Mining Mass Media
Module 2, Activity 1.2 - Characteristics
of Electronic Media
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:

In this lesson, the students work on connecting the basic elements of print journalism to the newer medium, electronic journalism. As the teacher, your primary role is to enable students to solidify these connections through questioning and summarizing. Students will listen to and view broadcast and radio stories, pair them down to key elements and assess the way mass media effects the message. Finally, they will begin drafting a sports story for they have the option to use later in the module, during constructing a television story.

Resources:

- Internet access
- chart (.doc) or (.rtf)
- inquiry questions (.doc) or (.rtf)
- tape of an electronic news story and a copy of a print story on the same topic

Activities:

Task One - Reading Between the Lines
Students have already learned the basics of good sports writing in the Print Journalism Module. To review the concepts, look at the lesson on the Elements of a Sports Story. While the basic elements are the same, the way the radio and television journalist covers sports is slightly different than the way a print journalist covers the sports beat.

Students should view stories from one of the following three topics:

• Profiles of women in sports
• All about Lacrosse
• Baseball in Canada

Once they have viewed the stories, they will be familiar with sports features across time. Now that students have viewed at least 3 stories under each heading, they are ready to practice pairing the stories down. They should follow the steps listed in the student page for this lesson. Remind them to focus on the 5ws and the H.

Task Two - "The Medium is the Message." (Marshall McLuhan)

Start by discussing McLuhan's famous quotation and what it might mean. In the week before this class, choose a prominent story on the 6 or 11 o'clock news and record it. The next day, clip a newspaper article that focuses on the same story. Have students watch and read the work you have prepared. They should compare the two stories using the criteria on the chart.

After completing the chart, students should participate in a class discussion on the differences between electronic and print news.

Task Two Continued. . .
Using the inquiry questions, have students focus on the main differences between electronic and print journalism. Questions should focus on the why and how. Avoid lower level questioning except to prepare the class to tackle a higher level question.

Task Three - Writing for Critical Mass
In this task, students transform the notes they made in task one into sports stories that are written as classic hard news. They focus on starting from the strongest video clips and filling in the gaps with the story. They are also introduced to the most basic elements of writing for broadcast news. Have students work through the steps listed on the student page for this lesson. The pre-writing and drafting completed in this lesson will be used during the television activity group.

As you work through the tasks, continually return students to the foundational elements of journalism, and the way they are affected differently in electronic and print arenas. At the end of the lesson, ask a questions to check comprehension, and review as necessary.