Still images, audio, and video in mass communications

Here we are again, another week, another blog post. However, today this blog post has an extra special treat for all of you fans (the 2 or 3 classmates that might choose my blog to read). That treat is VIDEO! Yes, you read that right, this blog has a video of me explaining my thoughts on this week’s class readings. For those of you who dislike reading or are illiterate, you can simply watch the video as it will contain mostly the same information as this post you are about to read.



For those of you who chose to continue reading, this week’s blog topic is going to concentrate on the use of images, audio, and video in mass communications. I feel that this topic is only fitting for this week as we are using all three components in addition to the usual written blog.



According to visual journalist Colin Mulvany, “Being able to capture fleeting moments is what separates the professional photojournalist from the amateur photographer.” This quote stuck out to me as I was reading because I agree with him, especially now that digital cameras are so easy to come by, and everyone thinks that they are photographers. I look at pictures on Facebook and other websites and it is easy to pick out which ones are taken by someone who is good at photography versus the ones that were taken by some shmuck who decided to pick up a camera. Photography is also about more than just taking pictures and making them look good. The photographer needs to be able to form a relationship with the subject of his photo and the subject needs to feel comfortable and trust the photographer while still acting naturally.

The age of digital photography has brought up issues outside of the photographer/subject relationship. With so many digital images readily available online, the act of “borrowing” images without permission has become a common practice. I actually have some personal experience in this area. A couple years ago, my friends and I started a website, Airhard HQ, to chronicle and promote our airsoft activities. I made a logo for the website using a simple crosshair image from Google images. After having the website up for quite some time, my friend received a letter in the mail saying that if the “stolen” images were not removed, legal action would be taken.

The use of audio is also a common trend in journalism. Briggs uses a quote from a blogger that said he would rather listen to a radio broadcast of a baseball game than watch a TV broadcast because the camera is too restricting and simply hearing what is going on allows him to visualize the entire game. I tend to agree with him on this (and also because TV sports announcers are awful). I also found it interesting that, even though interviews are the most popular form of audio journalism, they are usually pretty boring. To help people make their interviews better, the book gives tips, which I have tried to employ in my own interview as seen in the video. If you are on the fence about whether or not to watch the video, you should simply for the interview.

Finally is the topic of video journalism. Like with photography, video has become much easier to obtain than it was in the past and this blog is a prime example of that. Most digital cameras that are used primarily for still photos can also be used to record video, and even many camera-phones have video capabilities. Something I found amazing is the statistic that, in 2009, 20 hours of video were being uploaded to Youtube every minute! That, to me, is amazing. And that statistic, more than likely, will only go up as more and more people begin to use Youtube. For example, I have has a Youtube account for years just to subscribe videos I thought were interesting, and have never until now posted my own video.

One thing that was discussed about video that I found particularly interesting was the use of storyboarding. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, much of the information in the text books focuses on the journalism part of mass communications, and as a student of advertising, I try to incorporate the information from these books into advertising. Storyboarding is something I have used many times in other classes to create a video advertisement without actually producing it. Like with advertising, storyboarding in video journalism helps to focus the story’s message and can also help the journalist know what he is trying to achieve. Storyboarding is also good because it is not written in stone and can be a good, flexible outline for a project.

That is about it for this week’s post. Be sure to watch the video if you have not already and come back next week for more riveting discussion of media convergence.