YouTube Revolution

This video has entertained people around the world for years all because it was posted on YouTube. The essence of YouTube is to ‘Broadcast Yourself,” and so the website is filled with all kinds of videos, some funny, some dramatic or artistic, some political and some just down right entertaining. “The Evolution of Dance” video certainly falls into the entertaining category where one man fits almost a century of dances into six minutes.

YouTube is yet another way of public broadcast, a mainstream “video blog” if you will. The website is frequented by hundreds of thousands of web surfers a day looking for something new to watch. People of all ages post videos and comments on the site and more and more people are creating YouTube Accounts each day.

Comment Away…

Remember when “Letters To The Editor” in newspapers and magazines were the only ways to voice a public opinion of the news? And even then, there was a possibility that your opinion piece would not even make press. Now, in the online journalism age, comments ranging from one word four paragraphs flood news websites. Commenting online is a tool open to anyone and can be completely anonymous. It is a way for the public to give personal feedback on the news, and judging by the hundreds of comments posted on websites like BBC or CBS, people have really taken to this online form of “Letter To The Editor.”

What I have found is that the number of comments to any given news story online affects its popularity. Are we not more drawn to a story that has over 50 comments opposed to a measly 3 or 4? Often I find myself reading the comments first, after all, they can be very entertaining. Our fascination with public opinion almost overrides our interest in the story.

Our need to comment on anything and everything going on in the news has always existed, and now online journalism has offered a way for the public to do just that in the most free and uncensored way. Not only that, but public commentary have attracted visitors to the news. Now not only do we get the news online but we get the world’s opinion of the news as well.

The Story’s “Out”

Story time is not what it used to be. I’ll admit, when I first saw BBC’s broadcast: Gay Literature In Schools, which depicted five year old children sitting in a semi-circle while their teacher panned a image from a storybook of two cartooned princes kissing, I was a little bewildered. I was certainly not read stories in kindergarden in which two men or two women were percieved to be coupled.

And while I did not turn out homophobic in the least, I do credit my generation to be filled with intolerant, crass, rude and bigeted indivduals who do continue to throw out gay slurs with negative conitation. In that sense, I can see why the schools see exposing homosexuality earlier to children will deter them from finding one sexual oprientation superior to the other, and resulting in yet another generation of socially unconiscious young adults.

After I thought about why I was so shocked when I saw this piece in the news, I realized that it was my sheltered education as a youngster that made this concept so radical, when really it isn’t at all. How can we preach eqaulity but wrinkle our nose and point our finger when two fictious princes kiss in a children’s storybook? Do we not plop children as young as three in front of The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty and other Disney classics in which heterosexual individuals are depicted falling in love and kissing one another?

People are concerned that this will drudge up the ever so taboo topic of sex at too young an age. I would argue that if we treat homosexuality for what it is, that is two people of the same sex in loving committed realtionship as opposed to just a sexual one, then the cartoon images will not seem radical or extreme in the least. If they are embedded into our already existing curriculum for youngsters than we can only hope the children will grow up to be socially concious indiviuals.

Online Researching: The Older Generation Online

As a journalist our primary tool is the internet and our ability to use search engines. Google is the most useful portal, for the most part it will connect a person with virtually any piece of information posted online.

As a class exercise we were told to research the internet usage of “old people” or the 65+ generation. We were given a guideline of what to look for: facts-quotes and sources-anecdotes and stories-expert analysis. These four factors contribute to the story.

For example, If I were to write a piece on the “The Older Generation Online” I would use the following information:

FACTS: Pew Internet & American Life Project has up to the date reports and statistics covering generational internet usage in patterns and percentages.

QUOTES AND SOURCES: There is a community of elderly people online which referred to as Silver Surfers and within that website there is a blog in which the older people are asked to join and contribute to. The blog is run by Digital Unite. This blog works as a communication portal for the elderly online and offers assistance with internet and computers.

ANECDOTES AND STORIES: Age Concern (ageconcern.org) is a website that also offers assistance to older people using the internet. One link on the website is called “Your Computer Stories” which has sound bites from various elderly people about their internet experiences.

EXPERT ANALYSIS: There is an interesting blog online run by Walter van den Broek, a practicing psychiatrist, who actually did a study on the the elderly online. His piece is titled “Generational Divide in Internet Use” This piece talks about this issue from an MD expert opinion.

I was able to find the four guidelines all through Google’s search engine. This just goes to show how useful the internet can be when you are researching a news story.

But Fugging is Fun…

Contemporary culture dictates a fascinating yet superficial lifestyle: that we are slaves to fashion and suckers for celebrity gossip and scandal. What better example of this than an entire blog dedicated to celebrity fashion bashing. While strolling through the hundreds of pictures on the website I couldn’t help but smirk at the crude commentary of Hollywoods’s finest starlets draped in what we know is hideously expensive garments. Whether I agreed or disagreed one thing was for certain, I was entertained.

These celeb bashing posts belong to none other than a site called “Go Fug Yourself” gofugyourself.com, a blog spot run by two women, Jessica and Heather, who have an affinity for critiquing the style choices of those celebrities we love to hate, or hate to love in some cases. The website itself has been praised by some of the top names in the Journalism Industry such as Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and Time Magazine.

Even The Wall Street Journal did a front page piece on the gossip site and in February of 2006 the New York Daily News commented saying, “The classy Heather and Jessica, alternately known as the Fug Girls, tear apart the worst of red-carpet fashion disasters — and do so with ferocious glee. … The fashion critiques are always reliably hilarious.”

Gofugyourself.com could be considered a guilty pleasure to many. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that the gossip blogs have caught on. Perezhilton.com revolutionized the way we get our fill of celebrity juice and gofugyourself.com follows in close suit. Some posts are ruthless and just plain mean, polls are even available for viewers to vote on whether or not they agree with the “fashion faux pas.” Most posts not only attack the clothes but the celebrity as well. You find yourself thinking “take it easy” but at the same time, “that is so true!”

Go Fug Yourself posted a piece Fug Girls: Ten Things We Learned From Celeb Fashion in 2008 on New York Magazine’s website, which outlined fun sarcastic fashion lessons taken from the mistakes made by celebs in the passing year. Number ten was entitled The Perfect Sparkly Minidress Can Make People Forget That Time You Shaved Your Head which took a stab at the infamous Britney Spears but praised her choice of dress. Everyone one loves a good backhanded compliment and gofugyourself.com is full of them.

Can we really learn the commandments of acceptable fashion from these two celebrity obsessed bloggers? Unlikey. Are we sure to be entertained by their commentary? Absolutely. If you are looking to give into the sensational need for some juicy celeb bashing, this is the site for you. There is something to be said for people who write or say what everyone else is thinking…so let Jessica and Heather take one for the team and visit gofugyourself.com. You are in for a deliciously wrong treat!

Multimedia Journalism-Does it work?

While streaming on the Internet on various news sights, I could not help but notice the vast number of multimedia video, audio and picture stories flooding the on-line news world. Almost every story has an accompanying visual or audio piece and the Internet world has made this kind of news possible

The story Obesity Threatens a Generation discusses the obesity epidemic affecting young people. The story has three videos: “Fat School”, “Kid Tested” and “2 words, 1 problem.” All of which last no more than 6 minutes a piece. These short visual vinyets complemented the on-line story  and  captured the interest of the reader.

Stories with videos  work because it puts pictures and faces to words. The visual elements made possible by the internet allow the viewer to actually see and hear kids suffering from obesity, rather than just reading about them.

Journalism has expanded from the tradition written art to a visual art as well. Being able to develop a news piece through visual and audio elements is Multimedia journalism, and its greatest outlet: the world wide web!