Archive | Media & Journalism RSS feed for this section

Up-and-coming women’s magazine is turning heads in Liverpool

27 Aug

As a long-established blogger and columnist, I’ve managed to pester enough magazines, websites and PR companies to publish my writing over the years. Many students looking to elbow their way in to the blogging world and boost their CVs often ask me for recommendations for who they could submit their work to. I’d like to endorse an up-and-coming women’s magazine in Liverpool that showcases a whole variety of women’s artistic creations.

Heroine Zine's lovable logo

Heroine Zine’s lovable logo

Heroine Magazine, affectionately known as Heroine Zine, was set up just over a year ago by two creative writing graduates, Abi Inglis and Phoebe Dunnett, both 22,  from Liverpool John Moores University. They publish anything that comments on the female experience and explores the history of women’s culture. The duo don’t just publish work from women, though- as they believe that ingenuity and flair are genderless attributes.

Heroine Zine's Issue 3

Heroine Zine’s Issue 3

What started as a Summer project at university and has grown into a print magazine that highlights women’s creativity, ranging from poetry, prose, photography, art and articles. The duo have enjoyed numerous successes over the past year, from holding open mic nights in the city centre, gaining a loyal band of worldwide subscribers and even hosting their very own festival in Chavasse Park, Liverpool One.

Abi said: “We’re so passionate about Liverpool and all the fantastic creative projects that are happening here. We love to support the women involved in these and help provide a space where they can create and perform.”

The magazine even has ‘manifesta’ of principles that outlines the wholesome ethos of its editors. Phoebe explained: “We feature all types of creativity that celebrates women exactly as they are. We want to be the type of magazine that doesn’t feature airbrushing, body-shaming or product placements. Just creative ingenuity.”

Heroine Fest in Chavasse Park, Liverpool One

HeroineFest in Chavasse Park, Liverpool One

HeroineFest in Chavasse Park was a particular highlight for the pair, who brought workshops, discussion groups, stalls and live music to the top of Liverpool One. Many other creative women’s groups from the North West attended the festival, including the Lady Parts Theatre Company, Queen of the Track Zine and a female Beatles tribute band, The Beatelles.

Abi said: “We wanted to celebrate some of the awesome women we know in Liverpool and the North West. It was a great day and we got some fantastic feedback from the public.”

“Having HeroineFest take place in Chavasse Park, a very public space in the middle of Liverpool One, really showed us how open and welcoming people were about the idea of having a women’s arts and culture magazine in the city.”

The editors are now taking submissions for issue 4, which will be published in October. To get in touch, visit facebook.com/heroinemagazine or email [email protected]

What the $50m BuzzFeed investment says about the modern-day media

13 Aug

Are listicles, gifs, videos and quizzes replacing quality long-form journalism?

What started out eight years ago as a hub of cat videos, listicles, trivia, gifs and quizzes has recently been valued at $850m (£506m) following a $50m investment from a US firm.

            Californian venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has given BuzzFeed a pivotal boost in the form of a $50m (£30m) investment, which now values the internet sensation at more than three times as much as the Washington Post. The firm’s investment in the site has grown from their prediction that BuzzFeed is set to become a top-level digital company.  

News of the investment was released on Monday

News of the investment was released on Monday

            The funding signals another push in the direction of online media and confirms much of what we already know about the digital shift. The advent of digital journalism is well and truly underway and print is fast becoming a sinking ship. While newspapers are sure to become a dot on the horizon in the next few decades, websites, blogs and social media outlets are the new kid on the media block- and they’re here to stay. 

            BuzzFeed is one of the most renowned websites for capitalising on the digital shift. Although the website has recently hauled in hundreds new recruits in an attempt to report on mainstream news and features (politics, the Ebola outbreak, the Gaza conflict) it’s best known for creating breezy content that’s sharable across online platforms. 

Buzzfeed creates material that's easy to digest on laptops, mobiles and tablets

Buzzfeed creates material that’s easy to digest on laptops, mobiles and tablets

            Many of my Facebook friends and Twitter followers share BuzzFeed articles on a daily basis. They’re often posted with a reluctant disclosure that ‘I don’t normally share BuzzFeed stuff, but…’ and ‘This is probably a bit kitsch but I couldn’t resist sharing…’ followed by a listicle that glamourises, romantises, humourises or victimises the daily struggles and predicaments of a particular subgroup. Take, for example, ’27 Incredibly Annoying Things People Do To Bartenders’. It’s irresistible clickbait for anyone, anywhere who has ever worked behind a bar and prompts numerous discussions about which number made them laugh, which number reminded them of that hellish Valentine’s Day shift in 2008 and which number was so accurate they had to copy and paste the link and re-post the article themselves. 

            These articles typify many aspects of digital media and the kinds of things that consumers want to see when they browse online. Aside From A Questionable Tolerance Of BuzzFeed’s Tendency To Capitalise Their Every Headline (each to their own) the rise of BuzzFeed confirms our thirst for sharable, easily digestable, succinct, delightful, humourous, day-enhancing material. We also seem to like multi-media platforms that combine gifs, photos and videos with listicles, quizzes and articles. (BuzzFeed’s ‘Trending’ bar consists entirely of captionless photos.) 

Buzzfeed's header

Buzzfeed's trending bar is image-friendly

Buzzfeed’s trending bar is image-friendly

But I can’t ignore the fact that a website that has a ‘LOL Feed’, a ‘Cute Feed’, an ‘OMG Feed’ and a ‘WTF Feed’ is being dubbed as the next big thing on the media scene. I don’t doubt that BuzzFeed deserves such a title- it has, after all, successfully tapped into digital trends and consumer demands- but I worry about what the potential accession of BuzzFeed as a dominant media company says about the nature of our consumer demands in the first place. 

            Articles such as ’Weird Little Things All Couples Do’, ’23 Things Women Are Tired of Hearing’ and ‘21 Celebrities Who Prove Glasses Make Women Look Super Hot’- besides demonstrating a short-sighted willingness to tarring all couples and all women with the same brush- are simply self-justifying articles that social media users can regurgitate to legitimise how they’re feeling at any given moment. It’s closed-minded material that tells specific subgroups how to feel about other subgroups, and it’s not open for discussion.

            Then there’s the fact that listicles go against every English student grain of my being. BuzzFeed is like a giant slap in the face to everything I was taught at A-Level: it’s taking the numbered paragraph plan from my notes and forgetting to bother with the final product. Writing a listicle is much easier than crafting a nuanced, comprehensive, articulate, well-structured column consisting of those long-forgotten things we call ‘paragraphs’.

            But BuzzFeed is capable of winning over even the most orthodox among us. As a travel writer, ‘16 Encounters That Prove The World Is Smaller Than You Think’ totally got me clicking. As a cat-lover, I’m also lured in by ’13 Iconic Movies Improved By Cats’ and as a feminist, I really enjoyed ’18 Inventions By Women That Changed The World’. BuzzFeed has tapped into the likes and dislikes of just about anyone and is writing irresistibly light-hearted entertainment pieces that resonate perceptively with those interests. 

            We’re yet to find out whether the venture capital investment will bear fruit and BuzzFeed will become the website to reign over all. Perhaps if BuzzFeed is going to rise above conventional media companies it’ll have to ditch its associations with listicles anyway. But here’s a thought for the meantime: indulging in a listicle is great, every now and then, so long as it doesn’t replace an ability to read and write insightful, challenging and cutting-edge debates that don’t start every new point with a number. Call me a traditionalist, but I like to dream that the light-hearted side of the digital shift can move forward without casting a shadow on our good-old friend, quality.

Top 10 tips for starting a blog

18 Jul

I launched puravidastudent in September 2012 and had no idea how to run a blog. Most ‘how-to’ guides were full of technical jargon I didn’t understand, so my publicity plan consisted of nagging my Facebook friends to read my posts every week. Thankfully, over the years I’ve learned more professional tricks of the trade, from where to find likeminded bloggers, brushing up my blog presentation, how to gain followers and improving my writing style. Since my very first trepidatious post, ‘Let the Blogging Commence’, I’ve gained 1,327 followers, over 17,000 hits, have been voted by Cision as the number one student lifestyle blog in the UK and as South Carolina’s best student columnist 2013. Here’s my top 10 (jargon-free) tips for getting a blog up and running:

Pick a specialisation

The first thing to do before setting up a blog is to think about purpose. If you pick a specialisation, like food, travel, fashion or student life, you’re more likely to grab people’s attention. People would rather read well-informed, in-depth information about a specific topic rather than general ramblings about your daily life that reads like a diary entry. It’s all well and good naming your blog ‘Theworldaccordingto[yourname]” but you’re relying on the fact that people will already know you and subscribe to your personality. The second specialisation tip is to think ahead- don’t name your blog ‘AdventuresinThailand’ if you’re only going to Thailand for a month and want to blog for the long-term.

My blog focus is student life (with a trans-Atlantic twist)

My blog focus is student life (with a trans-Atlantic twist)

Choosing the name

When it comes to blog names, the shorter the better. Try picking something that people will remember off the top of their heads and that will take up less characters in tweets. It’s also great to have an intriguing story behind the name, perhaps inspired by a particular memory, book, holiday or person that will help people to remember your blog.

Décor

If you’re using a blog platform like WordPress or Tumblr, you’ll have endless options to choose from when it comes to blog themes, layouts and backgrounds. Try to optimise your blog brand by choosing a theme that compliments your strengths- if you’re going to set up a photo journal, choose a layout that allows you to post large pictures. If you’re blogging about food, choose a theme that allows you to write recipe lists alongside cooking methods.

Post regularly

Not everything you write will appeal to everyone, so make sure you post regularly enough to draw readers back before they lose interest. Make sure you write at least once a week to keep your site reverberating around the blog-o-sphere.

Tweet, tweet and tweet some more

Twitter is like oxygen for blogs. Once you’ve written a post, tweet about it and tag other likeminded bloggers and blogging websites to help maximise publicity. Here are some great examples of people to link in and interact with:
For general blogging: @WorldOfBloggers, @FemaleBloggerRT, @BritBloggers

For travel writing: @BckpckerDiaries, @VergeMagazine @trekamerica

For study abroad blogs: @TheAbroadGuide, @StudyingAbroad, @GoAbroad

For fashion, beauty and lifestyle: @inthefrow @fashbeautylife @FbloggersUK

Sign up on Bloglovin’

Bloglovin’ is a website that allows bloggers all over the world to connect and share their posts without having to use search engines to find each other. It’s a free and effective way to streamline the expansion of your blogging footprint. Once you’re signed up, you’ll have a profile pretty similar to a Facebook timeline that features all of the posts and blogs you’ve liked, as well as your interests. The great thing is that you can connect with other bloggers by liking other individual posts that come up on your feed, without having to visit their individual sites. Screen Shot 2014-07-18 at 14.13.09

Publish at the right time of day

It sounds crazy, but the time of day that a blog post goes live really can affect the level of publicity it gains. Let’s say you’re polishing off a blog post at 11 ‘o’clock at night and want to just get it posted. Chances are, you’ll wake up to find it hasn’t generated much activity because it’s at the bottom of people’s news feeds and Twitter streams by the time they wake up the next day. I’ve found that the optimum posting time is first thing in the morning, when people log into social media sites and read updates on the way to work. Think about it- readers are less likely to click on your blog at the end of a busy day when their brains are full of clutter, so make the most of their early-morning clarity. Screen Shot 2014-07-15 at 12.32.51

Confidence is key: don’t apologise

Many bloggers start their posts with ‘I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in weeks but…’ or ‘Sorry to spam your page but could you take a read…’ This personally puts me off reading a blog, like handing out birthday invitations and saying, ‘I’m sorry, my party is going to be rubbish but do you want to come?’ If you start a blog by apologising that you haven’t blogged for ages, readers will think that your blog is something you tend to before bed every now and then rather than a high-quality, well thought-through website. When generating an audience for your blog, have the confidence to assume that everybody wants to read it- if you’re not confident about your blog, who will be?

Take two days to write, edit & publish

As tempting as it is to publish a blog as soon as you’ve finished it, try sleeping on it and editing your work the next morning. There’ve been countless times that I’ve come back to a blog after a good night’s sleep and spotted tons of errors I wouldn’t have noticed the previous evening. Let’s face it, if you want to build an audience, they’re more likely to come back if the first blog they read is a polished, high-quality piece of writing.

Branch out

Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 12.31.55

The Guardian have featured two of my blogs

Once you’re an established blogger with a loyal group of followers and an impressive category of posts, start to branch out. Whether it’s getting your blog featured on a website, or writing an article or two for another blog or magazine, there are endless ways to get your writing seen. Play to your strengths- if your blog is about student life, contact your university to see if they will post a link to your blog on their website. If your blog is about travelling, get in touch with a travel company before you go away to see if they will publish your travel writing on return. Some great examples that have worked for me are Guardian Students and @VergeMagazine.

Ten ways to get into journalism this summer

5 Jul

One of the best ways to boost employability as a student is to use the summer weeks wisely. While soaking in the sounds of Glastonbury and working at an elephant reserve in Thailand may be beneficial to one’s holistic self-development in one way or another, gaining work experience in the field of media and journalism is the best way to boost a CV. Here are ten useful ways that students looking to get their foot in the door of media and journalism can get started:

Start a blog

Writing and managing a blog is an invaluable way to demonstrate your capacity for excelling in the journalistic world. Not only does it demonstrate self-motivation and the ability to work independently, it’s a cathartic way to showcase and develop your writing skills. It’s also great to try and pick a specialisation or a theme, like student life, fashion, or food, for example, as it helps people to remember your blog, gives you a writing focus and stops it from becoming a narcissistic narration of your daily life.

Get social media savvy

Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram- use whatever channel you can to publicise your blog, your employment profile or simply your thoughts about current affairs. Twitter is an especially vital tool for aspiring journalists, as following and tagging the right people in your Tweets is a great way to find stories and get your work seen, heard and re-tweeted. Start by following your favourite newspapers, magazines, authors, politicians and key journalism groups like News Associates, Journalism.co.uk and Women in Journalism to name a few.

Read everything

Reading the news every day is like providing journalists with oxygen. The only way that you’ll stay ahead of the game and find the most original news first is if you know what’s out there and what’s going on already. Getting a feeling for the political orientation of broadsheet newspapers is also key, as a common question in journalistic job interviews is ‘What is your favourite newspaper and why?’ Potential employers will want to know that you know what’s going on in the world- and have an opinion about it. Screen Shot 2014-06-13 at 11.21.25

Work experience at your local paper

If you’ve never had journalistic work experience before, one of the best places to start is by contacting your local newspaper or news publication to ask for work experience. Brush up your CV, write a stock introduction you can send to multiple offices and then phone around. Journalists working on tight deadlines hardly ever respond to general enquiry emails, but phoning offices and asking for editorial work experience shows that you’re bold, articulate and unafraid to sell yourself. They’ll most likely ask for a brief introduction over the phone and to follow it up with an email and CV, which you’ll already have to hand. viewpointsheader

Take what you can get

A newspaper might offer you two weeks, one week, an afternoon, or nothing. Never give up. If work experience isn’t an option, ask if you can come in for a quick chat about careers, as it will be a great opportunity to form a valuable contact and create a lasting impression for future opportunities. If you can’t get a meeting, move on to the next newspaper office, magazine or website. Having the motivation to carry on when you don’t get opportunities first time is just another way of developing the nous and initiative that all journalists need.

Join a volunteering group

If you have a particular area of interest that you dream of writing about in the future- whether it’s women’s rights, human rights, poverty relief or politics, join a volunteering group or committee related to that topic and introduce yourself as a freelance journalist looking to write and publish on behalf of the group. It’s a great way to refine writing about a cause that you’re passionate about and to demonstrate that you can prove to be reliable, organised and creative in a professional setting. Local examples of volunteering groups include Stop The Traffik Liverpool, SARSVL (Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds) and Leeds City Council Libraries.

Travel Writing

For those of you that do go volunteering on an elephant reserve in Thailand, come home and write about it. Post it on your blog, then Tweet about it. Or for those of you yet to depart on exciting trips, try contacting travel companies and travel magazines in advance to see if they would like an entry about your destination. I established a contact via email at Trek America before I travelled the American West Coast on their Westerner 2 tour, and my travel writing is now featured on their website. Another great travel magazine is Verge (@VergeMagazine) who look for longstanding writing deals with people who are working, studying or volunteering abroad. They ask writers for a short bio, a photo and an introductory post for review, and if successful they’ll want a number of posts before, during and after your time abroad. Whatever you do- just make sure that you keep travel writing unpublished on your own blog before you send it to anyone else, as most publications will not accept recycled or used material. DSC02810

NCTJ workshops

Gaining an NCTJ qualification for aspiring journalists is like getting a PGCE for aspiring teachers. If you’re currently studying A Levels or an undergraduate degree, enrolling for your Multimedia Journalism Diploma may just be the next step. It teaches you key modules such as public affairs, media law, court reporting and learning shorthand. The UK’s top journalism school for earning journalism qualifications is News Associates (@NewsAssociates), who have offices based in Manchester and London. They hold one-day workshops over the Summer in both of these locations- try contacting them through the email addresses provided on their website for availability.

Think outside the box and stay creative

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Some of the best ideas are the ones that seem crazy at first. If you have strong experience blogging about student life or higher education, why not contact your old high school and ask if you can give presentations to students about what it’s like in the field? Or if you have a particular subject you think needs to be shouted about, then why not start a magazine at your university? Playing to your strengths and following those crazy ideas with action is the best way to differentiate yourself and stand out from the crowd. 999819_743861552311694_607540598_n

Plan ahead for September

If you’re having no luck getting work experience for the Summer time, another way to use your time wisely is to prepare for September. Whether that means building up your blogging portfolio to wow the newspaper committee, submitting an application for a term-time internship or researching elective modules that relate to journalistic interests, it will help get the wheels turning. A great opportunity going at the moment is with Student Beans (@studentbeans). They’re currently looking to establish local editors in universities (including Leeds) to set their own editorial agenda including news, features and opinion pieces. Find out more here: http://thebeansgroup.theresumator.com/apply/m20DI8/Local-Student-Beans-Editors.html

Alternatively, check out this elective module for Leeds Students called ‘The Digital Professional’, which aims to combine digital literacy with employability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKKe8KFJI4

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,561 other followers

%d bloggers like this: