0.06 seconds away from being a better journalist: Reporting trauma

It takes 0.06 seconds for our brain to send signals and release adrenaline when we experience a traumatic situation.
It takes a quarter of a second for us to be conscious of what is happening.
Journalists may be subject to this response against trauma and experience distressing emotions when reporting. But more than this, we can be good journalists if we [...]

I heart typography

Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman: typefaces you use every day, but, like me, probably have never considered or fully acknowledged before. Earlier this week, we learnt about all things typography. We were also given some pretty snazzy links, which I thought I’d share.

Amaztype (which forms the image above) creates words using Amazon web services. You can choose [...]

5 steps to search engine optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation is something I find fascinating – and also quite difficult to comprehend.
In our online media lecture this week, icrossing’s Antony Mayfield explained to us – better than anyone else has ever managed before – how Google works and how search engine optimisation operates.
Brilliant.
Yet, whilst I understood the pretty networking diagrams (or solar system replicas) [...]

PTC New Journalist Awards

Last week, five of us left the comfort of the Magazine Laboratory (aka. MagLab) to go to London for the PTC New Journalist Awards with our course tutor, Jane.
Whilst this not only gave us the opportunity to put on our gladrags, rub shoulders with journalistic types and have a fancy lunch, we also put our Twittering [...]

Cardiff talks about the blog

Head of Blogging for RBI, Adam Tinworth, has shaken my concept of blogging completely.
“We do not create communities. We merely provide services for communities that already exist,” he said.
But this was not the end of it. Tinworth said that blogs must not be opinion. Indeed they are not “rants written in bedrooms” or online diaries; something I thought [...]

MP Hazel Blears attacks the blog

Social media has given everyone the power to publish, participate and choose. Is this to good effect? MP Hazel Blears doesn’t think so.
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In a lecture this week, founder of Custom Communication and journalist, Matthew Yeomans discussed social media and the influence of the community within journalism. Furthermore, Matthew Yeomans said the media has a [...]

Creating digital narratives

From personal digital storytelling to mass media: how can we use mulitmedia?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MstyFwhLy4] Storytime is changing. Will it descend into silliness? Monty Python Storytime on YouTube from pipes90.
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Your girlfriend’s shoe collection, an old man’s prized teddy bear, a lady’s wrinkles and a nightclub stairwell: these are gems of digital storytelling.
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 This new way of telling stories allows individuals [...]

Digging a hole for the mob

Power, equality and digital democracy? Photo by cheryl.

Utilising audience knowledge or making journalism lazy: the cull on crowd-sourcing, Jeff Howe and keeping the karma

So, I’ve been delving into the rise, the potential and the pitfalls of citizen journalism and, so far, I was starting to believe in its democratic possibilities. For all its downsides, I thought [...]

From Dialogue to Democracy?

 If user-generated content can be incorporated into Big Media publications, will the conversation be democratic?
I sent a letter to a computer games magazine when I was 11 to complain, in a general feminist manner, about a sexist article featuring a Baywatch actress and ‘risky’ comments about 14-year boy antics. To my surprise, I received a response from the editor, reading: “I [...]

Out with the old – and the new – and in with the network

Journalism is changing, but how can the media accommodate amateur and professional in its trade and still be quality assured?
Even the newness of ‘New Media’ cannot keep up with the technological advances of journalism: ‘Next Media’ is now the ‘New Media’ buzzword. Regardless of what we can call this movement, journalism is a changing industry. [...]