Online multimedia production has for a few years now come with the guidance to ‘chunk’ content: instead of producing linear content, as you would for a space in a linear broadcast schedule, you split your content into specific chunks of material that each tackles a different aspect of the issue or story being covered. Interfaces like these show the idea in practice best:

The concept is particularly well explained by Mindy McAdams (on text), and Andy Dickinson (on video, below):

“[T]ake an existing package and break it in to its key parts. Write a description of each chunk on to a card or post-it note. Lay them out in a line and then for each card add another for content you didn’t use at that point or expands on the content.

“Then try moving the content around in to sections that fit together. Pretty soon you will have the bare bones of a possible multimedia package.

Talking with some students recently about their own multimedia projects, however, I realised a weakness with the approach: we tend to assume that everyone comes to the story through the same interface.

And this is wrong.

While the practice of chunking multimedia was becoming semi-conventional, another convention was forming: every page is a homepage.

But in multimedia interactives, there’s only one homepage: the interface.

Rethinking the interface

When most multimedia interactives were Flash-based, this wasn’t a problem, because Flash doesn’t allow you to go ‘back’ or ‘forward’ between URLs so there was no need to consider the possibility of a user entering the interactive at different points (unless you split it into separate movies on different webpages). The whole movie sits on one URL, and you start at… the start.

With more and more interactive work using HTML5 or Javascript, however, that becomes a problem. Or rather: an opportunity.

As I’ve worked with students on investigations which were ’chunked’ into different elements (data; multimedia; explainers; case studies) I’ve noticed the same opportunity: each ‘chunk’ is its own homepage: a possible entry point for users into the investigation as a whole.

And that means being clear about the angle on each chunk – not just the product as a whole.

So if your multimedia interactive allows users to browse through a series of interviews, ask: what’s most newsworthy about each? What’s my headline to this, if I assume they haven’t seen any of the other related material? What other material might they want to see next? Will they want to share this individual element? Indeed, should it be published elsewhere too, if it isn’t already? How can it be best optimised for search engines?

In short, the interface is just our choice of arrangement for a set of multimedia elements. Our homepage: not, necessarily, everyone else’s.

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Whether you need an image for your blog post, a soundtrack to your video or that YouTube clip for your documentary, if you’re dealing with multimedia it’s likely you’ll end up using – or wanting to use – someone else’s work as part of your own.

Here are some basic tips on finding and using multimedia across the web in a way that won’t (hopefully) land you in hot water.

The public domain myth

One of the mistakes that has repeatedly landed journalists and their employers in trouble is confusion over the term “public domain“.

Public domain has two possible meanings. In copyright terms, public domain refers to work whose copyright has expired, meaning that anyone can use it without having to ask the copyright holder. Disney – a fierce lobbyist itself for extending copyright – has used ‘public domain’ material as the basis for most of its cartoons, from the work of the Grimm Brothers to a host of other fairy tales, myths and legends.

But sometimes you will hear journalists talk about something being “in the public domain“, in other words ‘public’. For instance, when the Irish Daily Mail published photos of an air traffic controller from her website, they defended the decision on the grounds that the image was “in the public domain”.

But this is not the same.

For example, pretty much every piece of media, almost by definition, is “in the public domain”. Newspapers and magazines sit on the newsstands; television and radio reports are broadcast on huge city centre screens and speakers.

But if you take that content and reproduce it in its entirety without permission, you are breaking copyright law.

It seems odd that media organisations so used to protecting their own, very public, content, should think that another person’s photo, or video, or report, should be fair game because it is “in the public domain”. But they do.

If you want public domain (in the sense of ‘copyright expired’) content, there are some useful sources. The Public Domain Review, for example, publishes a range of public domain work and has this guide to finding them. And Angela Grant writes here about finding public domain video, among other things (note that Angela refers to US law, not that of other countries).

But never assume something is public domain because it is “in public”.

One point to make: while an image, story, or composition may be out of copyright, its performance, re-design or re-telling may not.

Just ask Disney.

Creative Commons – making UGC copyright explicit

If you’re dealing with content that’s been published on a platform like Flickr or YouTube, you may be able to find out the copyright status of that content relatively easily.

Both allow users to easily establish copyright through the Creative Commons licence. You can either look for that licence in the relevant part of the page hosting the content.

On YouTube it is under the video:

On Flickr this is on the right hand side under License:

Make sure you click on that licence to find out what terms it requires.

Creative Commons, for example, has a number of elements:

• Whether the material can be used only in noncommercial contexts, or for commercial use as well
• Whether the material can be adapted and changed, or must be left unchanged
• Whether you must use the same CC licence if you use this material (e.g. you cannot use a noncommercial licence but then allow your work to be used commercially)
• Whether you must attribute the work (this is where many people breach the licence)

If you’re unsure of where your work fits against those criteria (for example, whether it’s considered as “commercial”), then approach the copyright holder for clarity. Remember that the CC licence is only a default position, and can be negotiated. Also, if you cannot get any response and decide to publish anyway, your attempts to contact the copyright holder will be important if there are any legal proceedings.

If you want others to publish their content under a CC licence, it helps if you publish at least some of your own work under a CC licence too. Indeed, if it contains other CC material, their licences may require you to.

Embedding versus re-broadcasting

If the media is hosted on a platform like YouTube, you may be able to embed it on a webpage without seeking permission at all: if the creator* has enabled embedding then they would have little argument in suing for breach of copyright because a) by enabling embedding they have given an ‘implied’ right; and b) they could stop you publishing it instantly by disabling embedding. Also, your embedding of their media would not lead to any loss of revenue (as advertising is embedded too), so it is unlikely that there would be any damages to sue for.

*note: this does not apply to video created by other people and uploaded by someone other than the copyright holder.

Reality bites

Of course, it’s one thing to talk about the strict legal position, and another to talk about what actually happens. Journalists regularly publish content that breaks the law – but make a judgement about the likelihood of ending up in court over that. For example, I can say that the Queen is corrupt (a defamatory statement) and be almost certain that the Queen is not going to sue me (because she has a history of not doing so).

Media lawyers are not just there to advise publishers on their strict legal position, but on the balance of risk involved, and how to reduce those risks. While you cannot always avoid risks, you can avoid them in simple ways:

• Always try to establish the copyright situation regarding any media you use: who holds the copyright (there may be more than one copyright owner: for example, performer and composer), and what are the terms of the licence?
• Try to contact the copyright holder if you’re in any doubt – even if you can’t contact them your efforts to do so will help you if you do end up in court.
• Always attribute authorship and link to the source (this can be done in title credits, captions and/or links on the host webpage). Copyright claims normally revolve around loss of earnings: anything that may have contributed to that (i.e. not linking to the source) will likely add to damages.

For more on these issues, and for related tools and links, see my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/paulb/creativecommons

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One of the problems in teaching online journalism is that what you teach today may be out of date by the time the student graduates.

This is not just a technological problem (current services stop running; new ones emerge that you haven’t taught; new versions of languages and software are released) but also a problem of medium: genres such as audio slideshows, mapping, mashups, infographics and liveblogging have yet to settle down into an established ‘formula’.

In short, I don’t believe it’s wise to simply ‘teach online journalism’. You have to combine basic principles as they are now with an understanding of how to continue to learn the medium as it develops.

This year I set MA Online Journalism students at Birmingham City University an assignment which attempts to do this.

It’s called ‘Communities of Practice’ (the brief is here). The results are in, and they are very encouraging. Here’s what emerged:

‘Communities of Practice’

The ‘Communities of Practice’ assignment asks students to focus not just on developing technical skills around a particular medium of their choice, but on exploring the communities of practice that exist around it. In fact, at this stage the development of technical skills was one of the ways of making contact with those communities.

If, for example, you are developing skills in data journalism, it makes sense that you should be joining relevant mailing lists, following particular blogs, attending meetups, and having conversations (in person, or via email, Facebook or Twitter) around your area.

In addition, as a Masters level student, I’d say you should really be actively contributing to the development of the medium, by publishing your own experiences and reflections on those platforms, and on your own blog.

Two side benefits of this: you build your social capital within those communities (because you are contributing to them, not just taking away), and you build your professional status and reputation.

Hedy Korbee’s blogging on data journalism, for example, led to contacts with Microsoft Canada’s Open Source Strategy Lead, and raised awareness of her soon-to-be-launched hyperlocal website. Other students attended events and made other useful contacts in their fields.

A small aside here: the assignment constitutes a minor part of the Multimedia Journalism module on the course, accounting for 25% of the final marks, and it is assessed on 3 criteria: research, reflection, and creativity. The design of the assessment is geared to ensure that students focus more on learning than execution, and are therefore prepared to take more risks in their work (the second assignment, for which this builds the foundations, focuses more on execution).

The importance of a community’s culture

The culture of the communities of practice was important. Desi Velikova found a warm welcome on this Flash forum, and found that she was able to contribute without being an expert as one of the members needed to put himself in beginners’ shoes to write some tutorials.

Hedy Korbee, meanwhile, identified the divide between journalists and data experts and the problems for people joining those groups who, like her, don’t possess the expertise to actively contribute:

“I’ve learned that the culture of these groups requires asking practical, answerable questions based on specific problems that users face and I don’t think my skills are at a level yet where I can make a useful contribution.

“In light of this, I’ve also joined groups with meetups, such as Toronto OpenStreetMap, where I can interact with and hopefully get inspired by others who share an interest in data and mapping.  I am particularly looking forward to attending my first Hacks and Hackers Toronto meetup.”

Finding workarounds was key. In one instance, Hedy contacted a particularly approachable member of the community directly. Andy Watt, meanwhile, struggled to find communities around audio and video, so he created his own on LinkedIn, and two Twitter lists. Interestingly, he rejected the option of using his own website to host discussions “as it may have been perceived as a ploy to drive traffic to my own site.” Samuel Negredo identified communities around a blog, forums around particular software, and events.

Identifying best practice and reflecting on your own

Identifying best practice was a key process for students. Hedy Korbee’s ‘Five great audio slideshows‘ is a good example, and clearly influenced her own work. Desi Velikova compiled a list of resources for starting Flash 8.

Andy Watt’s blog focused more on documenting his own processes, posting various stages of particular experiments as he continued to edit them. Samuel blogged about the process of filming architecture. And Desi blogged about using one dataset as the basis for exploring 4 visualisation tools.

Being required to talk about process publicly in this way does two things: firstly, it engenders a reflexive approach to production, identifying what works and what doesn’t so that further work is of higher quality. Secondly, it provides material around which other members of the production community can talk: those who are not as proficient will learn from it, and be inclined to help in return in future; those who are more proficient may chip in with their own suggestions now. In short, it’s an investment.

Breadth versus depth

In terms of the structure of the MA, this assignment marks the point at which students move from breadth to depth. To my mind an online journalist needs an awareness of the wide range of storytelling possibilities in the medium, and the variety of newsgathering and distribution tools and techniques. But they also need to stand out in a particular field.

Communities of practice are key to both. One student commented that “Although I will never be a Flash expert, I will feel much more confident if I am in a situation to work on such a project”. Another said “Maybe I won’t be able to keep up with every development, every day, but the work I have done around communities of practice is helping me to identify and organize better the resources which are available”.

This is the nature of working in networks: our connections are key assets we need to work to build, and the ability to access expertise and advice a key skill. You do not achieve either by learning in isolation, producing in seclusion – the traditional mode of education. As these students go forward to specialise in online audio or video, slideshows, infographics and data, they do so within networks.

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Written by Wilbert Baan

Today is the day of the US elections. I don’t think we ever had a live event on the web that will get so much live coverage. This means incredible amounts of information will be published over all kind of services and social networks. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, Blogger and many more.

Most popular web services have programmable interfaces. These interfaces allow developers to extract information out of the system. This creates a whole new genre of storytelling: storytelling with public databases. You can aggregate the information you need and sort it the way you want.

To prove the concept I made three small mock-ups. They all use search.twitter.com to see how people voted.

When I made the first the first animation Erik Borra replied by developing the idea into something that stores the data retrieved from Twitter in a database. I made a new interface that shows a graph based on what people say they voted on Twitter. And the result is a Twitter Poll.

These three examples are not representative data, it is extracted from Twitter. But it shows you how much personal and valuable information is in the public database. All you have to do is ask yourself what you want to tell to your readers and if this information is available.

I voted

This animation gets the latest twitter message where someone says they voted on McCain or Obama. It automatically refreshes.

What Twitter votes

In this animation Erik Borra stores the “I voted” messages in a central database. And I made a visual interface for the data. Obama is popular on Twitter. Refresh the window to see if results changed.

We say

In this animation you can click on keywords to construct a query. It searches the Twitter database for matching Twitter messages.

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This season, after years of loyalty to the BBC/Channel 4 fantasy football competition, I’ve switched to The Guardian’s. Their game takes advantage of the reams of player data now available to newspapers – not just goals scored, clean sheets and assists, but also clearances, interceptions, tackles, shots on target, and so on, making for a very different challenge indeed.

The move mirrors that made by The Telegraph a year ago when they introduced a Flash element to their match reports that allowed you to look at an incredible range of match statistics. As I wrote at the time: it’s like having your own ProZone.

What’s all this got to do with the future of news? This: data. It’s one of the few advantages that news organisations have, and they should be doing more with it. What the Guardian fantasy football and the Telegraph demonstrate is the flexibility of that data.

And if we can do it in sport, why aren’t we doing it more elsewhere? Schools tables, pollution records, crime data, geotagged information, and election results are just a few that spring to mind – can you add some more?

For a good example of a particularly creative use of data (again with a sport twist), see Channel 4′s alternative Olympics medals table, which matches medals results against various other country stats, such as human rights record.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to join my fantasy football friends’ league, search for Game 39 – or just post a comment below…

More database-related posts

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CNN have a fancy new tool which allows you to see the “history, context and background to a developing story”. BackStory presents previous stories in a slideshow format with links to the full articles.

I’m not sure if this is a ‘Previous Stories’ link box for the broadband age that brings new life to a story, or a waste of resources that might have been better spent elsewhere. The timeline could work well, but doesn’t seem particularly usable in the Anthrax example. What do you think?

Rachel Clark, senior producer, tells more on CNN’s Behind the Scenes blog. (via Journalism.co.uk)

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Vuvox is to Flash what WordPress is to Dreamweaver. Vuvox is, effectively, a content management system for multimedia content – an easy way to create Flash interactives without having to know Flash.

I first explored it a few months ago, but still haven’t had the time to really see what it can do. But here’s some things:

• Photo gallery
• Image slideshows with hyperlinks
• Panoramas
• Audio slideshows – simply upload the audio and the images and it does the rest. These already have a tradition in online news, with Soundslides becoming something of an industry-standard tool.
• Interactive image maps (click on the speech bubbles)
• Integrated video galleries (or links to embedded media)

Vuvox also works with RSS feeds, Flickr, Buzznet and Picasa, so you can create dynamically updated content.

One problem: the resulting movie is hosted by Vuvox  (although you can embed it). If you want to get the movie to host yourself you’ll have to use an .swf ripper, which is probably breaking the terms and conditions of Vuvox.

Anyway, over to you – what uses can you think of?

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Remember when newspaper editors thought it was impressive to have a virtual version of their newspaper, turning pages and all? Remember how no one read them?

Well it seems the same mistakes are being made all over again by Arabic daily newspaper An-Nahar.

The newspaper now features a Flash version of itself – complete with a virtual desk littered with virtual pencil, magnifying glass and, er, CD.

It has to be one of the most elaborate, confusing and pointless pieces of newspaper design I’ve ever seen.

You can imagine the conversation:

“Click on the pencil and you can move it over the paper, see? And you can ‘highlight’ stuff. Well, yes, actually when you try to highlight stuff you get an uncontrollable red scrawl not unlike that of a deranged two-year-old… but it’s just like real life!

“And the coffee cup tips over when you click it! Oh we laughed and laughed when we spent all afternoon getting that to work. In fact, we loved it so much we spent twice as long on the mobile phone that changes wallpaper.”

And the magnifying glass? If you designed a newspaper so badly that everyone needed a magnifying glass, would you be proud?

Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen is widely known for his opinions on the weaknesses of Flash (he’s also written on the problem of using physical metaphors for navigation).

Flash tempts people to reinvent graphical user interfaces, confusing users (check.) It is expensive to create and maintain, and sucks up valuable resources that can be better spent on core services (check.) It presents problems for internationalising and localising content (well, I can’t read the content, so I’m guessing here).

What else? Oh yes, you can’t email it to a friend, or bookmark it, or even copy and paste from it. And it’s not searchable, which also means it presents accessibility issues, and that search engines are less likely to rank it highly.

In short, it’s a dud.

Amazingly, however, the original newspaper website does have podcasts, widgets, photo galleries, mobile services and RSS feeds. With that sort of web literacy, why on earth did they feel the need to go all virtual?

Thanks to Tuuli Platner for the lead.

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Eric Ulken has taken “all the online job descriptions on JournalismJobs.com from this year, omitted the non-technical words (like “editor”, “seeks” and “self-starter”) and built a tagcloud out of the rest”. This is the result:

Eric Ulken | Technical skills in journalism jobs

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