Studymate's Stories - The Power of Your Voice.

(Final Cut Pro Image courtesy of http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/finalcut/)

Studymates’ Stories

“Video results are graced with the world’s most attractive call-to-action- the play button.” 

– Vidyard on the power of Video for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

The power of the moving image is indisputable, it has the influence to encourage viewers to join a particular cause, dress in a particular way and, most importantly, is able to ignite a discourse on absolutely anything in the world. It is said that one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. So please remind me why I’m writing this right now and haven’t already snapped up a few minutes of video footage and fancied it up on Final Cut Pro?

Sydney Studymate wants to encourage you (our international students) to help each other enjoy your stay in our beautiful city by sharing your experiences and inspiring each other on things to do, places to see, what’s good and what’s not and basically what you think people should know. We want to encourage you to talk and we want to be the place you come to, to do that freely and with a purpose. And of course, we want to give you a little help and guidance about the city we know best in the process. 

One of the ways in which we aim to do this is by sharing your powerful messages and stories through videos which will move people and others to action. Sydney Studymate has done it’s research and we’ve found that video, being one of the most vibrant ways to express an idea and create a lasting impact, means our “Studymate’s Stories” is what our readers will be most excited to see. 

A report conducted by Cisco shows that Internet video is now responsible for 40 percent of consumer traffic and will reach to 62 percent by the end of 2015. Considering this, and a recent Forrester blog exploration of how a majority of online viewers prefer to watch videos produced by other people (refer to survey below), especially those found on YouTube, we believe that our "Studymate's Stories" will be able to reach and connect with a vast nebula of Sydney's international students and really spark discussions about particular issues, experiences and ideas. 

As a result, our storytelling approach will be predominantly reliant on video, with a page dedicated to our Studymates’ Stories, which will be a feed of videos and clips relating on relevant issues and topics explored throughout the day or week. The format of these videos will be documentary style, combining interview with on scene footage, creative re-enactments and narrative. It will be an avenue where we explore our reader’s personal experiences, opinions and feedback and also a place where our reader’s can connect on a mental and psychological level. 

We really liked how International Film School Sydney gave a personality to their students. Check out some of them here...

IFSS - International Students and Sydney from ifss on Vimeo.

We'd also like to put a face, personality and story to our international students out there! And, although our major university and TAFE institutions in Sydney offer important websites for international students, what we've realised the USYD, UNSW, UTS, MQ, UWS, TAFE international student's websites lack is your "voice" and your "story" and this why we want to bridge the gap between all the educational institutions in Sydney and provide a social and interactive hub where you can be heard.

We loved what Torono, Canada's York University did with their video on "Life at York" and this is the sort of storytelling approach we'll be looking at and the types of stories we'll be listening to from our viewers!

International Students - Life at York from York University on Vimeo.

The International College of Management Sydney also did a great job showcasing some of the events their international students successfully held. We'll want to hear about similar things at your educational institutions too! Check out their experience at ICMS...

Business study abroad - the International College of Management Sydney from Lisa Papallo on Vimeo.

If we can bring to life your similar stories and experiences, Sydney Studymate believes that we can start to revolutionise your stay in Sydney and student experience abroad, because "the power of solid storytelling, visuals and sound can tug at our heartstrings and move us in ways no other medium can" (iMediaConnection).  

And how will you be able to keep up to date with all of the exciting videos and all of our other content? Easy. The way every other person keeps up to date with things nowadays - social media channels! Yes, that means we'll be using our Sydney Studymate Facebook and Twitter pages to keep you in the loop with what's happening and what everyone's talking about or wants to know. And, with YouTube being responsible for 48 hours of video footage being uploaded every minute(!!) we find it hard to doubt why you wouldn't love to watch our upcoming space on there too!!

So, now that's said and done, I'm off to produce the real important stuff and what you actually want to see! Maybe something a bit like this..

P.S: Stay tuned for a few Memes along with our first video. Apparently these days all people want to know is "What does it all meme?!"

Are you looking for Sydney Studymate?

 Who is Sydney Studymate for?

Our target audience will be anyone who is from 18 years old to 30 years old.  Some people might wonder what if you are 17 years old or 31 years old?  Don’t worry about that! You can still visit our blog, and prepare for your life in Sydney!

However the reason we've decided to target specifically those between 18 and 30 is:

Firstly, Why from 18 years old?

The primary objective of our blog is to inform our readers about university life and daily life for international students in Sydney. The age admission to university is usually 18 years old.  Most international uni students come to Australia after they graduate from high school in their home country.  However due to their lack of English skills, they cannot enter into an Australian university as soon as they arrive in Australia. Therefore they have to go to a private English language school or do a foundation course which provides academic English classes.  They usually spend at least 6 months in these preparatory schools.  Therefore they are usually older than 18 years old, when they start their university course.

Secondly, Why is there an age limit of 30?

Mostly, university students including both undergraduates and postgraduates are around their twenties, so we made 30 the limit.  Also these days, due to the strong Australian dollar, many people feel pressured to come to Australia without having any knowledge. Therefore, many international students visit Australia with a ‘Working Holiday Visa’.

This visa is for people who are aged 18 to 30 years old. The visa charge is $280 while the student visa costs $535.  The working holiday visa enables people to work and study at the same time more flexibly while a student visa holder can only work a maximum of 20 hours per week.  With a working holiday visa it's possible to stay for up to 12 months, which is enough time to plan their future study in Sydney, Australia.

• More information of the Working Holiday Visa:
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/working-holiday/417/

Why do we need target audience?

Every audience has different approaches, depending on different perspectives and motivations.  Media uses different tactics and ways of persuasions to attract its target audience effectively.  It is easier to focus on the contents and information and reach to the goal by deciding the target audience.

Do you want to know more about target audience? Click 

How can I find Sydney Studymate?

We promote the blog for international students not only from the University of Sydney, but from the whole of the Sydney area, so we decided to publish information about our blog in the student magazines of five major universities in Sydney and their websites.  In this way students from each university can share their experiences, stories about uni life and daily life, and updates on special events through a broader network. Moreover, local students can expand their knowledge about international students’ life and various cultural experiences.

• The University of Sydney (USYD):
The ratio of international students: Over 20% check

USU BULL: 6 issues a year
Honi Soit: weekly
Globe: 4 issues in a year

 

• The University of New South Wales (UNSW):
The ratio of international students: Over 20% check

Blitz : weeklyTharunka (student newspaper) : 10 issues a year

• University of Technology of Sydney (UTS):
The ratio of international students: approximately 40% check

Playground: monthly
Vertigo : 9 issues a yearWebsite: http://www.utsvertigo.com/

 

 

 

• Macquarie University:
The rate of international students: over 30% check

Grapeshot Magazine: 10 issues a year
Website: http://grapeshotmq.com.au/magazine/issue-archive/

•University of Western Sydney (UWS):
The ration of International students: 10-11%check

Degree: a web based media service and part of the Student Media Network
Website: http://smn.net.au/degree/about/

 

 

 

 

 

Why do we need to decide a publication?

Each reader has a different discipline level and different interests.   It is important for  journalists and scholars to understand publication characteristics, and then they can deliver their research effectively. 

Do you want to learn how to decide your publication? Click

 

Don't panic! You got us! - Sydney Studymate: Online Guide for International Students

Don’t panic! You got us!

Sydney Studymate: Online Guide for International Students

When I first came to Sydney, I didn’t know anyone or anything. All I could rely on is a few pages of ‘Free Official Sydney Guide’ in Chinese that I picked up at the airport. Like this: 

(From here)

As an international student myself, I understand how difficult it would be to study abroad. To cope with a brand new environment is painful enough, not to mention that people all around you are speaking in another language.

So I went onto the magical Internet for help – the most convenient and efficient way of getting information in modern days. However, when I googled them, surprisingly there is few websites that especially serve for international student’s needs. Some governmental official websites, such as Official Sydney Website, City of Sydney, and Department of Immigrationand Citizenship only have limited information, which does no better than my poor manual.

I wish there could be a website with not only general informative knowledge, but also useful tips of both studying and living in Sydney for desperate international students like me.

Now, we make my wish come true.

We are a group of university students of different nationalities and backgrounds. In fact, most of our members are international students ourselves. We noticed this kind of informative website focusing on international students in Sydney’s region is a gap in the industry. So, we decided to build one on our own.

Our project Sydney Studymate is a guide for international students in Sydney. It has everything you need to know about studying and living in Sydney, no matter when you firstly come here, or you have already lived here for a while.

International students are a very important group in Australia. International education activity contributed $16.3 billion in export income to the Australian economy in 2010-11. In fact, education services is Australia’s largest services export industry ahead of other personal travel and business related services. According to the data from Australian Government’s International Student Data, there are more than 230,000 international students of higher education in Australia now.

International Student Data

Therefore, this large amount of international students coming to Sydney for their higher education is our main target group. We aim to provide a useful and attractive guide for those students. We will infiltrate both online and offline into mainstream university or college publications in Sydney, such as UniLife, Honi Soit, and Vertigo, etc. 

As international students ourselves, we have the advantage of live personal experience. We may all have been through some kind of trouble during our stay in this beautiful harbour city. We live in our own cultural communities, and we hear from our friends from these communities. We are able to know what other international students’ needs, because those are exactly what we need.

So, here is what we will have on our website:

• Feature articles: informative and investigative, take an in-depth look at international students, with topics such as housing, daily life, and visa.

• Checking In: reviews of cool Sydney-based restaurants and pubs of student’s budget, with a Google Map check-in interactive section.

• My Calendar: a calendar of attractive events happening in Sydney, both local and international related.

• About Us & Feedback: get to know us here, and tell us what you think, what you want to know, or even submit your own pieces.

• Links: useful websites and documents that would help you during your stay in Sydney.

Now thanks to the magical Web2.0, we can interact with our audience, rather than just feed them what we got. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter - feel free to like us and @ us! We will provide you the newest and hottest information to help you make the most out of your stay in Sydney.

Stay tuned, Sydney Studymate will not let you down! :)

Angles: International students in Sydney.

Since this is the guide for international students in Sydney, the angles of our blog posts and videos will be centred on international student’s views and perceptions of how it is to live in Sydney. The blog will reflect the diversity of these students as much as possible through our investigative articles, videos and informative columns.

No two students are the same, so the bulk of our investigative work will focus on broad issues that affect all international students. Looking at the different segments of the target audience, there is array of different living, study and work situations. Some students are living away from home for the first time, either on exchange or taking their whole degree here.

 

 According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics China is the largest single nation making up the international student population in Australia. Therefore we can assume that a majority of international students are from a non English speaking background. Additionally, the students are more likely to be men (54%) than women (46%) but this varies across the different nationalities. Over one-third of all international student enrolments (and commencements) take place in NSW. Based on these statistics facts, we can work towards a more customized blog- and identify who are our target audience.

 

 

(Copyright: Tina Brodal, created here)

 

The informative angle will be important in our articles. Sydney is a large city, and with so many things to see and do, the choice can be overwhelming and hard to keep up to date with. Our articles will not only provide daily information on events and where to eat and party, but also important informative pieces on current visa regulations. The visa regulation pieces will constantly be updated so that international students can stay on top of which changes are carried out.

 

We recognize that blogs can offer so much more than traditional journalistic commentary. Aspects like immediacy, cross-blog connection and conversations are examples of aspects consecutively contributing to connectivity (Dean 2010:44). Therefore we will provide useful links to Australian governmental websites, university websites and other relevant student blogs across Australia. In addition to this our blog will feature on student magazine websites, e.g. Honi Soit.

 

 A valuable aspect of blogging is that it ‘enables production of content potentially accessible to anyone who happens to find it’ (Dean 2012:46).  We assume that our target audience have a need, and in their search they have stumbled upon a link to our blog either through one of the university websites, or through a social media platform. This assumption facilitates us as authors to tailor our articles to the need of our imagined target audience.

 

Another angle we will explore in the blog is that international students are sadly, often taken advantage of: particularly in housing. International students don’t have the same know how, or luxury of time to hunt for a good apartment and they need guidance on where to stay and how much to pay. Many students are being exploited for exorbitant prices for accommodation; Sydney Studymate will reveal the worst instances of this in order to create awareness about what to look out for and offer  advice to any students who find themselves in that situation.

 Discrimination is the darker side of the international experience, which we will tackle in our articles about limited work opportunities compared to nationals. Unfortunately there is a prevailing reputation in some countries that Australians are racist, so we will attempt to explore this notion in depth by gathering vast information through students own personal experiences.

Last but not least, it has been argued that ‘users are key producers of the technology, by adapting to their uses and values’ (Castells in Meikle and Young 2012:26). Sydney Studymate will enable our audience to share the information they have obtained with other students, this will be made possible by the RSS and ‘share on Facebook/Twitter’ function under our blog posts, and we will encourage sharing our articles across all platforms.

 

 

 

 Keen to know more? Check out these references;

 

Dean, J. 2010; ‘The Death of Blogging’ in Blog Theory: Feedback and Capture in the Circuits of Drive, Polity, London.

 

Meikle, G. and Young, S. 2012: ‘Content, Computing, Communications’, in Media and Convergence: Networked Digital Media in Everyday Life. Hampshire and NY, Palgrave MacMillian, 13-26.

 

  

The Genesis of Sydney Studymate

Tim Geaney takes a look at how the idea for Sydney Studymate came about.....

Week 1 and 2: In the beginning.....

They say that getting started is the hardest part; well ‘they’ were right. In the search for an online media topic we first came up with Chinese censorship laws. Sadly, that’s about as far as the idea got. After talking with Jonathon, it became clear we didn’t have a clear concept beyond the initial idea.  The idea was just boring not ‘colourful’ enough for a website. And as the third week reared its head, this idea looked destined for the “too hard basket.”

Week 3: In the beginning....again

All of us had come to silent agreement that this topic didn’t exactly light up the keyboard with inspiration. So we began looking for a creative topic that would provide more engagement (both with ourselves and readers).  We knew that user engagement was key to have a successful website, especially in the current online media landscape. Users are also more likely to share and promote the blog when they were engaged as Ross Maynard points out in his very easy to read blog here.

And below is a great image from his blog post that shows the differing stages of user interaction.

Copyright Ross Maynard

In our group we have four international students, and I just returned from exchange, which had me thinking about the challenges that international students face on a daily basis. 

The idea was to develop a website that would be an international student’s guide to living in Sydney. But where was the investigative angle? Well the previous weekend I had met an international student who was living with 7 other Brazilians in a two bedroom flat in Pyrmont for $175 a week each and I had the following reaction:

Inspired by the Jodi Dean article ‘The Death of Blogging’ Copyright: created by myself here

But one man’s exploitation is another man’s feature topic! Finally we were able to combine investigative features into our idea. Exploitation of foreign students in Sydney, particularly in the crazy Sydney house market became our first topic.

Then, Tina and Monica were having a conversation about visas once they finish their degree and want to stay in Australia which became the next topic of investigation. Talking about the challenges that international students face on a daily basis, travel concessions or lack thereof became the next topic. So hurrah, we had ourselves a project!

Week 4: Like a Rolling Stone

From there on in, the idea begun to snowball on its own- all that was left was a pesky title. We wanted something catchy, a touch of Australiana and of course; studying. First idea was “The Homestead” as aussie home for international students, except none of the international students in our group knew what a Homestead was. From the obtuse to the obvious, we settled on Sydney Studymate.





   A non-copyright cleared mock version of our banner



In researching this topic, one thing we found was that there

1)      Information overload for users, so much stuff out there that isn’t current, and

2)      Information on so many different sites

 

We wanted to bring those two points together by creating an index and category site. (See Terry Flew’s New Media: an Introduction on page 146 for more). And we actually found a website that puported to do this exact thing right here. But thankfully it hasn't been updated for over 2 years. *wipes brow*

Week 4: Getting Social:

Sydney Studymate can use lifestyle topics to encourage user engagement through content and format. By formatting our reviews section on a Google Maps styled map, so users could see what wa son offer in their area, and keep it interesting. In content, with Aleks arrival in week 4 we decided to include documentary styled profiles of students in Sydney called Studymate Stories allowing readers t engage on a personal and even emotion level.

Social media is crucial for our idea not only because every site does uses it, but because it reflects the needs and the usage habits of target audience (Flew, this time on page 145) We envisaged Facebook as a virtual pinboard for our website, users can post house for rent, search for language partners, promote events. Similar to the group I was part of for students on exchange:

Facebook Group for uni students on exchange in Cologne

This kind of activity is an upgrade on user participation, transitioning from liking and sharing, to commenting to writing and even moderating. Interaction demands a two-way or multi directional model of communication, the receiver is an active participant (more Flew on page 31). As Dan Gilmour said, every citizen is a reporter, and our style of journalism will be conversation or seminar.

Week 5: Cheeky Sneakpeak

And here we are,  finally the end product is going to look a little something like this:

Get excited guys, Sydney Studymate coming to a computer near you....