Comparative Online Journalism Analysis: Breaking news of Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke on Vice and ABC News.

Introduction

It is fair to say that “Internet time” gives audiences numerous numbers of different information every day. Compared with the traditional media time, today, audiences have more chances to get in touch with different perspectives of things, discuss with the experts in different eras and interactive with other audiences all over the worlds. As a result, audiences can choose which source is more convincing and credible. Apart from the quality of contents, audiences also care about the experiences of online delivery.

In this paper, it will compare the similar topic of Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke reveals she survived two life-threatening aneurysms in a digital bore site VICE and a mainstream media sites ABC NEWS.

Vice: Emilia Clarke Survived Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms While Filming ‘GoT’

Publishing context & User analysis

Vice Media is launched as a magazine Voice of Montreal in October 1994 in Montreal, Canada. Then the founders changed the name to VICE in 1996. As the magazine became increasingly popular, the founders moved the company to New York, and then it expanded further into five continents.

Vice is the fastest growing youth media company in the world, it reaches twice as many 18-34 -year-old audiences. Before it founded, VICE published news documentaries and news reports through its YouTube channel. After the creation of VICE News as a separate division, it reports worldwide news with videos published on YouTube and articles on its website daily.

Vice News had more than 100 members of its reporting editorial staff around the world. In December 2016, Vice news had entered into the partnership with The Guardian newspaper that will include Guardian journalists working at Vice’s offices in East London.

The mission of VICE seems to empower young people. According to the annual report of Vice Digital(2016), 41% of Vice audiences are 25-34-year-old, 35%of them are 18-24-year-old, and the rest of them are 35-44-year-old.

Both of the perspectives of contents and visualization of the interface are more outstanding from the traditional ones. Young generations go to Vice for searching pieces of information about art, design, music, food, sport, and the hottest news.

64% of the VICE audiences are female and 36% of them are male. Most of them have received high education,44% of them have graduated from colleges and 39% of them have a higher household income above 100,000 dollars.

Brevity,time-sensitive,but not include special contents

This news from Vice is based on a personal essay by Emilia Clarke published in the New Yorker. It has clearly declared the details at the beginning including when, who, where, what and why. The original essay in the New Yorker is very long, published on March 21, 2019.Vice summary the key point and published in the morning of next day(Mar22,2019,6:05 am), it is time-sensitive so it will more likely to reach the biggest audience.

Vice also quotes Clarke’s words published in the New Yorker that unable audiences totally understand the situation and make the content more emotive. The content is brevity, every paragraph has one concept. Noyes and Garland (2008) suggest that users have become more skilled at reading from a screen. Despite knowing what happened in time, they may pay more attention to different information. Since Vice have many cooperative programs with HBO, breaking news is what audiences of Vice expect to see, but this is not an extraordinary news at all .

Screenshot from Vice:Emilia Clarke Survived Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms While Filming 'GoT'. — Screenshot from Vice:Emilia Clarke Survived Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms While Filming ‘GoT’.

Hypertext ,Multimedia,Interactivity and technical analysis

Robert Niles (2008) declares that a news story will provide within its copy the context that a reader needs to understand the piece. A link to background information can help bring new readers up to speed, at the same time, allowing more informed visitors to read ahead without distraction. In the beginning, VICE provides two hyperlinks to describe the background and relative information about this news, the essay from Emilia Clarke published in the New Yorker which is the source of this news. Audiences from VICE can easily go to this page to see the details. The hyperlink of Game of Thrones is talking about the final season which is the hottest topic for fans of Game of Thrones.

Apart from another two hyperlinks about the Game of Throne, when talking about the Emilia Clarke’s disease, there is an additional hyperlink about“aphasia” which is convenient for readers to see how serious the symptoms are, but about the life-threatening brain aneurysms, a hyperlink should be added to help the reader know what exactly happened to her.

Multimedia is not be used effectively in this news, there is only a picture of Emilia Clarke. It hard to say this picture is not appropriate but actually is not a perfect one to highlight the theme. The photo of Emilia Clarke is just too sweet to show her strong personality, it show her optimistic indeed, but it hard to touch people . The one appears at the New Yorker is much better, which is standing for a confident and peaceful woman.

Screenshot from the New Yorker:A Battle For My Life

More videos, audios or pictures about herself or the Game of Throne should be embedded to make the news much more lively. VICE is good at reporting culture and entertainment news , but this is not a good example. Not enough multimedia on this page, there is less interactivity for audiences make this news monotonous. Also, the embedded media are a means to break up text instead of subheadings.

Interactivity is as core to online journalism as sound is to radio or moving images to television(Paul Bradshaw,2017). In this page, there is no communication side for audiences to communicate with the news organization. But audiences can follow the Vice journalist Nicole Clark who is focusing on the cultural things. Although I can’t find the relative content about this topic in her Twitter, audiences can also communicate with the writer if they want to.

The page is functional and accessible, every hyperlink are worked well. Audiences can easily share this news with friends on their Facebook or Tweet. Moreover, this news use keywords like Game of Thrones, TV, Daenerys Targaryen health and culture, these keywords are likely to be ranked more highly than another page which has less relevant content. The good part is that this news is avoiding repeating the same keywords over and over again, so it won’t be penalized by search engines.

ABC News:Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke reveals she survived two life-threatening aneurysms

Publishing context & User analysis

Launched in 1932, the ABC(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)has developed into a multi-platform media from a single radio service. It is reported that 82% of Australian adults aged 18 to 75 years trust the information that the ABC provides. 71% of Australians watch, read or listen to the ABC each week, the ABC can reach 99.58% of the population.

Screenshot from ABC Annual Report(2018).

ABC News and current affairs online reached an average of 4.8 million Australian users each month which close to one in four(24%) of the active online Australian population.

ABC News is a national news service, It owned and funded by the Australian Government, but it is editorial independence. The vision of ABC is to be the independent source of Australian conversations, culture, and stories, to create extraordinary, relevant and valued content, 92% of ABC funding is spent in areas directly linked to content creation and delivery.

Brevity,Fluently and help audiences easily get the points

In the beginning, it clearly announced the most valuable information about this theme. The first paragraph is highlighted by bold fonts. The ABC news also quotes what Clarke said in the New Yorker, but didn’t declare it at the beginning.

A link to the feature in the New Yorker should be embedded in order to add extra background and make audiences who want to get more information can easily get to the feature.ABC states the procedure of Clarke suffering from the aneurysm twice. Pick out the sentences which can empress her feeling most in the article of the New Yorker. The best part is ABC attract the key points in three sentences. People can quickly know the emphases in just a few seconds.

Screenshot from ABC News:Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke reveals she survived two life-threatening aneurysms.

Hypertext ,Multimedia,Interactivity and technical analysis

Links are the lifeblood of the web, ABC has linked three special relative stories, the best part than VICE is that the links are not just embedded in the articles, they are also listed at the obvious position of this page. Images and videos are also linked to other pages, where audiences can get some details.

Compared with the similar news on Vice, this page is more lively and attractive with effective multimedia, which makes this one, not a piece of boring entertainment news. According to Paul Bradshaw(2017), online news can use video doesn’t mean it is must to be. Knowing when to use video and why to use is very important. This news for example, because the final season of Game of Throne is the hottest topic recently, add this video can make this news have more relative to the popular theme.

Audiences can easily find the links to share this news, but there is no area for readers to comment or communicate with others. There is also no author’s information at all. The interactive function needs to be improved. The end of the article is just a blank area, it should be used as a comment area.

Conclusion

Both the mainstream media and digital born websites have their own advantages and disadvantages at contents, online delivery and functionality. But ABC news is much better, it appears to be a good cultural and entertainment news in general. On the other hand, Vice has more aspects to improve.