Multimediality

First of all I'd like to open this blog with a bit of anger at the New York Times website. I don't approve or appreciate the fact that you have to pay to use the site. I was halfway through watching one of their editorial videos when it stopped me, and told me I had reached my limit for the month. Super not-cool NYtimes.  /endrant

But I will get over it, I suppose. This week we are talking about multimedia editorials and news stories. It may help to first talk about the differences between the two. An editorial is an opinion-based piece, whereas news stories strive to keep opinion out.

Now, how does multimedia enhance these two stories? Or does it enhance it? In my opinion a multimedia story is much more interesting. Take this video about "One Day without Shoes" for example. This video is super short-only 20 seconds long, but it gives life to the news story about this event. Plus, it's one thing seeing a picture of barefoot people (Strangely enough, mostly women...hmm) but it's another to watch them walking down the stairs barefoot, I can relate to them better. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a well-written news piece, but I'm a video junkie (Well...my most visited site is Youtube) so I think there's definitely merits to the quick video story.

The Huffington Post takes the story about "One Day without Shoes" and  multimediaficates even further. They have a short video (36 seconds), they have pictures, plus they add in some words. So there are plenty of ways to enjoy the same story. If you don't want to read, watch the video. If you don't like videos, look at the pretty interesting pictures. Or, if you really care...do all three!

Now, I struggled to find a multimedia editorial...well I found one on the NYtimes website but as I mentioned earlier I'm a little ragey at them right now, so I had to look elsewhere. I don't know why it was so hard for me to find one that really spoke to me. I guess it's because it's hard to tell exactly when someone is editorializing, unless the story is specifically under the category of "editorial" and on most sites, those weren't very multimedia-rich. But then I saw the Herald's political cartoons, and I realized that I was looking for the wrong thing. I was looking for an opinionated news story with pictures or a video. But that's not necessary.

Political Cartoons are wonderful. It's a whole story in a single drawing, and it clearly conveys the artist's feeling about the particular subject. It doesn't get easier than that. Plus, some of them are absolutely hilarious :)

Made up words: Multimediality, ragey, mulitmediaficates