Planning each story beforehand was slightly difficult. I tended to not really know what to expect and I was afraid of being caught up in the web of my own preparation and missing the real story once I was faced with it. So I did enough research to gain an overview perspective on the topic, without formulating my own preconceptions on the subject. This was not easy.
It was when I started being more flexible to the context of each story that I was able to do each story individual justice. Instead of subscribing all of them to a set formula I was open to the possibility of each story unfolding in its own way.
An example of this would be the 'Posthuman Race' story. Initially I had intended on basing my photo-story on Case Rijsdijk's Scifest lecture on 'Physics and Film' but after attending Professor Sandra Kemp's lecture, 'Human enhancement: Future designs and bio features', I realised that her lecture would make for a much more invogerating multi-media package, so I investigated that aspect of science and film.
Working with the information I had gathered in Prof. Kemp's lecture, I was able to research relevant material and reliable sources, and not waste hours surfing the internet whilst hoping for the best. My energies and resources were directed and therefore I believe I bore better fruit then I would have researching everything on the subject. And at this point I was starting to formulate an angle to the multi-media package.
So in this way, the newsgathering process was made less daunting.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Why is it important for an African journalists to have a solid grasp of the technical language of HTML?
Teaching journalism students how to design and maintain HTML structures helps “reinforce many important journalism principles"[1] , such as the importance of precise writing. A journalist’s credibility is measured according to how accuracy they relay information.
Getting to grips with the technical jargon of HTML equips journalists with the ability to tackle and decipher technical documents, such as government statistics or budgets. HTML students learn how “to see content divorced from its presentation”.[2] Pretty colours and fonts do not easily fool them. As a result, corrupt governments and corporations are unable to hide behind (otherwise) intimidating technical jargon and documentation.
The ability to see content removed from its presentation trains the journalist’s (eye) and mind on how to critically and objectively report news. Therefore, an HTML journalism student does not merely identify irregularities in technical document structures; they can also conduct critical analysis of the content itself.
HTML also nurtures the journalist’s natural curiosity of how and why the world functions the way it does. Without this curiosity, the journalist is without his or her spark.
And finally, knowing how to code HTML style sheets puts a student journalist in a favourable position for when they do enter the journalism field; it is “a key concept for anyone who wants to take advantage of the ability to republish content across multiple media”.[3]
However, Travis Smith (a journalism and HTML educator) does not seem to fully agree with this:
“While knowing HTML code is useful today, we're not that far from an era where it won't be.
How many paginators can read and write postscript, or untangle a PDF document using BBEdit? Virtually none. Software provides an abstratction (sic) layer and allows them to spend their time on the presentation, not nitpicking the code.
From my perspective, and speaking on behalf of my students as well, that day can't arrive soon enough.” (2005)[3]
Considering that our continent is bandwidth[4] poor, we cannot afford to be thinking in this manner.
“Effective bandwidth management can only happen by applying a combination of technical computer skills, effective network monitoring, and a sensible policy that is understood by all users.”[5]
If we are to operate as responsible journalists, then we are to embrace the technicality of information communication technologies. This is one of the objectives the Highway Africa News Agency has been attempting to fulfil.
References:
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth
[1]http://wiki.bwmo.net/moin/English/Chapter1
Getting to grips with the technical jargon of HTML equips journalists with the ability to tackle and decipher technical documents, such as government statistics or budgets. HTML students learn how “to see content divorced from its presentation”.[2] Pretty colours and fonts do not easily fool them. As a result, corrupt governments and corporations are unable to hide behind (otherwise) intimidating technical jargon and documentation.
The ability to see content removed from its presentation trains the journalist’s (eye) and mind on how to critically and objectively report news. Therefore, an HTML journalism student does not merely identify irregularities in technical document structures; they can also conduct critical analysis of the content itself.
HTML also nurtures the journalist’s natural curiosity of how and why the world functions the way it does. Without this curiosity, the journalist is without his or her spark.
And finally, knowing how to code HTML style sheets puts a student journalist in a favourable position for when they do enter the journalism field; it is “a key concept for anyone who wants to take advantage of the ability to republish content across multiple media”.[3]
However, Travis Smith (a journalism and HTML educator) does not seem to fully agree with this:
“While knowing HTML code is useful today, we're not that far from an era where it won't be.
How many paginators can read and write postscript, or untangle a PDF document using BBEdit? Virtually none. Software provides an abstratction (sic) layer and allows them to spend their time on the presentation, not nitpicking the code.
From my perspective, and speaking on behalf of my students as well, that day can't arrive soon enough.” (2005)[3]
Considering that our continent is bandwidth[4] poor, we cannot afford to be thinking in this manner.
“Effective bandwidth management can only happen by applying a combination of technical computer skills, effective network monitoring, and a sensible policy that is understood by all users.”[5]
If we are to operate as responsible journalists, then we are to embrace the technicality of information communication technologies. This is one of the objectives the Highway Africa News Agency has been attempting to fulfil.
References:
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1] http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050113niles/
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth
[1]http://wiki.bwmo.net/moin/English/Chapter1
Why is accessibility of webpages of concern to you as a journalist?
Journalists are faced with the responsibility of having to provide the public with enough information required to make informed decisions. This means that for the public to effectively engage in democratic processes, it needs to be informed about its options.
This is not always feasible), when considering that some countries (especially in Africa) are without sophisticated Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and are bandwidth poor. Under these unfavourable conditions, it is often difficult for a journalist to effectively fulfil this responsibility. How can we as digital journalists overcome the ICT divide and increase accessibility in marginalised communities?
One of the main objectives of media organisations such as the Highway Africa News Agency is to address the issue of accessibility in the continent. However, even that audience with access to communication technologies, accessibility to the information itself is still a problem.
Consider webpages for instance; many digital journalists are not familiar with HTML coding and the crucial role it plays in structuring website content in such a way as to render it easily accessible to its users.
“Content developers should make content understandable and navigable. This includes not only making the language clear and simple, but also providing understandable mechanisms for navigating within and between pages. Providing navigation tools and orientation information in pages will maximize accessibility and usability.”[1]
Digital journlists need to know how to do this in order to be able to efficiently structure their media packages in ways that make them accesible to their online audiences. We also need to consider the often marginalised disabled communities.
“Through better authoring, Web information providers can avoid shutting out the world's disabled population from the information age, and can garner a good portion of this largely ignored market.”[2]
ICTs such as braille displays and screen readers render your website content accessible also to the blind population.
Here are a few guidelines on accesibility as outlined by W3C1:[1]
References:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
http://htmlhelp.com/design/accessibility/why.html
This is not always feasible), when considering that some countries (especially in Africa) are without sophisticated Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and are bandwidth poor. Under these unfavourable conditions, it is often difficult for a journalist to effectively fulfil this responsibility. How can we as digital journalists overcome the ICT divide and increase accessibility in marginalised communities?
One of the main objectives of media organisations such as the Highway Africa News Agency is to address the issue of accessibility in the continent. However, even that audience with access to communication technologies, accessibility to the information itself is still a problem.
Consider webpages for instance; many digital journalists are not familiar with HTML coding and the crucial role it plays in structuring website content in such a way as to render it easily accessible to its users.
“Content developers should make content understandable and navigable. This includes not only making the language clear and simple, but also providing understandable mechanisms for navigating within and between pages. Providing navigation tools and orientation information in pages will maximize accessibility and usability.”[1]
Digital journlists need to know how to do this in order to be able to efficiently structure their media packages in ways that make them accesible to their online audiences. We also need to consider the often marginalised disabled communities.
“Through better authoring, Web information providers can avoid shutting out the world's disabled population from the information age, and can garner a good portion of this largely ignored market.”[2]
ICTs such as braille displays and screen readers render your website content accessible also to the blind population.
Here are a few guidelines on accesibility as outlined by W3C1:[1]
- Mark up documents with the proper structural elements. Control presentation with style sheets rather than with presentation elements and attributes.
- Ensure that tables have necessary markup to be transformed by accessible browsers and other user agents.
- Provide clear and consistent navigation mechanisms -- orientation information, navigation bars, a site map, etc. -- to increase the likelihood that a person will find what they are looking for at a site.
- Ensure that documents are clear and simple so they may be more easily understood.
References:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
http://htmlhelp.com/design/accessibility/why.html
Style Sheeting
In designing an HTML structure, one should consider the purpose and meaning of the website’s content.
Ask yourself:
What is the purpose of this website?
Who is my target audience?
How would they prefer to have the content presented to them?
How do I go about packaging the content to fulfil this preference?
The more research and planning you do, the easier it will be “to make informed decisions on technological or design issues; like choosing a suitable hosting package, for example”[1].
One of the informed decisions you might make is to use the div-element to efficiently structure your content blocks in terms of related meaning. This will assist your user in their navigation through the website- making your content easily accessible.
Once you have designed your HTML structure accordingly, it will be easy for you to simply “[add] the appropriate content in the appropriate divisions of the page”2. As a result, editing the content of your website (even once it has been posted) will also be conducted with the same ease.
A well structured HTML website is uncluttered and simple- each element is used “for its logical structural purpose”2.
In designing an efficient HTML structure, “[y]ou need to create a strong hierarchy for the site and breakdown content into small [logica] units”1.
You might want to consider including the following features in your HTML design structure:
In terms of user navigation- it is important to practically and logically structure your content so that your users are able to quickly access the information they are searching for. Including context-based links that take the user to other pages on your website will also assist in the swift navigation of the website.
Internet users read web content differently to how they read printed text- “they tend to be more impatient”1 in their consumption of web textual content. Hence, we sometimes refer to them as browsers. As a result, you might want to consider an ‘overview' and 'details' structure to your website, “giving people a choice in how deep they want to delve”1.
Finally, consider 'future proofing' your website. In doing so, you are enabling your website to expand, without you having to rebuild it from the ground.
[1] http://www.getawebsite.friezedesign.co.uk/plan.htm
[2] http://www.wise-woman.org/tutorials/cssplanning/
Ask yourself:
What is the purpose of this website?
Who is my target audience?
How would they prefer to have the content presented to them?
How do I go about packaging the content to fulfil this preference?
The more research and planning you do, the easier it will be “to make informed decisions on technological or design issues; like choosing a suitable hosting package, for example”[1].
One of the informed decisions you might make is to use the div-element to efficiently structure your content blocks in terms of related meaning. This will assist your user in their navigation through the website- making your content easily accessible.
Once you have designed your HTML structure accordingly, it will be easy for you to simply “[add] the appropriate content in the appropriate divisions of the page”2. As a result, editing the content of your website (even once it has been posted) will also be conducted with the same ease.
A well structured HTML website is uncluttered and simple- each element is used “for its logical structural purpose”2.
In designing an efficient HTML structure, “[y]ou need to create a strong hierarchy for the site and breakdown content into small [logica] units”1.
You might want to consider including the following features in your HTML design structure:
- a heading with your logo and site name
- a main content page
- global site navigation
- subsection navigation
- a search form
- a utility area with shopping cart and check out
- a footer with legal stuff[2]
In terms of user navigation- it is important to practically and logically structure your content so that your users are able to quickly access the information they are searching for. Including context-based links that take the user to other pages on your website will also assist in the swift navigation of the website.
Internet users read web content differently to how they read printed text- “they tend to be more impatient”1 in their consumption of web textual content. Hence, we sometimes refer to them as browsers. As a result, you might want to consider an ‘overview' and 'details' structure to your website, “giving people a choice in how deep they want to delve”1.
Finally, consider 'future proofing' your website. In doing so, you are enabling your website to expand, without you having to rebuild it from the ground.
[1] http://www.getawebsite.friezedesign.co.uk/plan.htm
[2] http://www.wise-woman.org/tutorials/cssplanning/
Thursday, March 1, 2007
My journey through the CARR assignment
I have only included one graph because it more or less
indicates my findings and what the other graphs look like.
When Jude[1] gave us the CARR[2] assignment, my main concern was my limited experience with Microsoft Excel. The only time I ever work on Excel is during my music library shifts at RMR[3]. Compiling the music catalogue simply entails numbering and listing the albums and tracks onto an Excel document, that’s it.
The most challenging thing I have ever done on Excel is conduct a content analysis on newspaper clippings as part of a research project in my second year. Believe me, it sounds more hectic than it actually was.
So it was pretty much of a surprise (not to mention a major frustration) when just researching for the data itself proved to be a mission (and a half). We had a seminar on CARR before Jude gave us the assignment. Going on my lecture notes I figured http://www.statssa.gov.za/. would be a good place to start.
I could not believe just how useless this site was. They have the population statistics, but the only thing is, they are according to provinces and not cities or towns. Brilliant.
So I just decided to shift my focus for a while onto the other aspect of the assignment. Finding the crime statistics was less of a headache. It turned out that everything I needed was on http://www.saps.gov.za/. But then I still had the specific populations to find.
First I just googled, and all sorts of junk came my way. I couldn’t quite figure out which population statistics to go with. I didn’t know when they were released or if the sites they were on were in fact credible sources.
Then Melissa[4] and I tried doing things the good old fashion way- pouring over census publications at the library. No luck there either. Then it hit me- why not search for the data on the municipal sites of the specific towns.
I found some statistics and was ready to run with them, until Jude told us that the population statistics were in fact conveniently listed on an Excel document on http://www.statssa.gov.za/. So I went back to were I had started. Turned out the site wasn’t as useless as I had thought it was.
After about another hour of agony, searching the labyrinth of a site, I finally found the municipal population statistics. Only problem was that they were listed according to municipal codes. This is where Galen[5] comes in and “saves the day” (well at least that’s what he keeps telling himself). He found the codes and we correlated them with the population data I had found. Good team work.
Once again, strangely enough it wasn’t so hectic working on Excel. Well, I must admit Lauren[6] did help me a little (in exchange for helping her find the statistics). After a while, I found that my little experience working with the RMR music catalogue actually came in handy. I figured out how to calculate the per capita for each city, without having to re-type the formula every time. Just click & drag; I do this all the time on the music catalogue.
This gave me the confidence to play around a little with Excel. Its amazing the things it can do. Did you know that you don’t need to redo your graphs if you have entered the wrong figures? You just edit the list and the graph shifts accordingly. Wow.
The findings weren’t what I expected. It turns out that Grahamstown is supposedly more dangerous than Johannesburg. I don’t know. I’m still not sold on this one (even though it is my own research findings telling me this).
I think maybe the results might have been a whole lot different if we had listed all the crimes, and not just sampled a few. And we do need to consider the different populations. Grahamstown’s sparse population means that no matter how few our crimes there are, they will appear concentrated. Unlike in Johannesburg were the population is 3 225 309. Maybe we need another CARR assignment to investigate this further.
Anyway, that outlines my adventurous journey through my first CARR assignment in New Media.
[1] Our New Media theory lecturer
[2] Computer Assisted Research and Reporting
[3] Rhodes Music Radio station
[4] cloudsinmycoffee-meg.blogspot.com
[5] confessionsofajournstudent.blogspot.com
[6] lauri-seeing-stars.blogspot.com
indicates my findings and what the other graphs look like.
When Jude[1] gave us the CARR[2] assignment, my main concern was my limited experience with Microsoft Excel. The only time I ever work on Excel is during my music library shifts at RMR[3]. Compiling the music catalogue simply entails numbering and listing the albums and tracks onto an Excel document, that’s it.
The most challenging thing I have ever done on Excel is conduct a content analysis on newspaper clippings as part of a research project in my second year. Believe me, it sounds more hectic than it actually was.
So it was pretty much of a surprise (not to mention a major frustration) when just researching for the data itself proved to be a mission (and a half). We had a seminar on CARR before Jude gave us the assignment. Going on my lecture notes I figured http://www.statssa.gov.za/. would be a good place to start.
I could not believe just how useless this site was. They have the population statistics, but the only thing is, they are according to provinces and not cities or towns. Brilliant.
So I just decided to shift my focus for a while onto the other aspect of the assignment. Finding the crime statistics was less of a headache. It turned out that everything I needed was on http://www.saps.gov.za/. But then I still had the specific populations to find.
First I just googled, and all sorts of junk came my way. I couldn’t quite figure out which population statistics to go with. I didn’t know when they were released or if the sites they were on were in fact credible sources.
Then Melissa[4] and I tried doing things the good old fashion way- pouring over census publications at the library. No luck there either. Then it hit me- why not search for the data on the municipal sites of the specific towns.
I found some statistics and was ready to run with them, until Jude told us that the population statistics were in fact conveniently listed on an Excel document on http://www.statssa.gov.za/. So I went back to were I had started. Turned out the site wasn’t as useless as I had thought it was.
After about another hour of agony, searching the labyrinth of a site, I finally found the municipal population statistics. Only problem was that they were listed according to municipal codes. This is where Galen[5] comes in and “saves the day” (well at least that’s what he keeps telling himself). He found the codes and we correlated them with the population data I had found. Good team work.
Once again, strangely enough it wasn’t so hectic working on Excel. Well, I must admit Lauren[6] did help me a little (in exchange for helping her find the statistics). After a while, I found that my little experience working with the RMR music catalogue actually came in handy. I figured out how to calculate the per capita for each city, without having to re-type the formula every time. Just click & drag; I do this all the time on the music catalogue.
This gave me the confidence to play around a little with Excel. Its amazing the things it can do. Did you know that you don’t need to redo your graphs if you have entered the wrong figures? You just edit the list and the graph shifts accordingly. Wow.
The findings weren’t what I expected. It turns out that Grahamstown is supposedly more dangerous than Johannesburg. I don’t know. I’m still not sold on this one (even though it is my own research findings telling me this).
I think maybe the results might have been a whole lot different if we had listed all the crimes, and not just sampled a few. And we do need to consider the different populations. Grahamstown’s sparse population means that no matter how few our crimes there are, they will appear concentrated. Unlike in Johannesburg were the population is 3 225 309. Maybe we need another CARR assignment to investigate this further.
Anyway, that outlines my adventurous journey through my first CARR assignment in New Media.
[1] Our New Media theory lecturer
[2] Computer Assisted Research and Reporting
[3] Rhodes Music Radio station
[4] cloudsinmycoffee-meg.blogspot.com
[5] confessionsofajournstudent.blogspot.com
[6] lauri-seeing-stars.blogspot.com
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