dedicated to “covering the 2016 campaign from every angle.” I chose to cover the article Women for Trump: Supporters stand firm despite outbursts.

Under the headline, there is a GIANT video player, which immediately started to play an advert that included a GIANT fetus. Just a little off putting when you’re trying to read about Mr Trump…

Giant fetus.

Scrolling down, the video jumped out to the side of the page, and followed as I scrolled, still playing. This could be great for multitasking reading and watching, but it quickly became overwhelming.

They do not give you the option to minimise the video though and it would cover up a lot of the text – making it impossible to read. I would love to see some improvements on CNN’s video functionality.

Within the text of the article, CNN used an embedded tweet to their advantage, but only included one hyperlink to a poll. They gave multiple opportunities for the reader to share the article via email or on social media pages. Although, the arrow allowing you to move with ease to the next story, covers up more options to share.

Embedded tweet. Pesky arrow covering those share icons!

Finally, there is no comment section at the bottom of the page. Where is the opportunity for reader interaction? Granted, with a story like this, it would probably turn into a hot mess very quickly… but where is the opportunity for the hot mess?!

Fab Sakker, 450610420