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COVER STORY

Achievement Review of Web Version of the SM Herald

Kicker: COVER STORY (REVIEW) Achievement Review of Web Version of the SM Herald What Got Better? What Needs More Attention? By Sarah Chae, Editor, Min-gyong Lee, Editor sarah3fran@gmail.com, lee.mkpeach@gmail.com Hard version (above) and web version (below) (https://www.smu.ac.kr/eng-newspaper/index.do?) of the SM Herald newspaper Did you know that the SM Herald used to be a magazine-type platform? If you go further back into the past, it really was an old fashioned newspaper. Coming back to 2019, the SM Herald has published online newspapers for nearly a year from the March 2019 edition up until the December 2019 edition. Thanks to all of our readers, there are even articles that have reached thousands of views! Therefore, in order to wrap up and reflect on the past SM Heralds articles, we are planning to listen to the opinions of readers and reporters in this edition’s cover story. Let’s take a look at Professor Samuel Alexander Denny’s interview first. Interview With Faculty Adviser, Professor Samuel Alexander Denny: Question 1: How is the online newspaper version of the SM Herald? What is better (than the magazine type)? What differences are worth noting? Answer 1: I am happy and satisfied with it. I had encouraged our Herald members to make an online version for a very long time. The reason is, most university age students get information online. They like to access information on their phone, right? Therefore I thought few among the millennial generation read hard copy newspapers anymore, and I wanted our SM Herald to be up-to-date. I guess because of this change, more students are reading it now. The second reason I like the new SM Herald is that it is environmentally conscious. If there were remaining copies of the old (hard cover version) Herald, we had to just throw them away. Even if we could recycle them, I thought it was very wasteful and unnecessary. Now we are not using any natural resources, so I think it is more environmentally friendly to publish it online/digitally. This decision was correct. Question 2: What do you miss? Answer 2: You can see in my office, I have all the copies of the old Herald. I still miss paper magazines that I can touch. I am an older generation, so I like that (paper version). There were more photographs in the hard version than the online copy. I keep these (old copies), and for me each one is a nice memory. I know a lot of effort went into producing each of them, so I am kind of very nostalgic about the paper copies. I’m also very realistic about today’s world. I realize that young people want to access news in a fresh way, and we just had to meet our readers where they are. Question 3: What kind of articles do you want the SM Herald to write in the future? Do the articles seem to be helpful/motivating and meaningful for the readers? Answer 3: I think they are helpful. However, I would like to see more direct interviews where our Herald reporters go and talk to our Sangmyung students. I know in this issue there is going to be an article and interview with the president of SEDA (English Discussion Club), and I think that is great. I do think the articles are very interesting. I think articles that are related to students’ health are great because students are very health-conscious about their diet, getting enough sleep/exercise, all of these things that are related to the real lives of our students. I think we have done those kinds of stories but we need more articles like that. The SM Herald will keep working on trying to be a better school media source for SMU students. To improve readability, we are conducting experiments, fixing manuals and are receiving check-ups. We are also constantly checking ourselves through constant and steady-going idea/review meetings. Let’s now take a look at a check-up helped by you, our fellow readers. The following are the opinions of students from Sangmyung Univ who participated in the questionnaire for the development of the SM Herald. Question 1:Do you know that an English newspaper of Sangmyung Univ. has changed its publication method to online news? Question 1-(1):If so, what route did you know it through? Question 2:Do you think the Internet newspaper format is better than paper magazines? Question 2-(1):Why is the Internet article format better than the paper magazine format? Question 2-(2): What is the reason you prefer the paper magazine format? Question 3:Do you still feel uncomfortable or inconvenienced reading an English newspaper after transforming to an Internet newspaper? Question 4:Please comment from the reader's perspective about how to provide improvement of access to an Internet English newspaper. One of the most common opinions is to request active public relations. Students suggested publicity using “Everytime”, “Instagram”, “Kakao + (Plus) Friend (Channel)”, etc. The SM Herald currently has all of the above publicity accounts. However, it is clean that the problem is that SM Herald has not used it frequently enough for students to recognize sufficient access and the cooperation with the main media of Sangmyung Univ has been rare. Thus, students also proposed cooperation with the Student Council and campus websites. If the Univ. allows to pop up publicity, expose SM Herald's icons and banners on the school homepage, or cooperate with the Student Council, access would be very high. In fact, those above methods have been tried, and in addition to the efforts of the SM Herald reporters, it was answered that it would be difficult to achieve without the permission and cooperation of the university. Based on the results of your questionnaire received this time, we will be able to improve access through a flexible compromise, though. In addition, many advertisements were emphasized via text messages, and many various and different events were requested. Furthermore, specifically, one participant requested events to answer questions from official language(English) exams. Accordingly, these opinions will be integrated and considered to organize educational events that are simple, interesting, or practically useful to students. We also confirmed the importance of not only SNS, text messages, online media, but also offline promotional materials. Placing posters designed with emphasis on the QR code of the Webzine homepage and SNS account of the SM Herald, at noticeable locations such as school stations, main boards, and former English newspaper stands, is an example. A method was also presented to provide and hold regular prize giveaway events for those who followed the English newspaper. On the other hand, in terms of the content of newspaper articles, students asked us for interesting article themes. Suggestions were made on how to make readers focus on the content of newspaper articles, such as including English information useful for employment, common sense, and quizzes for events in newspaper articles. In addition, increasing the interval between sentences, ensuring readability, and adding highlights and memo functions on the web magazine homepage were also proposed as a way to solve the shortcomings of an Internet publication compared to a paper newspaper. This method has a problem in that there is a limit that requires cooperation with an outside Internet homepage development company. Adapting to new social changes, we will continue to develop your online SM Herald, which has transformed into a new form. Thank you very much for your support and cooperation.

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