Assignment 1 reasearch (Workshop #6)

Initially, I had several ideas for the first assignment of this assignment, however I came to a dead end for the majority of them. At first I was thinking about writing about the Leeds international film festival but found it to be a bit too promotional rather than journalistic. I then planned to write about the Switch On event in Leeds, for when the Christmas lights were to be switched on, but found the same problem there.

Eventually I decided on writing about an event that I had attended in October. The event had been held at my student accommodation and was called “Meet a guide dog”. The event is exactly what it sounds like; you get the chance to meet and pet guide dogs. I remember, even at the actual event, that I though it was a great initiative, and also a bit different. Perfect for an article idea!

I knew I was going to have access to several kinds of primary sources, both from the student accommodation organisation and also from the organisation that was responsible for the guide dogs. Not only that, I also knew I would be able to get quotes from the students attending.

I will attempt to contact the following primary sources:

Rebecca O’Hare – Resident life manager at Campus living Villages
Contact details: Rebecca.O’hare@clvuk.com
Background: The event organiser
Interview questions:
How/why did it the initiative start?
How long have you been doing this?
Which organizations are you working with?
How is it beneficial for you to invite these dogs?
What do you think it means for the people that meet these dogs?
What are the most common reactions that you get?

Katie Young – Customer Service Officer at Campus Living Villages UK
Contact details: Katie.young@clvuk.com
Background info: Event organiser at the actual accomodation
Interview questions:
How many attended the event
How much did you collect?
How did it start?

Guide dogs UK
Contact details: guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk
Background info: Guide dogs UK is the world’s largest breeder and trainer of working dogs, ever since the beginning of 2016 the organisation has been cooperating with Campus Living Villages as a way to spread awareness of the organisation and to attend events arranged for the students living in the accommodations in the UK.
Interview questions:
Can you please tell me about your organisation?
How important are these kinds of events for you as an organisation?
How big part of the general funding, does these kinds of events contribute to?
Why do you think people enjoy going to these events so much?
What is the most common comment that you receive from people attending these events?
How does the life of a guide dog look like?
How important are guide dogs to its owners?
Can you please give an example of how a guide dog might affect someone’s life?

Student from the event – Annika Baltes
Contact details: Facebook profile
Background info: Erasmus student from Germany, had been in Leeds for 2 months at the time for the event.
Interview questions:
Why did you go to the event?
What did you expect from the event before you went?
Afterwards, did you your experience meet your expectations?
How did you experience the event?
Why do you think so many people went?

Background of the story:
The student accommodation provider Campus living villages, active in Australia, New Zealand, United States and United kingdom initiated a collaboration with Guide dogs UK , the world’s largest breeder and trainer of working dogs, in the beginning of 2016. The initiative entails students to get the chance to meet the guide dogs that are currently working, or have been working for the organisation. The event is also a charity event and has gotten a widely positive response. So far, they have managed to gain £ 1 800 from donations, heading for the goal of £ 2 500 in the beginning of 2018.

Individual research – Assignment 1

Below I’ve listed secondary sources for my first assignment (see pitch). My ambition was to find general information, firstly about the two companies that will appear in the article, Campus Living Villages and Guide dogs UK. Apart from this I wanted to find articles about how people’s lives might have been affected by guide dogs. I also wanted to find reliable research to prove that dogs have a positive effect on our health.

1.On Guide dogs UK’s website there’s a lot of information. What will be interesting for this article is a brief paragraph of their history, how widespread their organisation is in the UK, how the life of a guide dog might look like and what the vision of the organization is. This can all be found under “About us” on their website. Rather than setting several links to the same website, I’ll collect them attached to this link. http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/aboutus#.Wja1v7p2uUk

2.I will use Campus Living Villages website to back the story up with background information about the company that initiated the cooperation with Guide Dogs UK. Other than the information I’ll receive from the interviews, their website is a great source for further information.
https://www.campuslivingvillages.com/about-us/

3.A YouTube video where you are able to visually see how one of the events plays out and where students comment on their experience.
https://youtu.be/vtjiv9vIwTs

5.An article from BBC about the life of a guide dog and how they can affect your life
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42028076

6.Article from The Telegraph on how the role of working dogs has changed over time and how broad their spectrum of responsibility has become.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pets/essentials/jobs-for-working-dogs/

7.Press release from APA (American psychological association) presenting findings showing that pets have positive effects on your mental health.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/07/cats-dogs.aspx
Article from The Guardian commenting on how pets have positive effect on mental health
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/02/dog-positive-impact-mental-health

8.Article/journal from author Deborah L. Wells, showing that dogs have a positive impact on human health
Wells, D.L. (2007). Domestic dogs and human health. British Journal of Health Psychology, 12, 145–156

Individual research – Assignment 3 (Instagram story)

Below I’ve gathered my research for secondary sources and primary sources for assignment 3, the Instagram story (see pitch).

My intention has been to gather material that covers the history of self driving cars and what other countries, such as the UK, has done so far to incorporate self driving cars in their cities. I have also gathered material from the companies mentioned in the press release from Gothenburg City to get an overview of how the project will affect the city and what comments they have made about the project so far.

Further down I’ve listed three contacts for potential secondary sources.

1. Press release from Gothenburg City, Sweden, stating that they are the first city ever to city plan for self driven cars. http://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/goteborgsstad/pressreleases/goeteborg-foerst-med-att-stadsplanera-foer-sjaelvkoerande-fordon-2331885

2. The planning, mentioned above, is financed by Vinnova within the frames of the Drive Sweden program, which is a strategic innovation program launched by the Swedish government with a vision of making the transportation system within Sweden more efficient, with regard to self driven cars. This is their website that includes more information and videos that visualises their vision:
https://www.drivesweden.net/en/organization

3. This is an article from Swedish public service (SVT) on the threats and possibilities of self driven cars within Sweden (Swedish). They talk about how we will get used to the fact that we will have self driven cars in our city in the future.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/sjalvkorande-fordon-bade-hot-och-mojlighet?cmpid=del:tw:20171216:sjalvkorande-fordon-bade-hot-och-mojlighet:nyh:lp

4. This is a 5 page paper that “summarises some of the major issues and opportunities from the shift towards self-driving cars”. The document is from the UK government website.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/self-driving-cars

5. Article from The Guardian where they do a deep dive into the functions of self driving vehicles and also of the history of the autonomic car. There’s also a great amount of usable statistic in this article.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/13/self-driving-cars-bmw-google-2020-driving

6. The history of BMW autonomic cars. It all started with the Eureka Prometheus Pan-European project, with input from Ernst Dickmanns, in 1986.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/a-short-history-of-mercedes-benz-autonomous-driving-technology-68148.html

Listed below are the primary sources I aim to contact for this feature.

Anna Svensson – Project leader at the City Planning Office (Stadsbyggnadskontoret) in Gothenburg
Contact details: anna.svensson@sbk.goteborg.se
Main interview questions:
1. Gothenburg city has already invested billions of the tax-payers money as part of the “Västsvenska paketet” project – an investment in the infrastructure of the city that started just about 7 years ago. A majority of the inhabitants of the city voted no to this project, but it was still carried out. How will these new plans of adjusting to self driven cars, affect this project?
2. Why weren’t these plans part of this project before we invested billions?
3. When do you believe it to be relevant to start bringing the plans into reality?
4. How do you think it will affect our citizens?
5. How do you think people will adjust to a society with self driven cars?
6. Why do we need self driven cars?

Christina Terfors – Press contact
Contact details: christina.terfors@sbk.goteborg.se
Main interview questions:
1. What are the most common requests from the inhabitants of Gothenburg regarding this project?
2. What will the greatest challenges be to get these plans into reality?
3. Which parts of Gothenburg will be affected?

Jan Hellåker – Program Director for Drive Sweden
Contact details: jan.hellaker@lindholmen.se
Main interview questions:
1. Please, tell me more about Drive Sweden and your vision.
2. As part of the plans, several parking lots will be removed to give way for more parks and social areas, where are you planning on building new parking lots for the self-driven cars?
3. How will the rest of the public transport be affected?

 

Individual research – Assignment 2 (Curated article)

Below I’ve listed my research for secondary sources for assignment 2, the curated article, (see Pitch)

Since Twitter allows me to get shorter, direct comments and reactions towards the article “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian that was published last week by The New Yorker, my intention with this research has been to find articles that are a bit longer. I wanted to get different perspectives towards the lead characters and also understand what other parallels people did to our society today.

1.New York Times interviews the author of the short story “Cat person”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/books/cat-person-new-yorker.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

2.The BBC’s effort to make the same story but written from the other lead character, Robert’s perspective.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/d0ef8a0d-82c6-4df7-acb4-8688b514cd32

3.Article from Village Voice on how the discourse in journalism has changed to a point were we as readers can’t differ journalism from fiction any longer. The author uses this as one of the arguments of why the short story has become so popular – or unpopular.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2017/12/15/our-reaction-to-cat-person-shows-that-we-are-failing-as-readers/

4.Article from National Review. Author Kylie Smith writes Dear cat-person girl as a message to the lead character, Margot. It is critical towards her “loose” behaviour and claims that she easily could have gotten out of the destructive dating situation sooner than she did.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454624/pervasive-culture-sex-drunkeness-regret

5.Article from the Washington Post about the fact that it’s the younger generation, the millennials, that is drawn to this article the most – and why. He also comments on the fact that even though there is no abuse in the relationship of Margot and Robert in the story, the pressures surrounding sex that is portrayed in this story, is still a result from the same broken system.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/12/11/why-cat-person-went-viral/?utm_term=.79af873f5d62

6.Article from The Guardian, briefly listing some of the different types of reactions that the Cat person story has generated.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/13/cat-person-short-story-that-launched-thousand-theories?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

7.Article about who’s really the victim of the story. Another comment on the fact that people couldn’t differentiate between fictional and actual debate and that this was what resulted in the rapid spread.
https://www.avclub.com/the-reaction-to-cat-person-shows-how-the-internet-can-1821229253

Pitch for assignment #3

Headline: “Gothenburg is first to city plan for self driven cars”

The city of Gothenburg. Sweden, announced earlier this week, that they’ve initiated a city planning project that includes planning for self driven cars in the city.

The concept of self driven cars is not new, it has been a hot subject for a long time and several companies, such as BMW and Tesla have already revealed that they will release vehicles that has some sort of autonomic driving function  in the near future.

However, so far there hasn’t been any city that has research the interaction between self driven vehicles and a sustainable city planning, which makes Gothenburg the first city to do so.

Gothenburg is the original home of the production of Volvo and has been in the forefront regarding production of vehicles for ages. It’s now time to look into the future. And what the future holds is self driven cars.

My angle will be “Gothenburg is the first city to plan for self driven cars”. I will include details of what this means for the city itself. I will also include quotes from the project leaders from Gothenburg city what this means in general for the industry and for the future.

The copy will include:

* Comment from project leader from City planning office of Gothenburg
* Comment from city planning director from Gothenburg City
* Research about development of self driven cars

The article will be an Instagram story with 10 slides, including one shorter video. The pictures will show different parts of the city that would be affected as well as brands who has revealed that they will release self driven cars in the future. The associated caption will be a minimum of 200 words.

Pitch for assignment #2

Headline: “Cat person: The short story with no ending”

The New Yorker published the short story “Cat Person”, authored by Kristen Roupenian, last week. It tells the story of an encounter between two people, Margot and Robert. A man and a woman who we’re invited to follow as they first meet each other, after a long period of flirtatious conversations over a dating app. The story is told through Margot’s perspective and is, in short, about how she continues to date Robert, despite the fact that she finds him repulsive in real life.

In just a few days this short story has spread like wildfire. The response has not waited for itself – and the comments are wildly different from one another. Just to name a few examples that will be included in the feature; On a positive note, the story has been met by a wide spread sense of recognition from many women and is acknowledged like a well written piece of art. It has generated a number of additional articles containing other women’s previous experiences of “bad dates”. In contrast, the story has been exposed to a lot of criticism in the way the male lead character is portrayed. It has, for instance, been accused for body shaming.

There is no questions about it, the 7 000 word short story has raised a lot of discussions. These are just a few examples. Questions is, why has it become so popular? Or rather, so unpopular in some cases?

My angle will be “The short story that never ended, and why”. I will present the different sides of the discussion that has been taken place on mainly Twitter, as well as analysing why this short story has become so popular in this specific time. I will mainly do this by drawing parallels to the “Me too” campaign

The copy will include:
*Quotes from The guardian commenting on the short story
*Quotes from the author herself through The Telegraph
*The contrasts of the different responses including body shaming contra people sharing their own bad dating experiences.
*Analysis of why this short story has become so big, which also mean I will comment about the “Me too” campaign

The article will be a 300 word long curated feature, including my own analysis and responses from Twitter and other online sources. There will be at least 4 pictures of other tweets as well as at least 3 other images.

Reflection seven

Social media is a great way to not only find stories, but also to find primary sources for your stories. On Facebook you can  search for people by simply typing in the name you are looking for. If you put quote marks on the typed in name you will avoid results that are variations of the name you typed in, which might make it easier to find the person in question. You can also filter your search by education, geographical location and workspace. If you have a phone number, you can type it in to find who it belongs to. And of course there are not just individual profiles on Facebook, but also groups and pages of organisations as well as events.

Twitter is also a great way to find stories and primary sources, and there are several ways of making your research easier. The website TweetDeck enables you arrange your tweet feed into columns, which makes it easier for you to organise your timeline and navigate through the different tweets. Once your feed is organised, make sure to create lists of newsworthy tweeters, and follow different hashtags.

So far, I have a few ideas for the second assingment, however I have yet to decide.  So far I have put time in to understanding Storify even further. I had some trouble finding tweets, but eventually found that I could use the URL for the tweet, instead of searching for it directly in Storify. At this stage, It’s not so much of a problem of finding stories, it’s more about choosing the one I would find the most interesting to curate.

Reflection six

Around the time of brainstorming assignment ideas, I found it quite difficult to determine whether my assignment ideas would work or not, especially when it came to assignment 1.

I think I’m quite “damaged” from writing so many academic reports in my education back home, where you have to write several pages of background information, before you actually get to the core of the report. Here, it’s the complete opposite. You have to get straight to the point in the very title of the article.

The feedback during class has changed my approach quite a lot in this respect. Not only when it comes to what signifies as a newsworthy story. For instance, to avoid topics where I simply promote an event, rather than creating a journalistic and analytical piece. I also believe the feedback during class has helped me to understand how to incorporate the inverted pyramid in a proper way. Rather than building the article up with background info and finishing with the punch line, I will try to fit the punch line in, into the very first paragraph.

When it comes to time management and workshops, I think I have managed my time well this semester. I’ve been close to completing all the required work from every workshop each week, with a few exceptions. If I would go back to week one I would let myself know that it’s not so dangerous to interview people. That most people actually wants to help you out. I would also tell myself to make sure to find a good recording system for the interviews!