“We Never Know How High We Are”.
News organizations are not afraid trying new methods to broaden their audiences, even if it means stumbling across cultural and language barriers.
Growing up in Mexico, I used to watch cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls, Rugrats, Hey Arnold, etc… in Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. Though these are all American shows and TV channels there was no need to speak English, they were all translated to Spanish. As I learned English, I slowly transitioned to watch TV with Spanish subtitles; allowing me to hear the actors’ real voices while improving my English. However, the jokes and references made in Spanish translations were familiar and funnier, so in many occasions I would chose what was culturally closer to me while still watching “American cartoons”. The original version, however, was a gate for straight access into American culture by its compelling influence and demographical proximity.
I see this as a great example of organizations adapting to different audiences, and the need to update their strategies, to do so efficiently and accurately.
From the article “Sharing across borders: How BBC News wants to streamline social news across multiple languages,” a group within BBC News called BBC Shorts, are producing square-shaped videos in a format that fits captions and audio in 28 different languages. This is a great initiative for a news organization to achieve efficiency and expand their outreach; while staying afloat with social media and mobile-first societies going in that direction — short, fun and universal-themed videos. Serving other language speaking communities outside of the main British audience, promotes engagement and expands their impact.
“We want to make audiences that normally may have a stereotype about what the BBC is — we want to show them that the BBC is up to speed with the modern times”.
The BBC is just one among the many news organizations continuously updating their strategies in order to better serve their ever-changing and growing audiences. As more people in third world countries gain access to the Internet and social media platforms, online demographics change and there are great opportunities for online organizations to fill in the gaps. Nonetheless, the online world is still made up of different cultural communities, so when making the transition to other languages, news organizations should be ready to encounter and deal with these discrepancies. Even as small as the one mentioned in the article, in which the Chinese characters did not fit into the square-video preset format. Gratefully, these things can be learned and improved on the road when trying and testing various models.
Another example of adopting new ways of outreach is the use of chat apps, which were not made for news distribution initially but have shown to be effective in some countries. In Caroline O’Donovan’s “Around the world, media outlets and journalists are using chat apps to spread the news”, she gives the example of BBC News India on Whatsapp. With a couple of more examples of chat apps used in different countries during elections, the article expands on the benefits of using these apps and the extent of their impact.
“I think it’s much more accurate to describe them as mobile-first social media sites, rather than just chat platforms.”
These are great examples of the way in which journalism is transforming and how we, as social journalists, should tackle the obstacles to better serve our communities. Just like the cartoons I watched as a kid, content needs to be delivered to our audiences in a way that they can relate to it and understand. This is why listening and letting our community members ask the questions is so important, because there are many trends happening that we don’t know about. One platform might have been created for a specific audience and reason, but it doesn’t mean another audience won’t see its potential to serve their own needs.
