Ken Calhoun speaks to Elon students about interactive media

by Amy McLeod

Communications professor Ken Calhoun spoke to Elon students on April 8 about interactive media and how it is growing and being used to inform audiences.

Ken Calhoun talk to Elon students about interactive media in today's industry.

“Traditional media is a one directional media,” Calhoun said.  “There’s a sender and there’s a receiver. Interactivity allows for this kind of conversation, active participation by the audience.  It provides back-and-forth in the model, more of a conversation.  That’s what people want from their media.”

The three “flavors” of interactive media that Calhoun says are beginning to develop are storytelling, responsive visuals and conversation.

STORYTELLING

Interactive media is becoming a popular way to tell stories. Media objects such as interactive narratives give the viewer the ability to make decisions that impact the plot of the story.

“It gives viewers the opportunity to have a media experience that you can navigate yourself,” Calhoun said.

There are no longer restrictions for the type of media used to tell a story – video, pictures, audio, etc.  It all depends on which type of media will most effectively tell each portion of the story.

Listen to Ken Calhoun talk about strategies for effective interactive storytelling.

RESPONSIVE VISUALS

“Responsive visuals are experiences we have online that are really visually based,” Calhoun said. “They’re graphics, info graphics, data visualizations, timelines, maps, stuff like that.”

In order for responsive visuals to be effective, they must be self-revealing and truly interactive.

“They have to be open, organic and fed by the changing world,” Calhoun said.

CONVERSATION

“Conversations are the social media aspect,” said Calhoun. “All those aspects where we’re contributing to a narrative; we’re contributing to a body of text.”

As Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and blogs explode, conversation media are becoming a popular and very effective way to communicate.  Calhoun says that these social networks have become interactive media because they are setting the conditions for conversations, not hosting them.

Mac Demere speaks to Elon students about the keys to good journalism, his take on changing media

by Amy McLeod

Freelance writer and automotive journalist Mac Demere spoke to Reporting students at Elon University today about the components of successful journalism and the changes that are coming with a new age of media.

Demere’s four keys to good journalism

Having spent many years working in the field and on all different facets of the media, Demere has come up with what he believes to be the four keys to good journalism.

The first of Demere’s keys is accuracy in research and reporting.

“You have to be correct,” said Demere. “Sometimes its better to give up on completeness to get accuracy. I’d rather have things accurate but not necessarily complete than make an attempt to be complete and be inaccurate. If a story has one error in it that most people can notice, you’ve lost them all. And you may have lost them all for the rest of your career.”

A good reporter must also turn in stories on time and of the correct length. The fourth and most important element to good journalism is engaging the audience.

“Quite frankly,” Demere said, “this is what’s going to separate you from the horde. Interesting, emotion provoking, exciting. My first managing editor told me ‘Make them laugh, make them cry, make them mad, piss them off if you have to, but don’t bore them.’  I still assert that newspapers could be doing better than they are if they had good, interesting writers.  I don’t care if you’re writing about a burglary or the fact that they want to cut down some old oaks. It’s got to be interesting.”

‘Media today is in a war”

Demere encouraged students to take a wide variety of communications classes to get a broad understanding of the industry of the uncertainty of where the industry will go in the future.  The industry is changing and budding journalists should be prepared for all possibilities.

“Right now,” Demere said, “the whole journalist media is in a war and we have no idea how it’s going to come out.”

“Be an expert of whatever you’re reporting”

It’s important to be enough of an expert that you know the types of questions to ask and are able to find holes in stories.

Whether in the public relations field or journalism, knowing what you’re talking about is critical in doing your job effectively.

Always things to learn

Even though Demere has been in the industry for years, with the changing face of journalism, there are still new things to learn.  As he and partner Bill King plan to start their automotive Web site oncars.com, they have questions about how to make this type of online journalism profitable.

Photojournalism and online journalism are new territories for many people and are still taking time to figure out.