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- MA Online Journalism students launch hyperlocal news website for Birmingham city centre
- 6th Nov 2009
Students on the MA Online Journalism have been putting their knowledge to the test with a new website aimed at providing news around Birmingham's city centre area.
The site – Hashbrum.co.uk uses an innovative design created by Alex Gamela that combines a map of Birmingham with a slideshow of multimedia material as ways to navigate to articles.
Editor Andrew Brightwell said:
"I'd say we have a number of aims for Hashbrum - and even those are evolving…
"I think we see it as a way to learn about how online news can engage and be informed by its audience. So we're interested in experimenting in ways of finding, creating and presenting news."
This experimentation has included video interviews, audio, and a map of local bonfires and firework displays by Caroline Beavon [http://hashbrum.co.uk/2009/11/birmingham-bonfire-and-fireworks-map/].
"We've tried to have some fun with the way that we've covered stories," explains Andrew. "Caroline's map of bonfires is a good example, because the information was already there, but by putting it in all in a map it's brought a bit of life to the boring old lists that you see in newspapers at this time of the year. Dan Davies's Efterklang gig review is another example, because it tries to bring in other viewpoints into the review.
"I can't say exactly how it will develop, but I hope it evolves a life of its own, in a sense. By this I mean that it'd be really successful if we feel that much of the news we're creating is being led and developed by the site's audience."
See the site at http://hashbrum.co.uk/
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