Thursday, March 11, 2010

Final Video

COMM 422 - Final Broadcast from Harry Locke IV on Vimeo.

COMM 422 - Final Broadcast

The Ohio State University

Winter Quarter

Final Video - Script

Final COMM 422 – Broadcast Script

[INTRO/Gabe Turk]
Gabe Turk Clip

[Narration I]
Like many college students, Gabe Turk, a graduating communication major at The Ohio State University, has an active account on social networking site Facebook.com.

For users like Turk, Facebook and other social networking sites were once the perfect haven for keeping in touch with friends, and storing pictures of memorable party nights. However, rapid expansion of social networking sites into the professional job market has created a sobering reality.

With employers and grad school admission committees now screening the profiles of potential candidates, a rising number of college undergraduates are finding their careers damaged before they even don the cap and gown.

[April Calkovsky]
April Calkovsky Clip

[Narration 2]
April CAL-KOFF-SKI, internship specialist in the Arts and Sciences Program at The Ohio State University, works closely with helping students find internships in their field of study. For Calkovsky, informing students about maintaining their online reputation has become a high priority.

[April Calkovsky]
April Calkovsky Clip

[Narration 3]
For some potential job candidates, that awareness has come to late.

A recent survey released by Microsoft, revealed that 70 percent of surveyed Human Resource recruiters from around the world have admitted to rejecting an applicant solely on their online behavior.

Jerry Thomas, a faculty member in the Department of Human and Community Resource Development, works with organizations to integrate technology and social networking media into their workflow. Thomas feels younger users may be leaving themselves vulnerable to candidate rejection, by recklessly publicizing negative images.


[Jerry Thomas]
Jerry Thomas Clip

[Narration 4]

For this reason, many internship and job recruiters advise young professionals to get it right the first time. By following guidelines deemed as social networking etiquette

Monitor inappropriate profile pictures

Refrain from unprofessional status or tweet updates

Untag yourself from photos that may be deemed controversial by employers

Caution in posting opinion pieces in notes, tweets, and other published material that can be considered controversial

Do not reveal too many personal flaws. Such as party behavior, and even poor grammar usage on your profile page that can come across as a weak communicator.

[Narration 5]

As a result of the increase in employers and recruiters scanning online profiles of potential candidates, many young professionals have turned to abandoning social networking media sites in fear of negative impacts. However, avoiding social networking as a whole could put employee-hopefuls at a disadvantage as well.

[Jerry Thomas]
Jerry Thomas Clip II

[Narration 6]

And as spring graduation looms on the horizon, many students hoping to make the transition from student to professional a smooth one are evaluating how online reputation will affect their job placement.

[Alice Kocab and Rachel Starr]
Alice Kocab and Rachel Starr Clip

Power poking, making bank on Facebook

Social networking media has officially matured into world market functionality, and Facebook stands as the poster child of the new industry marketing tools.

On February 4 of this year, the social networking behemoth cruised past the 400 million user mark, a number it took only five months to achieve after hitting the 300 million milestone in 2009. According to the index detailing valuations released by SharesPost, a company that allows shareholders in private companies to sell stock to prospective buyers, Facebook is valued at $11.5 billion.

Understandably, businesses around the world have begun to take notice of the success Facebook has enjoyed as a company, and are assessing how the sites easily accessible networking tools can benefit their own business.

One of the tools that are offered to professionals seeking to make a profile on Facebook, is that of a business account.

“Its readily available and free,” said Sarah Wartman, a PR major at Purdue University who manages the business account of a company at one of her internships. “As soon as you make the account, your company has instant access to a user base of over 400 million users. It’s a marketing dream.”

Business accounts are geared specifically towards those who wish to promote the profiles and ad campaigns of their respective business. They lack many of the features offered in personal profiles, and are exclusively geared towards the promotion of the business’ services.
Facebook’s extensive ad builder allows businesses to find their targeted demographic, by filtering through sorting criteria such as age an interests.

“It is definitely changing how companies attribute revenues towards marketing experiences,” said Wartman. “The prices are ridiculously low for the ads, and a huge cost saver for smaller companies who lost tons of dollars on hiring major advertising groups.”

Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, 25, while still an undergraduate at Harvard University.

Zuckerberg, who serves as the Facebook's CEO, is currently the youngest self-made billionaire. With an estimated net worth of $2 billion.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Ethics Critique

Andy Warhol,the late grandfather of pop art, once claimed that in the future everyone would have their own, "15 minutes of fame." In today's technology fueled society, it seems this is becoming true whether individuals pursue the fame or not.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace now expose our everyday trials and tribulations to as many "friends" or "followers" that we can amass through real world friends, family, and occasionally fans. While social networking sites were always designed with keeping colleagues in touch, as Podger's article so blatantly shows, social networking has evolved into a phenomenon much larger than keeping old school chums in touch. Social networking sites now have the power to shape an individual's vocational career, just as quick as it can maim one. Creating a line of control between the accepted and the unaccepted on social networking sites is a legitimate concern for both aspiring and established professionals. Especially for those within the business of delivering un-biased news.

Steve Buttry, director of community engagement at Allbritton Communications, outlines some good bullet points in his blog that he suggests journalists consider when using social networking sites:

-Consider everything public
-Consider everything signed
-Consider everything to be bogus
-Consider whether opinions are appropriate.

While Buttry's blog continues to talk about the specific pros and cons of various networking sites, I find these core values to be the meatiest part of the discussion. If we take in to fact that everything we publish is public, it harkens back to the "15 minutes of fame" quotation, in that we are publishing our ideologies or emotions to millions of people to access. Whether we are commenting as journalists or personal users, hitting publish is the equivalent to signing a release agreement, and opens the floodgates to be evaluated by the public. For some, this has been a highly profitable system, and for others it has lead to being a costly mistake.

Buttry, like many other analysts of social networking and journalistic reporting, does not deny that sites like Facebook and Twitter are fantastic sources for finding stories. But there is also the notion that a great deal of deception goes on in the Internet, and a great deal of caution from news hunters that must be deployed to deliver the truth. Of course, this is easier said than done. The foundation of the Internet and social networking sites, is essentially a maelstrom of facts and lies looking to take advantage of the uninitiated, or taken advantage of by the savvy. Reporting today calls for journalists to be more savvy now, than perhaps ever before.

Clearly the guidelines between what is accepted, and what is unacceptable, begins with the bond between writer and editor. Not every editor is equal in how they value the legitimacy of social networking sites in journalistic reporting. While they should all consider the ideal, to stay competitive with other news outlets, how they evaluate the personal networking of their writers and their professional persona should be open to the editor's discretion.

If I was placed in the shoes of a published paper, the boundaries I established would correlate with the guidelines discussed in Buttry's blog. While writers should monitor their comments to make sure that what they are posting is appropriate, they should also consider making accounts that establish a clear differentiation between their public and private lives. While this in no way, shape, or form would establish a fool-proof safeguard between ethical discrepancies of my writers and their content. It would acknowledge the dual identity social networking sites play in our constantly connected society. It is simply not ethical to force writers to refrain from having some sort of personal identity after they clock out the office, but we can expect them to keep there words from tainting the professional work they release to the public.

As workers in a public environment, we take on the responsibility of knowing we are open targets to the public. The expansion of social networking sites has opened that vulnerability across the board for other industries as well. While writers should be granted the ability to have personal enjoyment through these sites, they must also be made aware that they face consequences if they abuse them. If caught acting in a truly ludicrous manner, they should expect punishment no different than that if they had acted in such a manner in a real-world newsroom.

It is important for editors to stress to their writers when and when not, something can be made available for discussion via networking sites. Further expansion of news gathering technologies and dispersion of news updates, should cause for a stronger bond between writer and editor, rather than an increase in penalty deliveries from editors onto writers for acting inappropriately via Internet applications.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Media Packet For Final Project

My proposed story for my final project, will see me explore how individuals participation on social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc.), can jeopardize their real world persona. I have chosen the formative broadcast route for my final project, naturally, it will be deeply rooted in a multimedia atmosphere. I plan to construct a video that will incorporate both live interviews taken from individuals with information relative to the topic at hand, coupled with broadcast information given by me.

An example of the type of video package I plan on putting together, is similar to that of the specials produced by MSNBC Dateline:

Video 1

and

Video 2

These videos, while much longer than the 4-minute package I will produce, shows the basic elements of how the video will flow. With cutbacks between interviewees and my own moderation of the video's discussion.

The ultimate goal of the video is to not necessarily find a black or white answer, but is meant to show a fair, and non-biased outlook as to what students who have future career/school aspirations should consider when they engage in social networking activities.

Compare and Contrast Media Methods

With the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony a little more than a week away, March 7, many publications have begun their traditional coverage of preparation going into the event itself, speculation of winners, and other inner workings of the long running event.

The two articles I compared are articles from technology driven website,Digital Trends, and the Los Angeles Times both who decided to cover stories involving technology circumventing the event.

Digital Trends, who has a much more technologically inclined user base, focused their article on celebrating the actual engineers and designers who have been honored for their feats by the Motion Picture Academy. The article itself, "Nerds of Filmmaking Get Much Needed Honors,"paints an environment of the under appreciated nerds getting the celebratory ceremony they deserve for engineering the technical marvels in blockbuster films such as 2009's Avatar. The article features a lone picture, which is not of any of the engineers up for award, but of attractive actress Elizabeth Banks who is hosting the ceremony geared specifically for Hollywood's tech-heads. The article uses humorous quotes from Banks, and other interviewees, to almost paint an us and them type mentality. With the "us" being the technicians behind the movie magic, and "them" being the general public who simply sit back and enjoy the ride.

The Los Angeles Times article, focuses on much more simpler tech leading into the Academy Awards ceremony, and is that of Twitter. The article, titled "The Twitter Effect on Oscar," talks about how tech has affected how people are attending the event, received tickets, organized gatherings, etc. This article also includes a lone picture, but is of that of book author Walter Kirn, a middle-aged white male. It is apparent that the Los Angeles Times article was highlighting low-key, everyday technology, in an effort to dispel the "us" and "them" mentality, by focusing on a tech that everybody was familiar with.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Final Story Outline

For my final project in COMM 422, I hope to produce a four-minute video broadcast focusing on the detriment social networking websites can have on individuals pursuing jobs, scholarship awards, graduate school admittance, and other real world implications on user’s lives. I intend to have myself presenting the central discussion on how sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace can pose a serious threat to a successful professional life, with cutaways to interviews from employers/evaluators who can discuss how they weigh a person’s online presence in their chances of obtaining a particular position/award.

If possible, I also hope to interview individuals who may have already been impacted by poor online behavior, and the steps they have taken to redeem themselves. If such people are not available, than I would like to take a number of street interviews with individuals around the campus area, and present a general consensus of how concerned students are about their online lives having real world implications.

I. Introduction – Information divulged through research

A.Overview of statistics pertaining to the worldwide growth of social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. (i.e. number of registered users, availability, etc.)

B.How social networking has transformed society in a positive manner? (Networking communities, ability to keep up with friends, and easy access to news and other important acts before the news may be able to report full coverage.)

C.The cons that have arisen from the popularity of social networking sites. (i.e. how questionable online conduct, can jeopardize its users real world lives in work, business, and social circles.)

II. Social Networking – Jeopardizing the workplace
Plan A: Organize an interview with an employer of a company who screens social networking sites of potential hires. Plan B: Have a relevant source discuss the effect poor online conduct can have on job obtainment/school admission.

A.What a person’s profile shows about their professional ethic?

B.Why has this become an important asset in depicting a candidate’s personal character?

C.Is this ethical?

III. Student Perspective – Aggressions against this movement
Will either use the perspective of one affected OSU student, or opinions taken from multiple interviewees.

A.If possible, have a student discuss negative repercussions that occurred from a profile on an online social networking site.

B.How students feel about job employees/school admissions departments sifting through their social networking sites to judge character.

IV. Conclusion

A.Weighing the arguments of both sides.

B.How to protect your online personality

V. Social Media Additions (In-class additions)

What does having more than a 1,000 friends/followers for an average student mean in the long run? The most blatant reaction is that of online sexual harassment. More often than not, members with a 1,000 members in their online entourage, have a profile pic that depicts them in provocative or in a "glammed-out" manner. These photos can receive more than a negative rapport with employers/recruiters, but also encourages online sexual harassment from online predators. One of the friends on my Facebook friend list, has over 1,500 friends, and is constantly vocal about the harassment she receives from men and other individuals seeking info on her sexual orientation, relationship status, and other personal facts.

In hypocritical fashion however, she continues to accept friend requests in bulk, with a recent update on her page stating she has accepted up to 16 new friends at once. This suggests the ideal that while she complains of the attention she receives, she likes and encourages it, because she is in complete control of what friends she accepts and denies.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

PTS 2-MINUTE NEWS UPDATE

PTS 2-MINUTE NEWS UPDATE from Harry Locke IV on Vimeo.

__________________________________________


BROADCAST SCRIPT:

[INTRO MONTAGE]

Good Morning Columbus! Today is Tuesday, February 9th, 2010. And I’m Harry Locke here with PTS NEWS. Bringing “YOUR” 2-minute news update.

[TOP STORY:WINTER BLAST]

Our top story takes us to weather, where more than 2 feet of snow blanketed the nation’s capital. As blizzards continued to rock the Mid-Atlantic States this past weekend. Leaving hundreds of thousands in the region to combat power outages, flight cancellations, and poor road conditions.

Columbus of course enjoyed no immunity to the winter bludgeoning, as 12 hours of steady, snow downpour from last Friday into Saturday, completely blanketed the Central Ohio Region in up to a foot of snow. Another storm system is set to hit Central Ohio today, bringing in a mix of snow and rain showers. More snow is possible Wednesday morning.

[POLITICS]

And while things may be chilly on the weather front, it’s definitely starting to heat up in the race for Illinois’ vacant Senatorial seat. As GOP nominee Mark Kirk and Democratic candidate Alexi Ja-New-lee-us, prepare to take their battle over the seat once held by President Barack Obama to the national stage.

As the Democrats attempt to hold on to their Senate majority, and the GOP try to gain a little more political real-estate back in the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts.

[ENTERTAINMENT]

Shifting over to entertainment news. The Hollywood juggernaut that is Avatar, continues to break box office records. Now becoming the first film in history to gross more than 2 billion dollars worldwide.

[SPORTS]

And finally in sports, some controversial news broke out in the college football world last weekend that sent a lot of folks up in arms. With news that USC’s new head coach, Lane Kiffin, has recently recruited a 13-year-old quarterback for the USC class of 2015. Yes, you heard that correctly! David SEALS, a six feet tall, seventh grader, out of Bear, Delaware has verbally committed to a full-ride scholarship to play football for the Trojans.

And I just have to say that this is a staggering amount of unnecessary pressure to put on a 13-year-old child, not to mention that this could make him the ire of a lot of social circles both on and off the field who are going to be jealous of his success. But we’ll see, and I sincerely wish him the best of luck.

For more news local, national, and worldwide, you can check our main website (www.pts.com), for all your up-to-date updates.

I’m Harry Locke here with PTS NEWS, and this has been your 2-minute news update.

__________________________________________________

MAKING OF:

(Equipment Utilized)














(Canon HV30 Camcorder)















(Audio-Technica Boom Mic)















(M-Audio Recorder)

Filming the broadcast was a rather painless process. I was able to do the entire production solo by simply situating the camcorder with tripod on top of a coffee table, and establishing a position where it would best capture myself, and the monitors in the background. I threw some cityscape wallpaper up on the monitors in an admittedly ghetto attempt to get the backgrounds seen in most professional news broadcasts. Ideally, such an effect could easily be replicated with basic green screen placement. But, not an item that was accessible to me at the time.

The boom mic and M-Audio recorder are both for audio capturing purposes. The boom mic is connected directly into the camcorder, and captures room level audio with the footage. Meanwhile, the recorder captures crisper sounding audio closer to its subject (in this case being me) that is independent from the camcorder footage. Once I bring the footage from the camcorder to the computer workstation, the audio from the recorder will be synced with the audio from the boom mic, and in the end you will only hear audio from the recorder.

Also, I am not reading from anything in the video. The script is actually on the table I’m sitting at, and I am attempting to memorize each segment before the shoot to give more of a teleprompter effect. This called for a lot of takes, and explains why the video dialogue is not the script recited in verbatim.


POST-PRODUCTION









(Video & Audio Workstation)









(Final Cut Suite, and Photoshop were used for much of the video)









(My Mac Pr...err...Hack Pro)

After the footage is captured, I take it over to my editing workstation, and begin to mold the final product. ***The computer I use, for any interested tech-heads, is a custom system that I built to counter the astronomical price Apple asks for an equivalent machine. This system is a 3Ghz quad core system, with 8 GB of RAM and over 3 Terabytes of HD space. It cost me about 1200 to make. The Apple Store will run your pockets a little over 4k to get a similar system.***

Once the footage is converted from the camcorder tapes to the computer hard drive. It is only a matter of fitting the pieces together in the editing applications (I personally prefer Final Cut Pro), and adding the FX designed in Photoshop to give the broadcast a more authentic look.

The final video is then ran through an audio-production application (Soundtrack Pro), to clean up the audio, add effects noises, and background music.

The final movie is then rendered, a process where the editing program packages the video in a format available for the web, and then uploaded online.

I embedded the code given to me from www.vimeo.com…and voila! PTS 2-Minute New Update is good to go!

Industry vet to helm new Live Nation office in Dallas

Major booking and promotions conglomerate, Live Nation Entertainment, has announced the opening of a new Dallas, Texas office this morning via press release.

Danny Kat-er-in-ek-e-uh, who has worked with Four-Six-Two Concerts and Live Nation rival, A-E-G Live, will handle company operations in the new region.

Kat-er-in-ek-e-uh, whose days in Dallas date back to the late 1960s, has produced more than 3,000 concerts from 1978-2002. And has been responsible for bringing classic acts such as the Police, the Eagles, Paul McCartney, Guns N’ Roses, N-X-S, Z-Z Top and more to the Dallas-Fort. Worth area.

Live Nation Entertainment, formerly known as Live Nation Incorporated until a major merger with Ticketmaster this year, will be entering the nation’s fifth-largest market in their Dallas venture.