A Multimedia Platform Improves News Communication

By Mariam Traore

When it comes to deciding how one wants to receive their news, there are some aspects to consider. Do you want that connection with the story being told? Perhaps hearing from the primary source itself will help you understand and connect with the story being told. When you later want to tell that particular story to a friend, perhaps the digital print version with the pictures and videos helped you remember it in more detail.

Each version has its benefits and challenges; depending on how you prefer to intake your news each time, the style in which it is reported effects your comprehension. Having a multimedia platform that accompanies various stories allows for a well-rounded perception of an article.

As mentioned by Kiki Wallick in her “Journalistic styles are heavily influenced by news mediums” blog post, you receive certain details from the radio medium that other types of reporting can’t provide. This is important because, with various people’s curiosity/comprehension of certain details, the radio platform providing that human interest at an intimate level is beneficial for some. Reasonably, the print medium, more particularly with the digital version, with videos and pictures gives certain details that may not have that direct human-interest connection but still produces news we understand.

The radio medium may help in providing a contrasting form of news but a multimedia platform incorporates both print and radio mediums and takes it beyond the two. In Jane Steven’s “Multimedia storytelling”, she breaks down the process to put together a well-rounded multimedia project. From details about figuring what topic to focus on, to executing all the necessary task to get the information you need, all the way to your finished product.

Steven defines a multimedia story as, “Sites such as CNN, the Washington Post, NPR and MSNBC.com are multimedia sites. They have text. They have video clips. They have audio. They have still photographs. They have interactive graphics.” (Stevens 2019). This method in reporting a story requires time and a well thought out plan to include more elements that can be found in the radio or print mediums.

With the shift to the Internet, mainly social media platforms, news must become accessible in more than one way.  Another unique aspect of a multimedia story is its ability to be shared with the world through as many social platforms as possible. You get a little bit of all the components that help you understand the article in one way or another and having the ability to share particular stories among the rest of the world is a privilege.

According to Aleks Krotoski’s “What effect has the internet had on journalism?” she states, “technology has improved the processes of identifying stories that are newsworthy.” (Krotoski 2011). Yes, technology has allowed us to reach more people but it also developed to allow better communication, and in multiple ways, that’s beneficial overall.

As Wallick also mentioned that despite the differences between print and radio, they both do accomplish the task of telling a story. The radio platform might’ve been the competition for print news previously, but now multimedia stories are the true competition. With its assorted ways of communicating one story, it brings in the attention of radio and print audiences.

Sources

Krotoski, A. 2011. What effect has the internet had on journalism?

Steven, J. 2019. Multimedia Storytelling: learn the secrets from experts.

Wallick, K. 2019. Journalistic styles are heavily influenced by news mediums.