One of the big trends within journalism for 2015 is Explainers. Heres a handy guide to what explainers are: WHAT IS AN EXPLAINER? In its purest form, an explainer explains an issue. Thats about it. Read an Explainer on oil prices and youll know all about the fluctuations in the market. Read an explainer on Ched Evans and youll be informed on his conviction, and whether hes likely to play again. Read an explainer on Quantitative Easing and youll still understand bugger all. ARE EXPLAINERS SIMILAR TO A PREVIOUS TREND FOR LISTICLES? No. Explainers dont use numbers at the start of every point. Explainers are the natural response to the overuse of listicles WILL THERE BE TRENDS AFTER EXPLAINERS? Very much so. Media experts are already predicting that 2016 could be the year of the ordered explainer, taking the best of the explainer and the best of the listicle and combining them in one format. Buzzfeed have invested heavily in exploring this area. AN EXPLAINER SOUNDS A BIT LIKE AN FAQs PAGE... No, the two are entirely different. Explainers are used by serious media organisations, FAQs are used by small businesses to say what hours they are open, or how much delivery overseas costs WHAT FORMAT DO EXPLAINERS TAKE? They are often in the format of a question and then answer - the questions are meant to be those things on everyones mind. By the end, you should fully understand the topic SO THEYRE WRITTEN BY TWO PEOPLE - ONE TO ASK THE QUESTION, ANOTHER TO ANSWER? No, same person does both (and at times this means that person can put in hilarious comments meant to be from an editor - ed) DOES THIS EVER GET CONFUSING? YES IT DOES ARE THERE ANY DANGERS WITH EXPLAINERS? One area of concern is whats become known as the Holland effect. Flattening everyones level of knowledge to a point where nobody stands out any more as particularly well informed or laughably thick. This is already seen in pubs, where two friends might start debating the wider meaning of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, yet the only knowledge either has is from a BBC explainer. In this case, the two friends are just reciting an article to each other, and the only distinguishing factor in terms of knowledge is who has better memory - or speedier access to a smartphone. IS 2015 JUST THE YEAR OF THE EXPLAINER? No, its also the year of mobile 3.0, do you want an explainer on that? NO THANKS... BACK TO THESE EXPLAINERS. IS EXPLAINING TOPICS TO AN AUDIENCE A NEW CONCEPT. IT SEEMS QUITE OBVIOUS It does sound quite obvious, but like a lot of great ideas, thats often the case. Velcro only seemed so obvious once it was invented, see also the wheel, sliced bread and the tumble dryer. Also, the term explainer was only coined in mid 2014, before something has a name, how can you possibly begin to define what it is? ARE EXPLAINERS A GAME CHANGER? Absolutely. An 800-word explainer on why Russians are actually OK could have stopped the Cold War before it started. OK, FINAL QUESTION. IVE READ THE EXPLAINER, I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT A TOPIC. WHAT SHOULD I DO NEXT. Simple. Visit Wikipedia.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:07:03 +0000
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