Week Three - Storify

Chapter three quiz
Grammar is not my strong point and never has been. Firstly, I decided to attempt the quiz without reading the chapter to see what my prior knowledge was. That did not work out well so well as I received 2/10 on the my first go. All my current knowledge on grammar was thrown out of the window after I read chapter three of our grammar textbook. I did find it very difficult and I was still confused on some topics such as the use of 'I' and 'me'. I will have to raise this question in class next week as the textbook has still got me confused. When there are four sentences presented to you, all written in different ways, it is difficult to discern which one is correct. Because to me, all the sentences somewhat sounded correct.

Storify 
Here is the URL to my storify account

https://storify.com/yschultenkamp

I don't really use Twitter and I've never been good at using it. Once I realised that Storify was linked to Twitter, I was dreading using it. However, once I set up an account, I found it to be quite self explanatory and simple to use. I then searched for some stories by other people to get an example of what to do and so on. I then compiled my first story on something I had seen on the news that morning. I used a tweet from a user and quoted them in my story and I then realised I can share my story on Twitter.

By looking at other people's stories, the effectiveness of the news medium doesn't seem to be that trustworthy to me. Most stories only have other user's tweets as references which for some hard news stories, doesn't seem to be enough to be believable. Most of the users were not verified accounts from news channels, so I am not sure what the go is here and if I should believe everything on Storify.

After compiling together my first story on whales, I am still trying to put my head around using this medium and what the advantages are. I'm sure that further on into the course, I will understand this much better.

Media review
For this task, I chose to review the issue of racism and 'booing' at a recent AFL game. Adam Goodes, A Sydney Swan player has been 'booed' constantly every game by spectators and been taunted with nasty words for being indigenous. It was interesting for me to read as there has been a lot of exaggeration and controversy and I want to keep up with the story to find out what the outcome for Goodes will be. Three different media channels that have published the issue include a print, an online and a broadcast one. 

Printed Version
Source: The Australia, 2015

The printed version starts off by talking about how a friend's son of Goodes' watched a game and asked why Goodes was being booed.  This way of leading into the story really pushes the opinion of the author into the story. The author's explanation of why a little boy can't comprehend why a man is getting booed has showed that Grand (2015) is in favour of Goodes. This printed version of the story is from The Australian and has a much more intelligent spin on it as the words in it such as 'constitution' are not words that are heard everyday. It also goes into detail about what Goodes has done for the Indigenous community. Explicit and derogatory language is also expressed in the article openly. Therefore, the audience for this article is certainly for a more older and more intelligent audience. 
                 
 Online Version - Daily Telegraph

On the other hand, the online version has a much more personal and less formal spin on the story. Cordy (2015) states in the opening paragraph of the online article that Adam Goodes' best mate had been biting his tongue for almost two years as he watched and listened to opposition fans boo his closest friend. This opening statement definitely has a more personal touch by the use of the words 'best mate' and 'closest friend'. This story as a result, also has a favoured view towards Goodes. In this version, there is also a lot more history about the two friends and how and when they met. Compared to the printed version which talked about Goodes alone, this version talks about the friends, their close bond and also how this issue has affected the two of them. Interestingly enough, the online version has censored any derogatory terms which makes it applicable to a younger audience to read. 

                                     
Broadcasting Version

The last media channel that published the story is a broadcast story. In comparison to the printed and online versions, this broadcast report is a little different. The first part provides a summary of the issue and essentially delivers the most important information of the story.  Bowden's (2015) use of sources and substantial background information on the whole issue gives this broadcast a good amount of suspense as well as featuring the news values of racism. This version has had no opinion in it from the author, as the last two versions did.

Whitaker, Ramsey and Smith (2012) refer to news values as certain characteristics on which a story is hung for example timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict and so on. All three media channels successfully show these characteristics. There is proximity to certain people who are sports lovers and especially AFL supporters. There is most certainly conflict in this story from the opposition fans and the supporters of Goodes. Although Goodes has been tormented for years, the issue has most recently gotten to an extent of extremity in recent days so the timeliness is current. Goodes is probably not so prominent to outsiders but to the target audience which is sports watchers, Goodes is a prominent figure. All three articles have similar news values and all share the same story. However, some present a different spin on it such as being more informative like the broadcast or more personal like the online and print version. 

References:

Bowden, T 2015, ' Continual battle follows Adam Goodes but why are crowds still booing?, ABC News, viewed 28 July 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-27/adam-goodes-booing-racist-gerard-whateley/6650646

Cordy, N 2015, 'Michael O'Loughlin labels Adam Goodes booing disgusting and embarrassing', The Daily Telegraph, viewed 28 July 2015, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/afl/michael-oloughlin-labels-adam-goodes-booing-disgusting-and-embarrassing/story-fni5fan6-1227460731017

Grand, C 2015, 'Why are they booing uncle? Why indeed?', The Australian, 28 July 2015, 

Whitaker, R, Ramsey, J & Smith, R 2012, Media Writing: Print, Broadcast and Public Relations, Routledge, New York.