Ro
En
Рy
The informal talks, organized by the Independent Journalism Center, took place on 29 June at the School of Advanced Journalism, with the aim of helping the participants to increase the interaction with media consumers through innovations.
Victor Spinu listed the advantages of Instant Articles, specifying that this tool offers the ability to read articles from mobile devices in a much shorter time. ‘This option allows journalistic materials to load up to ten times faster than those on web interface. Moreover, the instant loading of articles helps us getting rid of the advertising that follows us at every step in the Internet’, said Victor Spinu.
As for the chatbot, the web developer mentioned that this is a tool that allows you to reach a new level of interaction with users directly in the messaging application - Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.
‘In order to have a new type of communication with the consumers, editorial offices can create chatbots, thus making it possible for the readers be informed on the most relevant news. It is important to use this tool carefully, not to disturb people with too many notifications’, explained Victor Spinu.
Several chatbot platforms were presented during the meeting, including Chatfuel, Botletter, and ManyChat. The participants also carried out a practical exercise – created a chatbot.
‘Chatbot is suitable for small editorial offices that do not have enough resources to develop more sophisticated applications or to maintain a website. To maintain an effective communication with the consumers, new technologies provide us with tools that have already been tested and have proven their viability’, said Victor Spinu.
Raisa Razmerita, freelance journalist, says that editorial offices have to keep up with new technologies in order to be closer to readers or viewers. ‘We are living times when readers are exposed to such a diversified information flow and, at the same time, they do not have enough time to be aware of everything that happens in the country or the world. We need to find the fastest and most accessible ways to reach the readers. We cannot just count on them coming to us’, the journalist pointed out.
Raisa Razerita also stated that new knowledge was going to help her structure in a different way the pages she followed and the information she wanted to receive. ‘From the perspective of a news consumer, there are topics that interest me more than others. Editorial offices, but also content creators could also take this into account and, respectively, use the methods presented at the meeting, in order to bring to readers’ attention the kind of information they are interested in. The chatbot might be a suitable tool for this’, the journalist suggested.
Diana Lungu, coordinator at the Association of Independent Press, has learned how to improve the relationship with the consumers of her institution’s products using chatbot and Instant Articles. ‘Though it seems complicated, these tools are easy to use and so we can offer our readers products that are more attractive and and of a better quality. We just have to do our homework and be better at our job’, said Diana Lungu.
____________________
The event has been organized by the Independent Journalism Center, as partner of ‘Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion and Accountability in Moldova’ (MEDIA-M) project, funded by USAID and implemented by Internews.
