Ryan's Writings…at Mason

Archive for February, 2012

How to Care for a Journalism Student’s Best (Tech) Friend

While mobile journalism and using the Internet for everything is great, it doesn’t work unless your smartphone or laptop are working — which means we have to keep our gadgets in tip-top shape. That’s why Mashable.com created this great list of tips for keeping a happy, healthy laptop.

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Briggs Chapter 6: ‘Visual Storytelling with Photographs’

Words have the ability to paint beautiful mental pictures for the reader; but what’s better than a mental picture?

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Briggs Chapter 5: ‘Going Mobile’

In Mark Briggs’ fifth chapter of “Journalism Next,” Briggs discusses how mobile appears to be the future of journalism. People are having most – if not all of their content – going directly to their smartphones, so journalists need to keep up with the audience’s mobility by entering the world of mobile journalism.

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Video Skillset Exercise: GMU Benches

George Mason University’s student organization benches.

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Pinning Wars: UK vs U.S.

Pinterest, a new form of social media, is booming in the United States as a place for men and women – well, mostly women – to “pin” and share ideas for crafts, DIY projects, future homes, art, wedding planning and more. And while Pinterest is still growing in popularity in other places, like the U.K., […]

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Briggs Chapter 4: ‘Microblogging: Write Small, Think Big’

After reading Mark Briggs’s fourth chapter of “Journalism Next,” which discusses how microblogging, a more concise form of blogging that is like Instant Messaging to the masses, is a pertinent form of social media because it makes crowdsourcing easier and it is a faster way to receive and publish news.

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W3 Schools: A Godsend for Journalists

Learning coding is like learning Arabic when you’re a monolingual English-speaking American. It’s hard.

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To Blog or Not To Blog

J.D. Lasica, the senior editor of the University of Southern California Online Journalism Review, blogged about a panel USC held for their journalism graduate students in 2002. Experienced journalists Dan Gillmor, Scott Rosenberg, Rebecca Blood and Meg Hourihan were the panelists and Paul Grabowicz moderated the discussion.

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Briggs Chapter 3: ‘Crowd-Powered Collaboration’

In Mark Briggs’ third chapter of “Journalism Next,” he explains the power behind crowd-sourcing, open-source reporting and pro-am journalism. All three of these methods use the eyes, ears and pens of the general public in order to craft stories.

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The SOPA Act

Claudia Holland, the copyright director of George Mason University, joined my online journalism class last week to talk to us about copyright issues and how copyright pertains to us as journalists. Holland played one video with Clay Shirky that I really enjoyed. Most people have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act and how it […]

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Storify in Action

Storify is a new platform of online journalism where journalists can take social media and create a story. I have used it multiple times for my Communication classes at George Mason University, and I find it to be an extremely helpful tool because it gives me access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites. […]

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Briggs Chapter 2: ‘Advanced Blogging’

The second chapter of Mark Briggs’s guide to digital journalism delves into the wonders of the blog.

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Briggs Chapter 1: ‘We Are All Web Workers Now’

Mark Briggs’ Chapter 1 of “Journalism Next” details the importance of learning the basics behind digital content. To be a journalist in this new digital era, we cannot depend on others to put our content up on the Web. We need to have a basic understanding of how to do these things ourselves, so that […]

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‘Journalism Next’ Intro

Mark Briggs, the author of “Journalism 2.0,” makes a a good point in the introduction of his new journalism guide for the journalism student, “Journalism Next.” College-aged students are the ones with a say of how journalism will be in the future. We are the ones whose ideas are considered valuable in the new job […]

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