2008 Woodie Awards
"InsideVandy" shows unfulfilled potential
Allison Heiser
Issue date: 2/5/07 Section: Opinion
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InsideVandy, a recent addition to the bevy of student-run media outlets, launched last fall as a comprehensive media Web site for Vanderbilt students. Currently, however, the Web site is not widely used by anywhere near a majority of students, yet it has the potential to be a vital news and entertainment source for the Vanderbilt community. The site includes many distinctive, nontraditional aspects and outlets such as blogs, photographs, videos and podcasts for students to document life at Vanderbilt.
Because of the growing popularity of Internet-based media - everything from Facebook to online news sources such as CNN - information is much more accessible than it was before the widespread, everyday use of the Internet. In addition, InsideVandy gives students the ability to offer information that their peers wouldn't otherwise know such as information about history, chemistry or economics that one student writing a blog might know a lot about. InsideVandy also has the potential to be a forum for easy, accessible, campus-wide communication and discussion through the personal blogs that anyone can sign up for. And students aren't just blogging about politics or news, but about colorful anecdotes relating to life at Vanderbilt such as conversations overheard on a VandyVan. Those students who don't have the time to be a part of student media can now write a blog on InsideVandy and still put their ideas out in the Vanderbilt community.
As opposed to print media, the comprehensibility of InsideVandy in this day and age of technology is irreplaceable. The current means of communication and information is via computer - e-mail, instant messaging, online newspapers and Facebook. Thus, InsideVandy is at each student's fingertips as another source of opinion, sports and breaking news.
Despite its endless applicability and accessibility for students, InsideVandy must make itself stand out from not only the other student media programs, but also the millions of news, blogging and social community Web sites that already exist. In a world of Facebook, New York Times online, YouTube and MySpace, InsideVandy must make itself important and different, providing something new for all students. InsideVandy is indeed unique because of its combination of so many forms of media at one site, focused for the Vanderbilt community. For instance, a video of the bat that flew through Rand last semester was posted on InsideVandy, and this type of real-time coverage of campus occurrences provides a perspective on student life that other media cannot.
Because of the growing popularity of Internet-based media - everything from Facebook to online news sources such as CNN - information is much more accessible than it was before the widespread, everyday use of the Internet. In addition, InsideVandy gives students the ability to offer information that their peers wouldn't otherwise know such as information about history, chemistry or economics that one student writing a blog might know a lot about. InsideVandy also has the potential to be a forum for easy, accessible, campus-wide communication and discussion through the personal blogs that anyone can sign up for. And students aren't just blogging about politics or news, but about colorful anecdotes relating to life at Vanderbilt such as conversations overheard on a VandyVan. Those students who don't have the time to be a part of student media can now write a blog on InsideVandy and still put their ideas out in the Vanderbilt community.
As opposed to print media, the comprehensibility of InsideVandy in this day and age of technology is irreplaceable. The current means of communication and information is via computer - e-mail, instant messaging, online newspapers and Facebook. Thus, InsideVandy is at each student's fingertips as another source of opinion, sports and breaking news.
Despite its endless applicability and accessibility for students, InsideVandy must make itself stand out from not only the other student media programs, but also the millions of news, blogging and social community Web sites that already exist. In a world of Facebook, New York Times online, YouTube and MySpace, InsideVandy must make itself important and different, providing something new for all students. InsideVandy is indeed unique because of its combination of so many forms of media at one site, focused for the Vanderbilt community. For instance, a video of the bat that flew through Rand last semester was posted on InsideVandy, and this type of real-time coverage of campus occurrences provides a perspective on student life that other media cannot.
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