Facebook in Australia sued over Cambridge Analytica scandal

This story from the Australian informs users have several drawbacks of its online delivery.

  1. The image in the news is irrelevant to its caption and ineffective in telling the story.

As is seen in this image, the caption is about a quote from Australian information Commissioner. However, the image has hardly any connection to the commissioner. It only shows users the spelling of the two companies.

When the news explains how Facebook’s default setting has helped disclose personal data, it fails to explain that by illustrations. As a user, I feel a little lost here.

2. The links in the news are not embedded, costing more time for users to find more about the context.

There is a whole paragraph talking about how Cambridge Analytica infringes privacy in other countries. But no embedded links were used. Users have to scroll down to the middle of the text to find relevant links. The links, although has titles and can make sense on their own, take users more time to build the connection.

3. Interactivity

This news can be easily shared on social media platforms by clicking buttons. And the author can be traced to the author page and the author’s twitter. But no comments can be made on this site, so the interactivity is compromised.

About Muxue Xiao 5 Articles
A student majoring in Master of Media Practice. I am interested in education and climate change issues.

1 Comment

  1. You use some of the appropriate naming conventions for the features and functions of online journalism (e.g. interactivity). In part 2 of your assignment add reference to Bradshaw and other readings.
    Good observation of how photos or other illustration might have helped users understand the story better. Where you suggest links to relevant information, use examples of your own. Good work making note of the link to the author’s contact information.
    Your post uses some of the techniques used in good online journalism, including short paragraphs and images to break up text.
    Your screenshots should be captioned and include attribution for the copyright holder or source of the image, even where it seems obvious.
    Instead of numbered points, you should use subheadings using heading tags – look in the post toolbox above the strikethrough and horizontal line functions and you’ll see ‘paragraph’ as the default text type; you can choose a heading type there. Using keywords for subheadings makes a piece of writing more scannable and enhances SEO.
    Keyword tags should be 1-2 words long, so ‘Facebook is being sued by Australia’ might become #facebook #australia #legal action, for example.

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