Saturday 1 May 2010

Media Factory in UCLan

UCLan’s digital media and journalism is very famous in the UK, and there are many students who come here for studying digital media and journalism. And there are many experts come to UCLan to give lectures. Media Factory was built in 2008, has now become a base for multimedia and factory.

find media factory on google map

View Media Factory in a larger map

A research UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking

JP Digital Digest: UK Newspapers & Social Bookmarking: "research"

Here is a slidershow for fundings. Click to read JP's blog.

Friday 30 April 2010

JP Digital Digest: Thinking about paywalls? Read this first...


This is a really article, I got some ideas from it. Steve Outing talked about paywall, and he gave some tips for paywall, and he thought paywall will only work in certain markets.

Here is some tips for protecting newspaper:

1. Offer paid subscriptions to the newspaper that also include free access to a digital-replica edition.


2. Offer paid digital-replica edition subscriptions that mimic the paper in electronic form, for those second-home owners in the area and others who want to keep up with...news and developments and prefer not to receive the print edition by mail when the news is several days old.





3. Continue to keep all your Web site content -- including locally produced news -- free to all. And yes, that includes print subscribers who might be tempted to save money, cancel the print edition, and rely on the free Web site.


4. Have your Web manager focus on better ad targeting, in order to identify out-of-area users as potential tourists interested in hotels, camping, excursions, etc. and show them relevant ads.


5. Most importantly, devise other reasons for paying print and/or digital subscribers to keep paying -- primarily by value-added online, digital, mobile and even physical extras not available to non-paying users of the Web site.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Digital skill survey results

I made in survey around the university about digital skills (survey form see Appendix). It called ‘Survey for Digital Skills, including thirteen normal digital skills, and two questions for each skill. I asked students which skills do you think are essential and hard to grasp. This was a basic survey, because this can be seen what important and difficult digital skills are for students in the basic technology.

I made a total of 40 questionnaires in March 22nd to 24th. From the survey I found:

1. Male thinks digital skills are more important then female, and 90% of men think that the majority of computer skills are very necessary.

2. With the increasing of blog, more people think and blog-related skills are become more important.

3. Mobile technology proportion also increased.

4. People tend to think that life is not a necessity for difficult skills, and general skills will be able to meet the needs in daily life.

5. The proportion of digital skills in Essential part (total 100%).





HTML: 10.5%; Blogging: 20.4%; Publishing: 18.7%; Advanced linking: 13.4%; Mobile skills: 6.9%; Others: 8.6%

6. The mark of digital skills in Hard Part (100 for each).




HTML: 62; Web design: 80; SEO: 67; Video-shoting: 52; Video-editing:70; Photoshop: 74; Flash:78; Others:20

Sunday 25 April 2010

Should we put paywall to mobile?


Google and Twitter (Wray, online, 2009)responded for the argument. They though the charge online could not work in this digital media era. As a website of searching and sharing, the Google and Twitter will not work as the “free” time, and they referred to the power of sharing. But, if someone bought an article on The Times, and he may sharing on the Facebook or Twitter, so that the Murdoch can get money form other readers.



The social bookmarking and blogs are the biggest challenge for charging online content. A Research reported that 90% consumers won't pay for online news, and 86% of the 16-24 age claimed they never to pay online (online, 2009).

Moreover, The Guardian said that they have no new paywall, and they will not join the Murdoch’ charging online (online, 2009). It means that reader will read on the free online news not on the charge online news, and Murdoch will lose readership and advertising.

The media company could consider about the mobile charging. Like the FT, FT as new apps to IPhone, there are three articles are free, and other article are paid for, but the FT still get loyal customers (online, 2009).
A survey showed that IPhone users are happier to pay for online (Wray, online, 2009), and China mobile gained 10 million customers for mobile news (online, 2009). It means that the market of mobile user is a place the charging online should be work.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Saturday 24 April 2010

Ipad -- could be anything

Ipad is quite good for any users, it could be e-book, computer, music player...
However I think it is quite suit for journalists, it can get Wi-Fi, so journalists can write articles and publish as soon as possible and any where. The most important is Ipad with low weight and long battery. So it is maybe a good tool for journalists.


Friday 23 April 2010

Good news for iPad users!!


I found a good website for iPad users, include myself!!

iPad can be used as a e-book! We can download Novels, Comics, Newspapers & more without any more software, only need to connect with internet.

I've tried, and its really good for me. I download a novel when I went to travel. It helped me spent a good time on train! Unfortunately, its have to pay... Hope free one day!! :)

http://www.mypadmedia.com/join.html

P.S. I am not promoting for the website, I am just a user.

picture via Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Creative Commons


Creative commons is a good solution to the copyright issues. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. (Online resource: CC)

Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use legal tools that give everyone from individual creators to major companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to pre-clear copyrights to their creative work. CC licenses let people easily change their copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” (Online resource: creativecommons.org) If you’ve created something and want people to know that you’re happy to have them share, use, and build upon your work, you should consider publishing under a Creative Commons license.

CC’s legal infrastructure gives you flexibility (for example, you can choose to only pre-clear noncommercial uses) and protects the people who use your work (so that they don’t have to worry about copyright infringement, as long as they abide by the terms you have specified). (Online resource: creativecommons.org)

Creative commons has been a good solution to copyright. It effectively helps the copyright issues. Traditional journalism and digital journalism all reflect the balance of society. For example, when the financial crisis comes, press pay high attention on financial crisis.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Monday 19 April 2010

Social networking




Example of social networking: Facebook




People can find your friend and friend's friend easily on Facebook.

Saturday 17 April 2010

Google Map and Google SketchUp

Google Map:

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

Google Maps are now widely used in people's lives. When people go to travel, they may do some research on GOOGLE maps to set plan. Google Map has evolved the traditional paper map in some extent.

People can create a map by themselves. This is a video to introduce how to make a google map.

Google Sketchup:

Google Sketchup is a powerful but simple graphics tool. Since Google bought Sketchup, it is free to download.


For me, this software very simple to use, especially after watching the video tutorial, even if the first operation, there would not be difficult to use, and the interface is very simple, and running very quickly, the software almost instantly started.


Video collection for video-shooting

In modern life, video-taking has not only engaged in professional staff. Now many people have liked taking videos. Video can record snippets of our lives, our memories of life.But as a professional journalist, video-shooting is a must to master skill. This is directly related to the quality of programming.
I looked for the three videos on Youtube, all are very useful for journalism students and the general public . The first one that is more professional. The second and the third is shooting skills to use the Flip .






Thursday 15 April 2010

Web first strategy


The reverse publication is a good way to combine online and print. Reverse publication is web first strategy, and print company put news online first. “This means having reporters and editors think first about reporting and producing text and multimedia stories for the web, then writing a text story for the print edition (Grabowicz, Stevens, Rue & Monti, online, 2009)”.

The feature of web first is speed. People could read news at first time, and it is easy for people to catch and undestand the news. The TOB.com launched and used web first strategy of online newspaper website in 2000 (Grabowicz, Stevens, Rue & Monti, online, 2009), and The Guardian decided online first in 2006 (Sweney, online, 2006). The two examples show that the web first strategy widely, and it create a huge readership and making advertising revenue from online.

However, the web first is not good for print. Because it is much quick than newspaper, people will focus on the online news instead of waiting for newspaper. So that the circulation of print will goes down. Mike Alexieff said that: “web is free and storied are speed, why pay for a late news on newspaper (edited by Patten, online, 2008)?”

The advertising is not good for print, online news attracted many advertisers and the classify ads going online. The advertising revenue is almost the mainly, even only revenue for online, so the “dual product” (Doyle, 2002) could not suitable for online.

At the same time, the geography changed, the economies of scale will total different, such as regional newspaper, Lancashire Evening Post. On other side, the online news still has some problems. Even though the online news is speed, it not deep discussion on that news, it’s just a brief induction, and somebody would doubt the truth of the report. And also it’s not work for old people and loyal customers.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Saturday 10 April 2010

What is copyright?


Copyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain.



Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium. Some jurisdictions also recognize "moral rights" of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work. Copyright is described under the umbrella term intellectual property along with patents and trademarks.


An example of the intent of copyright, as expressed in the United States Constitution, is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."[1]


Copyright has been internationally standardized, lasting between fifty to a hundred years from the author's death, or a shorter period for anonymous or corporate authorship. Some jurisdictions have required formalities to establish copyright, but most recognize copyright in any completed work, without formal registration. Generally, copyright is enforced as a civil matter, though some jurisdictions do apply criminal sanctions.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Photoshop tutorial

Photoshop is your online photo sharing, editing and hosting resource. Upload, organize, edit, store (up to 2GB free) and share your photos.
For me, photoshop is hard work, but interesting. I just know the basic tool to edit my photo. And there are many and many shills I don't know. I think it need a long time to learn. I wanted to show my skills, but I think you may think it is too basic. hehe... So, I found 2 good video on YouTube. Hope helpful!



Basic photoshop tool:


Advanced photoshop tool:

Sunday 4 April 2010

Commercially funded TV and Public service TV


With the development of economics, some large media companies have enough money to buy, merger or build a TV station. But the first TV is public service TV. In developed country, the commercial TV has a big market, and people like the programmes of it. While, it rare and not popular in most developing and ‘Third Word’ countries, because government ‘controlling’ the TV station.

The common point of commercial TV and public TV is that the quality of the programme, presentation of the report and the principle of journalism are no fundamental difference. On the other hand, the public TV is a government-funded service for the public. The commercial TV is client-oriented (Bai Du net, 2008, online).

Professor Zhan Li said that the commercial television is by capitalists or consortia, in order to ad-based revenue, and use the pornography, violence, crime and vulgar entertainment programmes to reach profit, but it also meet people’s demand. The public television refers to the national assembly by the government. It is funded by fees paid by the public and state funding, some supported by advertising revenue. The purpose is to make television services in strict accordance with the public, so that raise people's level of education by watching TV, the promotion of country development and the provision of high ideals and goals of entertainment( Mao, 2005, online).

Even though the commercial TV makes profit as purpose, it can not be denied the position that in people’s daily lives. Commercial TV offers a lot of entertainment for people to relax. Furthermore, the commercial television also made a lot of reform. For example, FOX television that is under News Corporation also has a series of non-pure entertainment programmes, such as news programme. The aim is to reach the audience's request, and change the commercial television’s original impression in the hearts of the most public.
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Thursday 1 April 2010

SEO and how it help media company under credit crunch

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) which may deal with paid inclusion.


As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines.



Some companies will choose the online to maintain profit, and they wanted to use the digital skills to get profit. The SEO is way to get more readership. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, is a technical skill for online marketing (http://www.webconfs.com/, 2009) The SEO help the website to promote itself and it will show the ranking of the website, and the ranking shows the popularity of that website.

The SEO will help media company gain the readership when readers search online. Readers could search online from every place of the whole world, and it is different from traditional market (http://www.primaryposition.com/, 2009). Increased internet exposure is one of the SEO’s advantages (Adams, 2007). When people search online, they will prefer the high ranking website than low ranking’s, so that, the high ranking website could attract more readership.




Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Use your mobile

The mobile technology is really amazing. As many platform went to mobile and mobile got many social tools, like Facebook, Twitter, the mobile technology going fast. Mobile may create another era of media. Now, more and more media things going to mobile, such as news.

Mobile is a quite tool for journalists. Journalists can use mobile to do work. They can publish news by their mobile.

I found 2 good slideshows to show the impact of mobile.



Basic Flash tutorial

There is a lot of Animation software, Director, LiveMotion, and so on, but we are most familiar, may still be Macromedia's Flash.
Flash is so popular because of: Flash not only can generate automatically executable file (*. exe), can also be generated with the Flash player to play the files (*. SWF); both can be made into a separate animation, such as self-made small movies, MTV, embedded in Web documents can become part of web page, such as website content navigation; Flash provides stream transmission, came out with it to produce the animation can download, as well as viewing, thus ensuring the playback quality, and to break the network speed restrictions.

But Flash is little harder to people who is first time to do it. There are 2 video for basic Flash tool:



Monday 29 March 2010

The Value and Function of Journalism


Does journalism is a product? It is argued about many times. This is dependent on the journalism of the dual attributes. Picard said that journalism as a ‘dual product’ (1989). Media company create two commodities, first is content, it includes television programmes, newspaper copy, magazine articles, etc., and second is audience. The content what viewers and readers consumed become a product. Another product is this audience, so that the company could sale these audience group to advertise through packaged and priced (Doyle, 2002).

Journalism is a product, it can be used and exchanged, and they show the value of journalism. Journalism industry is about supplying content to consumers (Doyle, 2002). When seller sold the information means the content will be helpful and useful for public. Journalism products meet people's need of information and entertainment, so it has a very high level of use value. Moreover, journalism product can be defined as the products and services which have to exchange in order to satisfy the demand of people consume the information and entertainment. Therefore, journalism has exchange value (Qian, 2008).

Journalism is one of the links in the mass media. Overall, it has four main functions. Reporting, that is the function of telling, it lets the people who live in the diversified and variable society know living environment, accommodate living environment and even improve living environment through the mass media. Education: journalism will constantly disseminate the new concepts, new knowledge and new technologies which are necessary in modern society to the public, it is not only a media that implement the social education but also make up for the shortage of school education. Entertainment: the entertainment component of news, such as the interesting reporting, cartoons, pictures, supplements of newspaper and so on, relieve people from anxiety. Advertising: the advertisements in the media put the distance between producers and consumers more closely. It promotes the boom of economy and commercial development, and even improves the living standard of national (Yang, 2003, online).


Reference:


Doyle, G. (2002), Understanding Media Economics, SAGE Publications, London


Qian, X. W. (2008), Dang Dai Chuan Mei Jing Ying Guan Li, Zhong Shan University Press (Chinese Book), Guangzhou
Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Saturday 27 March 2010

survey

SURVEY FOR DIGITAL SKILLS

Age: Sex: Male / Female

Which Digital Skills do you think are Essential and Hard ?

1. HTML

2. Blogging

3. Social bookmarking

4. Web design

5. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

6. Publishing

7. Advanced linking

8. Video-shooting

9. Video-editing

10. Photoshop

11. Photo-taking

12. Flash

13. Mobile technology



Thank you very much!!

Wednesday 24 March 2010

China -- web is growing fast

The repeot is in Chinese, so I just translate some important part. More to see: http://www.gmw.cn/content/2010-01/22/content_1043010.htm


1. To December 30, 2009, the scale of China's Internet users reached 384 million people, coverage reached 28.9%. Internet users increase of 8,600 people by the end of 2008, annual growth rate of 28.9%, the scale of growth in Internet users in China has slowed down.


2.Broadband users reach 346 million people, compared with 2008, growth of 76 million. Although China's broadband penetration is high, but broadband Internet access speeds lagging far behind the developed countries.


3. The scale of China's mobile Internet users increase of 120 million, 2.33 million people, accounting for 60.8% of Internet users. There are 30.7 million users who only use mobile Internet, accounting for 8% of Internet users. Mobile Internet users access into a new growth point.


4. The Internet users in country reached 106.81 million, accounting for 27.8% of Internet users. An increase of 26.3%.


5.The proportions of using Internet at home continue to increase, in 2009, more than 80% (83.2%) of Internet users at home.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

video 2 -- Clare Cook

This is an interview for Clare Cook, and She was journalist,but she is a senior lecture of University of Central Lancashire now. She talked about the changes of media industry and gives advice to journalism students.

Questions:
1. When you started work as a journalists?
2. How you did your job (the platform)?
3.Was there any changes when you work?
4.The benefit from digital for journalists?
5.Could you give some advices to journalism students?


Thursday 18 March 2010

Advertising on newspaper



Advertising is a bridge between producers and consumers and also to ensure the normal operation of the blood of the newspaper.

Modern newspaper advertising revenue increasing large area, There were generally 50% to 60% of the American press need to advertising, or media would be hard to maintain.

According to 1995 statistics, Newspaper advertising revenue in the proportion of the economy in the United States is 86%, 61% in the UK. To Japan is 41%, newspaper advertising is the real economy, major mining sources.In addition, advertising is an important part of the newspaper information, contact the community newspapers link.


Picture via wikimedia Commons



Today, the Internet has swept the globe, the traditional media, and particularly press was hard attracted by the Internet. Internet is hardest hit people for young readers and traditional way of reading. As the newspaper main income - advertising, are now being replaced by network ads.


Since the 1990's, the major developed countries are showing the press continued to decline in circulation, advertising revenue fell, the challenges of international competition, so there are a lot of people think that the traditional newspaper will be replaced by the network.
Reference: Meida Intorduction (Chinese book)

Wednesday 17 March 2010

Advertising on web


Compare with traditional media, as the existence of the network, even if it is living at home, the people can publish and find information they needed arbitrarily though the classified ads web, and without any fees. Nowadays network is an exponential growth, explosive growth, because of convenience, more and more people recognize that the Internet, the growth of internet users is more far that traditional media.


As the world media magnate Rupert Murdoch says that with the expansion of Internet classified advertising market, the volume of traditional newspaper publishers is shrinking, the operation of commercial mode is facing a growing threat, newspaper classified ads will be gradually moving towards extinction. Classified ads should be faced by the general public. In other words, where their needs exist, where the classified ads exist, the lives of ordinary people are real, and therefore classified ads should also be pragmatic

Advertising is a big industry, and it developed very quickly and changed a lot. Advertising will changed by new technology, market and media model. The advertising spend raised fast last 15 years, but the advertising spend dropped by credit crunch recently. The downturn began in 2007, and it will come more in 2009. It was reported that the UK advertising spend to fall nearly 6% in 2009, and UK media will feel worst about ads than any other developed countries (Sweney, 2008).

The newspaper advertising will drop by 12% in 2009; moreover, TV advertising will drop by 6%, radio ads by 8% and magazine ads by 8.5 %( Zykova, 2008). However, the online ads grow fast and strong in 2006 to 2009. Group M shown the internet ad spend growth rate in 2009 down from 20% to only 4%. Because the effect of online ad spend, the traditional media will be drop 10% year on year in 2009 and 9% in 2009 (Sweney, 2008).


Reference:

Anderson, C. (2006:88), The Long Tail, Business Book, London

Doyle, G. (2002), Understanding Media Economics, SAGE Publications, London
Pciture via Wikimedia Commons

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Basic HTML tutorial

The HTML is basic language for internet, and is also important tool to edit websites. I think the basic network cannot without HTML language. But it is ashamed that I was not very proficient in HTML, and also requires a lot of learning. So I found some material online, let us learn from this amazing computer language.

1.What is HTML?

HTML, which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists etc as well as for links, quotes, and other items.

2. HTML tags?

HTML markup tags are usually called HTML tags
HTML tags are keywords surrounded by angle brackets like
HTML tags normally come in pairs like and
The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag
Start and end tags are also called opening tags and closing tags

3. The basic HTML language?

Example Explained
The text between and describes the web page
The text between and is the visible page content
The text between and is displayed as a heading the text between and is displayed as a pargarph


4. How to use?



Through these simple to learn, I now have some preliminary understanding of HTML. HTML more useful in editing than I imagined. Of course, if I want to learn more HTML, or take a long time to learn. Hope I can create a website by using HTML one day.

Saturday 13 March 2010

The problem of spread of mobile phone



Through mobile phone expand a new time of media, but there are also some problems. From these problems, we can use the mobile phone better and we can improve it.


①SMS spam
It is an indisputable fact that SMS have become a convenient way to communicate, but since the date of birth there are many SMS spam of it. Look at current situation and the proliferation of great potential, which will undoubtedly the lives of people a lot of distress.


“Utility messages”--Manufacturing emotional pressure; “bad messages”--audio-visual space pollution; “advertising messages”--forced brainwashing; “illegal messages”—harm the public.
SMS to refuse treatment has reached the point of no delay. But on the current situation, this work is not an easy task. We must have a strong legal guarantee to maintain common messages platform of the legitimate and normal.


②Copyright issues
Media and the problem of copyright is a more sensitive topic, in recent years, with the emergence of new media, the copyright issues always appear. There is growing awareness that the media culture should be protected by law, a person shall reap the profits, and the maintenance of reasonable and objective conditions for fair competition in the industry is to ensure the healthy growth of the key.
Pference: Xiaoyu Tong, Ji Cai & Lei Zhang (2006), The Principle Fifth media, China Telegraph Press, China

Wednesday 10 March 2010

What is CAR and how will it help?

CAR is short for Computer-Assisted Report, and it “refers to anything that uses computers to aid in the newsgathering process " Kawamoto thought CAR could be use the internet to find out information about a specific topic. Stephen Lamble’s claimed that using Computer-Assisted Research can help you create a strong original stories often do not, or can not in any other way, or in a particular time.

Computer-Assisted Report is a tool for journalists. On one hand, the CAR increased the efficiency of journalists’ work to analysis the data with the story. On the other hand, Computer-Assisted Report could help the nonprofessional people, who are citizen journalists and public. The nonprofessionals used computer to do the story.



Reference:

Kevin, K. (2003), Digital Journalism – Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, UK

Monday 8 March 2010

Media companies in credit crunch


News organisation is changing the distribution models. Some companies will choose the online to maintain profit, and they wanted to use the digital skills to get profit. The SEO is way to get more readership. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, is a technical skill for online marketing (http://www.webconfs.com/, 2009) The SEO help the website to promote itself and it will show the ranking of the website, and the ranking shows the popularity of that website.

The SEO will help media company gain the readership when readers search online. Readers could search online from every place of the whole world, and it is different from traditional market (http://www.primaryposition.com/, 2009). Increased internet exposure is one of the SEO’s advantages. When people search online, they will prefer the high ranking website than low ranking’s, so that, the high ranking website could attract more readership.

The paid form distribution is mainly focus on online because of Murdoch situation. Murdoch thought that:” content is not free and quality journalism is not cheap." Some people from free newspapers and free website are though that charging online will not work because of the power of “sharing”. People will share content on the Facebook or Twitter. The Wall Street Journal’s online made money online, but Microsoft's online literary magazine Slate lost money online. So the charging online could improve the news quality, because media company will pay money to train journalist and create good news.

Interview 1 -- Guy Kilty

Guy Kilty, 33, from Manchester, he studies Journalism at University of Central Lancashire. He teaches English as well. As a result, he know the importance of digital journalism.

I asked 3 questions:
1. What do you think aout digital journalism as an English teacher?
2. Are there any different meanings for you as a journalism student?
3.What do digital skills bring to you (the benefit)?

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Citizen journalist cf. professional






To compare the citizen journalist and professional journalist, they are different but interdependent with each other. For the quality of news, professional journalist could report in-deepth. The main stream media have money to support journalist to find deep report with a story. But the citizen journalist cannot afford for the money. For the control and training, professional journalist are better than citizen journalist.

However, citizen journalist could have more communication with readers. They publish articles on the websites at the first time, and they can manage their blog, so they can communicate with reader directly. The professional journalist put story on newspaper and online, they can only read the comments late and have little responds. What’s more, citizen journalist could provide a wide range of topics to meet the readers’ needs, so the “long tail” (Anderson, 2006) could work on citizen journalist. But the professional journalist only has their own area to report, and the topics will less than citizen journalist.

In addition, the main stream media are relying on citizen journalist. The professional journalist will look at Twitter or Facebook everyday, and check what the pubic are talking about. So the professional journalist will decide what story to report, and they can touch with people. At the same time, citizen journalist can get some news and professional tips from professional journalist.


Picture via Wikimedia Commons

Reference:

Allan & Thorsen (2009),. In citizen Journalism , Peter Lang, New York,

Monday 1 March 2010

RSS



By the appearance of web 3.0, which people could not only read and write, but also could publish on the Internet. The RSS will be more familiar with public and helped journalists a lot. The acronym of RSS is stands for "really simple syndication”, and people could find an ‘orange icon’ on mostly websites. RSS can help people automatically to get contents of sites or blogs without the need for manually posting the contents . The RSS is a digital tool to help users can get newest things and articles. And the RSS feed could help bloggers to collect and analysis what the favorite thing of users. RSS allows people to stay informed with the latest content from the interested website easily, at the same time, people could save to prevent visit every individual website.

For the journalists, they can compare reader best loved news, and create more good news for readers, and at the same time, the media company could get more readership. For example, people only search many websites to find useful and interesting articles several years ago, and this is a one-way communication, so journalists could not get feedback for readers. However, people could use RSS to read the articles they interested in, and journalists could have a communication with their readers.
Reference:
Kevin, K. (2003), Digital Journalism – Emerging Media and the Changing Horizons of Journalism, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, UK

Thursday 25 February 2010

Hard news and soft news


There have two types of news story; they are hard news and soft news. Hard new generally refers to up-to-the-minute news and events that are reported immediately, while soft news is background information or human-interest stories. The topic of the soft news is not very serious. The hard news contains Politics, war, economics and crime, and the soft news is arts, entertainment and lifestyles.

Hard news has the following three characteristics: it directly relates to people vital interests and the survival of people; for personal development, people do everything possible to understand it; it has strong timing, expired news is completely worthless. So in the dissemination of information it should mainly based on hard news.

Soft news can be developed greatly by the changing of people’s life. People like celebrity gossip rather than policy news. At the same time, the soft news could gain a lot of advertising revenue and it could bring profit to the media company. However the hard news mostly about what happened of the society and the society cannot live without hard news.
Reference:
Bob, F., Martin, H., Mark, H., Marie, K. & John, E. R. (2005:66), Key Concepts in Journalism Studies, S AGE, London
Bob, F., Martin, H., Mark, H., Marie, K. & John, E. R. (2005:85), Key Concepts in Journalism Studies, S AGE, London

Monday 22 February 2010

The influence of mobile phone



Since the appearance of mobile phone, people’s life is changing a lot, even the whole society. There are 3 parts which are influenced by mobile phone.




1.The effect to economy
Some people say that the “thumb economy” is a miracle in the development of economic, and some people feel that this is exaggerated. However, the “thumb economy” has entered the socio-economic system, and it brings a deep impact to the socio-economic development. The whole economy environment, economic thinking, the operation mode of small business are changed. It can be said that in the fifth media, the “thumb economy” is accepted by the public, and become an essential part of social life. This is the real economy meaning of the fifth media.

2.The effect to culture

In the beginning of founding mobile phone is just to talk. However, under the promoting of new technologies, this mobile communication toll are increasing gradually rich. In a variety of hardware technology and equipment, music, film, literature, photography, animation, etc. art forms have also entered the mobile phones, and developed a new "mobile entertainment" phenomenon. In the entertainment culture of the different interpretation of the art mobile phones and personal narrowing the distance gradually evolved into a new interactive situation.

3.The effect to society

The media are a product of society, but also to promote social development. Look at the evolution of the media, the telephone made the real-time long-distance reality, which has shortened the distance between people; radio and television will be different types of crowds to the same scene, and the original differences in the transposition process role been weakened, and the network is to achieve a further globalization within the scope of information sharing, social and public areas to be unlimited expansion. When the fifth media rise, messaging everywhere, interpersonal communication and mass communication to the successful combination of media and the general public also linked to the lives more closely. Thus, the mass media on the structure of human society is imperceptible and far-reaching significance.

Reference: http://mo.zzit.com.cn/new/20100317/249500.shtml
The Fifth Media -- Mobile (Chinese Book)

Friday 19 February 2010

Paywall (1) -- What is paywall

Paywall is a number of mechanisms, different contents, and one must pay for other content from the network (Jon, online, 2009). Harpreet.seehra said that:”It’s often used by magazines or newspapers as an online business model trying to claw back income from readers who have abandoned buying paper copies of their titles(online, 2009).” Jargon thought that:” A website that restricts access to certain content only to paid subscribers (online, 2009).” So it seems that, the paywall is a way of making money from online for the content.


Monday 15 February 2010

Social bookmarking

Pam said that “social bookmarking is an online method of storing, organizing, sharing and searching bookmarks of selected web pages” (2008). The social bookmarking is a digital tool to instead of saving website in favorite, and it is easy to share with others online (Nation, 2009). The most popular social bookmarking are reddit and delicious in the UK.

People can simply go to delicious and choose the category or tag that people interested in, and find the most popular websites, so people may focus on that website. In addition, if a website got many tags on it and public save it on the decious, it means that the website has plenty useful article to attract readers, so that the website or blog could get better rank.



Thursday 11 February 2010

What is citizen journalists

With the development of online – web 3.0 and digital skills, many people use blog to publish their report and opinions on websites, and they can share the content to others. The citizen journalist affects professional journalist and media industry. This essay will talk about the citizen journalist and new online strategy.

Citizen Journalism is an evolving form of journalism through user generated content. (http://www.merinews.co/, 2009) The citizen journalists living in all sectors of society, so they have the ability to record what happened in the society. Citizen journalist expresses things around them or in this society. They often use digital platforms, like blog, Facebook, Twitter to publish the articles.

As a complement of mass media, citizen journalist in order to provide more media source, and interact with the mass media. Citizen journalists offer inexhaustible "source." for traditional media. In general, the mass media has its own dedicated team of professional journalists, but the power of professional journalists are limited, and any advanced technologies can not guarantee that professional journalists can record everything. The citizen journalist can make up for the lack of mass media resource.
Allan & Thorsen (2009),. In citizen Journalism , Peter Lang, New York

Sunday 7 February 2010

The digital brings more platforms to journalism


With the development of science and technology, the journalism has entered a new era. Everyone is going digital now, even to an industry which contact to newest things. Now, more and more reporters use the way of online journalism to work. So, the digital newsroom leads to a great change for journalism.

The digital newsroom brings more working platforms to journalism. The Digital newsroom and multi-media changing the way and platform of reporters usually work. Reporters only could be print journalist who only outputs in print in the old media time, whereas now they can use network resources, and even multi-platform and multi-media.


(1) Normally used multi-media tools When we usually use the network, a wide range of multimedia tools in front of us, these multi-media tools is an integral part of digital newsroom. In fact, our network is a comprehensive multi-media tool. When I search on some information about environment, I would like to connect the Internet firstly, and then enter a number of related words, such as climate, location, interesting place, ect. Then choose to connect the information I need, and then through Photoshop and FrontPage to edit and revise, at last, they will be used on my blog. Of course, I need many multi-media tools. For example: word, PowerPoint, flash etc. These will make journalism more digital.


(2) The effects and benefits of using multi-media
1. Vivid images, easier to understand. Through using a number of multi-media software, editing images, text, animation and sound, the article will be written as well as vivid, and it will be better to remember in the reader's mind.
2. Contains large amount of information. An ordinary CD-ROM can accommodate 10,000 on the books. People can access to a large number of effective message in a short time through the network.
3. InteractiveMulti-media technology allows electronic media to disseminate information interactively. Information receptor as well as the information releaser, the receptor and releaser could exchange information in same platform. This is last media can not do.

Therefore, the new media will change the way people's lives. Development and application of digital newsroom brings a new sense and experience to journalism.

How to use Windows Movie Maker?

Windows Movie Maker is a video creating/editing software, included in Microsoft Windows. It contains features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, timeline narration, and Auto Movie.

After that, you can share your results with friends and family by Web, e-mail, personal computers or CD, or DVD. You can also save the movie to the video on the camera in television or play.

Supported formats for saving movies• Windows Media Video files:. Wmv• Windows Media Audio files:. Wma• DV / AVI video format:. Avi

Windows Movie Maker is a easy tool to edit video.

Friday 5 February 2010

Next Power of Digital -- Mobile Phone


With the development and improvement of science and technology, so the media is from the firstly print time to the lastly diversified and new media time. According to the traditional set off way about media, newspaper, radio, TV and Internet were called the First, Second, Third and Fourth Media. The Internet has already set down the chair of “the Fourth Media”, so all people focus on the next actor.

3G mobile phones have a lot of new functions, they contain the newspaper, radio, TV and Internet. Through these new functions, people can make telephone calls, work and entertainment on mobile phones. The mobile phone is “the Fifth Media” which make a deep influence after Internet.

Mobile phone’s main characteristics are: rich variety of the content and form of the information source; spreading widely and dispersed; the process of spreading information is convenience and quickly; the cost of spreading is cheap and the function is strong. The cost of mobile phone’s spreading is cheaper than others. And the important point is there are many interesting and useful functions in mobile phone.

Thursday 4 February 2010

Digital strategy of News Corporation


In order to get more profit, many large media company began to enter the online industry, and they put a lot of money to make sure the position on online. Of course, as one of the large company, News Corporation also made effort on it.

Because the internet is in the ascendant and "Media Empire" News Corporation is full of vigor and it moves the strategic stress into the internet. News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said that the next few years, the News Corporation will have an increase of 10 billion dollars, continue to expand business of networks and strive to become the” outstanding" in this field. News Corporation’s investment which is used to develop the internet will increase to 20 million. The group believes that in view of the rapid growth of Internet advertising and changing of the people's viewing habits, the News Corporation has to adjust to the wave of change.

Fox Interactive Media was founded in July 2005 and has acquired several Internet companies. In addition to these enterprises, News Corporations found that the combination of relevant content and quality is most powerful, it makes truly profitable. Murdoch thought that the challenge over the coming month is to establish a common navigation between these enterprises and existing webs. It allows users to switch to-and-fro various attributes. The objective of the conglomerate is to make up for the shortages and provide the best internet experience at any time.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

4 business models for online business

The development of science, technology and digital created the Internet and the Internet economy. As a kind of journalism products, the Internet's economic model has a certain difference with other journalism products. Internet economy is more interactive, personalized, virtual sex and globalization. Internet economy is not only confined to the audience and advertising, and there are other ways to obtain profits.

There are four business models for online business :

Profitable way 1: C2C (consumer to consumer) model
C2C stands for consumer to consumer. This model is mainly in the form of personal auction. The world famous C2C sites are eBay, Google and yahoo. The operation of such sites is hard. It is hard to establish credibility and the cost of operation and promotion is very high.

Profitable way 2: online ads
It is the common way to make profits from online ads. It has diversified forms, for example banner, logo, flash multimedia animation, online video and so on. From the view of charging, now charging based on click rate is very popular. Search engine like Google and BaiDu mainly take advantage of such ads. In 2005 the revenue of Google is 3.1 billion dollars, most of they originate from this kind of ads.

Profitable way 3: online retailing (B2C)
When talk about the online retailing, the initial response is Amazon. Amazon is the biggest online retail store in the world. Last year the revenue of Amazon was more than 6.9 billion dollars. Usually the online retailing has two ways to operation: one is to distribute your own products through the internet, another way is to build retail platform and help other people to sell their products through your site.

Profitable way 4: B2B
B2B stands for business to business. That’s to say the business between manufactory. Common parlance, the buyers and sellers ate both businesses. They make use of internet and different business net platform to complete the process of deal. This can help enterprises to reduce costs.

Monday 1 February 2010

How to create your own blog with Blogger and Wordpress?

Blogger is a good platform to create your own blog. It is quite easier, and the Blogger provides many interneting digital tools for you to make your blog unique.

This is a first workshop for using Blogger -- create your own blog. In addittion, I will share my other experience of working with Blogger.


Wordpress is another good platform for people, and it is more professional.



Sunday 31 January 2010

The E-paper



This video is quite clear to explain what is e-paper, and how does it work. The e-paper was produced by technology, and it may helps print.

Electronic paper, e-paper or electronic ink display is a display technology designed to mimic the appearance of ordinary ink on paper.

E-paper has broken the traditional model of reading. Some people think that E-paper will replace paper appears in people's lives, and more environmentally friendly. But I think not. Newspapers play irreplaceable role in people's lives.

Although the newspaper really done some damage on the environment, but many newspapers are recycled. And, with the development of electronic, newspapers have indeed been some impact, but newspapers are still reading way of many people choice.

However, E-paper have own benefits and provides a reference for the future transformation of the newspaper. If the newspaper agencies publish some own or cooperative E-paper, so what will happen?

Wednesday 27 January 2010

How can Digital help us?


With the development of technology, there are more and more media platforms appeared, such as social networking, youtube, blogs, mobile phones, etc. So there are a lot of platform for public to share what they think, what they want to say and they can use this platform to learn. This is the importance of users in control. Steve O'Hear said that web 2.0 create a new model of teaching and learning for students. Teacher and students could use blogs, flickr and youtube to learn new things, and this will arouse students’ potential and make the better communication between teacher and student.


Compare with traditional media, as the existence of the network, even if it is living at home, the people can publish and find information they needed arbitrarily though the classified ads web, and without any fees. Nowadays network is an exponential growth, explosive growth, because of convenience, more and more people recognize that the Internet, the growth of internet users is more far that traditional media.

Saturday 23 January 2010

What is digital?

When we talk about “digital”, most people would think of more difficult skills of the film or computer technology.

In fact, DIGITAL close from our modern life, such as searing the Internet to find information, join the Facebook, Twitter, etc. The simplest example is the use of digital cameras. Now, almost every family will have a digital camera, and frequently used in daily life. This has prompted a wide range of using Flickr.

In addition, as the network developed, people are happy to share their lives online log, this is - BLOG! Now there are countless Blogs online, according to statistics, there are 70 million BLOG on the Internet in July 2005. The Basic statistics is now no longer. Just for China, it had 72.82 million Blogs! Huge numbers!!

Therefore, modern people can not live without the colorful DIGITAL platform, of course, we are going to enjoy it!!


This is an amazing video. I said 'wow' after watched. This is the design process of digital media. Let us see how magic the digital media is !!