Hello
I'm Lauren Rae Orsini, a graduate student, journalist, infographic designer, anime convention reporter, and documentarian. Welcome.
27 November 2009
I am pleased to say that over Thanksgiving break I found the time to sort through my data and edit the first video. This video will run with an accompanying story on December first in the American Observer, but I thought I’d give my loyal blog readers a sneak peek.
This will be the first in a series of three for my final project. This one is a basic introduction to Anime USA for people who might not know much about convention culture. I’d like to send out special thanks to Chris Shelton, Alex Li, Megan Krause and Mike Czaplinski for being wonderful interview subjects. And I’d like to thank you in advance for the kind and constructive criticism you will surely leave in the comments section. So without further ado, here it is:
24 November 2009
Anime, the Other and the niche news market
Filed Under Anime and Fandom, Documentary and Film | 6 Comments
I’m back from filming at Anime USA with about an hour and ten minutes more footage than I came in with. As a beginner in documentary making (I only started working with film when I began grad school in July), I found the convention a fun and friendly place to get some practice.
Anime fans: whose audience are they?
While filming, I put a lot of thought into my target audience. Since I’ll be posting the final video on American Observer, I took care to cater to the Observer’s viewers. I asked interviewees rudimentary questions, “What do you do at an anime convention?” in order to convey the facts to an audience that is unfamiliar with anime or cons. Unfortunately, my mini-documentary will take an “outside looking in” approach even though the last thing I want to do is portray anime fans like myself as the Other. Ethical editing will remain a concern of mine throughout the process. However, the truth is my documentary will provide information about anime fans to other people, but will do little to inform fans themselves about the culture.
That’s when it hit me: where do anime fans get news about themselves? Most news outlets see fans, along with other hyper-niche groups, as an Other, not part of the main audience. In mainstream news, fans can be seen as a quaint anomaly (as in this Washington Post article) or a frightening threat (that’s CBC in the mid-eighties but still!) but never as the target audience. Therefore, anime fans have to go elsewhere. Read more
19 November 2009
Interactive narratives: news as a game
Filed Under Journalism, Video Games | 2 Comments
When I was 14, I once spent an entire day during the summer playing a game online. The goal of the game was to sneak through China, (carrying three illegal photos of the Dalai Lama, 1000 Chinese dollars, and zero karma) into Tibet, while at the same time doing good deeds in order to achieve Nirvana.
Unfortunately, the game has since been taken down (wiki is here). Because while I knew I was having a lot of fun playing the game, at the same time I was also being educated about the China/Tibet conflict and the fundamentals of Buddhism. I wasn’t just playing a game; I was being informed through an interactive narrative.
What they are
Interactive narratives, or games that tell a news story in a non-linear way, have become increasingly popular since I was a teenager. Journalists see them as an alternative way to tell a story. Instead of having a person simply react to a dull news story about the price of oil, why not have them interact with a game that positions him or her as an oil tycoon? Games provide an exploratory way for audiences to discover the news for themselves. Read more
17 November 2009
Business Card/Resume Redesign
Filed Under Design and Infographics | 2 Comments
Recently, I’ve updated my resume and created new business cards (not a redesign since I’ve never had business cards before.) You’ll notice they closely resemble my new web site design:
Since I’m still in graduate school, I didn’t think I would need business cards yet. However, between internship interviews, school field trips to newsrooms around the city and attending conferences like D.C. Public Media Camp, I’ve found myself in a lot of interactions where handing out a business card would be appropriate.
For me, buying pre-made business cards was out of the question. Read more
16 November 2009
Are student journalists “real” journalists?
Filed Under Journalism | 6 Comments
Is student journalism valid? Do their notes and sources deserve to be protected, just like those of a professional journalist? As a student journalist myself, I have been carefully following one case where this question has recently surfaced, outlined here in The New York Times and covered here in the Chicago Sun.
It began with the Medill Innocence Project, part of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. The Project, completely student based, has exonerated 11 prisoners, 5 on death row, to this date. But now attorneys are questioning, I kid you not, if the students skewed these investigations in order to improve their grades. Read more
14 November 2009
Murdoch vs. Google, part II
Filed Under Journalism | 1 Comment
Last week, I wrote in my Observer blog about Rupert Murdoch’s vow to take all Newscorp content off of Google. Just three minutes into an interview with Sky News Australia, the media mogul claimed Google was plagiarizing his content. As a result, he decided to remove all content from the search engine, and what’s more, start charging for people to access the content at all.
His plan would be to make all NewsCorp content only searchable on certain search engines. So if he chose, for example, Bing.com, everyone who wanted to look at that content would have to use Bing.
You could argue that Murdoch is making a huge mistake. Read more
14 November 2009
Welcome
Filed Under Website News | 1 Comment
Hello to my friends and family reading this. Today I am launching this website to serve as my professional portfolio and blog. Hopefully someday soon, potential employers will find it too!
My goal is to update at least once a week with posts about journalism and design trends as well as highlights on any new additions to my portfolio. We’ll see if I can keep it up.
I’ve wanted to start my own website ever since I was 13 and messing around with Notepad, so this is a huge accomplishment for me. Now I can finally contribute to the Internet instead of just taking it in.
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