The economy crunch: a multimedia website devoted to the economy and what we eat

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Content THE ECONOMY CRUNCH: A MULTIMEDIA WEBSITE DEVOTED TO THE ECONOMY AND WHAT WE EAT by Jenn Harris ____________________________________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (ONLINE JOURNALISM) May 2010 Copyright 2010 Jenn Harris Table of Contents Abstract iii Web Project Link 1 Bibliography 2 ii Abstract What we eat speaks volumes about who we are. Diet can be a reflection of one’s unique tastes, economic class or personal style. It’s hard to stay true to your diet, whatever it may be, when money is tight and buying everything you want or need is no longer an option. The Economy Crunch website is a multimedia Masters thesis project. The aim of the project was to create a full website devoted to how the state of the economy affects what people eat as well as what people are doing to eat well during a recession. The website is informative yet fun to navigate through and interactive. The site combines text, photography and video story formats as well as different multimedia and online story telling tools like Vuvox an interactive collage tool, Google maps and information graphics. The website is located at http://www.jennharris.net/economycrunch/. The homepage consists a story carousel with four main featured stories, meant to give insight into how different groups are dealing with the economy in terms of diet. There is also a link to a recipe section, a cheap eats section and a page devoted to the Banh Mi sandwich. These pages are meant to give helpful information regarding eating on a budget. iii The first story is The Urban Garden, about how Mirabelle restaurant in Los Angeles is saving money and keeping green by growing most of their produce organically at the Solano Community garden in Los Angeles. The story consists of two videos shot and edited by me, using iMovie. The videos were put into a Flash player, which is how they are presented on the web. The first video features Mirabelle restaurant manager Michael Duddie, who speaks about the start of his restaurant supported agriculture movement, where restaurants grow their own produce in gardens to reduce carbon footprints and save money. Duddie also gives a sort of walking tour of the different parts of the garden. Los Angeles Garden Council Director Al Renner also speaks in the video regarding the garden. In the second video, Duddie introduces viewers to composting with a demonstration. This story features two extra story elements in addition to the videos. The first is a Google map with community gardens in Los Angeles and the second is an information graphic, built using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The information graphic is a step-by- step demonstration, with picture icons, of how community supported agriculture works from your home, to the farm, back to your home. iv The second feature story located in the carousel is Chefs in the Classroom. This story is about the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Network for a Healthy California program Chefs in the Classroom. This program sends professional chefs to schools to teach the students and teachers how to cook healthful food. The article focuses on the visit of professional chef Billie Sutton to the Ellen Ochoa Learning Center Middle School in Cudahy, CA. Sutton does a cooking demonstration for a group of teachers, who plan to take their newly learned recipe and teach it to their students in class. In the article, readers hear from Sutton, a couple teachers participating at the school, the director of the Chefs in the Classroom program and the head of the Network for a Healthy California. This story features two extra story elements. The first is a Google map that shows the dense population of fast food restaurants around the school in relation to the few supermarkets. The second is a full cooking demonstration by Sutton, shot on a flip camera, edited with flip share software and posted on YouTube. The third story in the carousel is about a woman who completed a food stamp challenge, why she did it and what her experience was like. Her seven-day task is chronicled along with the difficulties she faced. v The article focuses on the challenge to stay healthy on a limited budget such as the allotment given to a person participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. In this article, readers hear from Katie Evarts, the woman who completed the challenge, Cecilia Chan, Resident Dietician at the Huntington Memorial Hospital and Regan Hoper, Public Affairs Specialist for the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Services. Chan comments from a dietician’s point of view in regards to how healthy a person participating in SNAP can be. Hoper gives a voice to the people that run SNAP and how they are dealing with the state of the economy in relation to the funds people participating in SNAP receive. This story features one multimedia component. It is an interactive collage meant to explain the history of the food stamp and landmarks in the food stamp program. It also chronicles the amount of money food stamp participants are given for food in relation to food prices for basic foods like milk and bread. The interactive collage features photographs and text, made with Vuvox. The fourth article is a broadcast television package on the state of the wine industry and how the failing economy is actually good for wine consumers. I shot, edited and did the voice overs for the package using Avid NewsCutter as the editing software. vi In the package, viewers hear from two wine boutique owners regarding their wine selection and how the economy is affecting their business as well as what consumers should look for in terms of good buys. A wine enthusiast is also featured speaking about her consumer habits and how she is adjusting to her new budget. This article features one multimedia element other than the video. A Google map displays a list of wine bars in Los Angeles. There is also a list of links to wine recommendations. In addition to the four featured stories, there are five other pages with content that will help people eat well during a recession. The first is a recipe section with one recipe highlighted as well as a recipe box of archived recipe articles. All recipes were written with health and a budget in mind and come from my weekly food column called The Food Chronicles, written for USC Annenberg’s digital news publication Neon Tommy. There is also a cheap eats section with my picks for the top five cheap eats restaurants in Los Angeles. For each restaurant chosen there is a small picture, a mini review and all necessary contact information for the restaurant. To give viewers more cheap eats options, there is also a table with links to Los Angeles magazine’s 101 cheap eats. There is a full section devoted to food photography. Reading about food definitely makes an impact, but seeing food in a visual representation elicits more of a response both physically and emotionally. vii I wanted to demonstrate to viewers the beauty that can be seen in what we eat, even if we can’t really taste it. All pictures were taken with a Nikon Coolpix and Canon Rebel XSi 5D camera. A full page is devoted to the Banh Mi sandwich, a Vietnamese traditional sandwich that combines traditional French and Vietnamese influences. The sandwich is featured for its affordability and exceptional taste. The page explains what a Banh Mi sandwich is using an information graphic that was built using Photoshop and Dreamweaver. The graphic explains each part of the sandwich. There is also an interactive collage that explains the origins of the sandwich and where consumers can buy it, including two restaurants. The interactive collage was made using Vuvox. The entire website was coded by hand using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash and BBedit. All video, Vuvox collages and information graphics were built by me for the website. All photographs were taken by me unless otherwise credited by Flickr Creative Commons. viii Web Project Link The page link for the Economy Crunch is: http://www.jennharris.net/economycrunch. 1 Bibliography Acantilado, Roberta. Email Interview. 15 October 2009. Bender, Bob. Personal Interview. 28 August 2009. California Department of Health and Human Services. 2010. California Department of Public Health. 7 Oct. 2009 <http://www.dhs.ca.gov/>. Chan, Cecilia. Email Interview. 6 March 2010. Chun, Allison. Personal Interview. 10 October 2009. Comiskey, Patrick. “It’s a buyer’s market in wine.” Los Angeles Times. 4 Feb. 2009. 9 Sept. 2009 <http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo- wine4-2009feb04,0,7436559.story>. Consumer Price Index. 2010. United States Department of Labor. 2 Mar. 2010 <http:// www.bls.gov/cpi/>. Duddie, Michael. Personal Interview. 11 September 2009. Duoung, Susan. Personal Interview. 28 February 2010. Evarts, Katie. Personal Interview. 1 March 2010. Farm Bill House Committee on Agriculture. 2010. The United States House of Representatives. 2 March 2009 <http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/ FarmBill.html>. Hamilton, Alex. Telephone Interview. 7 October 2009. Hopper, Regan. Email Interview. 4 March 2010. Hovhanesian, Anet. Personal Interview. 25 August 2009. James, Randy. “Food Stamps.” Time. 14 Sept. 2009. 2 Mar. 2010 <http://www.time.com/ time/nation/article/0,8599,1921992,00.html#ixzz0gwsi9Coz>. 2 Network for a Healthy California. 2008. The Los Angeles Unified School District. 6 Oct. 2009 <http://www.healthylausd.net/>. Nugent, John. Personal Interview. 26 August 2009. Renner, Al. Personal Interview. 11 September 2009. Rodriguez, Leticia. Personal Interview. 10 October 2009. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. 2010. The United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. 3 March 2010 <http://www.fns.usda.gov/ FSP/HIP/>. Sutton, Billie. Personal Interview. 10 October 2009. United States Department of Agriculture. 2010. The United States Department of Agriculture. 6 Oct. 2009 <http://www.usda.gov/>. United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service. 2010. The United States Department of Agriculture. 3 March 2010 <http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/ >. USDA Food Plans: Cost of Food. 2010. The United States Department of Agriculture Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. 3 March 2010 <http:// www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodplanscostoffood.htm/>. 3

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Asset Metadata

Creator Harris, Jenn (author)

Core Title The economy crunch: a multimedia website devoted to the economy and what we eat

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Online Journalism)

Degree Conferral Date 2010-05

Publication Date 04/19/2010

Defense Date 04/01/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Budget,budget eating,cheap,cheap eats,Cooking,eating,eating on a budget,eating well,Economy,economy crunch,Food,nutrition,OAI-PMH Harvest,recipe,recipes

Format 11 pages (extent)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor (Byars), Hernandez, Robert (committee chair), Cooper, Marc (committee member), Stephen (committee member)

Creator Email jfayharris@gmail.com,jfharris@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c127-15540

Unique identifier UC1107868

Identifier usctheses-c127-15540 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Harris-3694

Dmrecord 15540

Document Type Thesis

Format 11 pages (extent)