Spreadable Media Artefact 2

I have been searching for companies where I could perhaps get a work experience during my Masters degree year and among the searches, there is a company that stood out to be what i could fit in. A Television (ATV),  an independent television production company which was launched in April of 2012 focusing mainly on African programming. Its mission is to promote citizen media. The company’s overview is that; it is a project that contributes to the growth of media in Africa and believes that by doing so ATV  will be contributing towards openness and the development of African voices. I started following the Executive producer Crispen Sachikonye on twitter and requested him to be one of my connections on LinkedIn so that I could understand what really goes on at ATV. ATV broadcasts to its African viewers through satellite for a few hours a day. All the content ATV broadcasts comes from its viewers, the main communication between ATV and its viewers is through their Face book page found here where the majority of them are active. Viewers send their greetings, photos, stories, own tracks of music and short films. All this constitutes to the content to be broadcasted for the day. The criteria of which artefact will be featured on say the ATV’s Face book page as well as on the TV channel is through nomination of best among a number of posted daily. ATV’s daily news bulletins are posted on YouTube as well. Some of the artefacts that gets broadcasted on ATV are; ‘Model of the Day’, ‘Usay’, ‘Picture of the Day’ among others.

With a level of professionalism associated with linked in, I saw it fit to communicate to Crispen  through LinkedIn despite the fact that he is affiliated to most social sites. The email that I sent to him was basically asking to find out more about what ATV does as a company and getting to know how they are making the use of social media to carry out their work. He asked me to visit their office at the Dock House, Salford Quays for an informal tour. Upon entering their premisses I recognised their News room background, I had actually seen that on YouTube in one of their daily news broadcasts but did not know the connection to ATV prior to my visit. I then explained my background to Crispen including past and current projects and what I was currently studying. The talk of ‘Social Technologies’ part of my MSc degree is what caught his attention, from my explanation and what he has gathered from following my blogs was of some interest to ATV.

Crispen asked me to work with Mark Cockcroft and Michael Rudolph, staff at ATV to launch ‘Story of the Day’. This is whereby viewers send  a story to ATV via face book or tweeter or email for a chance of it being published as a Story of the Day on ATV’s Face book page, as well as the TV channel. Now ideas and inputs on how this is going to be possible and efficient will be communicated in the next blog post.