Web video reflection

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/video_and_audio/default.stm

I watched a BBC video on increased Chinese military spending. It began with a series of strong images of the military in action, which continued to be interlaced thought the rest of the piece. Nearly all of the story was voiced-over footage, save for two brief sound bytes from press conferences and a stand-up at the end. The stand-up caught me off-guard because the reporter was standing outside the Forbidden City, with a picture of Mao Ze Dong on the left third of the frame. I felt that to a reader who doesn't understand Chinese history outside of the main figures, that image behind audio about a growing military would have drawn up misleading fears of another Red Scare.

In terms of form, I noticed that the voice-overs were very direct, on the verge of being choppy. I feel that it would have been much more effective as a text story so that the writer could provide more of the context in which the spending increase was occurring rather than presenting what I considered to be a very shallow look at the subject.