Mixed Up Media
Module 2, Activity 4.1 - Mixed Media
and the 21st Century
Student Page
(teacher lesson for this page)

Introduction:

You will explore the world of online news through looking at sites, reviewing blogs and comparing the goals of journalism to the characteristic of the internet.

Activities:

Task One - Surf's Up, and so are the Sources of News
For this task, you will be looking at a number of sites to observe how the news is reported on-line. Start by reviewing the main purpose of journalism on the right. Next, look at each of the characteristics listed below and decide how it fulfills what journalists are trying to do. Look at each goal on the sample chart and record which part of a journalist's job it is related to. Many items will meet more than one requirement of journalism.

Characteristics of On-line Journalism

1. Hyperlinks
• find additional information
2. Multimedia
• video
• graphics
• text
• audio
3. Interactivity
• navigate quickly and easily
• connect to journalists and audiences
• customize your news
4. Archives
   

Now that you have established the characteristics, test some news sites to see how they meet the characteristics of on-line journalism. Be sure to look at at least one site in each category. Join the class for a discussion after you are done viewing the sites.

Task Two - On the Receiving End
Look at the two pictures below of traditional journalism. You will see that both are images associated with broadcast journalism. What do the words and images say about broadcast journalism?

Objectives:

You will be able to
- consider how electronic media, including the Internet, have changed journalism and will continue to affect it in the future
- recognize how computers and desktop publishing are used in commercial journalism
- identify the conventions of the electronic media
- evaluate the quality and reliability of various forms and examples of journalism

Journalists

• sift information
• decide what is important
• reframe information for the audience
• broadcast or write the information

Task Three - All that is Digital is not Gold
News on-line seems like a great thing, but on-line reporting has some disadvantages. One of them is that the things you read on-line may seem like fact when they are not. Another is that the people who write on the internet are often not journalists, and don't have the training or ethics of a journalist. One of the most criticized elements of news discussions on-line is the blog.

Read one of the three following articles that look at Blogs:

Blogs and Ethics by Aly Colon

Blog only News Diet by Steve Outing

An Editor Blogs for Readers by Janet Weaver

Now do a search for a topic that you are interested in and add the word "blog" as a keyword for the search. Read several blogs and form your own opinion on the question below:

Are blogs a legitimate way to exchange news?