With this image to (sort of) guide you, I present visualized news.
My idea is designed for the user whose knowledge of a given piece of news is little to nothing.
During a discussion, one of my group members noted that she has to be the one to whom her friends go to get current events. She fills them in from beginning to end. Journalists and other news junkies alike have no problem keeping up with developing stories, and they're often able to jump right in and find out without too much of a hassle what has led the story to its current state. We should solve that.
A single story can be broken down into multiple (interesting!) facets. When compiled, those facets hopefully bring together the entire story, and, with this feature, may even be greater than the sum of the parts since the connectivity is already represented.
The picture shows a quasi-random story's development. The two circles on the very left represent the first stories. Notice that one circle is bigger; in regards to the whole, the bigger a story's circle, the more important it is. These two circles then lead to a third circle, which also has other stories leading to and from it. As more and more facets of a story show up, their interconnectedness is displayed.
When hovering over a story, a snippet revealing the synopsis appears. Perhaps there could even be a one-word summary that is grayed-out over each circle, providing an even quicker run-down of news. People then have the option of going back to read* the beginning, middle and end of the whole shebang.
I believe that the stories are already stored in some database, so either using embedded code or applying tags to stories would stitch them together. It will get complex, especially when bias comes in. But this is what we are for, yes?
*Reading is only the example given in this context. A big reason why papers are failing is because of the medium itself. Many people still read the news, but many more prefer it in different forms. Having this concept applied cross-modally would enable those who want video to have videos that still present the (same) story, just in a preferred format. Why not mix them, too?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Hey everyone,
I'm doing my mixed group commenting tonight because I'm not home on weekends...
This idea has a lot of strengths. One thing that struck me was that this could also be used for the journalists and news junkies you've mentioned. I think the whole concept of telling the news through visuals taps into people who, for whatever reason, are apprehensive about reading the news.
My main concern: how far back are you going to let this go? I just have this image of a largely inticate web that is too confusing to follow? With something like the War in Iraq, you're looking at multiple year's worth of stories? Or how do you pick which ones to highlight? And is this going to be run through AP or in conjunction with another major newspaper to utilize their journalists stories?
An idea to strenghthen: avoid text all together. Why not incorporate, to some extent, audio, video or text to voice ideas?
From Jordan (Group1Voltron):
I really like the idea of more visualization as opposed to natural reporting online. I think this is what makes magazines so popular. More little things, side-bars, first-hand accounts, pictures and video and adding them to a main story really increasing the entertainment value, which is really where news is going.
I think completely removing text from the equation might be taking it too far. When I look at google news, I scan the headlines to see if there is anything of interest, not the accompanying pictures. Linking stories in some sort of a network is cool, but I'd consider leaving headlines.
Hello, this is Christina from Group 1 Voltron.
I think this idea is really interesting but may be confusing for a user to just jump into and know how to use. I think you can't just dump text... it isn't that annoying to read, and it gives the reader some bearings (imagine a conflict as detailed at the Iraq War..you could end up with 20 circles with Bush in them...People could get confused remembering what they've read/havent read).
It's a pretty cool concept, but I can see it getting complicated really really fast.
When I see the visualization, it seems cluttered, disorganized, and intimidating. I realize that might be the nature of the idea, that these issues are as complicated as their visualizations, but I think it should be acknowledged that it's going to be difficult to grow accustomed to. I like the idea that more important stories are larger, because they should be, but ranking a story's importance because a new issue.
Are these to be packages developed for several key issues or stories (e.g., War in Iraq), or this something that would apply to any new story? If it's the second option, I think it may be incredibly difficult to accomplish.
Kyle (of Voltron)
What about stories with multiple topics? Will each topic in a story be separately linked to other stories with similar topics? How do you alert the reader when they have followed a story in the wrong direction? I really like the visuals although it should be kept simple so people can easily navigate.
I'm not too sure that this solves a real problem.
Hey guys, this is Hepi of the All Knighter team (UNLV). This idea is somewhat similar to an idea we had, and I think it is a really good idea. The main problem I identified in both ideas is that stories that are more visually stimulating will generate more interest than stories that may look boring but have a far reaching impact. There are solutions to this problem and I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with.
I think the visualization is nice concept, but I'm a bit skeptical, speaking from a level of ignorance (meaning if I actually saw this thing I would probably get it better) that this would be much more than a novelty. The idea of tagging stories to connect them is obviously a great idea, and would definitely help both journalists and news consumers to be able to follow stories and their developments.
Chris Raine (KU)
Post a Comment