Flash Journalism and Better Understanding the World

(By Allan Vestal)

"Journalism, when done right, helps us understand the world."

I feel that this quote from Mindy McAdams' Flash Journalism is the most correct definition of the profession of journalism that I have yet encountered -- and that its concept proves extremely salient in considering new technologies' applications to reporting.

For nearly a decade now, newsrooms the country (and the world) over have been using Flash and similar technologies to tell stories.  Whether in the forms of slideshows or more interactive infographics, "Flash Journalism" is ubiquitous across today's 'vast collection of interconnected tubes.' 

And the reason for this is unmistakable: a medium that can develop a story over time, while also potentially allowing viewers to interact with the data seems an ideal way in which to cover the news.

Reporters can use this technology to create a form of understanding that has best been characterized as "ambient awareness": that is, they can use content from different traditional media to provide their audience with something increasingly akin to a first-person experience. This allows more thorough, more engaging coverage which has the potential to better describe the 'big picture' situation to viewers. When combined with the interactive capabilities of the medium, this is paving the way for audiences to gain a much deeper understanding of the stories presented to them.

Flash can also be harnessed for another equally important purpose, one that offers audiences another important level of understanding. Many stories and topics today concern a great deal of numbers and statistics. This is not necessarily a new occurrence. But with the advent of personal computers, the Internet and dynamic, interactive online technologies, such numerical figures are getting much easier for viewers to access and put into proper context.

Flash and its contemporaries are largely to thank for this, as they enable the creation of complex and responsive graphics. These technologies allow users to drill down through intricate data on any topic, from budgets to election results to reviews, starting at the most basic data and working forward to the most involved figures. This level of detail provides the user with great capabilities: they are essentially presented with all the factual data on a topic, and can then increase their contextual knowledge of the topic as much as they please.

As a side note to this, I wanted to mention an ongoing discussion among many of the proponents and facilitators of this second model. With the emergence of websites that essentially pull all of their information from outside sources -- like governmental archives -- and then repackage this data for viewers in an increasingly automated fashion, some are asking where the line is between journalism and the mere relaying of numbers.

If we define journalism by McAdams' definition, then, numerical journalism is clearly still a part of this profession. This does not mean that machines can be journalists, however: a basic level of interpretation is still necessary to make data relevant to a mass audience; professionals in this field can still earn their keep by devising new ways to analyze data.

At any rate, "Flash Journalism" is evidently becoming a mainstay of reporting on news websites everywhere. In their abilities for interactivity and change over a timeline, technologies like Flash are allowing journalists to relay numbers, as well as create multimedia pieces that reflect the absolute, experiential realities of covered topics.

By focusing on the ways in which these relatively new technologies can be harnessed to increase audiences' understanding of the world around them, newsrooms were able to add a powerful new tool to their arsenal. Such a focus will serve them well in the future, given the rapidly evolving pace of technology.