I walked over to the UT Potters Club sale on Monday. As you can see in the pictures, the club sells various types of ceramics made by members of the club to raise money for the club. I did an interview with the president of the club and two people browsing the sale items. In the linked file below, you will find the three interviews and 28 pictures from the event. Your task is to write a 250-300 word story about the event. You can use the pictures for description.

Everything you need for the assignment is right here. (Control+Click and choose “Save as”)

The goals of this study are to explore several claims about the democratizing potential of the Internet and to extend gatekeeping theory into user-generated content (UGC) domain. A quantitative content analysis of the most popular YouTube political news videos during the 2008 presidential election was conducted to investigate the degree to which nonelites were able to partake in mainstream public discourse. We found that elites dominated first and second filters (news sourcing and news production) in the flow of online news, while nonelites dominated the third filter (news distribution). These results suggest that an update to the traditional gatekeeping model is needed to reflect the realities of today’s user-driven communication environment.

I’ll post a link once it is available.

This is a quick example of an audio slideshow feature. What are its strengths? What about its weaknesses?

For more information on Union Ave Books check out their website.

Here is a link to the file. (Right mouse click and choose save as…)

Here is a zip file link.

Here are the raw audio files.

- Hardy Interview

Please right mouse click and choose “save as” to download the file.

Here is the link to the photos.

- Hardy Photos

Again, please right mouse click and choose “save as” to download the file.

Occupy Knoxville protested began at 6 p.m on Friday. About 200 people started at Krutch Park and march across to Market Square. Once in Market Square, the group took numerous loops around the square chanting slogans and carrying signs. The rally had died down by 7:45 p.m.

The Occupy Wall Street protests began Sept. 17 in New York City. Over the weekend protests in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement were head in cities across the country, including Portland, Boston and Cleveland. Protests in New York City have grown to as large as an estimated 20,000.

Interview 1

Interview 2

Interview 3 (Kevin Luther)

Videos

“The web will feel a lot different in 5 years,” McCue said in a speech at TechCrunch Disrupt conference as reported by The Next Web. “It will feel a lot like print and be monetized differently than it is currently.”

I don’t want to come off as naive. I know he is saying this because his company makes a product that makes the web look more like print. With that said, his comments are still too narrow. The value and power of the Web (and specifically HTML 5) is in the user’s ability to play a crucial role in shaping their media landscape.

For example, I love using the magazine format of the Atlantic on my iPad. The long stories and large images work well for me. I can sit down and casually “thumb” through the magazine. In this case, I agree with McCue’s view: web browsing is changing.

The flaw in McCue’s argument comes when we think of other types of media use. For example, in the morning I want to crank through a lot of news quickly. So I use Google Reader. It is by no means pretty, but it is effective for what I need. I can scroll through the 50 or so stories in my local paper and quickly see where crime is occurring or what measures the county council are debating. In this case, I don’t want a magazine format. I am willing to sacrifice style for efficiency.

I am not saying either of these are going to be the future of the web. I am saying the future of the web is based in the user having more control to choose a format to match his or her need.

This semester I will be teaching two sections of media reporting. The course covers public affairs reporting across various media. Specifically, the students will be asked to create print stories, audio/photo packages and video stories though out the semester. At Ohio State I was able to teach news writing and news reporting a number of times. I see my class this semester as a longer, more multimedia focused version of that class.

Along with my teaching duties, I will also be working on various research projects. During the upcoming semester I hope to make significant process on the following projects:

• The role of perceived cohesion in individual-level participation in voluntary groups – This is an expansion of the work in my dissertation and will look at the influence of perceived cohesion on numerous types of group participation.
• Using agent-based modeling to demonstrate macro-level outcomes based on individual-level data – This is also an expansion of dissertation work. Using the perceived cohesion data in the previously mentioned study, I will demonstrate how ABM can be used to expand our understanding of communication theories and processes.
• The effects of online journalism paywalls on selective exposure – I hope to carry out this study using a sample from the TESS program. I will be submitting a proposal to them this semester.

Beyond these studies, I hope to brainstorm and generate ideas for experimental studies looking at innovations in journalism. I think it is imperative that we test these new ideas not just for their economic effects, but also for their effects on our democracy at large.

Audio Slideshows

Granville Clock – This is a simple little slideshow from the Post Star in Saratoga, New York. It covers the restoration of an antique clock in Granville, New York.

The Miami Herald in Haiti – This slideshow covers the destruction and rebuilding after the Haiti earthquake.

His Body is a Prison – This slideshow was produced by the L.A. Times and covers the life of man who was rendered a quadriplegic.

Tampa Trash Clean-up – This slideshow was produced by my wife while she was a summer student fellow at the Poynter Institute. I use it as a teaching tool, because my wife is a newspage designer by trade and was able to put this together in just a few days.

Backpack Journalism

On More Game – Video story produced at a backpack journalism workshop at American University. It is a slice of life story about a street chess player in Washington D.C.

Database

Unemployment by demographics – New York Times interactive about unemployment.

Tampa Bay Mugshots – The infamous St. Pete Times mugshot website.

Gamifying the News

NYTimes Budget Game – Lets you try to balance the budget.

What symbol speaks to your generation? – An interactive quiz that tells you about your generation by USA Today.

Full Packages

Girl in the Window – Pulitzer Prize winning feature package by the St. Pete Times.

Homicide 37 – Pulitzer Prize nominated public affairs story by the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Darfur - MediaStorm’s coverage of the crisis in Darfur for the Council on Foreign Relations.

New Technologies/Ideas

Storify – Tool for curating social media sources to tell real-time stories.

WikiNews – Like Wikipedia but for news stories.

Spot.us – A website that helps provide prospective funding for works of journalism.