1





Adapt and Engage Project
MECO6900 News Writing
SID: 500510386


Part 1: 496 words
Part 3: 499 words
2
Part 1: Analysis of SMH Instagram post
Instagram Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6SYjXNMAY/?imgindex=1

By converting its ‘olive oil’ news article into an Instagram carousel post, the Sydney Morning
Herald (hereafter, SMH) has made this news story more accessible to younger audiences. A
2023 survey by Christopher Hughes, published on Statista, found that the main news source for
people aged between 12 and 43 is social media. Thus, converting the ‘olive oil’ news story into
an Instagram post increased its likelihood of being seen by this younger audience.

Instagram is a photo-based platform, meaning users expect Instagram posts to use visual
storytelling and contain little text. To meet these expectations and promote user engagement,
the SMH has chosen only the most important sentences from the original news article to include
in the post. These sentences are distributed throughout the carousel slides so that each slide
contains only one or two sentences. The headline of the original article has been shortened to
increase the likelihood that Instagram users will read it. To compensate for the reduced amount
of text, each slide in the carousel includes a large, brightly coloured image. These bright colours
help to capture the attention of Instagram users, increasing the likelihood that they will stop
scrolling and engage with the post.

The first few slides include images of olives and bottles of olive oil. These images serve as
visual aids to the text which explains why the price of olive oil is increasing. Thus, the slides
not only rely on text to tell the story, but also on images to support this story and increase
engagement through visual appeal. For example, the text on the final two carousel slides
explains that Australian olive farmers are benefiting from small European harvests. The photos
on these slides support this story by depicting the key interviewee – an Australian olive farmer
– prospering on his olive farm. Thus, these images have been strategically chosen to align with
the story’s ‘human interest’ news value and enhance the story being told through the minimal
text.

The SMH has also innovatively used colour in its ‘olive oil’ post to build visual continuity and
to promote engagement and comprehension. For example, the three most important words on
the first slide of the carousel – “70 per cent” – stand out from the rest of the text due to their
3
teal-colouration. This use of colour draws the eyes of the viewer to these key words which, with
the aid of the image of olives, helps them to quickly process the information on the slide without
having to read all the words. The teal colour is used again in the third slide, building visual
continuity between the slides.

While the ‘olive oil’ post is very engaging and innovative, it does have a few weaknesses. For
example, the lack of hashtags in the caption limits the post’s ability to reach new audiences (in
the form of hashtag followers). There is also no consistent font being used between the slides,
which reduces the visual continuity of the post and may limit user engagement.


4
Part 2: News story adaptation
I have adapted my news story into an Instagram carousel post with six slides. Each slide features
photographs of relevant Egyptian artefacts, mostly from the Chau Chak Wing Museum. I have
also adapted text from my original news article and added it to each slide. I included a quote
from (and photograph of) my key interviewee on the fifth slide.
Please see Figures 1 to 6 for the mock-ups of each slide in the post.
A note about the images: the images that I used for this mock-up were sourced from the Chau
Chak Wing Museum’s website and other related sources. I have provided links to each image
in the Figure captions. If I were to actually post this news article I would commission a
photographer to take photos specifically for this article (so would only need to credit one
photographer in the caption).
The caption of the post will read:
Unwrapped mummified body parts were removed from display in the popular Mummy Room
at USYD’s Chau Chak Wing Museum on the 4th of April. These changes took place amidst a
fierce debate around what constitutes the ‘respectful’ display of mummified human remains.
Some museums already appear to be following in the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s footsteps,
perhaps spelling the beginning of the end of mummies being displayed in Australian museums.

Find the full story by Holly Ford at the link in our bio.

Photo Credits:
1. David James
2. Dallas Kilponen
3. Egypt Today
4. Art Institute Chicago
5. Dion Georgopoulos
6. Simon Bird and John Magnussen

#chauchakwingmuseum #mummifiedremains #mummies #Egyptology #archaeology
#universityofsydney
5

















Figure 2: First slide of Instagram post. Photo taken by David
James, found here.
Figure 2: Second slide of Instagram post. Photo taken by Dallas
Kilponen, found here.
Figure 3: Third slide of Instagram post. Image sourced from
Egypt Today.
Figure 4: Fourth slide of Instagram post. Image sourced from
Art Institute Chicago.
6































Figure 5: Fifth slide of Instagram post. Photo of Melanie Pitkin
taken by Dion Georgopoulos, found here.
Figure 6: Sixth slide of Instagram post. Photo taken by Simon
Bird and John Magnussen, found here.
7
Part 3: Reflection
I used the SMH’s ‘olive oil’ post as inspiration when adapting my news story for Instagram.
This adaptation has allowed me to incorporate visual storytelling into the news story and
increase the likelihood of younger audiences engaging with it.

Drawing inspiration from the SMH post, I included visual elements (photos) on every slide,
using these elements to reinforce what the text was saying. This meant that I had to use very
minimal text in my post since the images took up most of the space. Hence, I chose only the
most important text from my news article to include on the slides – the sentences that most
concisely answered the 5W and 1H questions. Although there was less text in my Instagram
post than the original article, I still tried to order it in descending order of importance and thus
follow the inverted pyramid structure.

Because of the inclusion of photographs, my post relied more heavily on visual storytelling
than my original article. Visual storytelling is more suitable for the Instagram platform because
social media users rarely like to read text-heavy posts – they prefer to understand a post at a
quick glance.

To build visual interest and help Instagram users understand my post at a glance, I replicated
the SMH post’s use of a teal-coloured font to highlight key words. This will not only help
Instagram users understand the key idea in each slide, but (like in the ‘olive oil’ post) will help
to build continuity between the slides, creating a visually cohesive and appealing post.

The ‘olive oil’ post used a shortened version of the original headline of its news article,
increasing the likelihood that Instagram users will actually read the headline and become
hooked. My news headline was also very long so would have been off-putting to Instagram
users. Hence, I decided not to include my original headline on the first slide. Instead, I used the
first slide to hook readers by asking the most attention-grabbing question addressed in my
article – is this the end of mummies in museums? A disadvantage of this change is that it may
confuse users who decide to click through to the full news article which has a different headline.

8
Unlike the ‘olive oil’ post, I added a sixth slide to direct viewers to the full article. I made this
addition because few people go beyond swiping through the post and actually read the caption.
By directing people towards the full article in the slides, the click-through rate to the article
should increase.

The ‘olive oil’ post did not use hashtags, but I included several hashtags in my caption to help
it reach more people who are interested in the topics it covers (like Egyptology and mummies)
and thus expand the post’s audience.

A disadvantage of my Instagram post is the lack of alternative text, which limits its accessibility
for visually impaired people. Another disadvantage is the inclusion of an image of an
unwrapped, mummified head which some Instagram users may find disrespectful.

学霸联盟