Cat Clip 2#

Lecture 5 - Sound Lecture

After standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes I realized this week we did not have to attend today's lecture due to it being a sound lecture. So I kicked myself back home, downloaded the file and sat back to give the MP3 a listen.

The audio track was split into two interviews, one Carmel Rooney (tutor) interviewed Richard Fidler (well known ABC radio presenter) and the second to be interviewed was Steve Austin. The first interview caught my attention immediately after hearing who Richard Fidlers' name as my Dad is a huge fan of his work in the Doug Anthony All Stars (musical comedy trio). I found this particular interview particularly entertaining and amusing. Listening to his briefly explain how he got into radio and the elements of the radio medium was really interesting and really opened my eyes to how difficult it can be. The main part that stood out was how difficult radio conversation can be as they are often hour long and you have to be able to keep the audience interested. There is also a vast amount of preparation in setting up an interview and making the person being interviewed comfortable to be able to extract a good conversation from them. Listening to one of Richards' most memorable moments being with Adam Gilchrist inspiring in the way that Richard was able to share such a moment with this famous cricketer and his out of no where story of an outer body experience. This interview made me appreciate radio journalist and has encouraged me to start listening to good radio again.

Richard Fidler (right, holding guitar), performing with Tim Ferguson and Paul McDermott as the Doug Anthony All Stars.

The interview with Steve Austin. This last half of the recording seemed to draw out for me purely because I'm not very familiar with Steve Austin however I did find it almost (not quiet) as interesting as the previous interview. The main part of this conversation the stood out was when it was said that the most important part of a successful radio story or interview is being human. Because at the end of the day, like Steve says, we are emotional creatures and we respond emotionally and subconsciously. So when talking with another it is important to seek this from the other person in order to connect with them and the audience. This seems almost essential to any news story, being able to connect with another is crucial. Heading toward the end of the audio piece the most rewarding moments in journalism were discussed.  Austin spoke about when you are in an interview and your interviewee let their guard down and lose themselves in their personal story and in their emotions that that is one of the most rewarding parts in journalism is to be able to experience that moment. 

After listening to the audio lecture it has really opened my eyes and mind to seek other forms of journalism sources other than my norm of newspapers and online news. Radio journalism is actually really inspiring and can be very rewarding for the interviewer, interviewee and most importantly the audience. 

Cat Clip 1#

This is a short clip from the movie 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' of a cat fashion show news story. Enjoy!

Assessment One - Media Use Journal

Prior to starting this journal of my media usage, I already knew I was in for a wake-up call as to how much media I rely on through day to day life. Generally there is only a handful of online and offline media that I use, however I use it pretty heavily most days to fill the time. Hoping that I'm not alone with the amount I rely on Facebook and my mobile phone, the recording had to begin. 

OBJECTIVE
Over a period of ten days (starting on the 9th of March and ending on the 18th of March) the type of media sources accessed and the amount of time spent (in minutes) utilizing the particular media types was recorded analysed and compared with the results collected from the JOUR1111 cohort survey conducted on Survey Monkey. This experiment will assist in recognising the level that I am involved with journalism and communication. 

RESULTS   

ANALYSIS

The results from the ten day media usage ended up coming to a total of 7690 minutes, which is roughly 129 awake hours, spent relying on some media form. 

It can be deduced from the data in 'Bar Graph One' that the time spent on Facebook in comparison to Twitter is a vast jump. This is due to personal reasons that I have only been on Twitter to keep updated on JOUR1111 related matters and still haven't really "got into it". Facebook is the basis of what really keeps me up to date with online happenings of the world relating to both social affairs and news affairs therefore I spend quite a large amount of time on there both via laptop and smartphone app. Facebook has been very helpful keeping me updated and connected to journalism and communication through spending, on average, 24 hours over the ten day period  constantly checking Facebook. This provides me with constant exposure to the regular international, national and local happenings. The survey filled out by the cohort prior to this exercise shows that 91.9% (397 students) also spend majority of their online time on Facebook compared to 10% (43 students) who use Twitter. I feel I may not be alone here.

Bar Graph Two

There is minimal information that can be extrapolated from 'Bar Graph Two' mainly relating to  my preferred source of news. Generally I purchase The Australian every day and sit down and go through it at some point of the day. So when comparing the reading of online news to offline news I generally spend more time reading the paper due to majority of articles having more depth and I also end up reading articles I normally wouldn't come across online. This again would assist in strengthening my connection to journalism and communication. When relating this graph back to the cohort survey the main source of news is  television with 71.1% (307 students) being updated via this media type. Personally, I never watch television  for news which could prove to potentially lessen my connection to journalism and communication. However it was reassuring to know that 67.8% (293 students) use online newspapers and 51.6% (223 students) use general newspapers so there is not to large of a gap between the three sources of news. 

The segment cut out from the results table above presents the amount of minutes spent each day using my smartphone. It can be seen that I am very reliant on it (not only for Facebook) but through both calls and text messaging. Some days I feel as though it never leaves my hand, which is demonstrated through the table fragment that most days are all relatively similar with usage times. The survey does not present data as to the amount of time used on mobile devices but it can assumed from the survey data which claims that 77.3% of the cohort own a smartphone of some form and that this media is very commonly utilized. Therefore showing that the majority of the cohort have a strong connection to journalism and communication via these devices.  

The information provided by the survey showed that before commencing the Introduction to Journalism  course that 63% (272 students) of the cohort had never had a blog. As being part of that 63% this can be reflected through my usage of blogging over the ten day period by only having spent roughly and hour and a half blogging. This can be interpreted as a downfall in my connection to journalism and communication as blogging is a very modern form and major part of journalism and communication in today's society.

According to the survey, on average, majority of the cohort (29.9%) spends 1-2 hours per day watching television both broadcast and online. Basically, I only watch broadcast television when a particular program is on that interests me. This is reflected in my recorded data as there are days where I do not watch television at all. I much prefer watching Youtube videos than television as there is no ads or interruption. This could result in missing the exposure to what could be seen as important journalism and communication material via advertisements and thus weakening my connection in that sense. 

Personally I classified general web surfing, "study" and email checking under miscellaneous. Emails falls under this category due to the fact I only ever glance at them briefly every few days, most likely not as often as I should. 61.3% (265 students) use their internet time to surf the web, 49.5% (214 students) use it as a medium of study and 53% (229 students) for emailing. When reflecting this back to my usage of these media types it is safe to say my connection is much weaker in this area in comparison to the majority of the JOUR1111 cohort.

I'm fairly inclined to game both online and offline and read books in my spare time. Generally spending between 2 - 3 hours most days (on average) immersed in either a Playstation 3 game or a good book. This information does not really assist with my connection to journalism and communication. It does however show I lean toward wasting my time reading or gaming rather than studying or working.

Music is a very big part of everyday life for me with on average spending 3 to 4 hours listening to it at some point. I'm more inclined to listen to music via my ipod when walking to and from the bus, around campus and when sitting in my room. 89.1% (385 students) of the cohort also prefer this music platform. In relation to this mode of media, I spend no time listening to radio or podcasts. This could be seen as a weakness in my relationship to journalism and communication as major information and affairs are broadcast via this media type which I would definitely miss.


In summary the media journal assessment piece has enabled me to reflect upon which media types I utilized the most and which I should most likely spend more (and less) time using in order to strengthen connections to the journalism and communication realm. 

The Wonderful World of Cats

Within the couple of months one of my close friends, Sophie Jackson, left for Vietnam for  6 months to teach English to the local schools and universities. The main thing about Sophie is her almost unnatural obsession with cats and she claims that Vietnam is jam packed full of them. She alone has inspired me to dedicate this blog about cats and why, in her eyes, they are so majestic.   

Sophie and her cat Kitty Karyall

Cats, where to begin such a broad topic... logically a brief history would be a good place to get the ball rolling for this blog. Today cats are what seems to be a common, easy to care for pet but the domestication of this feline dates back to the  Ancient Egyptians 4000 years ago where they domesticated cats to keep way certain types of pests and protect food supply's. If one were to kill a cat the penalty would be death as they were worshipped as gods/goddesses. They were so respected they were even mummified like humans after death!

Sekhmet - Egyptian Goddess of War

Mummified Cats

This respect for the domestic feline spread later to other countries throughout Europe before reaching the Pilgrims in the New World. Different species spread to alternate places for example long-haired domestic cats originated from Turkey and Iran where as short-haired domestic cats originated from Egypt and further spread to Japan, China and India.

There was a time in history where cats were not so admirable and were surrounded by various negative superstitions. During the middle ages cats were seen to be associated with the devil and evil doings mainly relating to witchery and cats being thought to be the familiar of a witch.This caused a eradication of a large scale for cats during these times. However as time passed these myths passed and cats were once more a common house hold pet by around the 18th century. 

A Witch and Her Familiar 

Thank you Sophie for providing me with something amusing to blog about!

Lecture 4 - Picture Stories

After finding a seat in the now packed lecture theatre, it was revealed that in today's lecture we would be coving the topic of picture stories. As much as I was not expecting to learn much from this topic, it was really interesting learning (briefly) about the history of picture stories and how they have progressed over the years. Starting with the indigenous cave painttings found in Australia and France. 

Picture stories were very helpful during these periods of times as majority of people were unable to read or write so they communicated through images, much like stained glass in churches and in holy books (as shown below).

Since these times technology progressed and pictures were starting to be used in newspapers, first with illustrated line drawings and then soon followed the use of photographic news stories. Now days we have so much technology available that we can digitally capture and upload pictures and videos instantly to the internet via Facebook or Twitter making there endless possibilities when trying to find information. In fact, technology has advanced so much that the editing, or to be more accurate, distorting or manipulating of pictures has occurred through programs like Photoshop. This can be seen in just about any picture on the cover of a magazine, on movie posters and even on business advertisements (as can be seen in the photo below in which they have pasted another persons face on the middle individual)..

 

The artificial enhancement of celebrates and idols has forced the appearance to be altered beyond what is natural. This has changed society's thoughts of what ideally a person should look like when it is almost impossible to reach such an appearance without spending a very large sum of money on cosmetic surgery and products. This video is a perfect example of the extent of digital manipulation.

We were asked whether or not Photoshop was good or evil and after thinking about it it can be a combination of the two. Photoshop can be used to the extent where is it just unnatural and unnecessary BUT it can also be used to give an image that slight edge to really bring out what the photographer desired in the image. We next moved to photo journalism and what makes a good photo. I loved the quote that was given to us by Eddie Adams who said "if it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture." There is so much truth in that statement because what is a good picture (in ones own opinion) if you cannot get some form of emotion from it? A good photo requires the basics of:
- Framing
- Focus
- Angle and Point of View
- Exposure
- Timing
and most importantly, to capture "the moment". My favourite photo example was the bull fighter in Madrid who suffered a heavy blow from the bull he was encountering. Defiantly a photo taken at the perfect moment.  

Drawing to the close of this lecture we were finally shown what is most common today, with the current technology like mobile phones and social networking, to moving pictures. The bases of this is very similar to that of a photograph however instead of capturing the moment we are capturing "the scene" and also included is a sound dimension.
All in all I found this a very interesting lecture, I never would have expected picture stories to have so much depth and history. Very glad I made the decision to attend today's lecture! 

Lecture Three - Text

This week when I arrived at the lecture theatre I was told that our topic for the next fifty minutes was to be Text. In my eyes it is pretty obvious what text was however I was already sitting down so escaping was no choice. We were however all fortunate enough to have a guest lecturer, Skye Doherty. I have never heard of Skye so I decided to do some background research of her career via her website (http://skyedoherty.com) which states that she is "an editor, digital producer and media consultant with more than 10 years’ journalism experience. She has worked for media groups in Australia, South-east Asia and the UK, including the Financial Times, where she was an interactive producer. She is currently an industry consultant at the University of Queensland and is a member of AIMIA and the National Union of Journalists." I now feel as though the lecture was not as pointless as once thought seeming we were to have the subject of text taught to us by someone so experienced and who understands the topic as much as Skye.

Skye Doherty

The main focus was not exactly what text was, anyone could say that text is just words on a page, but how one uses those words and structure and manipulate it as a person, or in this case as a journalist. There is a lot of skill required to author something that can effect people and make them understand the point they are trying to convey. We started with the basics of what text was and Skye seemed to sum up text in the clearest way, describing it as fast, flexible and portable. That is exactly what text is in my eyes. We were also re-introduced, or for some introduced, to the inverted triangle which is basically the structure to majority of new articles. the triangle starts with the most important things such as who, what, when, where, why and how and then weans down to the less important details.

Inverted Triangle 

This lecture was defiantly intriguing, I wish we could have listened to Skye talk more about her career and life experiences but unfortunately a fifty minute lecture is never enough time for that and the topic of text would defiantly stray. 

Lecture Two - New News

Feeling a little more confident making my way around the UQ campus and arriving on time to get a good seat we were targeted with a lecture based on three major points of Web Iterations, News Under Web 3.0 and the Challenges of Online News. There was a lot to learn throughout this lecture, I found it interesting how far things have advanced in such a short period of time.

Firstly the lecture focused 'Web Iterations'. This was broken down into three main areas of progression starting with 'Web 1.0'. This is known mainly as the information web which was based upon advertising and broadcasting information with a focus of companies. Next was 'Web 2.0' referred to as new media is based around social networking such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. It is aimed at "prod-users" who are both the producer and the user of the content with the focus of social groups. Lastly came 'Web 3.0' known as the semantic web and focuses on us individuals. Mainly adding Meta Tags (a special HTML tag that shows most things about any webpage) to the internet which now allows it to know information about the user. It is incredible how technology has advanced that we can now have all this news based information provided in a instant and communicate it just as fast with just about anyone around the world!

Secondly we looked News Under Web 3.0, which in essence shows how online news is now using this method in order to show the audience what they want to know and read. Such an incredible thing, however, there is an issue that those who only pay attention to only what they are interested in could be missing out on other important world problems creating ignorance to our generation.

Thirdly, we discussed the Challenges of Online News which was shown through an exercise where the class was given a small bag of jelly beans. After being allowed to eat one or two we were stopped and told that in order to eat the rest we had to pay and if we refused we had to return the sweets. As a lover of jelly beans I was a little upset that these tasty things were to be taken away from me after just eating one. My thoughts were that after being given the lollies we should be entitled to them. This is the current issue with online news at the present time which are one by one starting to go behind Pay Walls due to many newspapers who believe that in order to read their paper they are entitled to our money. In a way, it is fair to pay for the news, after all how with journalists be paid if no one is paying to read their work?

I found this lecture very informative and interesting. Never before had I considered many of these topics and I am beginning to think about how much news types have changed over the years.

Lecture One - Beginning Journalism

After finally navigating my way through the depths of the Forgan Smith Building and walking into an almost full theatre of JOUR1111 students, we soon began our introductory lecture for Introduction to Journalism and Communication. It was quite interesting as I was not sure what to expect to gain from this course or what the atmosphere would be like. After being shown the course outline and after being introduced to the Course Co-ordinator/Lecturer Dr Bruce Redmen and the three Tutors Ms Carmel Rooney, Miss Marie M’Balla-Ndi and Miss Ali Rae I began to think that this will prove to be a very engaging and entertaining class.

The assessment items appear interesting, especially having to maintain a blog over the period of fourteen weeks. Would never have imagined I would ever have to be part of the blogging community but this is an unavoidable challenge that I just have to accept and enjoy.

I never really was passionate about Journalism, however I saw this course as a great opportunity to try something different and broaden my horizons. There was a main part of this lecture that stood out to me and this was when we were shown a hand full of quotes by various people. The quote by Henry R. Luce seemed to evoke a sense that this was a potentially rewarding path to take when he stated "I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world." I'm really looking forward to seeing if in fourteen weeks time what my opinion on Introduction to Journalism and Communication will be.