IMMJ-MA Adres Modules
AdRes Module 1
VJM7000: Advanced Research and Study Skills (20 Credits)
Students will:
- Develop and extend their research skills including an understanding of the research process and its relationship to practice, with special attention to the issues of representation and narrative;
- Be encouraged to develop a deep understanding of critical ideas and issues appropriate to their discipline, especially the transformation from print-based journalism to multimedia journalism in the online space.
David Campbell
Your tutor for the AdRes module is David Campbell, a writer, professor, and producer who analyses visual storytelling and creates new visual stories. David’s website, particularly the section Transforming the visual economy should be a major resource
Each week you need to listen to the recorded lecture and complete the associated readings. Weekly Skype seminars with David, Sharron or Sean will cover each weeks key concepts with a guided debate. You must come to seminars ready to offer and discuss your thoughts, questions and opinions. David will deliver the final 4 Seminars when he visits in the December Intensive. For assessment you will need to write a single paper.
You will need to keep of top of readings each week, multimedia journalism theory and practice intersect and overlap; theory feeds into practice and vice-versa. Do not think you can catch up with the reading just before your essay. Theory lectures, readings and seminars should also help you reflect when writing your ‘News Diaries’
A good introduction and overview to the module is to start by listening to this podcast recorded in summer 2015. DJ Clark and Sharron Lovell speak with David about his latest series of articles on media disruption.
Week 1
AdRes 1: Visual storytelling and the global imagination
LECTURE: The podcast lecture and readings for this first session are available here:
You must prepare in advance by listening to the podcast and doing the readings. The seminars are sessions in which we discuss the topics and ask questions of each other.
The first podcast lecture deals with the fact that our knowledge of the world depends on mediation, the representation of information and issues. This means we have to understand photography as a construction rather than a natural process, and all photographs as representations. This involves considering some difficult concepts about knowledge, and makes research of the context surrounding stories essential to the practice of photography.
Although I talk about photography in the lecture, the concepts apply to all forms of imaging in all forms of story telling.
The lecture also mentions the following readings and people:
Jorge Luis Borges
Cezanne’s “Card Players”
David Hockney:
“You are not looking at a picture of so and so, you’re looking at Cezanne’s account of seeing them.”
Christopher Anderson:
“I have always felt uncomfortable with the term “photojournalist”. In terms of my documentary work, there has always been a difference between my role and that of a reporter. If there can be a comparison, it is that I am perhaps an editorialist. My job has always been to comment on what I witness as opposed to the reporting of an event. I am subjective. I have a point of view. There is no such thing as objectivity in photography. I don’t believe in facts, but I AM obsessed with truth. And my work always deals with this distinction…My work is a truth, but it is my truth, my experience. That is all I can offer.”
Week 2
Transformations in the Media Economy
Start by watching the video below, it shows some of the scale of disruption brought by the internet - which impacts us all. As news makers we need to understand what the key features of the media economy and ecology are, and how those features effect our work. How do we finance our work? And reach engage and converse with our audience?
LECTURE: Please listen to the BBC podcast at:
Read the following articles:
1:
2: https://www.david-campbell.org/2015/05/19/media-disruption-part-one-primacy-of-screen-and-mobile/
3:
Not required reading — but RECOMMENDED: Watch the important Tow Center study Video Now, which investigated the production and consumption of news video in ten American organisations, and found that while their was considerable investment in the area, profits were non-existent because views were very modest. While there were occasional viral succeed, on average a single video on a ‘newspaper’ site got 500-1,000 views each, with brands like Mashable hoping for a minimum of 20,000 views per video. Below is the introduction watch the whole report at Video Now.
Week 3
Users in the Media Economy
LECTURE: Listen to the BBC podcast at:
Read:
1: David Campbell, Visual Storytelling in the Age of Post-Industrial Journalism, (Left) April 2013. Section 2, pp 14–22. (PDF at https://www.david-campbell.org/multimedia/world-press-photo-multimedia-research/)
2: Jay Rosen, “The People Formerly Known as the Audience,” 27 June 2006 http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/06/27/ppl_frmr.html
Week 4
Economics of the Media Economy
There is no audio lecture this week, just readings.
Reading:
1: David Campbell, Visual Storytelling in the Age of Post-Industrial Journalism, Section 6, pp. 41–47.
2: David Campbell, Scarcity, Abundance and Value: The Economics of Digital Culture. - http://www.david-campbell.org/2013/05/31/scarcity-abundance-and-value-the-economics-of-digital-culture/ , 31 May 2013.
3: DJ Clark, Learning to COPE - http://www.david-campbell.org/2013/04/30/learning-to-cope-multimedia-freelancing-in-the-new-media-economy/ , 30 April, 2013
4: Robert Cotterell, The Golden Age of Paid Content, 24 July 2013,
Week 5
Narrative, Journalism and Story
Lecture podcast:
Readings:
1: David Campbell, “Photography and narrative: what is involved in telling a story?” 18 November 2010.
2: David Campbell, “Debating ‘Who’s Afraid of Home?’, and the importance of narrative” 21 June 2011.
3: Jay Rosen, “News Without the Narrative Needed to Make Sense of the News,” March 2010
Week 6
AESTHETIC AND CINEMATIC JOURNALISM:
- David Campbell, “Covering Japan: A videojournalist’s reflections,” 17 March 2011. Make sure to include the podcast on this page.
2. Dan Chung, “The Cinematic Journalism Debate Continues,” 5 April 2010
3. Dan Chung, “Philip Bloom and Khalid Mohtaseb Discuss Cinematic Journalism at NAB,” 23 April 2010
4. James Estrin, “Forum: Suffering and Art,” 16 June 2009
5. “Aesthetic Journalism: A talk by Alfredo Cramerotti” — Vimeo audio recording (1hr 31mins). recommended viewing for the future, not required for class session.
Week 7:
Storytelling Platforms
- David Campbell, Visual Storytelling in the Age of Post-Industrial Journalism, Section 5, pp. 35–40
2. Rachel Bartlett, 9 tools for journalists to produce immersive stories, 15 October 2013
3. Bobbie Johnson, Snowfallen, 17 July 2013
Week 8:
Ethics in the Media Economy
To discuss ethics, we look at one case of reporting a story in China. In January 2012 Mike Daisey made a program for This American Life called “Mr Daisey and the Apple Factory”
It was an adaptation of his stage show and dealt with the manufacture of Apple products in China. Although now retracted by This American Life, read the basic transcript and follow the links. This American Life then produced another show “Retraction” on 16 March 2012 after problems with Daisey’s account emerged. Retraction explores the problems in the original show. Listen to the full podcast on the TAL site www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction. And look at all the links on that podcast page, including the New York Times reports on Apple’s manufacturing in China.
Mike Daisey responded on this blog on 16 March 2012
“This American Life” has raised questions about the adaptation of AGONY/ECSTASY we created for their program. Here is my response:
I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity. Certainly, the comprehensive investigations undertaken by The New York Times and a number of labor rights groups to document conditions in electronics manufacturing would seem to bear this out. What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed THIS AMERICAN LIFE to air an excerpt from my monologue. THIS AMERICAN LIFE is essentially a journalistic — not a theatrical — enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations. But this is my only regret. I am proud that my work seems to have sparked a growing storm of attention and concern over the often appalling conditions under which many of the high-tech products we love so much are assembled in China.
On 19 March 2012 Daisey added:
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” — another American monologist
Many consider this week’s THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode one of the most painful they’ve ever listened to. In particular the segment with me is excruciating — four hours of grilling edited down to fifteen minutes. I thought the dead air was a nice touch, and finishing the episode with audio pulled out of context from my performance was masterful. That’s Ira’s choice, and it’s his show. He’s a storyteller within the context of radio journalism, and I am a storyteller in the theater. In the last forty-eight hours I have been equated with Stephen Glass, James Frey, and Greg Mortenson. Given the tenor of the condemnation, you would think I had concocted an elaborate, fanciful universe filled with furnaces in which babies are burned to make iPhone components, or that I never went to China, never stood outside the gates of Foxconn, never pretended to be a businessman to get inside of factories, never spoke to any workers. Especially galling is how many are gleefully eager to dance on my grave expressly so they can return to ignoring everything about the circumstances under which their devices are made. Given the tone, you would think I had fabulated an elaborate hoax, filled with astonishing horrors that no one had ever seen before. Except that we all know that isn’t true. There is nothing in this controversy that contests the facts in my work about the nature of Chinese manufacturing. Nothing. I think we all know if there was, Ira would have brought it up. You certainly don’t need to listen to me. Read the New York Times reporting. Listen to the NPR piece that ran just last week in which workers at an iPad plant go on record saying the plant was inspected by Apple just hours before it exploded, and that the inspection lasted all of ten minutes. If you think this story is bigger than that story, something is wrong with your priorities. If people want to use me as an excuse to return to denialism about the state of our manufacturing, about the shape of our world, they are doing that to themselves. To radio listeners: I apologized in this week’s episode to anyone who felt betrayed. I stand by that apology. But understand that if you felt something that connected you with where your devices come from — that is not a lie. That is art. That is human empathy, and it is real, and even if you curse my name I hope you’ll recognize that and continue reading, caring, and thinking.
To my audiences: It’s you that I owe the most to. I want you all to know that I will not go silent — I will be making a full accounting of this work, shining a light through this monologue and telling the story of its origins, construction, and details. I believe the truth is vitally important. I continue to believe that. I believe that I will answer for the things I have done. I told Ira that story should always be subordinate to the truth, and I still believe that. Sometimes I fall short of that goal, but I will never stop trying to achieve it.
For a great overview of the controversy, see Ethan Zukerman’s The Passion of Mike Daisey: Journalism, Storytelling and the Ethics of Attention:
For a critical assessment of the controversy, read Playing the Pain Card: The Retraction of Ira Glass
We will use this example to ask questions about accuracy and truth in storytelling, and if and when fiction has a place in documentary.
