Broadcast features are most frequently used on myfoxdc.com. Videos and pictures can be found with almost every story on the site. Interactive elements such as polls, chats and maps are used for less news based content. Myfoxdc.com aims to inform viewers on local news, but goes the extra mile by incorporating content that the news station’s localized audience would find important and helpful.
Videos and photos usually accompany the website’s local news stories because TV news uses visuals and audio to appeal to viewer’s eyes and ears. The videos are broadcast on the channels newscasts, so they are always produced very well. However, the same amount of effort is not always put into the pictures that are used on the site. Myfoxdc.com has some photo galleries such as this gallery on rain causing flooding in the DC area. But sometimes photos are just frozen screen shots from the TV package.
The website’s “Money” tab has a link to “Frugal Family” where users can find feature stories and tips on smart living. Some of the recent stories include “Secrets to Supermarket Savings” and “The Perfect Potluck”. Along with these fun and informative feature stories are a quiz and a reader poll in the right sidebar that incorporate facts about healthy living. This is a good example of how Fox 5 tries to engage viewers in an interactive manner while giving them useful information.
“Aging Judges” shows data collected from 2009 on more than 1,200 federal judges that is analyzed in a fun and interactive manner. The page includes a video, a picture of 9 Supreme Court justices, a graphic with former U.S. presidents and a Google map of the United States. When you click on a justice a window pops up giving you more information. The graphic of the presidents allows the viewer to click and see the judges each president selected and the Google map gives details about federal and state judges from different states. This interactive page is very informative. Although it is a great example of multimedia, the information on it is dated.
It’s clear that the news component is the most significant on the website because the home page is filled with links to news stories and accompanying videos. Finding the interactive multimedia components require quite a bit of clicking and searching. It would be challenging to create interactive elements for news stories that are pushed out daily; but I think more of these would make viewers’ experience on myfoxdc.com more engaging.
Erica A. Mink 