Topic: This feature article will explore whether the generous unemployment benefits and welfare payment in Australia could effectively improve the quality of employment through the analysis and compare the positive and negative consequences of UB.
Contents and angles: The positive and negative consequences of unemployment benefit are two significant angles that the feature article will look at. For instance, UB could potentially provide a low-income family with economic support. However, some of the unemployed choose to live on the dole although they have the ability to find a job.
Besides, the feature will explore the relations between different kinds of UB and other fields of the society including healthcare, educations, economics and the happiness index of citizens based on the content analysis of related scholarly articles and the interviews with relevant people.
Story newsworthy: It is worthwhile to write the feature article regarding this topic since high spending of unemployment compensation is considered as one of the public issues in western society and it relates to the ‘public interest’. Online readers, especially for those who are during the unemployment period would have a high chance to be interested and engaged in this article. The story is expected to enable the audiences to gain a better understanding of UB.
Intended Publication and target user group:
My intended publication will be BuzzFeed which is considered as one of the most popular digital born media in the world. The genre I choose is a feature article since it provides me with enough freedom to explore this topic in depth. The target audience of this feature would be people of different ages who are interested in welfare systems and unemployment compensation in Australia.
Interviews:
- The academics in the field of welfare systems will be interviewed since their professional perspectives will be used as significant evidence. Such as professor SUSAN GOODWIN, who is proficient in the field of Australian welfare state and welfare service provision and currently teaching social policy in usyd.
Interview questions:
- What is the relationship between Unemployment benefit and employment rate? Do you think extending UB can potentially contribute to the employment?
- Do you think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to the impact of UB on society?
- Do you think it is necessary to increase the unemployment compensation and what is the impacts on the individuals?
Interview2
Some recipients of unemployment compensation ranging from students to the adults who are off work also will be interviewed to display their perceptions and attitudes about current UB in Australia. The people who are from other countries without UB also will be interviewed.
Interviewee1: College student Miya Lin from China
Intervieweet2: Australian student Sara Tran
Interviewee 3: A middle-aged unemployed man in Australia
Interview questions:
- What are your perspectives about current UC and why?
- Are there some factors that contribute to your unemployment?
- What are the impacts of UB on your life?
Detailed sources of information:
A range of scholarly articles, governmental documents and online resources related to UB will be referenced. Such as Newstart Allowance – Australian Government Department of Human, Unemployment benefits and the minimum wage and the research paper ‘Does extending unemployment benefits improve job quality?’
Ideas for multimedia, hypertext and interactivity:
The combination of images, video and hyperlinks will be presented in the feature article, which could certainly contribute to the multimediality and interactivity of online delivery of feature story. The interactivity also lies in the comments made by the readers and the communications between the author and audiences.
It is a newsworthy feature story for Australia society even for some other western counties that with a similar UB system. The contents and angles are clear, but I think it will be better to introduce a specific background in Australian society at the beginning. Unemployment benefits are international policies, maybe compare with other countries like China, the unemployment benefit of Australia seems too generous, but for Australians, I heard that the unemployment benefit seems not enough for the target people. So if some comparative figures of representative countries can be showed to explain the general situation, that would be better. Secondly, the interactivity of topic like yours is very important, try to use more measures to let your audiences engage, you can also add your personal social media to interact with audiences and get more practical feedback about the UB issues. Wish you complete your feature smoothly, look forwards the finished artwork.