Online Reporting, Research & Writing

Curation of Ann Arbor’s Greek Life

In the past, Ann Arbor has not always had the best name for Greek Life. There are many negatives that have led to today’s situation.

On Thursday, November 9, all Greek Life activities were suspended at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. Hazing and sexual misconduct was occurring, even though both of those issues are illegal at the university. During the weekend of the football game versus Michigan State, there were “30 hospital transports.”

Now as of 2018, it is being required that if those that wish to participate in Greek Life, they must complete 12 credit hours at the University. This means that no freshmen would be allowed to be recruited until the winter semester. It is now an issue of how housing is going to be effected.

A meeting with a greek life advisor is now mandatory due to Ann Arbor’s campus, which is effective at every branch.

MLive’s constant updates through Twitter

When aggregating news on Twitter through Nuzzel, it is easy to see what the people in Ann Arbor are talking about. MLive has recently been retweeted by several of my followers.

MLive is a media organization based in Ann Arbor. They report on breaking news, sports, college and lifestyle along with many more topics. Their content keeps the public informed not only through social media, but through their weekly newspaper as well.

One story that immediately caught my attention is the trending topic of the University of Michigan – Dearborn. It is now a requirement that in order to join Greek Life, one must complete 12 credit hours and do well in that semester. This decision was made without consulting with the public, which caused an upset on campus.

Nuzzel allows the opportunity to see this post quickly due to the buzz surrounding it. With a large following of Ann Arbor’s students, it is very popular on my Twitter feed.

Inside Z’s world of social media frenzy

I’ve had social media for a very long time. I started out with MySpace. Unfortunately I do not recall my username or password so a screenshot or link would not be useful at this time.

My main social media platform would be Instagram . I use Instagram primarily for photos and to alert the world via hashtags (and those that are following can see as well ) of newly posted blogs. If you were to look at my Instagram today, you would see a lot of makeup photos such as the one below.

Another platform I use is Snapchat, when I want to do a quick review on products or just to show a little personality, I’ll do so on Snapchat.

Also Snapchat has the world stories which is new to Instagram. With this feature you’re able to reach a lot of people.

My Twitter is fairly new for me to use, originally I used so I could see the products being shipped in my Ipsy bag prior to receiving them. Now I’ve opened it up publicly. I’ll likely use it the same as I use my Instagram account.

Lastly and most important to me is my Blog. Which is one of the main reasons I took a journalism class. I like to have my own platform where I can voice my own opinions, promote my book and of course do product reviews. On my blog, I’ll have my personal poetry, reviews and affiliate discounts with links. After taking this class I’ll be redoing my whole blog to give it a more professional look rather than the I started in my garage vibe it has currently.

A curation example

On Bridgemi I was able to find an example of curation written by Chastity Pratt Dawsey and Mike Wilkinson. This particular article compared the various school stats in Michigan as opposed to other states. The two reporters highlighted an important fact; “Michigan is not getting the school it deserves.”

I feel that after reading Ron French’s story, which is also on Bridgemi, this was a poor example or perhaps a short article. Although the article had well over 18 paragraphs and only three contextualized links. As the flow of the paragraphs increased to the end of the article the three links were the only sources that were used.

The article also had related links in the middle of certain paragraphs, that could cause some confusion as you are reading. That could be an added value for citizens in the school districts that want to see similar articles on the topic or as mentioned before cause a sense of confusion to the readers.

I do like the way the few links are attributed, it is the same as what we are currently learning and prior to clicking the link you know what you’re going to potentially be seeing. Thus, it is not click bait. Although this is blog post is not about the content of the writing, I think the authors had too much opinion in the writing. This is something that we should limit as much as possible so that our biases and personal beliefs do not run interference with the facts.