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[rosat92]

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AboutMe

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I am a freelance writer and Journalism student at Columbia College Chicago. All of my work is online and I utilize social media as a vehicle to engage with an audience. My work varies from local events to social issues to profile stories. I have a strong interest in covering local news, social issues, art and subcultural stories. I’ve interned briefly being a writer and editor for Young Chicago Authors’ literary magazine SayWhat in 2010. I have my work published on ChicagoTalks that mainly cover local events and issues. I also have work on my Tumblr blog under the username rosat92.

The majority of the posts cover technological advances in mobile applications, journalism jobs and brief reviews. I aspire to someday write for Rolling Stone magazine and create a strong enough brand for myself to where I can reach out and engage to a broader audience. Among from gaining more professional experience, I would like to improve my social media presence as well. While I do see young journalists using a laid-back approach to their social media pages, they have more of a following and are more active.

While overviewing my Twitter, my activity is around 4.9 tweets per day overall and my popularity according to twtrland.com is 27 retweets per 100 tweets. My follower demographic is 36% male and 64% female mainly aging from 18-24 years old. Something I would also change is maintaining a personal twitter account with a professional one. I think there should be a clear separation between the two so your brand as a journalist is clear.

An ideal professional twitter account would be Vice reporter’s Tim Pool with an average demographic of 47% male and 53% female, so that way there is broader spectrum of who you are reaching out to. His followers’ age range goes from between 18-34. His popularity online is impressively 2,296 retweets per 100 tweets with 68.8k followers. You can clearly see his brand as he focuses on social issues and politics and overall multimedia reporting. When creating a brand for myself, I don’t want to reduce my style of writing and reporting into something “trendy” or promotional, but in a way that I have an audience that is engaged and willing to view more. My essential goal while trying to establish my career as a journalist is to stay active—whether it is simply aggregating news on my Twitter and Tumblr or freelance reporting.

[rosat92]

Comparing and contrasting social media presence

Social Media Audit

One of the most prominent aspects I’ve noticed when comparing my social media platforms to other young journalists,’ is a slight relaxed tone. Although their site may have more traffic and activity, there’s more of a colloquial mannerism to it. For example, Vice reporter, Tim Poole not only posts photos and reports, but some post consists casual observations from he reports. Just nearly 12 hours ago Poole posted, “Just watched some kid elude the police across from my apartment. He was running back and forth between fences, the NYPD couldn't keep up.” The phrase “just watched some kid” shows that the reporter is slightly more relatable, but at the same time it’s not distasteful. Some of my Twitter posts are also pretty relaxed—whether I’m speaking on an incident, new song, or news. However, I do feel that I should separate a professional profile from a personal one. If the main thing my followers take away from my profile are just my opinions than I should continue keeping one page active for reporting and one for personal use.

NBC News reporter Abbey Niezgoda’s sites, on the other hand, are completely organized and are coheres with one another. Her profile photos are strictly professional shots and the majority of her posts are the same on each site, if not extremely similar. Most of her social media pages are linked as are some of mine. A fair amount of her tweets are non-news related, but it’s not distracting. While viewing her pages you can clearly see that she has a brand and what who she is as a journalist. Most of her news is local and weather related, where I like to share a broad spectrum of different kind of news whether it’s a national news, celebrity news, music reviews, local or global. There’s still a kind of “citizen journalism” feel to some of pages, which I would like to improve.

While browsing through various BuzzFeed articles, I came across reporter Mary Georgantopoulos. Like my pages, her posts consist of retweeted news from other sites as well as her own reports. Some of her posts share a sense of humor, which makes the social media experience more relatable and not as stern and filtered. Georgantopoulos tends to share mostly arts and culture stories varying from Emma Watson’s speech on gender equality and Amy Poehler quotes. Her page does not attract the same amount of traffic as Poole and Niezgoda, but I feel as though my social media presence would be most similar to hers.

[rosat92]

The Museum of Contemporary Art sees double

Body Doubles, The Museum of Contemporary Art’s recent exhibit, highlights two parallel ideas about the relationship between the body and identity. The pieces in Body Doubles portray the body (the object) and the identity (the subject) as non-fixed, ever evolving entities. The exhibit explores the two elements through representations of sexuality, gender, race, and non-conformity.

The first piece to the left of the fluorescent-lit room is the Gelatin silver print by French artist Valerie Belin. The portrait depicts the facial profile and haunting gaze from a life-like mannequin. Many out-of-towners also took notice to the exhibit as well, Belin’s piece particularly. “At first I thought it was a photo,” visitor Desiree Bueller began. “Then as I looked at it more I realized the make-up looked painted on and it started to become off-putting and then I read it was mannequin and it made sense.” What makes this piece interesting is the blurring line between reality and illusion. The subject’s gaze from a distance appears humane, but when giving a closer look you can see it’s a mannequin.

The ten minute, three-channel video instillation that’s to the far right of Belin’s piece, Chess, explores the performance of gender and identity. American artist Lorna Simpson uses fragmentation and mirroring while presenting male and female drag performing both roles while progressing in age. Simpson’s piece shows the evolving subject and body over time and blurs the line between man and woman.

Untitled (Double Portrait)

Right beside the Gelatin print is the Untitled (Double Portrait) by American artists Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. Sherman and Prince are seen dressed in the same androgynous wig and outfit. The dual side by side portraits play with gender identity and the lack of distinction between the two. Another visitor, Barb Schmidt, was also intrigued by the Double Portrait and appreciated the blurred line between the gender distinctions.

[rosat92]

The Rise of Brand Journalism

Brand journalism is, essentially, another way of saying “native advertising.” It’s a way for corporations and businesses to communicate with the public. It’s a blurred line between PR and actual journalism that serves as a source of entertainment and advertising for the reader. Brand journalism ultimately turns the reader into a consumer. This new aesthetic form of journalism delivers promotional information rather than sticking to the facts.

 This form of fabrication can be extremely worrisome for editors and aspiring journalists. The pressure of being a 24-hour, interactive, multi-media faceted machine can leave former journalists receptive PR formatted “news.” Journalists have reduced intensive reporting into tiny nut-grafs that are then posted on social media platforms. Among many recent pieces, the Financial Times had stated that PR people outnumber journalists 4 to 1. These very companies are now publishing their own newspapers leaving little room for traditional reporting.

 Advertisers and brands are the ones who are investing most of their money into this new wave trendy journalism. Like the first rule of marketing, brand journalists take what is hip and fashionable. Many readers do not care where their information is coming from, but how it is presented. Readers ask themselves whether the content is interesting, valuable and useful. It is now a demand-based market rather than supply-based.

 Nonetheless, valuing the readers can aid the division between brand journalism and actual journalism. Aggregating news would not only be about using information from companies or official sources, but from the consumers. Media outlets like Reddit allow users to generate their own content and communicate with each other. There is no definite answer for beating PR when it comes to favorable content, but focusing on the audience is one way to keep traditional reporting alive.

 Company sites like Redbull and Monster are dedicated to brand journalism. The site is filled with niched news and its media brand. Their stories are linked to concerts, “dare-devil” lifestyles, cars, women and sports.

[rosat92]

Millennials Prefer Mobile Experience

In this day and age, unbundled media has presented many opportunities for social media platforms and advertisers. Unbundled media has also become more obtainable for many on the go, millennials especially. It’s a compensation for the lack of time in the digital age. It allows users to access separate clips, articles, and audio at their own pace by being allowed to skip commercials, download, and are organized by personal interests.

News sources like MSNBC and ABC have created downloadable video streams and feeds that can be accessed anytime airing. Unbundled media encourages more viewers as well by popping up into social media feeds. Facebook engineers have designed codes that drive the newsfeed including updates, photographs, videos and stories.

Keep in mind that 1.3 billion people log into Facebook at least monthly. Facebook also drives 20 percent of its traffic to news sites. On mobile devices, the percentage is even higher. While you’re toying with your mobile device on your daily train ride, you’re not only coming across posts from your friends bored at work, but you come across an infinite list of advertisements and news stories.

Most millennials don’t find time to pick up the daily newspaper nor do they want to subscribe and pay money to gain access to news sites. According to a study from the Pew Research Center, 30 percent adults in the United States get their news from Facebook. Social media and search engines are now driven by an algorithm that predicts what the users might want to read. It gathers a history of your common interests, “likes,” shares, and what your friends are reading as well. This mathematical formula then brings the users back.

The fact that online resources, like Facebook are curating the news, users are in control of their own editorial judgment. If you don’t want to read it, scroll passed it. If you do want to read it, than you can open the link and then are presented with a list of related links. The cycle then continues until you reach your stop. The increased traffic can potentially mean that publishers can convert readers into subscribers and possibly increase their advertising rates.

Mobile devices also encourage engagement with readers. When someone posts a story from the Chicago Tribune on their Facebook timeline, their friends are able to like and comment. Some may provoke arguments while others cause discussions and community.

While at home, many would rather take their time and access news sites directly. Accessing news differently throughout the day is not a matter of presentation but time and energy. It’s easier to take a peek at your phone at work or class then it is to access WI-FI on your laptop. You can access news, sports highlights and reviews within one click. Mobile applications reduce more time rather than viewing news from a browser as well. Minimalizing the effort into viewing the news motivates users to keep coming back.

[rosat92]

My podcast

http://feeds.feedburner.com/tumblr/eAzh

Here is my great feed

[rosat92]

My podcast

https://soundcloud.com/trosa92/sketch-factor-criticism

[rosat92]

Critics Become Sketchy of SketchFactor App

A new app that has taken cyber world by storm recently has raised questions as to whether it is reliable or not. Sketch Factor, a community-driven navigation app, allows people to pinpoint areas that maybe “sketchy.” Users are able to mark on areas in the city where bizarre occurrences, crimes and hazards that have taken place. The aim is for others to navigate the city safely, while avoiding these places. According to SketchFactor Co-Founder and CTO Daniel Herrington, SketchFactor had 60,000 downloads within the first four days of its release.

Once you log into the app you are able to report your own “sketchy” experiences or view a map of other reports by users. The warnings are presented as multi-colored balloon figures that represent the level of danger. The green and yellow balloons represent what is described as “something else” or “weird” and is rated as 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-5. The orange and reddish balloons represent a higher level of danger on the sketchy spectrum, 3-5. Each description shows the name of the user, the time of day and the report.

However, this form of cyber-vigilance may not be as accurate as it may seem. The internet and the mobile world also allows users to express everything and anything, whether they believe President Obama is the devil in the flesh or whether Ebola is a form of population control. Some of the posts that I’ve come across after downloading the app are nothing but users trolling. One post from the West Ridge area reads, “My cat pooped on the bed IN BROAD DAYLIGHT,” labeling the SketchFactor scale at a 5. Another strange description reads, “There be great metal beasts here! Unless ye seek fast death, make sure you stay out of the concrete river,” with a rating of 5.

Although it doesn’t take a genius to decipher trolling from a serious report, who is to determine what is sketchy without particular bias and actual physical reporting? What may be a family-oriented community to one person may be perceived as a cesspool of gang activity and crime to a random tourist. Critics even say that the app furthers racial-profiling, because what really defines sketchiness? “In the short term, maybe it helps you avoid a certain block with a lot of street harassment,” sociologist Karen Gregory told the Washington Post, who has lectured on technology and urbanism. “But in the long term, it’s changing how you participate in a neighborhood, how you comport yourself, who you talk to…The bigger story is that we’re relying on data to inform our social interactions.”

Co-founder Allison McGuire refuted these claims by explaining the difference between sketchiness and safety. McGuire told The Wire, “This is not an app that's created for one type of person to report one type of thing. There's a reason we're called SketchFactor. Everyone experiences sketchiness. We're not SafetyFactor. We're not AvoidBlackPeopleFactor." You can down vote incidents you don't like and are offensive and mark them as spam. The app's algorithm is supposed to keep these particular posts out of your feed. Spam and offensive incidents get flagged for review, but the objective is to let people sift through the votes. According to McGuire, the posts do not center on the individual, but on what a collective crowd is saying.

Although more than half of internet users consist of trolling and offensives remarks, there are a handful of helpful tips from people on the app such as sightings of harassment or mugging. McGuire and Herrington may not have intended for the app to be controversial, but many are still taken back by the socio-economic separation that may be encouraged. The definition of sketchiness is not always universal.  

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/08/12/the-many-problems-with-sketchfactor-the-new-crime-crowdsourcing-app-that-some-are-calling-racist/

http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/08/sketchfactor-lost-its-anti-racial-profiling-partner-as-soon-as-it-launched/376047/

[rosat92]

Michael Moore Inspires Students to Put the Art Before the Politics

A line zig-zagging throughout the eighth floor of Columbia College’s 1124 S. Wabash building abruptly becomes a mob of anxious Columbia journalism and film students. Slowly walking to the end of the line, I begin to lose hope that I’d make it in to see Michael Moore share his words of wisdom to us clueless journalism/film kids. There is a beak of hope as the line begins to move forward. There’s an anxious, older blonde woman at the front of the Film Row Cinema room escorting five students at a time. She holds the line as I reach the front and then manages to squeeze a couple of us into the auditorium. “Come on, let’s move,” she started to chant impatiently. I manage to find seat about eight rows from the stage toward the right where all the photographers had been hording by.

Within less than five minutes, Michael Moore takes the stage. His demeanor is very casual, yet humble. He approaches the first question with a couple of nervous laughs and “ums,” but slowly eases his way into the answer. “Don’t make a documentary. Make a movie. Well that’s the first rule of Fight Club,” Moore jokes while explaining the objective of film making. “No one ever says to somebody on a Friday afternoon and says ‘hey want to go to a documentary tonight?’ Right there, that should be the first clue if you want somebody to see your movie, it might be good to make it as a movie,” he continued.

Although Michael Moore is an Academy-Award winning filmmaker, a best-selling author and is famously known for his political activism, Moore grew up in a working-class community in Flint, Michigan and wasn’t really interested in school. Moore then admitted to not even attending film school. “I didn't go to film school. I watched a lot of movies. In my 20's I watched every movie I could.”

Moore also joked about his criticism about not being “nice” enough to people that he has interviewed (his interview with Charlton Heston to be specific). “What are you going to do when you grow up? I’m going to be documentary filmmaker so I can be nice,” he responded mockingly. “You need to be secure enough in what you already believe in and your ability to say what you want in this film. You don’t need a chorus—a bunch of repeaters.” Moore expressed that the art is to be put before the politics when filmmaking. When making a film, your agenda sometimes has to be put on the back-burner. “You’re presenting a story through film. Why do you feel you need to get somebody who agrees with you to put their stamp on it and beat against the audience’s head?”

Moore also went as far as to say he somewhat admired right-wing extremists for being overly-confident with what they believe in even if their arguments were extremely flawed. Moore’s quick wit, unfiltered honesty and “middle-finger in the air” attitude during the panel was, in fact, admirable and a win with the audience. After a recollection of Moore’s memorable filmmaking moments and lessons learned, Moore interacted with Columbia students during a quick round Q and A’s.

https://soundcloud.com/trosa92/cccmoore2

[rosat92]

The Mobile Movement Capitalizes Millenial Market

With the help of direct marketing, social media, and POV reporting, a new wave of news sites has been dominating digital news. Sites such as Vox, Buzzfeed and Vice bring a new element to reporting by directly targeting Millennials. Their content is usually condensed and more adventurous than most news platforms. Vox is best known for delivering “explainer journalism,” which simplifies complex topics such as the federal budget or technological advances. Buzzfeed, a guilty pleasure of mine, offers listicles and light reporting. Topics usually range from “Top 20 Regretable Fashion Trends of the Early 2000’s” to “11 Bizarre Ways the U.S. Government Spent Money In 2014.” Vice presents a form of adventure and deeper social examination with alternative investigative journalism.

  With that being said, Vice and Buzzfeed reign as the top representative news sites for millennials. The millennial market usually ranges from ages 14-34. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested into this market and investors have multimedia and mobile journalism to thank for that. Millennial news outlets gain their profit from native, social and video advertising. Legacy media, like CNN or the New York Times, attempt to grasp on trendy news, but new news platforms mold them into products and businesses that are far too different.

  These new brands have also vastly turned global reaching millennials internationally. Vice and BuzzFeed have already produced sites in French, Portuguese, and Spanish and are currently planning launches in Germany, Mexico, and Japan. 41 percent of millennial market is multi-lingual and multi-cultural to begin with, so spreading the brand globally does not hurt at all. Merging with cross-media companies also aid the market.

  For example, Melty, has gained high-ranking performance among news sites in France, Spain and Italy. The problem with Melty is that most of its traffic is search-driven. Melty provides hundreds of videos and similar content to Buzzfeed, but the lack of accessibility hinders its circulation. Buzzfeed, on the other hand, is 60 percent socially-driven. Buzzfeed’s social lift also shoots BuzzFeed-created native ads (for 85 of the top 100 brand advertisers, BuzzFeed chief revenue officer Andy Wiedlin told Nieman Lab) around the web, increasing their value. BuzzFeed’s model is more about delivering the avid, never-sleeping digital flow rather than traditionally publishing.

  There are two ways advertisers generate their money. First, they go where they can measure their return of investment. Thus search, online display, and Facebook ads grow as long as they can deliver incremental return for each incremental dollar, until they run out of cost-effective incremental sales-producing volume (Nieman Lab). Secondly, they go where they drive offline sales and brand share of voice at massive scale quickly for marketers in categories like retail, automotive, packaged goods, fast food, movies (Nieman Lab). For example, if a conglomerate brand like McDonald’s were to stop doing products, there would be more of a market share for other competitors.

  The takeaway: the video/social/mobile movement has capitalized the millennial market with geared marketing, multi-cultural branding and cross media.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/10/the-newsonomics-of-the-millennial-moment/

http://www.buzzfeed.com/

http://www.vice.com/en_us

[rosat92]

Nixie: Taking Selfies to the Next Level

                                                                                                           Intel

Created by Stanford postdoctoral researcher Christoph Kohstall, Nixie is a flyable and wearable camera that takes the “selfie” phenomenon to the next level. Nixie would be the first attempt to capture a moment without someone behind the camera. You can record yourself base jumping, rock climbing, or even parasailing across the ocean without any interruption. The camera is anticipated to take various shots and angles from different perspectives as well. 

“We all have moments we want to remember,” Nixie member Jelena Jovanovic told Intel. “We all have moments we want to capture and to share them later. Nixie takes the picture you wish you always had but couldn’t because you didn’t want to stop the action.”

The camera initially starts off as dual-strapped bracelet. After a sudden gesture with your wrist, the bracelet then transforms into a pint-sized drone.  After this transformation, the Nixie camera is expected to know exactly where you are and capture a photo or video. Then the camera comes back to you and you manually put it back on your wrist.

Although this method of videography seems ideal, issues such as whether this camera can recognize you in crowd or knowing what angle it will take the photo maybe problematic. However, if this product is efficient, the success of Nixie seems pretty promising.

“I’ve been a tinkerer all my life and I always loved being in my workshop and building stuff,” Kohstall also told Intel.

Several months ago, Intel had started the Make It Wearable (MIW) Challenge, which is part-competition, and a part-entrepreneurial mentorship program. MIW challenged thousands of participants throughout the world to create the next big idea in wearable technology. From there, ten teams of young inventors, including Nixie, were chosen to develop their prototypes. The final event will take place on November 2nd and 3rd where the finalists will then be announced and win the $500,000 Make It Wearable Grand Prize.

http://iq.intel.com/latest-camera-trends-make-it-wearable-with-nixie/

[rosat92]

"I just hate that these phones are getting bigger," Megan Caruso says. She uses her iPhone 5s to access news daily and checks for post frequently. However, she finds it more useful to post using her laptop as opposed to her mobile device. She also feels that the smart watch defeats the purpose of a phone and would be more difficult to use.

[rosat92]

Less Work, Works

In the US alone, mobile devices have made up over 50% in internet usage, while 45% were PC users according CNN.com. However, research also shows that there is a bigger popularity for using mobile apps as opposed to using a mobile browser. The difference between mobile apps and your average PC browser, is not only its increase in speed, but the condensed version of the site makes it easier for users to navigate the site and gets to the point, causing people to use the apps more frequently. There are less distractions, such as clustered advertisements, scattered sidebars, and easily missed links. Even with news, mobile internet seems to be the most common platform among many, students especially. While conducting, several "man on the street" interviews, every student/millennial had admitted to using their smartphones to access news and information daily. Mobile devices continue to evolve and the demand for mobile apps doesn't seem to be waning out anytime soon. Even with the invention of smartwatches, we as a society begin to adapt to alternative devices for information. It seems that the ultimate motives for internet use are accessibility, functionality, and efficiency. And if it requires less work, such as wearing a mini touch screen on your wrist, than IT works.