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January 1, 2014 | Category: Blog | Author:

New Year’s round-up: hula, Twitter and more

HULA’S LESSONS FOR JOURNALISM: Jon Funabiki of the Renaissance Journalism Center reports on how a San Francisco-based halau — or school of hula, the Hawaiian dance form — contributed to preserving the archives of ethnic Hawaiian newspapers in more ways than one. Members of the halau transcribed hundreds of pages of Hawaiian-language newspapers so that the text could be searchable online, and then gave a concert performance that interpreted their experience with the project. Funabiki writes insightfully about the undertaking and its lessons for contemporary journalism. If you want to disappear down the hula rabbit hole, visit the website of the Hula Preservation Society.

MORE THAN STORIES: On the Huffington Post, Shayla Price of the National Search Dog Alliance writes that nonprofit donors are now looking for more than just moving stories. “Yes, crowdfunding and social media have taught nonprofit staffs how to convey great stories to pull donors’ heartstrings to open wallets and purses. However, the information age also yields more vigilant contributors who want to be reassured that their money is making an impact.” Price recommends that nonprofits try “transparency,” “mobile engagement,” “donor incentives” and more.

TWITTER TALES: As Twitter fans know, the company announced a timeline feature back in November that allows users to create a timeline to track or organize groups of tweets thematically — in other words, to tell a story over time rather than just conveying disconnected thoughts in bursts of 140 characters. We’ll see whether and how modern-day storytelling is shaped by this new feature; in the meantime, here’s a smart Fast Company write-up on how Twitter has already been used in literature and other narrative forms.