Taylor Campbell

LSBA 391

September 2014

Journalism in a Digital Age

The decline in journalistic readership has sweeping effects from a less informed public to the allowance of unethical practices that reverberate throughout the public sphere. The preferences of readers have begun to shift from the physical to the digital as platforms to receive their information. In order for journalism to thrive in this digital age, writers must take advantage of the tools made available by the digital platform. There are a select number of journalist’s who have produced spectacular pieces, and whose stories are complemented by the addition of multimedia elements. These pieces utilize both the way stories are read online and the way in which a narrative can be told from multiple aspects. 

“Sea Change: The Pacific’s Perilous Turn ” is produced by The Seattle Times, and was published on September 12, 2013 with funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting . The issue that this story tackles is that of the detrimental effects that global warming has on the ocean, specifically through acidification. When reading the story the first thing that the reader sees is an animation of the sea and a clickable link to a video. This acts in place of a lead as the video is meant to draw the attention of the viewer. It immediately demonstrates to the audience that this article contains multiple types of elements, which transcend the traditional long form, investigative story. While this piece contains multimodal elements including photography, videos, maps, info graphs, hyperlinks, and interactive animation, it still retains many elements that are traditional to investigative journalism. The story begins for example, with a personal element. It is an individual’s story that begins the article in order to create a link between the article and the reader. The photography in the article is used in a way to explain to the audience, some of the minor details that would otherwise be less entertaining and therefore less likely to capture the attention of the reader. 

Videos of sea life, audio clips featuring scientists, and hyperlinks to other relevant stories are placed throughout the article, creating a wide range of stimuli for the reader. This not only holds the attention of the audience but it keeps the reader clicking through the story. Creating a story that keeps the reader interested is extremely important in digital media. Studies have shown that reading habits on screens are far less attentive than a traditional book or newspaper. Changing the stimuli within the story is one answer to this problem. Another advantage this article has over physical platforms is the ability to evolve over time. There is a page dedicated to updates to the story as well as a forum that allows for conversation between readers, activists, and writers.

A second multimodal news articles that utilizes tools of the digital platform is “Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek ”. This story is published by The New York Times and is written by John Branch. The story itself is an impeccable example of investigative work as John Branch traveled to Tunnel Creek, interviewed the people involved, and investigated all aspects of the avalanche itself. This already strong story is enhanced by animations, audio interviews, videos, photography, hyperlinks, and demonstrations regarding the avalanche itself. Snowfall’s story begins much the same as many other investigative stories with the introduction of a character’s personal narrative. Weaved throughout the written narrative are a select number of videos and photographs which act to better portray what the story is telling. There are breaks in the story that serve the same purpose that chapters would in a novel. In Snowfall, these breaks are commonly animated graphics that demonstrate visually, parts of the story. Almost all of the character’s involved in Snowfall have their photographs and audio interviews placed in the story.

“Uprising” by Phil McKenna is a story of environmental issues taking place in Manhattan city. The story is published on the platform, Matter, which was created by the co-founders of the popular app, Twitter. Matter was created for journalists as a platform that would allow for long-form stories to be published without the need of support from mainstream media. The story is mainly a combination of investigative narrative and photography. There are some elements of seamless animation displaying information such as maps of the city, highlighted by text. There are similar story elements in the piece that are traced throughout all three articles including leading off with a personal experience.

While all three of the aforementioned articles utilize the digital platform, they do so to differing levels of success. “Sea Change” delivers a well written and well presented piece on the Seattle Times website. The multimodal elements work together to present an aesthetically pleasing piece as well as being highly informative. The piece itself is built to work with their application on mobile platforms, which is a smart move as more readers turn to cell phones as their source for news. The story successfully combines traditional writing elements of journalism with the tools that a digital platform offers to create a stimulating, interesting, and informative piece of narrative.

“Snowfall” is a second prime example of how a journalistic narrative can be told well on the digital platform. The New York Times hired an entire team to develop the website as well as create the story. Compared to other stories, the amount of funding that went into this project is clear. The animations and graphics are seamless and work to create a flow that enhances the reader’s experience. The “flow” of the website is paralleled in the written work as the hyperlinks, videos, and images create a dynamic reading experience.

Lastly, “Uprising” is a story that uses a platform made for digital narratives, but does not use many of the tools that are available. The story reads much the same way as a traditional print article would, with the exception of more pictures. The aesthetic of the article is disjointed, as the photographs tend to disrupt the flow of the narrative. While the story is well written, the approach toward using a digital platform is under-utilized.

The digital platform gives journalism a method of reaching younger audiences, creating dynamic stories, and providing more ways of delivering information to the public. How well these tools are utilized depends on a few factors including the abilities of the author and the financial backing of the project. The examples listed in this paper demonstrate the strengths and potential weaknesses of narratives on digital platforms.