New Media Technologies and Reporting the News

Some links to share innovative ways – particularly innovative visual ways –  that the online media have been reporting the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

The New York Times has interactive guides to the problems that have developed with nuclear reactors in Fukushima here – very clearly presented visual guides with clear brief captions making complicated physics simple to understand.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has a series of before and after photographs of the disaster scenes with a very innovative way of moving between the two here.

Several media organisations are ‘liveblogging’ the events, running a constant feed of news stories which update with every new piece of information that arrives. These liveblogs are rich sources of links – before the web news would have been reported minute by minute on television and the radio with journalists interpreting information and reading out press releases – now you have the chance to go and read the original information yourself, and even comment on it or ask questions directly to the experts. The latest edition of The Guardian’s liveblog on the earthquake and tsunami is here.

And of course there is lots and lots of video out there, here for example.

Bafta Awards

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Here are the main winners from last night:

Best film The King’s Speech

Best director David Fincher, The Social Network

Best actor Colin Firth, The King’s Speech

Best actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Adapted screenplay Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Original screenplay David Seidler, The King’s Speech

Fellowship Christopher Lee

Cinematography Roger Deakins, True Grit

Animated film Toy Story 3

Supporting actor Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

Supporting actress Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech

Outstanding British film The King’s Speech

Outstanding debut Chris Morris, Four Lions

Film not in the English language The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Short film Until The River Runs Red

Did you guess right? What/who do you think should have won?

Remember ….. the mic is always live!

Oh dear. Looks like Richard Keys and Andy Gray have really done it this time.

Proof if ever it was needed, that a mic is always ‘live’ whether you think it might be or not. You never know who might be listening.

The Walking Dead

 

By all accounts this is very good. Chances are that it is. Frank ‘Shawshank Redemption’ Darabont is reliable enough and the graphic novels are fantastic. Lets hope it lives up to the hype. It’s on at 10 p.m. tonight on FXUK (Sorry to anybody who hasn’t got access).

Oscars

All the Oscar winners right here. What were your favourites?

3D Cinema

Nice article in The Observer about 3D cinema and how the future of the movies might be being changed forever by the rapid rise of this (not so new) technology.

Surf over to The Observer for more information.

Media Talk

New podcast to download:

Media Talk

Pulp Fiction Screening

Watch out for this screening of Pulp Fiction at the Light House on 25th Feb 2010 at 5.15pm

To quote the blurb:

“This unique season of films will be shown as part of the University of Wolverhampton’s Film Studies MA course and the module Spaces in Modern American Cinema. Each film will be introduced by film studies lecturer Dr Frances Pheasant-Kelly who has recently been published in an international book which discusses the representation of public toilets and gender in film.

Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. The Oscar-winning script by Quentin Tarantino intertwines three stories, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, as hit men who engage in philosophical interchanges while on the job; Bruce Willis as a boxer out of a 1940s B-movie; and such other stalwarts as Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, and Uma Thurman.”

Checkout the website

Media Talk

This is a good way to catch up on issues to do with the media in general. Download the podcast and listen on your iPod.

Media Talk

Oscar Nominations 2010

See all the important nominations for the Oscars right here