So You're a Townie, eh?: Journalism Multimedia project

I'm from Columbus, Ohio. Despite being the home of The Ohio State University, we've got a million other things, so of course I would not consider myself a "Townie" to Ohio State. Athens, however, is a little different. It's a college town. The city's economy is centered around the University. To be a townie is to be someone from a college town.

Setting a few british terminologies aside, a townie on urbandictionary.com was loosely defined as someone from a college town who didn't attend the university, and many might consider this the case in Athens. OU Students sometimes come here and never meet anyone from the area. They see Southeast Ohioans in the newspaper, they interact with some at Wal-Mart, but that's where the interaction stops.

Ohio University provides the children of all faculty and staff with waivers to obtain free tuition at the school. This has provided many families of the area with opportunities to go to school free of this financial burden. Because of this, thousands of Athens natives have been able to attend college who wouldn't otherwise.

I have had quite an opportunity to explore the world of townie-dom. Athens County Young Life has allowed me to actually befriend some of these mythical-to-some beings. Believe it or not, they're kind of normal.

I got a chance to interview some of the towniest townies in the whole townieverse:


I suppose leading YoungLife at Nelsonville-York High School has got me to "get in touch with my inner townie", but more importantly, I've been able to get involved in the community, and my heart for Athens has extended beyond Ohio University. There are many opportunities to get involved in the community, and I would recommend students take advantage of these whenever they get the chance.

Some ways to get involved in the community are located on this map, as well as some of the places Athens natives recommended, places that weren't always so busy with students, but rather hidden gems around the county--food, parks, etc.,: (Click the icons to get thoughts and videos about each location)


View Townie favorites in a larger map


Other ways to get involved,
http://www.ohio.edu/communityservice/
http://www.egovlink.com/athensoh/events/calendar.asp
http://www.athenshabitat.org/

i love stop motion!

Stop motion video is one of my favorite things (besides for dogs).. here's a couple that I REALLY love.

My friend Zoe Davis created this as one of her final projects before graduating in 2010. It's the story of her life. The song is Mumford & Sons, Roll Away Your Stone.


Change from Zoe Davis on Vimeo.




This is a great song I found on reddit.. they used stop motion for their music video..

Hudson - Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.

The Bobcat Recap

For my final project in Humor Writing I created a fake newsletter called The Bobcat Recap. It included fake articles based on stories I found in the ThePost, University Compass, events I witness this quarter, and I enjoyed just mocking college life in general. I've included the images, but to see the bigger layout, click here and zoom. They're kind of hard to read in this format.

reader-writer communication in journalism, who's taking advantage of the technology?

We spend a great deal of time in my journalism classes talking about citizen journalism and interactivity and what publications are doing to get their readers involved in the process of creating media.

Back in the day, the letter to the editor was really the only way to get any reader feedback in the newspaper (what's that?). Now thousands of comments are posted online with almost every article.

I found a piece in the Times today that has the readers literally writing the article themselves. It involves an interactive graph of different reader feelings about the economy. I can't explain it very well because it's unique. Take a look at it for yourselves: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/2011-economy-sentiment.html?ref=us

It's all about being able to provide more information to readers, and the new things that we can do with journalism provide just that.

Here's a tweet conversation I had yesterday about when a publication finds themselves stuck in the nineties internet era:

(sidenote: suhlmann12 gives great Bobcat Sports tweets.)

The publication he's referring to

Location Journalism

For my Location-based Journalism project, I created a map with the Crime Reports of 2011. Comparatively, Athens is a pretty safe campus, but over the year, I did notice a trend of location of Sexual Imposition within these Crime Reports. Getting a visual of just how close these crimes occur to each other can best be done with a Google Map which can be found here (or be seen below). The map also shows specific locations of Emergency Call Box locations on campus relative to the trend of these crime reports. Sexual Imposition and Rape is very serious, and unfortunately it is not reported more often than in it is. In most cases, victims know their attackers, and reporting the crime does not occur. Unfortunately, there is no way to show how often and location to where unreported crimes occur.

View Ohio University Campus Crime Reports 2011 in a larger map

• Red Markers indicate Campus Crimes and are titled by their Crime

• Yellow Officers feature location of Campus and Athens Police Departments

• Blue Markers indicate locations of Blue Light Emergency Call Box systems on Campus. Phones are also found at entrances of every dormitory. 
  

Social Media Storify Project

For my Online Journalism Social Media project, I created a story on Storify.com to explain a typical day in the life of Athens County Young Life and the 40+ leaders that it comprises of.

I created a Twitter account for ACYL and asked leaders to tweet at it, or hashtag #acYL throughout their days. Sundays are typically very productive days for a YoungLife leader. This is when teams often meet to plan events and hang out together, but the rest of the week is where the true work takes place, which is why I'm excited to see what every member of the group does with this twitter account for the rest of the week.

Storify allowed me to put together different twitter comments and photos posted over the course of one day and even post a map of the "hotspots" YoungLife finds itself all over Athens County using Google Maps. I could also take posts that were made within YoungLife's Facebook group. Sometimes someone mentioned ACYL in a post on Twitter expressing their support or excitement about the group. I also put that on the Storify. They all seemed to come together very well. This is a project I am planning on continuing the rest of the year; something that will be very helpful to my student organization.

You can look at the story here!

50/50

Went to see Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogen's new movie 50/50 last night where Levitt plays a 27-year-old named Adam who finds himself with spinal cancer. Rogen plays the part of Adam's best friend Kyle, who ends up being a key part of Adam's survival and an amazing friend.

The movie is actually quite funny. It makes a serious life situation something that everyone can relate to, and it was quite refreshing to watch.

The story is based on the true story Will Reiser (producer of HBO series Da Ali G Show).

utilize your observation skills and start an awesome blog.

Joe Finney and Brian Kassouf, OU Junior and Senior respectively started a blog called Scooter365. They noticed a checkered scooter out by South Green and decided to take a picture of it every day for an entire year. I got an interview with em last week, shown on Day 36. I may have also been the talent for Day 23.

Check out the interview:

Also, if you're ever feeling bored, I've uploaded some links to some pretty cool blogs/sites on my Inspiration section.

tweeting twitter tweeters twit a tweet.

There's a scene in one of my hardly-embarassingly favorite movies Mean Girls where protagonist Kady asks Regina, the clique's bitchy-yet-forwhateverreason-loveable ring leader if she would be receiving a candy cane for the school's "candy gram" fundraiser. Regina replies to Kady that she doesn't send candy canes; she just gets them.

Folks, this is my outlook on Twitter.

Call me a snob, but I use Twitter in the way it was intended. You earn the right to be followed on Twitter; I don't want to be clogging up my feed with updates on your opinions of the weather every five minutes. I don't want to have to read your conversation with @personIdon'tKnow that adds nothing to my well-being. You make me laugh, you update me on the status of a Jackets game- I'll follow you.

PROJECT C: get on and vote!

I wanted to let you guys know about an awesome project in Athens, Clicking Creates Change, or Project C. For the next seven days, you have the opportunity to vote two times a day for one of four nonprofits in Southeast Ohio you want to to support. These include Habitat for Humanity, Good Works, the Jethro Project, or Community Food Initiatives. At the end of the voting period, funds will be divided and given to each organization accordingly.

and check out Project C on: