1009 aas3 tvri02 writing for the web - online journalism

Deutsche Welle, 04/10/23

DW AkademieWorkshop

Convergent Journalism

Online Journalism

Titelbild hier einsetzen

2 / 10 Online Journalism - Characteristics• global: geographical borders do not limit online-media. They can be

accessed anywhere and anytime

• fast: Information can be provided without delay: no editorial deadline, no fixed printing or broadcast times (live-streams, breaking news etc)

• no limits: there is no maximum length for stories

• no barriers: anyone can publish / user generated content

• non-linear: the user decides the order of stories and how deep he / she wants to get into the topic

• hyperlinks: HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) makes linking possible – stories and documents can be connected (net)

• multimedia: Text, pictures, audios, videos, animation etc

• interactive: direct dialogue between journalist and user or among users is possible

3 / 10

Online Journalism - Elements of an online article

< headline

< teaser< white space

< white space

< text

< text

< picture

4 / 10


< subhead

< white space

< white space

< text

< text

< picture and caption

5 / 10


< white space

< white space

< text

< text

< internal links

< (also possible: external links)<

< share / social bookmarking< feedback< print

6 / 10 Online Journalism – How users read

Poynter Institute Eyetracking studies

users don‘t read word for word, they scan

users scan the screen roughly in an F- form

users pay more attention to the left side of a page

I assume that it’s the right side of the page in Arab countries ;-)

7 / 10 Online Journalism – How users read

8 / 10 Online Journalism - headline• Should have key words that users would put in a search engine to find information about this

topic

• Search engines put more weight on the early words. If your keywords are near the start of the page title you are more likely to rank well.

• People scanning result pages see the early words first. If your keywords are at the start of your listing your page is more likely to get clicked on

• Should be an ultra-short abstract of the article

• Simple and straightforward (short sentence, subject-verb-object, active voice, not passive)

• Strong verb (dynamic, activity)

• Must work without seeing surrounding data (e.g. pictures)

9 / 10 Online Journalism - headline• Must work out of context (search engine; article list; bookmark;

e-mail newsletter)

• Must make clear what the text is about: what will the user get for his click?

• Should have key words that refer to news stories that are still on people’s minds

• Should be written in plain language (no puns; no clever headlines)

• no complicated words and terms, abbreviations / acronyms

• rule of thumb: maximum of 40 – 60 characters

10 / 10 Online Journalism – headline exercise

Please write a good headline for this news story

A 6.1-magnitude earthquake which hit the Indonesian province of Aceh on Tuesday killed a child, injured dozens and destroyed buildings, sparking panic in a region devastated by the quake-triggered tsunami of 2004. The quake struck inland at 0737 GMT at a depth of just 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) in the mountainous Bener Meriah district in the heart of Aceh, the US Geological Survey said. Houses collapsed in the district, some 320 kilometres (200 miles) from the provincial capital Banda Aceh. "A child died when a wall collapsed," Ema Suryani, a doctor at a health clinic in Lampahan city, told AFP. "We have received around 50 people with injuries suffered when the walls of their houses collapsed," added the doctor. "There are around 30 people seriously injured, some with head injuries. The rest have only light injuries.„ "The quake was felt strongly for around 15 seconds, from Bener Meriah to Banda Aceh. People panicked and rushed out of their homes," national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said. Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, is regularly hit by quakes. Indonesia sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent seismic and volcanic activity.



A Tibetan monk has been shot after setting fire to himself during a

protest at Beijing's rule, reports say. The incident happened in the

Tibetan-populated town of Aba in southwest China's Sichuan province

during a gathering of more than 1,000 monks. The monk, named Tapey,

is said to have shouted slogans and waved a Tibetan flag, then doused

himself with petrol and set himself alight. Campaign groups said

witnesses then saw Chinese police shoot the man.



At least 28 people are reported to have died in Iran's heaviest snowfall in

recent years. Eight people froze to death as severe blizzards left 40,000

people stranded in their cars. Although most have now been rescued,

another 20 people are reported to have died in car crashes caused by

the weather. The Iranian Government has declared two days of national

holiday, urging people to stay at home to avoid the bitter cold. The

temperature has been down as low as minus 24 degrees Celsius, and

for the first time in living memory there has been snow in the country's

southern deserts.

13 / 10 Online Journalism - teaser


• Should be like a “slide” for the user into the article

• The style depends on your users (serious news-style; tabloid style) •Make the first words count (important, carrying information; makes scanning easier)

• Put details into the text – not the teaser

• Maximum 300 characters


News teaser contains the basic information; short, concise, no personal opinion

Abkhazia has re-elected its president for the first time since Russia recognized its independence from Georgia. Russia is one of the few countries that supported the election.


Teaser with cliffhanger

deliberately leaves one of the six central questions unanswered (who, what, when, where, why, how) Don’t use cliffhangers too often – the idea gets boring for the user after a while.

Three people were hurt in a car accident on Monday. But one person involved seems to have had a guardian angel.

A new parental leave scheme has been hugely popular among fathers as well as mothers, Germany's family affairs minister said. But the success comes with a price tag.

19 / 10 Online Journalism – headline, picture, teaser• Complement each other• Make clear what the article is about • Raise interest

20 / 10 Online Journalism - text

Style

Short

Precise

to the point

no complicated words and terms

no complicated sentences

21 / 10 Online Journalism - subheads

• Important because people don‘t read from top to bottom. They scan texts

•Subheads help structure a piece (logically and visually)

•Subheads serve as anchor points

•One thought, one paragraph

22 / 10 Online Journalism - links

• Links add depth to a topic in the form of related or archived stories, interviews, opinion pieces, dossiers, etc.

• Links are a service to the reader (lead him / her to original documents, sources, etc.)

• Add internal or external links

• Embed links or attach them at the end of the article

• Give deep links to articles or sources that fit the topic (usually not more than three per story)

• Check repeatedly for dead links

23 / 10 Online Journalism – non-linear storytelling

Avoid long articles.Users don‘t like toscroll.

Turn one long article intotwo or three smallerpieces. Subdivide logically

Example: A text onpentecostal churches inNigeria is enhancedwith a general explainerpiece on pentecostalchurches

24 / 10 Online Journalism – pictures

Pictures are eye-catchers and add breathing space to the text


Pictures have to work as thumbnails – so crop them to the basics

Not good: better:


Beware of long shots – they are often boring and meaningless


Avoid passport photos. They are often boring and meaningless

Not good:


Instead, show people in action in their surroundings


show people in action in their surroundings


People should look into the text, not out of it


Beware of copyright violations when adding pictures.

If in doubt, use photos with a “creative commons” license

e.g. http://search.creativecommons.org/ -> Flickr, Fotopedia, Google Images, Pixabay, Open Clip Art Library

http://compfight.com -> “creative commons” only / commercial

http://flickr.com -> advanced search “creative commons”

http://search.creativecommons.org/



http://compfight.com/

http://compfight.com/

http://flickr.com/

http://flickr.com/

33 / 10 Online Journalism - headline

• Should have key words that users would put in a search engine to find information about this topic

• Should be an ultra-short abstract of the article

• Simple and straightforward (short sentence, subject-verb-object, active voice,not passive)

• Must work without seeing surrounding data (e.g. pictures)

• Must work out of context (search engine; article list; bookmark; e-mail newsletter)

• Must make clear what the text is about: what will the user get for his click?

• Should have key words that refer to news stories that are still on people’s minds

• Should be written in plain language (no puns; no clever headlines)

• rule of thumb: maximum of 40 – 60 characters

34 / 10 Online Journalism – web 1.0 to web 2.0

Characteristics of web 2.0

• user participation

• dynamic content

• openness

• collective intelligence

• simple to use

• tags

• syndication technology (e.g. RSS)


What are the differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0?

Web 1.0 was top-down. Web 2.0 is bottom-up.

Web 1.0 was about companies. Web 2.0 is about communities.

Web 1.0 was professional. Web 2.0 is amateur.

Web 1.0 was edited and produced. Web 2.0 is raw.

Web 1.0 was about lectures. Web 2.0 is about conversation.

Web 1.0 was about reading. Web 2.0 is about writing.

Web 1.0 was text. Web 2.0 is multi-media.


1997: The term "weblog" is coined

1998: Google goes online


2001: Wikipedia is launched


2004: Web 2.0- The term „Web 2.0“ was coined in 1999 by Darcy DiNucci in her article „Fragmented Future“: „The Web we know now, which loads into a browser window in essentially static screenfulls, is only an embryo of the Web to come. The first glimmerings of Web 2.0 are beginning to appear, and we are just starting to see how that embryo might develop. The Web will be understood not as screenfulls of text and graphics but as a transport mechanism, the ether through which interactivity happens. It will [...] appear on your computer screen, [...] on your TV set [...] your car dashboard [...] your cell phone [...] hand-held game machines [...] maybe even your microwave oven.“

-The term becomes popular during the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. John Batelle and Tim O'Reilly outline their definition of the "Web as Platform", where software applications are built upon the Web as opposed to upon the desktop.

- Web 2.0 websites are interactive and allow users to do more than just retrieve information.


2003: MySpace goes online and becomes the most popular social network. (It has meanwhile been overtaken by Facebook.)

2004: thefacebooklaunched as site for students of Harvard College


2005: YouTube YouTube brings free online video hosting and sharing.

First video uploaded at 8:27PM on Saturday, April 23rd, 2005. Video was shot by Yakov Lapitsky at the San Diego Zoo.


2010: Apple launches iPad- Touch-screen, virtual keyboard- Three million iPads sold in the first 80 days

2011: Apple launches iPad 2- thinner, faster, lighter- camera

2012: Apple launches iPad 4 and iPad Mini


Gary‘s Social Media Counts

45 / 10 Online Journalism – web 1.0 to web 2.03.2 billion likes and comments on Facebook daily

Facebook gets 526 million users daily

There are 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook daily

Facebook has an annual net income of $1 billion

Daily videos uploaded to YouTube is 829 440

YouTube has 2 billion plays per day

40 billion android and IOS apps downloaded monthly

175 million tweets sent daily

294 billion emails sent per day

58 photos per second uploaded via Instagram

66 million iPads sold annually since early 2011

G+ gains 625 000 more users each day http://www.personalizemedia.com/garys-social-media-count/

46 / 10 Journalism in the Social Media Age

Traditional media are getting by-passed by

• company websites and portals with journalistic content

• audio- and video platforms

• blogs

• micro-blogging sites (Facebook, Twitter…)

=> Journalists and established media are no longer ‚gatekeepers‘


Please form two groups and discuss the effects Web 2.0 has on professional journalism

Possible questions for discussion:

Do we still need professional journalists and media organisations?

How can the established media stay relevant? What do they need to change?

What do you think about this statement: “The transformation facing journalism is epochal, as momentous as the invention of television or the telegraph, perhaps on the order of the printing press itself.” (Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2007)

• You have 15 minutes for your discussions

• You may research different positions and opinions online if you like

• Each group should present its ideas and conclusions at the end


Meeting the audience where it is

• Repackaging existing content for new platforms

• Creating new content for new platforms

Engaging the audience

• in the journalistic process (finding topics, researching, contributing, updating…)

• in discussions, comment sections, also on other sites (fb, twitter…)

Being a trusted guide / trusted medium in the information jungle


Thank you for your attention…

…and don‘t forget to have fun publishing on the internet.

1009 aas3 tvri02 writing for the web - online journalism

News & Politics

Transcript of 1009 aas3 tvri02 writing for the web - online journalism