Online Journalism 3

Flash and Journalism

Today we're going to start looking at Flash. I'll talk a bit about it in general - what Flash can and can't do. Then we're going to look at the way Flash has been/is being used by online news media sites.

The leading book on this subject is 'Flash Journalism' by Mindy McAdams. It was published three years ago now - but it's still the best book on Flash for journalists. There's an accompanying site which features material from the book. McAdams also has an excellent blog, which looks at Flash journalism but also online journalism in general. It's definitely worth a look.

Today, we'll look at some of the examples she's highlighted in her book and some more recent journalistic uses of Flash. There's a good list of examples on the Flash Journalism site - have a look at a few of those. Alternatively, try:

• MSNBC's The Big Picture - Civil Rights Today
• The Times-Picayune's Flash Flood (about Hurricane Katrina)
• AFP's package on the 2004 Tour De France
• Rocky Mountain News' Final Salute
• USA Today's Loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia

Don't just look at these - look at some of the other examples McAdam's has  on her Professional Examples page. With each example, don't focus on the technology - think about the journalistic use it's being put to.

• How does Flash help journalists tell a particular news story in a new way?
• Does it add something to the story for the user?
• Is this something the net can do which other media can't?
• Does Flash help to bring across the key facts of the news story or does it get in the way?

We'll talk through some of the examples you find in class. Then I'd like you to look out for some examples of your own this week - see if you can find something you think is a good journalistic use of Flash. Try to find something which you think is bad Flash journalism - we'll talk about them in next week's class.

Today's session

Today we're going to be looking at working with Dreamweaver templates. We'll start by doing a tutorial on this from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual'. You can download the files you need for the tutorial here. 

After that, I'll go over the templates I created from the Canvas designs you created last term. I'll show you how to work with them. Then you can have a go at adding copy to them.

After that, if there's time, we'll go back and quickly go over adding forms to web pages. We might try to do the tutorial from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual'. If we do, download the files you need here and, as ever, try to come up with something like the official version.

Today's session

Today we're going to look in more detail at web writing. We've talked about this before but some of you have asked for some more specific guidelines, so we're going to start from the bottom up, as it were and go back to basics. We'll do some work on this today and then continue in the session on Wednesday afternoon.

After that, we need to carry on working on the Canvas site. I'll look at your current stories, summaries and headings. If you've done your sample story, we'll go over that. We also need to work on gathering assets - pictures, links etc - so that once the basic templates are finished, we can get the site up quickly. We might also do some work on basic Flash sideshows.

After that, we're going to go back and go over adding forms to web pages. Once again, we'll do a tutorial from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual'. You can download the files you need for the tutorial here and, as ever, try to come up with something like the official version.

Competitor analysis

One of the things I want you to do to help with the development of the site is to analyse the competition and see what we can learn from them. You've already looked at some student newspaper/magazine sites. I'd also like you to look at sites by big news media organisations - newspapers and TV stations.

Here's a good example of some detailed analysis done by Martin Belam, a net consultant, who analysed how much use big newspapers were making of Web 2.0 technologies. His summary page is a good place to start, but look at the individual analyses too. It might give you some ideas. Recently, he also did an excellent analysis of the way 24/7 TV news stations use the web - that's also worth looking at.

Next week, I'll give you a more detailed brief about what you need to do for the assessment portfolio, at least as it relates to this group project - this competitor analysis will form part of that.

Today's session

Today we're going to be looking at CSS layout and also at adding forms to web pages. The former is, in theory, an easier to use alternative to tables. However, CSS layouts don't always display exactly the same way in all browsers. That said, it's a good idea to learn how to lay out pages like this. Forms are one way of getting information back from your users. You can set up forms that people fill in to sign up for newsletters, send feedback and even buy things.

For the CSS layout session, we're going to be using a tutorial from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual'. You can download the files you need for the tutorial by clicking here. Once again, the idea is to come up with something like Sawyer McFarland's finished version.

If there's time, we'll try to do the forms tutorial from the same manual. Download the files you need here and, as ever, try to come up with something like the official version.

Web page layout and tables

Tables are not the easiest layout tools to use but they offer stability across different browsers - in contrast to layouts that rely on just CSS. These don't always work in all versions of the different browsers. That's why we're going to look at tables today. We're going to use another tutorial  from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual'. You can download the files you need for the tutorial by clicking here. Once again, the idea is to come up with something like Sawyer McFarland's finished version.

Let me warn you first - this tutorial is kind of irritating in places. It shows you some of the techniques that you need to use when you try to get complex graphic designs to work with tables. In particular, you often need to cut up large graphics into pieces then drop them into specific cells on the table you create. If nothing else, this may put you off attempting too complex a design for the Canvas site.

Editorial development

After we've finalised the different sections and who's going to be responsible for each one, I'm going to get each section head/team to identify five or six stories - from the existing edition of the paper. You then need to pick a lead story for your section. After that, try writing headlines and summaries for each of the six stories you've identified. You're essentially creating the copy for a section home page.

After that, pick your lead story and think about what you need to add to it before you can lay it out on a page. Do you need to research some relevant links? Do you need visuals? Do you need to edit the visuals you have from the paper? Do you need to edit the copy or write a different standfirst?

By the end of today, we need a clear idea of what could go in each section of the site, headlines and summaries for each story and a clear idea of how to lay out a sample story.

Today's session

Today we're going to do some research and development on the editorial for the Canvas website. We're going to develop a profile of potential users and what they're likely to want from the site. We're also going to look at repurposing and what we can add to the existing Canvas copy when we put it on the site. The aim is to come up with a basic general idea we can use to design the site as a whole and then repurpose individual stories. After that, we're going to move on to doing some more web design.

Today's session

Today we're going to do some more planning and development work on the Canvas web site. We're also going to do some web design work. I'm going to go through CSS in more detail then give you a tutorial to do so you can have a go at some of the basic operations.

The tutorial we're going to use is from David Sawyer McFarland's 'Dreamweaver 8 - The Missing Manual', which we've used before. You can download the files you need for the tutorial by clicking here. We're going to be creating and applying simple CSS rules to format a web page - the aim is to get something close to Sawyer McFarland's finished version.

Welcome to the unit

And sorry for the delayed start. Today we're going to be going over what we're going to do for the rest of the unit, talking about what we did last term and doing some planning for the various things we're going to do over the next three months.

One of the things we're going to look at this term is user-generated content - I thought an interesting way to start might be to look at Wikipedia in some detail. The first thing I'd like you to do is put together a summary of the main criticisms of Wikipedia.