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.