(Wits University: Online Journalism Feature Assignment)
One of the most memorable photographs to emerge from the recent spate of xenophobic violence in South Africa is that of a man being burnt alive. “Flames of Hate”, most media called it.
The combination of this image and its headline sent shockwaves through the world, sparked international debate and left [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Wits Online Journalism’
June 17, 2008
A burning issue: Online Media and Xenophobia
June 6, 2008
Wits Online Journalism Class of 2008
Our class visited the Mail & Guardian Online (www.mg.co.za) yesterday. The first thing I must mention about M&G is that they all work on Apple Macs, wow!
The online team is currently working hard on creating the new-look site, which will include more hypertext, interactive features and multimedia including video. It will also be more colourful, with [...]
June 3, 2008
Interactivity: The heart of online journalism
Of the three characteristics of online journalism, namely hypertextuality, multimediality and interactivity, the latter lies at its very core. No other traditional medium is able to offer the same interactivity level as the internet.
This is because the medium of the web, embedded on the internet’s limitless boundaries considering time and space, has become a platform that closely [...]
June 3, 2008
Summary 7: Domingo, D. (2008). Interactivity in the daily routines of online newsrooms: dealing with an uncomfortable myth. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13 (680-704).
Domingo looks at the “myth of interactivity”, suggesting that the professional culture of traditional journalism has a huge effect in online newsrooms, as this prevents journalists from developing most of the ideals of interactivity, because these ideals don’t fit into the standard news production routines.
Domingo quotes Bruns (2005) as saying that weblogs and citizen journalism [...]
June 2, 2008
Summary 6: Chung, D.S. (2008). Interactive Features of Online Newspapers:
In this piece, Chung identifies 4 interactivity features, user patters and factors that predict the use of interactive features.
Interactivity challenges the traditional one-way flow of news by allowing users choice and even to become part of the news production – so interactivity has the potential to change conventional journalism through online news. Online newspapers are [...]
May 29, 2008
Proposal for Online Journalism Feature Package:
“A BURNING ISSUE: Online coverage of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa”
Few people will ever forget the images, in the press and on tv, of refugees burnt alive during the spate of xenophobic attacks in South Africa. These images may have ended up at the bottom of the bird cage with the newspaper or may [...]
May 29, 2008
Summary 5: Briggs, M. (2007). “Chapter 6: How to Report News for the Web”. In Journalism 2.0. How to Survive and Thrive.
Journalists don’t need special skills to write for the web, they just need mind-shift.
Writing for the web is like wire service reporting – it should happen in ‘takes’, where you provide more and more information as you get it. “It’s more in keeping with the broadcast model and less on the print model”. As your [...]
May 29, 2008
Online journalism: what does the future hold?
There has been much speculation over the future of online journalism. What I found from several readings, however, is that the general notion seems to be focused on how the evolution of online journalism impacts on traditional mass communications mediums (print, television, radio) and less on online journalism itself.
This is not without justification, however.
The [...]
May 28, 2008
Summary 4: Matheson, D. (2004). Weblogs and the epistemology of the news: Some trends in online journalism
In this article, the author analyses news blogging on the website of the Guardian in Brittan (www.guardian.co.uk/blog), focusing on the relationship between the blogs on this site and its impact on the practice of journalism (impact on the communicative process and social context).
Matheson quotes Katherine Fulton as describing the online environment as “a challenge
to the [...]
May 28, 2008
Summary 3: Gillmor, D. (2004). “The Gates Come Down” in We the Media.
Blogs, citizen journalism and discussion forums on social networking sites (like Facebook) often have the power to put issues from the public agenda onto the media agenda, even if the media didn’t first pick it up. So where issues have been perhaps ignored by the mainstream media, the web has become a platform for the [...]
