Thursday, October 4, 2007

WWW Video Example

I watched a two minute long story titled "Women Wanted" that appeared on cnn.com on October 4. In this piece, an American reported explores the problem facing many small Eastern European towns: women leaving and men staying. Women, according to one source, are better students and more highly educated than the men in these towns. The women, who desire more prospects and career opportunities than their towns have to offer, have been moving to Western countries. The men, on the other hand, are staying behind. The lack of women has become so severe in some towns that the mayors are offering to pay women to stay.

One way that this video story could be improved is by simply making it longer. It is a complex issue that is packaged into a two minute quickie and leaves the viewer with many unanswered questions and no place to go for answers. I believe this story would have been more effective as a written or multi-media piece than as a video story because it is not necessarily a visual event. I would rather read more into the politics and the turmoil being caused by this lack of women than see the streets of a man-filled town. Also, for a video, the amount of natural sound was not satisfactory.

Tanya Sneddon

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