9-1 Blog: Multimedia Tools

The use of multimedia when blogging or engaging in new media journalism is becoming essential to captivating an audience and holding onto readers. 

The trend of "live tweeting" is fairly common now, and one of my favorite modes of consuming information. It feeds into the new media audience's demands for the succinct, immediate delivery of information in lieu of in-depth, detailed articles or summaries. It can incorporate tweets, vines, instagram photos, facebook statuses, tumblr gifs, and blog comments. Actors will often live-tweet during their television shows, answering questions from their Twitter fanbase, or musicians will live-tweet backstage at an awards show, building the anticipation for their performance.

According to Twitter's own Development Division...

Live-tweet (v.): to engage on Twitter for a continuous period of time—anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours—with a sequence of focused Tweets. The focus can be a big live event that everybody's paying attention to (e.g. a TV show or an award show) or it can be an event you create yourself (e.g. a Q&A session with your fans). 

One question we always hear is "how often should I Tweet when live-tweeting?" Approach it like you're at a dinner party: you don't want to dominate the conversation and you don't want to fade away. Tweeting every minute is probably too much, and tweeting only a few times an hour is probably too little. What follows are our best practices, and periodically we'll tweet out great examples from @TwitterMedia so follow that account for the latest.

My favorite example of live tweeting to date is from the airing of the episode "The Rains of Castamere" from Game of Thrones. I'm a HUGE GoT fan, and while this episode was amazing, the live-tweeted fan reactions on social media made it even better.

WARNING: THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD

The i09 article, "The 100+ Best Tweets about last night's Game of Thrones" captured the bulk of the live-tweeting reaction perfectly. Below are three of the least spoilery/least explicit in language tweets featured:

Frequently retweeted that evening was the Vine video of one of Game of Throne's own stars, Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark:

And within an 12 hours, there was already a Buzzfeed "Best of Tumblr Reactions" list:

The combination of gifs, memes, and memes makes an interactive, communal experience of something as typically isolating as watching a television show. Viewers are able to share in their anger, amusement, and sadness in a variety of mediums across the world. Without a doubt, multimedia's use continues to evolve with new media technology as it grows, and its exciting to be a part of it.

Sources
"Live-Tweeting Best Practices." https://dev.twitter.com/media/live-tweeting
"The 100+ Best Tweets about last night's Game of Thrones." http://io9.com/the-100-best-tweets-about-last-nights-game-of-thrones-511003444
Maisie Williams' Vine https://vine.co/v/b3XZMHmxzxh and YouTube upload of her Vine http://youtu.be/Y2uLNexesfE
"21 Best Tumblr Reactions to the Red Wedding." http://www.buzzfeed.com/donnad/best-tumblr-reactions-to-game-of-thrones-red-wedding

8-2 Blog: Best Practices

I chose Feministing as my example of a blog that I believe best demonstrates the desired function of a blog as a source of substantive writing and delivery of information. It reflects not only the goal of feminism, which is to strive for equality for everyone - not just women - but covering issues that present barriers to equality on the grounds of gender, race, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status, but also reflects the blog's purpose:

"Feministing is an online community for feminists and their allies. The community aspect of Feministing – our community blog, campus blog, comment threads, and related social networking sites – exist to better connect feminists online and off, and to encourage activism. We hope that the Feministing community will provide a forum for a variety of feminist voices and organizations."

Updated daily by a staff of journalists, academics, and figures of the feminist movement, Feministing offers a continuously wide array of stories. Their regular posts "The Weekly Feminist Reader" and the "Feminist Cheat Sheet" provide readers with a quick overview of the issues occurring that day, world-wide. Every story and every source is properly credited, accompanied by appropriate disclaimers for content, AKA, "trigger-warnings" for particularly graphic content, or proper labeling of editorials versus legitimate news articles.

The Weekly Feminist Reader for August 11, 2013, for example, provides a quick overview of political scandals and legislation, literary news, issues concerning education, race, rape-culture, and the prision-industrial complex:

Since when does VICE produce good reporting on sexual violence?
Minors with disabilities held in solidarity confinement in San Francisco juvenile hall.
Little Libertarians on the prairie.
More research on encouraging girls to pursue STEM.
The Pentagon’s new plan to combat military sexual assault doesn’t do enough.
Your computer is sexist.
Decades too late, Henrietta Lacks’ family is asked for consent.
“Why teach kids not to rape when you could teach them not to get caught?”
Newsflash, Hollywood: suicide isn’t quirky-cute-fun.
Unpaid interns are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment.
Texts from the yellow wallpaper.
Drag in the military sparks world’s least surprising controversy.
Of course dystopian YA novels are popular.
Go read Emi Koyama’s Twitter timeline from the last few days for info on how she was censored by white male “allies” at Forging Justice.
A childhood introduction to racism.
The Miami police killed Reefa, a celebrated teen graffiti artist.
Zimmerman and Drones.
Sexual harassment in comic book form.
Mini-doc: “Where Am I Going?”
The feminist history of school lunches.
Internet trolls = witch hunters?
Oprah received an apology for racist treatment in Switzerland.
The most recent episode of Belabored touches on domestic workers’ rights and the March on Washington’s upcoming anniversary.
Free article on dolls from Girlhood Studies!
Freshmen, meet your “relationship goals” with one simple step: Just stop getting raped!
Stone Cold Jane Austen.
FCC orders lower prison phone rates.
New abortion limits, but more money for women’s health, in Texas.
Wonkette pens a letter to Weiner.

7-2 Blog: Press Release

Press Release

STATE COLLEGE, PA - College football legend Joe Paterno passed away on Sunday at the age of 85 due to complications from lung cancer, amid the ongoing scandal that has turned Penn State upside down.

Paterno's impressive career spanned 61 years, 45 of which were as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions. Under his guidance, the Nittany Lions brought home 24 NCAA bowl victories and 409 collegiate wins, and Paterno holding the all-time record for NCAA Division 1 victories.

Paterno's legacy in the Penn State community was shaken, however, when it was revealed in November 2011 that he was aware of Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky's sexual abuse of at least eight young boys between 1994 and 2009. While not formally charged with any criminal wrongdoing, the revelation of Paterno's complicit knowledge and cover-up of Sandusky's conduct resulted in his immediate, mid-season dismissal from Penn State, along with several other Penn State Administrators.

State College has plunged into uneasy tension following Paterno's dismissal and the resulting scandal that has brought a different kind of national attention on the small college town.

After revealing his lung cancer in November, Paterno remained secluded until his January 13th hospitalization. Services have yet to be organized, but an outpouring of support from Nittany fans, including Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, who ordered state flags to be flown at half-staff on Monday, seems to indicate that the Penn State community is ready to rally behind their beloved "JoePa" one last time.

Facebook Post

Joe Paterno, 85, passed away on Sunday just a few short months after being dismissed as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions amid the sex abuse scandal that has turned the small college town upside down.