One of the things I want us to do today is look at some big news media websites and look at how they use video. Over the last three or four years, all news operations, from newspapers and magazines to traditional broadcasters, have invested heavily in the idea of multimedia journalism. In particular, they all began to add some sort of video content to their sites. Looking at YouTube's figures convinced them this was the way to big audiences.
Now, however, there's some doubt about whether video really works on news sites. Lots of traditional media sites, especially those put up by the national newspapers, aren't quite sure what kinds of video to do and what really works for their audiences.
That said, there are some interesting ideas out there about how to use video online. What we're going to do today is collectively look at the range of stuff that's out there and try to find some good stuff.
So here's a few news media sites:
BBC News
The Guardian
The Daily Telegraph
The New York Times (registration required)
The Daily Mail
I'm going to get you to work in small groups and look at one of these sites. Try to answer the following questions:
- What video content is on the site? How would you describe it?
- Who made that video content? Does it come from a traditional broadcaster or an individual journalist?
- Is the video content like traditional broadcast news? If not, how is it different?
- How is the video integrated into the site? Does it standalone as a sort of little programme? Or is it part of a story package that involves pictures and text? If so, how does it all work together
Write some quick answers to the questions on your blog. We'll pool our ideas about this once you've had chance to look through a site and post something. You then need to write a short concluding analysis of the site you looked at.
Recent Comments