The FIPP Insight Publications

9 TYPES OF VISUAL STORYTELLING ON MOBILE

1 This audience “self-identifies” as part of a group. 2 Our analytics show this audience has a high likelihood of return visits. 3 This audience has a connection to our region. 4 We can “own” this audience locally. 5 We can “do a job” for this audience.

In September 2017, the lead producer for the BBC Internet Research & Future Services, Tristan Ferne, identified 12 different story formats used in digital news. In early 2019, with new formats constantly emerging, Emma-Leena Ovaskainen, a visual journalist for Finland’s biggest daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, modified the list and made her own additions — with examples. The study was part of her Journalist Fellowship programme at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. This list is reprinted with permission.

Note: The examples of each type are best experienced with a mobile phone.

1 SHORT VIDEO, SHORT DOCUMENTARIES, EXPLAINERS

Pioneered by AJ+ and NowThis, these are used in many newsrooms. The style uses video, stills and animation or is a combination of these; mostly captioned and subtitled. They are short videos like you’ve never seen.

• New York Times visual investigations: Texas shooting

• BBC: Your phone is now a refugee’s phone

2 STORIES, AMP STORIES, SWIPEABLE CARDS

Card-like visualisations with headlines, captions and text banners. These evolved from the storytelling tools inside social platforms like Snapchat Stories and Instagram.

• BBC Instagram Stories • Washington Post AMP stories: A city destroyed by riot

3 LONG-FORM SCROLLYTELLING

Linear, narrative visual storytelling that’s mostly used in feature stories. Parallax scroll used to create smooth transitions between different parts of the story; the popular digital storytelling tool — Shorthand — is used, for example, at the BBC.

• BBC World languages service: Modern women in the land of Genghis Khan

• Washington Post: Six teens and the wounds they carry

4 DATA VISUALISATION, VISUAL ESSAY, VISUAL STORY, BLENDED MEDIA STORYTELLING

Graphs, infographics, interactives, or highly visual stories that have no main text narrative element, but the text and typography are part of the visuals.

• Guardian: How Cape Town is running out of water

• New York Times: How Rohingya escaped

5 STRUCTURED ARTICLES, LISTICLES, NEWSLETTERS AND BRIEFS

This includes listicles, which are usually numbered or otherwise structured under one theme or title, and articles structured into themes with strong typography or visuals.

“WE CHOSE TO DESIGN NEW STORY FORMATS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE — THEY ARE DIGITAL- AND MOBILE-FIRST AND TEND TO BE OPEN TO NEW EXPERIENCES.”

Tristan Ferne lead producer, BBC Internet Research & Future Services

Listicles became popular in BuzzFeed and Huffington Post, but have been a widely adopted format in mobile news. Guardian Mobile Lab has studied the idea of “atomised” stories with its Smarticles, where you can continue reading a story wherever you left off.

• NYT: Best places to go

• Quartz: How We’ll Win

6 PERSONALIZED STORYTELLING, ADAPTING STORIES

Used to filter the stories by one’s personal choice, creating a personalised article in the end. Found to be very engaging; people spend more time with a story that they find meaningful to their lives.

• The Times: Best place to live

• BBC: Life expectancy calculator

7 LIVE BLOGGING

Mainly used for large-scale events like breaking news, sports and cultural events and are visualised with short text pieces and updated frequently with photos, video and user generated content from social media.

8 BOTS, AUTOMATED STORYTELLING

This includes applications that create automated storytelling, as newsrooms experiment with more efficient ways to produce sports and election reporting.

• BBC bots projects

9 360-DEGREE VISUALS, VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY

There is a lot of testing around virtual and augmented reality. The Guardian and The New York Times Magazine have done a series of virtual reality stories for their own apps. Google also teamed up with NBC to create VR experiences.

• The New York Times: Rethinking Rikers

• BBC: Virtual reality

Even You Can Be Creative

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https://fippinsight.pressreader.com/article/282359746797621

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