exercisebook

Notes for Deisgn School

2005-09-07T16:10:00.000+08:00

Part I: on www.inmediahk.net

1. Nature and Philosophy of In-MediaHK

mission statement

image spectrum:
1. industry: media, freedom of speech and expression;
2. identity: citizen reporter / citizen journalism
3. objective: cultural, social and political changes
4. atmosphere: independent, interactive, dialogical, open, diverse, reflective, critical, border-crossing, engaging and proactive.

2. our work

- ongoing
1. website publication work
2. citizen journalism
3. networking, local, chinese and overseas
4. media advocacy for freedom of speech and expression, plus related policy
5. media education

-project based work
1. bookfest 2004
2. cattle college book exhibitions 2004 and 2005
3. independent publication festival
4. "new media and social transformation" conference in december, 2005
5. new media and education workshop in december, 2005
6. new media DIY workshop in december, 2005
7. reporting from a woman's perspective, workshop (potential project)

3. Website operation

Who? what? and how?
- editors (maintence and management of the websites) 12
- columnists / citizen reporters (writing columns) 220
- register users (comments and e-newsletters) 1280
- walk in or potential users

Non-hierarchal structure (except from "focus" and "newsletters")

Future new features
Voting system (for small focus)
creative common licence
tag and track-back function
radio blog or podcast

4. Other similar website design (please comments on inmediahk website before going into the links)

Indymedia (independent, anti-wto, world-wide network)
Coolloud (citizen journalism, ngo and social movement, globalization issue)
Chattergarden (citizen journalism, interactive, dialogical)
Bayosphere (blogger journalism, interactive, social change)
Ohmynews (citizen journalism, voting system for top news, commerical model)
esouth (social movement)
twblog (blogger network and broadcast channel)
Alternet (differentiation between columnist and blogger, progressive and professional news)
oui blog (free blog cast website with focus)

vs.

empty concept
sidekick

vs.

apple daily
singtao
google news

which website do you like the best?

5. Considerations for independent media

stability over visual effects (relatively small server and no technican for maintenance)
diversity and interaction over thematic and mimimalism
RSS and tag sorting function
new members via network effects and sense of community rather than visual effects
measurement of success: no of columnist, register users, visitors, pageview, clicks; visibility in search engine, links and trackback.
technology over design

6. Inmediahk design history

Version 1 (missing history)
Version 2 (rejected becasue of colour and non-interactive)
Version 3 and 4
Final version

Part II: Design School and In-Media collaboration plan

1. Visual part

- earlier agreement:

To redesign its corporate identity
(1. logo, present logo. one suggestion: chinese name plus website address; name card version one and two; letterhead)

To design a template to be used for their e-newsletter
(because of technical considerations, the existing mass mail system cannot support graphic design; but if the design is really good we would do fundrasing to reset the mass mailing system.)

To redesign its website in order to increase usability/user-friendliness and give it a more eye-catching and energetic outlook that enhance DIY and interactivity
(as present we don't have budget to re-do our web-design, however, if the design is really good and userfriendly, we can launch a fundraising for actualizing the new design )

- new possible items:

WTO conference-workshop on "new media and social transformation" : conference kit and a citizen reporter notebook
(user friendly in size and design, cheap in production cost: HKD5-10 x 500)
Banner for the conference-workshop
Poster for the conference-workshop
These are budgeted items that would be actualized.

Conference Details

Basic informations concerning the conference and workshop

Title: New media and social transformation

Conference Date: 9-10, December, 2005
Conference themes:
Participatory journalism and independent media movement
Global citizen and new media
New media and education
Internet media in Chinese communities
Venue: To be confirmed

Workshop Date: December 3-4 and December 16-17
Workshop themes: New media and education / New Media DIY
Venue: To be confirmed

Hosting organization: Hong Kong In-Media and
Master of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University

Partnership-network organizations:
Pots magazine, Coolloud net, Hong Kong people’s radio, Chamsaesang (final list yet to be confirmed).

Image design by
PloyU Design School

(The poster would be bi-lingual)

2. 3D part:

To design inexpensive items for fundraising purposes * all items designed should minimize harmful consequence to the environment and promote ethical conception of consumption.
(previous design: bags, book marks, badges)

or optional: To design devices to be used in social movements or demonstrations for the WTO
(previous design: demonstration banner)

The shattering of the myth of Ohmynews

2005-07-31T10:57:00.000+08:00

I had just returned from Seoul international woman congress which was coincided with Ohmynews international citizen reporter conference. As Ohmynews is considered as the best model for alternative internet media and inmedia has been borrowing its concept of citizen reporters from the start, I seized the chance of my one week stay to attend a major session of the conference and do some interviews with media activists on the development of alternative media in Seoul. Unexpectedly, within the week, many of my friends were saying that Ohmynews is not alternative media, but mainstream media in the internet space.

As I had to present in the Woman congress, I did not attend Ohmynews’ first two days schedule, but managed to join the international seminar. The meeting took place in Seoul World Exhibition Center, and was sponsored by multinational corporations like Samsung, S.K, L.G and 7 other local big corporate.

The rise of Ohmynews was initially a significant part of the citizen movement, it integrated the role of “reporter” with “citizen” and created a brand new subjectivity. However, the conference did not touch upon any agenda concerning the connection between citizen movement and media; it depoliticized Ohmynews by treating its experience a successful business model.

The first session of the seminar is entitled as “Business perspective”, speakers including the founder of Wikinews Erik Moller and the chief of international department Jean Min. It seems to me that Erik intentionally neglected the theme of his session: after he introduced the experience of Wikinews, he emphasized that internet media should not run according to business principles, instead, they should support each other by sharing technical knowledge, information and resources. He wished that Ohmynews could encourage their citizen reporters to adopt creative commons license. His humble wish is in fact a very strong criticism of Ohmynews existing practice. Citizen reporters has no employment relation with Ohmynews, however, their writings in Ohmynews become the company’s property (Ohmynews holds their copyrights).

During the tea break, I chatted with Erik Moller, he told me that he would like to persuade Ohmynews to adopt creative commons license. He wished that Ohmynews could give up its authoritative style and help facilitating an independent international citizen reporter network. When I introduced InMediaHK’s experience to him, his very first question was whether it was a business or non-profit in nature. I told him that all our editors and writers were volunteers, he was relieved.

Jean Min’s presentation was mainly about the reason for Ohmynews’ success, such as 80% board band penetration rate and a distinctive political environment; however, his conclusion about going international was out of the track of his own reasoning. According to Mr. Min, the vision of Ohmynews was to have millions of citizen reporters all around the world! I think the international citizen reporters in Ohmynews’s conference had already given their answers to Ohmynews: during the conference, Ohmynews had placed more than 20 notebook computers around the hall, but there were very few reports on the conference. The answer is simple, why should we volunteer for a multinational company?

The second session is the so-called academic perspective, speakers including the founder of MyMissourian.com, Clyde Bentley, Neil Thurman, a lecturer in London City University and Jeremy Iggers who is in the process of pushing through a project called “The Twin Cities Daily Planet” in Minneapolis. There were nothing new in the presentations, the only point that I took was that Ohmynews had inspired some westerners’ mind: Jeremy Iggers’ flatter on Ohmynews’ success had managed to win a lot of claps in the boring conference hall.

A citizen reporter from U.S asked the Chair of this session Yoon Young Cheol (one of the brains behind Ohmynews) how Ohmynews, as a socially responsible media, could retain its independent when it was run according to a low cost business model? His question was put aside without any explanation.

The third session is on Asian perspective, speakers including the founder of Japanese version of Ohmynews (Jan Jan), Ken Tekeuchi, a representative, Shintaro Tabata, from a Japanese commercial website (Livedoor) and a Taiwanese citizen reporter, Hsu Chia-hao. The story line went like this: Ken Takeuchi was a retired reporter inspired by Ohmynews and started Jan Jan in 2003. He had invested a lot of manpower and money, but there were little return. His conclusion was that Japanese, especially Japanese youth, were in lack of social and national concern, they were too obsessed with anonymous discussion in BBS; Shintaro Tabata presented a very successful business model of a blog hosting company. The Taiwan presentation was totally messy; he did not even mention the experience of twblog and twimc. And his conclusion was that Taiwan is underdeveloped in internet media and there will be a lot of business opportunities in the future! The three speakers: an old man stubbornly grasping an enlightening media, a successful businessman on new internet media and a youngster full of business hope, constituted the structure of the historical triumph of internet business world.

(Ohmynews series #1. The original version of this post is written in Chinese at InMediaHK 27, june, 2005)