Our first podcast: an interview with the coordinatior of Sandblast Festival 2007

Made by Cecilia Anesi and Modesto García Maldonado

Click To Play

This podcast is an edited interview with Ana Arenas, coordinator of the Sandblast Festival, made to bring the culture, music and art of the Saharawis to London, which took place the weekend of the 2 -4 of November in the RichMix centre, Bethnal Green Rd, Brick Lane.

Steps we took to create the podcast it:

1- We recorded the interview with a recorder. The file was in .amr format so through a program we turned it into mp3.

2- We edited using GarageBand a Mac software. We cut some pieces, and add a shade of Arabic music.

3- We exported the file to iTunes. During the export the file became in a .m4a format, but in order to publish a podcast on the web we had to convert it back into mp3.

We did this through a software we downloaded: Power Audio Converter.
4- Once we obtained the mp3 file we had to change the ID3 label of the file, which is, giving it a title, an artist, some comments and what you have.

5- Once this was done, we had to publish it. So we registered in www.blip.tv.
After the registration the program gives you the RSS, namely the label you have to paste on your blog's html to be able to see the podcast in your post.

6. Now we wish to add an image, thumbail, to our podcast. To add an image to our podcast, first, we have to insert the image in our blog site [insert it as "NONE" layout]. Second, we need to select 'Edit Html' mode of writing and copy the code of the picture. Once our ctrl+c is done we copy this in the label of our podcast. So we go to the podcast code and we have to look for the image label that will we as such: "src="______________.jpg" .
We delete this one, and paste the new one. End.

Podcast Tutorial: Museum of Confusion

Subscribe a podcast to your iTunes library. This sounds like cirillic to many. In reality it is one of the simplest things that new technologies are offering to people for them to listen and view documents.
This is explained in Podcast Tutorial, a youtube video made by 'Kurt'.



'Kurt' explanation is quite clear and effective but the graphic of the tutorial is very confusing and of poor quality. Our tutor is trying to make people aware of new possibilities offered by new technologies, but he himself is not using the top of it.
He is trying to show a podcast created by him for a museum. It could be very interesting to see the presentation of the images that he created but in the video- tutorial people cannot properly understand how the presentation works.

I believe he could use mac computer (since he is showing podcast functions on a mac program, iTunes) using the corner option that allows you to move the mouse (therefore the view) from an open window to another window and back to the desktop without the need of scrolling down all the pages and minimaze them all the time.

Check it out and leave your comment:

HOW MULTIMEDIA IS CHANGING ONLINE JOURNALISM

A look at the use and abuse of podcasts in online journalism




Throughout its history, journalism has undergone several changes. These changes can be seen in terms of content, features, ownership etc in all print productions around the world.


All these changes happen as a result of society's evolution i.e capitalism and the introduction of new technologies. The most important factor must be the phenomenal growth of the Internet. Guardian web pages few years ago

The idea that the New York Times will only be available as an online version in five years time seems rather weird. Baudrillard would say that we are in a historical moment in which the virtual world is taking over the physical. Baudrillard's interpretation might be right or not but what is sure is that screens of computers are – at least in the western civilization - the most used battlefield for black words and white surfaces.
I believe journalism can be seen as a human body that is slowly but radically changing, becoming a less terrestrial being. When a newspaper or a broadcasting corporation (such as the Guardian or BBC) goes online today, it does not just become electronic, or virtual, but it becomes a multimedia creature that exists thanks to the co-existence of different media forms.
The most famous form of multimedia is a podcast. Guardian video home


Wikipedia explanation of a podcast is the following: “A podcast is a digital media file, or a series of such files, that is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.” The mechanics of it is “an automatic mechanism whereby multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client, which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files. In general, these files contain audio or video, but also could be images, text, PDF, or any file type.”
Podcasts can also be videocasts, audiocasts, imagecasts or even a mixture of audio and video-images. I interviewed Angelo Miotto, subeditor and newseditor of the online newspaper PeaceReporter, in order to understand the new changes and challenges that new media has created in the world of journalism.
“The range of contents that is available today for any online publication has been made possible thanks to the development of new technologies that has been able to speed up web traffic and software. The traditional printed medias, thus, picked up the occasion to briefly re-elaborate their own image in order to gain new readers. This new audience, in the contemporary logic of capitalism, it is identify with contacts to ‘sell’ to earn advertisings. The Italian experience demonstrates how in few years there was a real proper boom of the phenomenon. However editorial quality did not stick to quantity production.
Too often audio-videos to download are of very poor quality, edited in a rush or not precise in details. Moreover new hybrid experiences were introduced, such as a tv news realized into a radio studio inside a newspaper editorial unit. This is the case of ‘la Repubblica’, one of the most read daily Italian newspapers. la Repubblica multimedia The website is full of news and fast contents but it is fashion or gossip news that are predominant on multimedia sections. In order to get a quick idea of this you just need to compare the multimedia contents of
‘la Repubblica’ and the ones of the New York Times. Online version of newspapers developed in a dynamic way; often readers are called to vote on dolls or called to participate through forums and blogs. However, the most innovative proposal is the one launched by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Elpais.com, the most visited online newspaper in Spain, build up a section called Yo periodista (I journalist). In this section readers are able to produce the final product that will be published online.” Multimedia [podcast] improved Internet possibility of creation, therefore journalism ones too. What Mr. Miotto made clear, though, is the fact that editors and journalists should not forget that quality of production must come before quantity. A correct use of technologies can lead to interesting results; an abuse of multimedia would just create chaos.

Example of PeaceReporter audiocast

Example of PeaceReporter photogallery

PeaceReporter multimedia gallery