New Multimedia-Increasing Knowledge or Laziness?

Okay, so one of my favorite things that I have written about, concerning the upcoming election, in my blog is the various forms of multimedia that websites are using. It’s fun to look at the different forms of media involved in politics, and not just print and broadcast. As important as print and broadcast news are, I think it is also vital to look into the future and where journalism can go. News organizations are finding innovative ways to cover politics and they deserve just as much attention as other forms of journalism.

The great thing about these new forms of multimedia is the simplicity and ease of using them. Instead of reading an entire article, or a bunch of articles if you really want to know about the issue, you can just click around and see what you want to see. Everything is laid out right in front of you. One shouldn’t brush off older forms of journalism and only look at the fun multimedia when it comes to learning about an issue though. A good mix of print, broadcast, and new multimedia is the best way to get the full coverage of news.

Yesterday, The New York Times website added a new piece of multimedia “Naming Names.” This application gives all the “names used by the major presidential candidates in the series of Democratic and Republican debates leading up to the Iowa caucuses.” There’s a circle with all the candidates’ names around the outside. Lines are formed from name to name, indicating that one candidate used the name of another in the debate. When you click on the name of a candidate, arrows show you who used their name. Quotes also appear so you know what was specifically said about the candidate, and who said it.

Time.com has a poll titled “How America Decides.” The poll shows how people form opinions. It does this by incorporating a person’s knowledge of the candidate and the emotions inspired by that candidate. You select a candidate and three bar graphs show percentages for various subcategories for knowledge of the candidate, traits that describe the candidate extremely well, and emotions evoked by that candidate. It’s kind of hard to explain it in detail, but once you start clicking around on it you can really understand it in full.

This use of multimedia made me laugh the most. ABC.com’s “Buzz-o-meter” (which is the lamest name by far) names one candidate the “Buzz Maker of the Week.” For example, Obama was this week’s Buzz Maker because of Oprah and all that jazz. What makes me laugh is how this reminds me of trashy magazines dealing with celebrities. Not much really goes into this application, and if you follow politics you would already know everything it has to offer. I guess it’s good if you missed out on politics for the week, maybe you were in a week-long coma or something, and you need to quickly catch up.

I’m torn about the use of these multimedia applications and if they really are good for our country. I definitely think they are more good than bad, but I think lazy readers could use them incorrectly. Instead of reading an article and getting really into the news, one can have fun and click a few buttons and think they are aware of everything. I guess it’s all up to the people that use them. If you want to get a lot of information, you can. It’s definitely out there. If you want to take the easy way out, you can. You can just look at the “Buzz-o-Meter” and learn what made headlines in politics that week.