From a ship in the South China Sea, to the cost of health care in the United States, to various company websites, the range of subjects is broad, but the common thread is the form of multimedia storytelling: a somewhat new integration of text, video, photography and graphics.
These features, for the most part created in the hours and days after the events, answer the most basic questions (i.e. what and where and when) but also to demonstrate the scale of the news but in a completely new, more efficient way and make information through websites or blogs easily and efficiently accessible to the public.
The visual explanations come in all forms, including video, motion graphics and hand-drawn metaphors. The images and interactivity in these features are the central elements around which the stories are built. Covering nearly any subject, charts, maps, diagrams and tutorials fit into this grouping of visualization features.
Multimedia storytelling, as we learned in class, is definitely not the easiest thing to do but it seems most successful websites and most aesthetically pleasing layouts have an aspect of digital storytelling incorporated in some way. Including video, or voice recording largely enhances the way a story is told which is one reason multimedia storytelling is so impactful. It takes journalism to an entirely new level; it is, in my opinion the new frontier for journalism of all kinds.
There are thousands of examples of multimedia storytelling on the internet. We see them every single day and probably don’t even notice. I know I certainly did not before learning about it, now I notice it everywhere. For example, this past February marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and there was no shortage of compelling multimedia to pay tribute to those who died there. Perhaps one of the most innovative was an interactive video developed by BBC News. The presentation includes dramatic footage, compelling narrative and interactive features that allow viewers to choose which parts of the story they want to explore further. It’s worth noting that BBC editors couldn’t have picked a better story for this format because the enhanced interactivity creates a dramatic sense of connectedness, changing video viewing from a passive experience to one of deeper physical and emotional engagement.
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