@kueventrecaps Social Media Project Reflection

by Emma Frieze | March 22, 2023

About the Project

I created two social media videos for campus events at the University of Kansas in spring 2023 and posted them to the Instagram account @kueventrecaps. One video centered on a Lunar New Year celebration hosted by the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA). This celebration happened on Feb. 3. The other video focused on Jayhawk Money Talk, a personal finance seminar with Tizzi Blackburn from Creative Planning, LLC. This event occurred on Feb. 7 and was created by students in the Business Leadership Program.

The reflection included below describes the thought process I had while considering what material should be shown in my social media videos. It describes what I chose to include and why I chose to include it as well as why some other aspects of these events were omitted from my videos.

While attending the two events, I practiced my reporting and interviewing skills. Creating and posting the videos also allowed me to practice my video editing, graphic design and writing. For the reflection, I used professional writing and AP Style.

Thank you for reading.

This project was created for JMC 305: Writing for Media, Honors at the University of Kansas in spring 2023.

@kueventrecaps Social Media Project Reflection

While creating videos about University of Kansas (KU) events for social media, I learned that although journalists may hope to tell all sides of a story for objectivity, it may not be possible to adequately cover more than one perspective in a 60-second video.

I had this crucial takeaway about inclusion versus exclusion when I filmed and edited a video of a Lunar New Year celebration presented by KU’s Vietnamese Student Association (VSA). The event was held in the Burge Union on Friday, Feb. 3, and was open to all KU students and the Lawrence community.

When deciding what to include in the Lunar New Year video, I knew I wanted audience members to be able to vicariously experience the full event. Thus, I included footage of the event’s key activities: drinking milk tea, playing traditional games and watching the KU Lion Dance Team perform. I also concluded that audiences might want to hear from VSA members directly, so I interviewed Kayleen To, a leader in VSA’s executive board with whom I had previously connected.

I also carefully considered inclusion for my video of Jayhawk Money Talk, a personal finance seminar for students on Tuesday, Feb. 7, led by Tizzi Blackburn, managing tax director and partner at Creative Planning Inc. My video shows footage of attendees listening to Blackburn speak and asking questions. However, the video emphasizes interviews because I thought they would be more interesting for audiences than continuous footage of a mostly still classroom. I included interviews with a KU lecturer and a student organizer as I believed it was important to explain why the event was being held (Additionally, these individuals came early and stayed late, so I had more time to connect with them and gain their trust by explaining my credibility as a student journalist).

For the VSA Lunar New Year video, I also considered interviewing event attendees who were not Vietnamese to show audiences that VSA invited all students to this event. As someone who is not Vietnamese, I was apprehensive about attending the event because I wanted to ensure that I showed upmost respect for this celebration, which is venerated in Vietnamese culture. While it may have been helpful for other non-Vietnamese students to see how welcoming the VSA members were to all event attendees, I did not end up interviewing non-Vietnamese students because I concluded that amplifying the voices of VSA was more important and decided my video should be about educating students on this event instead of about an outside perspective.

For the Jayhawk Money Talk video, I similarly could have included interviews with student attendees for an alternative point of view. However, I knew that students who had been lectured about technical material regarding taxes and budgeting might struggle to synthesize the information they had learned on camera. Meanwhile, a faculty member and student organizer had more knowledge about the event and topic. Additionally, I could have included longer footage of the event or key takeaways about taxes and budgeting, but I thought that audiences might become bored by a stationary video containing complex information.

I posted both videos on Instagram. One constraint was that I had to shoot vertical clips, and editing horizontal videos may have been easier with the Adobe software tools I used. However, Instagram was ideal for these videos because the platform is very visual (ideal for videos) and popular with college students. Additionally, TikTok would not have been as appropriate as Instagram Reels for posting about serious topics such as cultural events and personal finance seminars.