Online Journalism Blog

A few weeks ago I talking wikis with the online journalism students at UCE. I asked them to brainstorm – in 60 seconds – ideas for wikis in their correspondent areas. The resulting ideas were surprisingly good – some would work well as stand-along public wikis, while others would provide strong material for a follow-up journalist-structured piece. In general they suggest the immense promise of wikis for empowering readers/users and tapping into their knowledge and experience. Here they are:

• Traffic hotspots
• 11 circle route guide (the 11 bus route has something of a cult status in Birmingham; the suggestion is users could contribute descriptions of spots along the route, which circles the city)
• Reviews of a particularly important album (I don’t think this would work, as people would edit each other’s words down to a dull middle road; and Amazon does this well already)
• Festival experiences (a nice way to combine the different stages, acts, etc. all taking place)
• Memories of a band or venue (taps into collective memory)
• “I conceived to Al Green” (after the story that so many children have been conceived to a particular song – unlikely to have enough contributors from a publication audience alone, but a cute idea)
• Gay village nights out guide
• Experiences of being gay/coming out
• Women in sport (needs more focus but could take a number of angles, e.g. women’s experiences of watching a ‘man’s game’)
• Unusual sports
• Bad experiences with technology
• Get best out of mobile phone/ipod �" hidden features & downloads
• Experiences of crime
• My first crime (more light-hearted look at people’s early misdemeanours, e.g. graffiti, litter, petty shoplifting, and runs with the law)
• Crimes while drunk (cue 300 versions of “I stole a traffic cone/rode in a shopping trolley”)
• Travel stories �" how members of the Polish got to Birmingham
• Advice by and for the Polish community: schools, settling in, jobs, English
• Story behind a store
• Fashion tips
• History of trends, designer profiles
• Fashion Week experiences
• City shopping guides
• Advice on giving up smoking/etc. (under headings)
• Experiences of emergency services (better done on comments/blog?)
• Best & worst schools (likewise)
• School memories (may work if only one school, and headings for various activities/people; lots of libellous potential too!)
• Hijab ban discussion (better done on forum or blog?)
• Guide to school services �" yoga, etc.
• About festival celebrations
• 10 years after HK became Chinese – how have things changed?