Examining Matter Through The Matrix
Matter is a blog styled platform that works together with a seperate blog named Medium. Matter was designed as a place for journalist's to publish their articles which mainly deals with scientific issues around the world. The platform is free to use, and after a failed attempt at creating a pay-wall per story, the articles are now 100% free to read. In terms of a platform for digitally produced stories, the matrix demonstrates it's strengths and weaknesses.
Aesthetics:
The platform contains a template for each story that is published which both limits the level of control that the author has over their story and forces each published work to maintain one core style. The atmosphere created within each story is limited by the amount of control and each article has the appearance of a blog post. While the stories may contain a large amount of scientific information, and the writing to be of a high caliber, as far as stories that are published on a digital platform, Matter does not offer enough access to the tools that are available.
Content:
The bulk of each story is made up of text and imagery with a few articles containing small animations and graphics. The author's of most of the published articles are well known and verses journalist's and therefore the quality of the text is above average. There are signs of traditional investigative journalism in almost every story and the images are often taken by the author or a professional photographer. The content reflects how much in common Matter has with modern websites for newspaper companies in that it transports print stories onto the digital platform, but does not add anything that the platform has to offer.
Technological Capabilities:
Matter offers their articles for free to all reader's with internet capabilities. The stories are easy to share as these tools are built into the platform and likewise, the stories. Control is limited however for both the author and reader. Articles may not be published until approved by the editors of Matter which mirrors the newspaper industry in multiple ways. Marie-Laure Ryan would define Matter as a metaphorical approach to narrative which is to say, "the software is a means towards a goal." The question of how cost-efficient it is to publish a piece is raised as in the past Matter chose to include a price to view each story. Once this was implemented the readership dropped severely and the plan was scrapped. It was not until the company was purchased by Medium that stories were again offered free of charge.
Senses and Stimuli:
The platform limits the use of different styles of stimuli. Therefore the reader's full range of senses are not being engaged in these digital stories. The stories read much the same as print media and there digital counterparts. The stimuli that is included is limited to imagery which, due to the lack of control over the layout, is placed oddly and acts as dividers for the narrative.
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