New Media Workshop

Because we are skipping a week of class due to Easter, as explained there will be two assignments. However I have moved the deadline for the audio assignment to allow more time, in light of the Easter holiday. I have also changed the second assignment from what was originally written in the class schedule. So the first assignment is due by the end of Monday, April 9th. The second assignment is due by end of Wednesday, April 11th. See below for full details:

Assignment 1 (DUE BY END OF MONDAY APRIL 9TH – NOTE DEADLINE CHANGE!) Interview one of your classmates about the topic of his or her final project. Edit this into a 3-minute audio segment. Create a blog post that includes three things:
1. the audio file;
2. a picture of the classmate;
3. a picture he or she took related to his/her topic;
4. Approximately 200 words describing the classmate’s topic and motivations for doing the topic. The text should not be a repeat of what was said in the audio segment; it should help to introduce the person and draw our interest to listen to the audio interview.

For an example of what the completed assignment should look like on a Uniblog, click here. For an example of what it should look like on WordPress.com, click here.

Note about making your recording: It is acceptable to record your audio in one of these ways:
1. Have your interviewee talk into the headset microphone on a DM Lab computer and record it directly into audacity.
2. Record the interview onto an MP3 player using a microphone or one of the headsets if you don’t have a microphone.
3. Record the interview on your own computer either with a headset or with some other microphone (Go here to download Audacity if you don’t have it. You must also download a LAME MP3 encoder in order to export your audio file as an MP3.)

NOTE THAT YOUR AUDIO MUST BE RECORDED WITH SOME KIND OF MICROPHONE HELD CLOSE TO THE INTERVIEWEE’S MOUTH. You need to check the sound levels with earphones or by first having the interviewee speak a few sentences and then playing it back to make sure you are recording good quality sound. You will be graded for your ability to record sound that is not hard to hear or distorted, and which can be understood clearly by a listener who does not know the interviewee or the subject.

THE BUILT-IN MIC ON A COMPUTER DOES NOT COUNT.

Here are some useful reference links and resources to help you with Audacity :

Union College’s excellent Audacity tutorial

Master your MP3′s with Audacity

Audacity Tutorials

Detailed User Guide for Audacity (PDF download)

Other required reading (combined for week 7 and 8):

Why photojournalists should gather audio

Foust, Chapter 9 (“Multimedia and Interactivity”)

Foust, Chapter 6 (“Web Page Design”) – to p. 128 only.

Mindy McAdams, Online media types and Using Media Types

ASSIGNMENT 2: (DUE BY END OF TUESDAY APRIL 10TH – Note deadline changed to day earlier so people have enough time for presentations): Based on what you learned from Foust chapters 6 and 9, the “media types” chart by Mindy McAdams, and based on the kinds of online media we have learned to produce in this class (text with hyperlinks, photo, audio, and video), what combinations of online media do you think would be best to tell the story of your final project? Is your project best suited to one long text story or a series of several shorter ones? Will the story be enhanced by a stand-alone photo essay or will it be better to place the photos inside a text story? What kind of ideas do you have for using audio? How about video? Do you think that you would enhance the viewer’s understanding of the story by including video? If so, what kind of video? Would it be better to include relatively raw clips of a person talking or an event happening? Or would it be better to include a mini- “package?” Why? ALSO: What kinds of opportunities for viewer interactivity would you like to provide? Will you invite your readers to leave comments and discuss your story? Will you link to bloggers to generate a discussion with them about the issues in your story? Would you consider putting other features like reader opinion polls? Would a resource page containing links to other resources related to your topic also help to enhance your story? How about charts and graphs?

If you’re interested in getting a bit of extra credit, attend this digital copyright seminar on Sunday at 2:30pm, then you can either blog it (with pictures and text reporting on what you learned from the event and the main points of the speakers), or make an audio or video podcast reporting about the event. (UPDATE NOTE: This event is in Cantonese and Mandarin only… sorry, I just checked and there won’t be English translation.)

The seminar has been organized in response to the Hong Kong government’s Consultation Paper on Copyright in the Digital Environment (download the full PDF document here).

Hong Kong InMedia, the citizen-media group that has organized the event, has a post in English here responding to the consultation document. Here is their post in Chinese. The consultation paper proposes more stringent laws to go after copyright violations on the Internet. See a couple of articles about it here and here.

Critics of the consultation paper fear it goes too far, could stifle creativity and free speech in Hong Kong, and potentially weakens privacy of Internet users. According to InMedia’s e-mailed invitation to the event, “the proposed framework in “copyright protection” by the government has many problem and is potential threats to Hong Kong freedom of speech and press, as well as education.”

Speakers include Charles Mok (Hong Kong Internet Society), Issac Mao (from Mainland China, blogger, social entrepreneur, and active in the Creative Commons movement) and Deng Chieh (from Taiwan).

Time: 2:30-4:30pm, April 1, 2007
Venue: Rm 100, School of Continuing and Professional Studies (CUHK), Bank of America Tower, Central

Here is an excerpt InMedia’s critique of the consultation paper:

Many has pointed out that the consultation is based on the interest of corporate copyright holders rather than individuals and consumers. Worse still, some suggestions within the consultation papers are threatening to freedom of speech and expression, and eventually the development of creative industry in Hong Kong.

Even though a major trend of internet copyright is the adaptation of flexible license system, such as creative commons, which would encourage fair use and free distribution of information within the Internet. However, there is no mentioning of such practice in the whole consultation document.

In the Internet, consumers are also producers; many internet users would upload writings, photos, music and video clips onto the Internet and share with each other. Web-based forums, internet media, blogs, and etc. are significant spaces for civic participation; Moreover, teachers are using the Internet to facilitate their teaching and interacting with the students. However, the consultation has not considered such needs and has not evaluated the impact of old media copyright to this newly emerged public and creative space.

The future of intellectual property on the Internet concerns all of us as journalists and as citizens. If you feel strongly about this issue one way or the other, or are curious to learn more. This is a great opportunity.

I will continue to update this post as more come in.

Peter, Kathy, and Carrie:

Ann, Kumar, and Tracy:

Ken, Eileen, and Sky:

Du Ting, Juliet Ye, and Joyce Wang:

Qi Yizhi, Shao Xiaoyi, Chen Ying:

Lindsay, Christina and Hanqing:

Adrian, Vincent, and Margaret:

Janice Hui, Margaret Lam, and Rosemary Kam:

Tamara and Vianne: (37.4 MB, )

Elaine, Mona, and Caroline: (MB, min)

Sun Jie and Hilda Poon: (28.4 MB, )


Jonathan, Nick, and Patrick:

Wang Fei, Wilson, and Sylvia:

Just to make sure everybody is clear, here is your assignment for this week:

(DUE BY END OF SUNDAY APRIL 1ST) Interview one of your classmates about the topic of his or her final project. Edit this into a 3-minute audio segment. Create a blog post that includes three things:
1. the audio file;
2. a picture of the classmate;
3. a picture he or she took related to his/her topic;
4. Approximately 200 words describing the classmate’s topic and motivations for doing the topic. The text should not be a repeat of what was said in the audio segment; it should help to introduce the person and draw our interest to listen to the audio interview.

For an example of what the completed assignment should look like on a Uniblog, click here. For an example of what it should look like on WordPress.com, click here.

Note about making your recording: It is acceptable to record your audio in one of these ways:
1. Have your interviewee talk into the headset microphone on a DM Lab computer and record it directly into audacity.
2. Record the interview onto an MP3 player using a microphone or one of the headsets if you don’t have a microphone.
3. Record the interview on your own computer either with a headset or with some other microphone (Go here to download Audacity if you don’t have it. You must also download a LAME MP3 encoder in order to export your audio file as an MP3.)

NOTE THAT YOUR AUDIO MUST BE RECORDED WITH SOME KIND OF MICROPHONE HELD CLOSE TO THE INTERVIEWEE’S MOUTH. You need to check the sound levels with earphones or by first having the interviewee speak a few sentences and then playing it back to make sure you are recording good quality sound. You will be graded for your ability to record sound that is not hard to hear or distorted, and which can be understood clearly by a listener who does not know the interviewee or the subject.

THE BUILT-IN MIC ON A COMPUTER DOES NOT COUNT.

Here are some useful reference links and resources to help you with Audacity :

Union College’s excellent Audacity tutorial

Master your MP3′s with Audacity

Audacity Tutorials

Detailed User Guide for Audacity (PDF download)

Other required reading:

Why photojournalists should gather audio

Podcasts and RSS

Foust, Chapter 9 (“Multimedia and Interactivity”)

As I receive the links to your videos I will be posting them here.

Here is the first video to come in, by Group 4: Brandy Cheng, Jane Ho, Fion Li, and Marco Lui…

(20.7 MB – 3:30Min = nearly 6MB/min)

Here is Group 5: Britney Tian, Carmen Leung, Marie-Beatrice, and Sharon Zhen…

(24.3 MB – 3:20 min = about 7.4 MB/min)

Here is Group 2: Tweety Tam, Sandy Chan, Miuyi Chow, and Amanda Tang…

(20MB @ 4:10min = a bit under 5MB/min)

Here is Group 1: Sharon Leung, Gloria Chan, and Jessica Cheng….

(112.3 MB @ 6:20 min = nearly 18MB/min)

Here is Group 6: Pieter-Paul Walraven, Alex Sheratt and Tom Freestone…

(19.6 MB – 2:36 min = about 8MB/min)

..And finally, here is Group 3: Iris Chan, Angie Lauw, Annie Hung, and Joyce Woo…

(33.3 MB – 4:37 min = over 7MB/min)

I sent this to everybody via e-mail but will repeat it here as well.

The presentations for week 7 will be a little different than in the past.

I would like each team to lead a discussion and critique of the photo essays done by your classmates. Just focus on that only. We will do our copyright discussion the following week.

I’d like you to pick out your favorites and also talk about which ones might have been improved and how. Which photos or series of photos do you think would grab the readers’ attention to get them to read the accompanying text story? Which ones might not? Why?

In evaluating the photographs you may want to check out the following resources on photojournalism:

Hints from picture.com

Photo Tips from the International Center of Photography

Try a Picture Essay by photographer Arthur Bleich

TheDigitalJournalist magazine – for examples of great digital photojournalism

ALSO PLEASE NOTE: I am expecting that the people who are signed up to give their presentation next week will actually give a presentation next week. If you need to switch with another classmate you must sort that out immediately and make sure that the correct team is signed up on the list.

I hope you enjoyed hearing from Jerry Foo today!

Your assignment is DUE BY THE END OF WEDNESDAY. Create a video, upload it onto the web and publish it as a podcast with help from Jerry. (Be sure to sign up for an account at podomatic.)

IMPORTANT: You are all divided up into teams, listed on the wiki. One representative from each group needs to make an appointment with Jerry so that he can give you more instruction on how to edit and compress your video. Please book the appointment with him before the end of Thursday so that he can plan his schedule. All team members should attend this appointment. I am e-mailing all of you with his e-mail address.

SEE THIS ENTRY ON JERRY’S BLOG for more instructional details and to ask questions. It is a password protected entry and I am e-mailing you the password.

For examples of good online video and a better understanding of how digital video journalists work, you should read, watch and look at the following sites. Your final product will be better if you do so.

READ: Hard Core Reporting.

LOOK AT:
Current TV: main site and training section.
Make Internet TV (more resources and how-to).
Steve Garfield’s Guide to Videoblogging
Examples of online video:
Asia247.tv and Rocketboom (video podcasts and citizen media);
To see what the big media is doing with online video see multimedia and video features in NYT.com, BBC News, FT.com, CNN.com, and PBS.org.

FURTHER NOTE ABOUT THE FINAL PROJECT: There have been some questions about it. On Week 8 we are going to start building a class website that will showcase your final project. Some of you will work solo, and some of you with overlapping topics will end up collaborating in teams. This will be determined in our editorial brainstorm and in your assignments over weeks 8 and 9. You will also help decide the layout and features of our site. We will be using Joomla!, an open source content management system, which happens to be the same platform used by Jerry’s Asia247 as well as the JMSC website. The 2005 New Media Workshop also used Joomla for its Curbside at the WTO project. Joomla has become the favorite platform for low-budget and non-profit media organizations, so familiarity with it is very useful. Knowing how to use one CMS also makes it easier for you to learn others in the future – including the custom CMS’s used by many larger news organizations.

Hope you were as inspired by Jerry Foo today as I was!

Your assignment is DUE BY THE END OF MONDAY. Create a video, upload it onto the web and publish it as a podcast with help from Jerry. (Be sure to sign up for an account at podomatic.)

IMPORTANT: You are all divided onto teams, now listed on the wiki. One representative from each group needs to make an appointment with Jerry so that he can give you more instruction on how to edit and compress your video. Please book the appointment with him by Wednesday noon. All team members need to attend this appointment. I am e-mailing all of you with his e-mail address.

SEE THIS ENTRY ON JERRY’S BLOG for more instructional details and to ask questions. It is a password protected entry and I am e-mailing you the password.

For examples of good online video and a better understanding of how digital video journalists work, you should read, watch and look at the following sites. Your final product will be better if you do so.

READ: Hard Core Reporting.

WATCH: Steve Garfield’s Guide to Videoblogging

LOOK AT:
Make Internet TV (more resources and how-to).
Examples of online video:
Asia247.tv and Rocketboom (video podcasts and citizen media);
To see what the big media is doing with online video see multimedia and video features in NYT.com, BBC News, FT.com, CNN.com, and PBS.org.

FURTHER NOTE ABOUT THE FINAL PROJECT: There have been some questions about it. On Week 8 we are going to start building a class website that will showcase your final project. Some of you will work solo, and some of you with overlapping topics will end up collaborating in teams. This will be determined in our editorial brainstorm and in your assignments over weeks 8 and 9. You will also help decide the layout and features of our site. We will be using Joomla!, an open source content management system, which happens to be the same platform used by Jerry’s Asia247 as well as the JMSC website. The 2005 New Media Workshop also used Joomla for its Curbside at the WTO project. Joomla has become the favorite platform for low-budget and non-profit media organizations, so familiarity with it is very useful. Knowing how to use one CMS also makes it easier for you to learn others in the future – including the custom CMS’s used by many larger news organizations.

For those of you who haven’t yet completed your assigments dealing with copyright and Creative Commons, you may find two videos useful.

The first is an explanatory video from the people at Creative Commons:

The second is a speech by CC founder Larry Lessig:

ANNOUNCEMENT 1: The Week 6 MJ Class is moved to Wednesday!!!!!

ANNOUNCEMENT 2: There will be no presentations during the next class due to our special guest. As a result all presentations will be pushed back one week: the week 6 group presents during week 7, etc. etc.

NOTE ON ASSIGNMENTS: Note that we have two assignments this week as usual. The deadlines are adjusted due to Reading Week. However I strongly urge you to start working on your Assignment 2 as early as possible – before even completing Assignment 1. Because it will take some legwork and time to get the photos you need.

The following is also posted on the Class Schedule:

Reading:

Foust, chapter 10

Andrew Heavens, How I learned to stop worrying and love Creative Commons.

Lawrence Lessig, Some Like It Hot, Wired March 2004

Creative Commons website, especially the About and Think pages.

Assignment 1: (MJ DUE Tuesday March 20th BY NOON)Upon reading the copyright section of Foust’s Chapter 10, plus the Heavens and Lessig articles, plus the Creative Commons site, discuss the implications for you as an online journalist. Working in Hong Kong today and putting images on the web, how can you avoid breaking the law and getting in trouble? Meanwhile, do you think that the new approaches to copyright described by Heavens and Lessig might create new possibilities for you as a journalist? Do you agree with their approach or do you think the traditional approach to copyright is better? (As you work on this assignment hopefully you will have started working on Assignment 2 and will be considering the implications as you work.)

Assignment 2: (For completion before Week 6 class) Take photos and create a “photo essay” of 5-8 photos that relates to a subject of your final project. Upload the photos onto your flickr account, with appropriate captions. Be sure also to add them to the NMW Flickr pool and also give them the appropriate tags. Then make a blog post with a selection of the photos, and explain where and how they were taken and the story behind them. (NOTE THIS HAS BEEN AMENDED SLIGHTLY FROM THE ORIGINAL ASSIGNMENT – I am no longer asking you to include other people’s photos.)

ONE MORE NOTE ABOUT OUR FINAL PROJECT: Some of you have expressed confusion about the format of our final project. The stories that you are choosing to tell in your final projects will be brought together on a single “Hong Kong stories” website. That site has not been created yet because you will help create it. However it will be somewhat similar to the Curbside website created by the 2005 class.

This Tuesday was a lot of fun with photos.

ANNOUNCEMENT 1: There will be no presentations during the next class due to our special guest. As a result all presentations will be pushed back one week: the week 6 group presents during week 7, etc. etc.

ANNOUNCEMENT 2: We will use the NMW Flickr group. It was started by Andrew Lih when he last taught this class in 2005. You can see the photos his students uploaded, and now you can add yours too! Please send the photo you took in class on Tuesday to that group. Here’s how:
1. Join the NMW group by clicking here. Click on the link that says “join this group?”
2. Then go to the photo you want to add to the group. Above it in the row of buttons you’ll see a button that says “send to group.”
3. After you click that button it will ask you to select which group you want to send the photo to. Just ckick on “NMW” and it should go into the group.

NOTE ON ASSIGNMENTS: Note that we have two assignments this week as usual. The deadlines are adjusted due to Reading Week. However I strongly urge you to start working on your Assignment 2 as early as possible – before even completing Assignment 1. Because it will take some legwork and time to get the photos you need.

The following is also posted on the Class Schedule:

Reading:

Foust, chapter 10

Andrew Heavens, How I learned to stop worrying and love Creative Commons.

Lawrence Lessig, Some Like It Hot, Wired March 2004

Creative Commons website, especially the About and Think pages.

Assignment 1: (BJ DUE Friday March 16th)Upon reading the copyright section of Foust’s Chapter 10, plus the Heavens and Lessig articles, plus the Creative Commons site, discuss the implications for you as an online journalist. Working in Hong Kong today and putting images on the web, how can you avoid breaking the law and getting in trouble? Meanwhile, do you think that the new approaches to copyright described by Heavens and Lessig might create new possibilities for you as a journalist? Do you agree with their approach or do you think the traditional approach to copyright is better? (As you work on this assignment hopefully you will have started working on Assignment 2 and will be considering the implications as you work.)

Assignment 2: (For completion before Week 6 class) Take photos and create a “photo essay” of 5-8 photos that relates to a subject of your final project. Upload the photos onto your flickr account, with appropriate captions. Be sure also to add them to the NMW Flickr pool and also give them the appropriate tags. Then make a blog post with the photos, and explain where and how they were taken and the story behind them. (NOTE THIS HAS BEEN AMENDED SLIGHTLY FROM THE ORIGINAL ASSIGNMENT – I am no longer asking you to include other people’s photos.)

ONE MORE NOTE ABOUT OUR FINAL PROJECT: Some of you have expressed confusion about the format of our final project. The stories that you are choosing to tell in your final projects will be brought together on a single “Hong Kong stories” website. That site has not been created yet because you will help create it. However it will be somewhat similar to the Curbside website created by the 2005 class.

Turns out the Wikipedian who calls himself “Essjay” interviewed by Stacy Schiff in the New Yorker article that you read for class was not the person that he claimed to be. His dishonesty with the Wikipedia community and with the media has sparked a new round of soul-searching in the Wikipedia community. Andrew Lih has the most thorough updates here, here, and here.

Some other articles here and here, the Chronicle of Higher Education has a blog post about it… and via a Technorati search on “wikipedia+essjay” there are lots of blog posts about it which you can see here.

UPDATE (3/7): “Essjay” stepped down. Details from Andrew Lih and the New York Times.

Some students have been having trouble finding things that other people have tagged on the web and which are also relevant to their final topics. Don’t feel like you have to restrict yourself to del.icio.us, technorati, and Flickr only. Any system that uses tags and which you can subscribe to will be fine for the assignment. This includes Chinese-language tagging systems, as long as you explain in English on your blog what they are.

Note that Yahoo Hong Kong has a new tagging system. Also see Baidu’s tagging system. (A review in English of the Baidu system is here. According to a new report only 2.3% of China’s internet users currently use tags.)

Also note that Prof. Daniel Churchill from the Education Faculty’s Division of IT Studies has set up a tagging system just for the HKU community, HKU Scuttle. Please feel free to use that and let us know whether you think a more localized tagging community is more useful to you.

This week we will focus on digital photography and the use of photos on the web.

The JMSC only has five digital cameras for students to use. Three classes totalling 60 students are taking the New Media Workshop this semester. So this is very important: if you own a digital camera (or if a friend or family member will let you borrow one) please bring it to class this week! Don’t worry about the camera’s quality. The main thing is for you to demonstrate the ability in class to take photos, get them onto your computer, manipulate them in Photoshop, and upload them to the web.

ALSO IMPORTANT: Bring the USB cable that goes with your camera – the cable that connects the camera to a computer. It will look something like this (note what the ends look like – click images to enlarge):

ONE MORE NOTE: It will save time if you can set up a free account for yourself on Flickr if you don’t already have one.

Please pose your questions about tagging for David Weinberger via this post.

We focused on the del.icio.us tagging system in class and use del.icio.us in your assignments so that you can see how people are using tags all over the world, and also so that you can participate in sharing tags with people around the world who share common informational interests.

However I also want to make sure you are aware of a tagging system that has been set up by another HKU colleague Prof. Daniel Churchill. It’s called HKU Scuttle. It works just like del.icio.us but is set up specifically for people in the HKU community to share information and ideas. I encourage you to join that one too. It might also be useful and fun for you to use – and you can subscribe to feeds the same way as with del.icio.us.

As always your assignments for the week are posted on the Course Schedule page. As usual I am repeating them here:

READING:

David Weinberger, Tagging and Why it Matters” (PDF)

Pew Internet Report on Tagging(click on the link that says “view PDF of report”)

Foust, Chapter 4 pp.61-69 (you can skip or skim pp.70-82 as we will go back to those later); AND ALL OF Chapter 5

ASSIGNMENT 1: (BJ DUE TUESDAY NOON)Create your own del.icio.us account and link to your del.icio.us page on your blog. Also put the link for your del.icio.us feed next to your name on the HKstories wiki. Look at the feeds and websites you subscribed to for your project in the Week 2 assignment. Pick out at least three articles or blog posts from those feeds that you think will be useful to your work and “tag” them in your Del.icio.us account. Subscribe to the feeds of three del.icio.us tags related to your topic. Then, conduct a search of blog posts related to your topic on Technorati. Do the same search on Google using the same word or words and compare the result. The Foust text discusses a range of Internet sources for journalistic research. What do you think that tools like del.icio.us and Technorati add to your research experience beyond what those tools provide, and what are their drawbacks?

ASSIGNMENT 2: (DUE BEFORE THE START OF WEEK 5 CLASS) Look at the HKstories wiki to see which classmates are working on topics similar to yours. Subscribe to those classmates’ del.icio.us feeds. Also subscribe to the Technorati and Flickr feeds that are relevant to your topic. Pick out 3 or 4 story “leads” or ideas that you got from looking at those feeds and the material from Assignment 1. Criteria for choosing those “leads” must be: They contain information that you think is interesting enough to follow up through traditional reporting methods like phone or face-to-face interviews, or more investigative offline research to check the facts about what’s really happening, or a series of photos documenting what’s going on, or some combination thereof. Explain why you chose them and how you plan to follow up.

ALSO: IF YOU OWN A DIGITAL STILL CAMERA OF ANY KIND, PLEASE BRING IT TO CLASS ON FRIDAY!

David Weinberger, the author of one of your readings this week and the upcoming book about tagging, Everything is Miscellaneous, has agreed to answer any questions you may have about tagging and what it means for us as journalists – and as human beings more generally.

You can communicate your questions to him in one of two ways:
1. Post it as a comment to this blog post.
2. Post it on your blog and be sure to link to this post somewhere in your blog post so that we will see the “trackback” to your question in the comments thread of this post.

Sometime early next week David will post his response to your questions and comments on his blog.

everythingismiscellaneous