Digital News Critical Analysis

Digital News Critical Analysis

Introduction

For this critical analysis, I will be discussing how my online news show, The Contemporary Art Scene, relates to and differs from other news channels both on the small screen and online. To do this I will be looking at how the brand is developed, selecting your audience, scripting and storytelling and their platforms. Through looking into these aspects of development, I will be able to analyse other news shows alongside my own. This will enable me to further explain the decisions made in creating The Contemporary Art Show.

Concept/Brand Development

The brand of a news channel will differ according to a number of factors that you would have to consider. There are endless ways to brand a news channel and the very concept of the idea may differ according to what you’re using to present this information. In the book User Generated Branding by Burmann and Arnold, it is said that ‘In order to elaborate a definition of brand related UGC the general UGC principles of publication requirement, creative effort, and creation outside routines are adopted.’ (Burmann and Arnhold, 2008: 39). The branding is important as it is something your viewers will recognise and engage with and it needs to reflect what the brand is all about. For instance, because ITV focuses on the people, the planet and their partnerships, their news sequence consists of various shots of people from all walks of life and images from around the globe to show their impartial view on society (see fig. 1).

Fig. 1. ITV News Brand (2013)

For the online news show, The Contemporary Art Scene, we made use of the colours light blue and purple to ensure that the layout is simple and not distracting. With online news, it’s not uncommon to be over enthusiastic with their choice in colours and patterns, the backdrop to Complex News for example is often rather eye catching and a little distracting. However, being a show based around youth culture, the style is appropriate to their audience, whereas a channel that showcases art would need to be of a cultured taste, therefore more serious.

Audience Research

ITV Regional News aims to provide information to local areas, targeting each region and county individually. They also claim to be ‘the UK’s largest and most loved commercial broadcaster’ (ITV Media, 2016). The ITV Media page also cites that they are ‘the only broadcaster that allows advertisers to target consumers on a national, macro, regional and micro region level’ (ITV Media, 2016). Research data compiled in 2013 found that ‘43% of adults over the age of 35 who use TV for news watch ITV News’ (Ofcom, 2013). However the facts that really tell you who’s watching what is the average viewing figures by age. According to Ofcom, ‘16-34 year olds consumed only 38 hours of news on television in the same period, compared to 148 hours for those aged over 35’ (Ofcom, 2013). This revealed how important audience research is when creating a news channel.

As we were running an online contemporary art channel, it was important to look at who watches online news and also who would care to watch an online news show about contemporary art. A 2013 report Alison Preston of Ofcom showed that ‘90% of 16-24 year olds had internet access compared to just 46% of 65+’ (Preston, 2013). Thus we needed to be appealing to a younger demographic, but this doesn’t tell us who would be more interested in an art based show. Preston also covered this (see fig. 2). This graph shows that once again, a younger demographic would be more interested in online news about art and culture. This lead to bringing in younger presenters and reporters to bring in that younger demographic that we would need.

Fig. 2 Demographic Divides: How Different Groups Experience Online News (2013)

Platform Research

As a digital news production, it was important to know the importance of digital news today and the impact it will have in the future. Research into the audience has been covered and I understood who we were catering for with a large number of 18-24 year olds getting their news from online sources every day. In fact, a YouGov survey showed that ‘More than a quarter of 18–24s say social media (28%) are their main source of news – more than television (24%) for the first time’ (YouGov, 2016). The same report revealed that ‘60% of people in the UK engage in some form of digital news’ (YouGov, 2016) which is important to know seeing as this is where our target audience lies.

It’s also important to know that multiple major network news channels such as ITV News and Sky News, have their own YouTube channels which will either take a whole segment from the TV version or create a whole different news piece specifically for the internet. While discussing the differences between TV broadcast news and digital news, Gail Mooney makes the following points:

·      ‘TV news is delivered to us on the network channels – 3 times a day.’ (Mooney, 2012)

·      ‘Online news is 24/7 and on demand. We get the news online when we want it and wherever we want it – on our desktop computers, on our iPhones or on our iPads. We also can share the news and interact with others. W become part of the delivery chain.’ (Mooney, 2012)

The Contemporary Art Scene is broadcasted on YouTube and uses Twitter to communicate with the audience directly, allowing them to pick out important news stories that we may have missed. Our shows Artist of the Month and Gallery of the Month being examples of how the audience can interact with the show and make their own suggestions. Episodes are generally short and concise, lasting about 5-6 minutes each.

News Story Research and Development

Researching into a news story consists of more than just knowing the story, it’s knowing how to present that information to your audience. This includes the build up, whether your presenter will be in a studio or a green screen or on location. As Richard Hernandez explains, ‘Exploring the evolution of online journalism presentation from its first forays helps one gain insight into the current structure and application of multimedia presentation and design’ (Hernandez, 2015). For example, Complex News uses a green screen in their news sections with young presenters to reach out to their intended audience and to engage with the story in discussion.

By looking at Digital News examples such as Complex News and The Young Turks, we learned about keeping our show relevant to the story and to the people watching. This involves looking back at the audience research and the brand and concept idea. To fit the idea of using digital news to present our stories, the stories themselves had to be short and punchy, lots of information about the artist and the gallery in question in a way that will engage the audience and stay true to our concept idea.

Scripting and Storytelling

Storytelling and scripting for news differs from platform to platform. For instance, ITV News and BBC News both include cutaways, live pieces, out of vision pieces, interviews, an introduction in the studio amongst others. A digital news show will differ from show to show and from story to story. Complex News for example have various ways of delivering the news depending on the story. The most common being an in-studio introduction followed by out of vision pieces and maybe some footage shot by the public. Interviews are very rare and live pieces almost never happen at all.

We looked at examples from both to help script and structure The Contemporary Art Show. Our show would contain in-studio introductions, a live piece, a news package, interviews and cutaways. The focus was on our Artist and Gallery of the Month so one of the first questions we had for ourselves was whether have them as two separate shows or incorporate them into one? My idea was to reveal them in the same episode.

Conclusions

There were a number of issues that needed addressing when creating The Contemporary Art Show, one of which was choice of story and location. The live shoot and package shoot locations had to be changed when we failed to get a final response on filming permissions. This issue however was quickly resolved with a new approach to the shows concept and idea. The qualities our show brought forward were thanks to the extensive research made into these locations as well as the research into how a digital news show should be structured and presented.

Characters were vitally important in our piece as we found entertainment is becoming one of the more important factors in news today, as seen in Complex News and BBC Breakfast. Our presenter and reporters were all young and relatable characters that our target audience can really engage with.

Illustrations List:

Figure 1. ITV News Brand (2013) [Image] At: http://www.lambie-nairn.staging.athlonproduction.com/case-study/itv-news/ (Accessed: 23 November 2016).

Figure 2. Demographic Divides: How Different Groups Experience Online News (2013) [Image] At: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/essays/2013/demographic-divides-how-different-groups-experience-online-news/ (Accessed: 25 November 2016)

Bibliography:

Burmann, C. and Arnhold, U. (2008) User Generated Branding: State of the Art Research. Münster: LIT Verlag Münster.

ITV Media. (2016) ITV Media. Available at: http://www.itvmedia.co.uk/ (Accessed: 25 November 2016).

Ofcom. (2013) News Consumption in the UK – 2013 report. Available at: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/40815/news_report_2013.pdf (Accessed 25 November 2016).

Preston, A. (2013) Demographic divides: How different groups experience online news. Available at: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/essays/2013/demographic-divides-how-different-groups-experience-online-news/ (Accessed: 25 November 2016).

YouGov. (2016) Digital News Report 2016. Available at: http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/ (Accessed 26 November 2016).

Hernandez, R. (2015) The Principles of Multimedia Journalism: Packaging Digital News. Berkley, California: Routledge.

Mooney, G. (2012) The difference between TV and new media. Available at: https://kellymooneyminutes.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/the-difference-between-tv-and-new-media/ (Accessed: 12 December 2016).