Audio slideshows – what works and what doesn’t?

Here’s a purely personal view on a couple of audio-slidehows I’ve been looking at recently.

© Guardian

Both are on the Guardian website. First up, travel writer Kevin Rushby takes a journey around the world via 30 portraits of people he’s met while working in 7 different countries.  The piece lasts 3.36 and was posted on the 11th February
There’s no commentary from Rushby – instead he uses local music and quotes from the portrait subjects.
A simple but elegant map graphic leads the viewer from one location to the next. There doesn’t seem to be any underlying theme that links the different countries and portraits, other than that Rushby’s been there / met these subjects.
Take a look at the slideshow here
Next, it’s the Guardian’s World Social Forum slideshow. Duration is 4.20, and it was posted on 15th February.
It’s a simpler affair, with 7 WSF participants pictured on screen talking about their experiences at the event, what they’re trying to achieve and the future of the WSF.
Each participant is introduced by simple text on a black screen – their name, what organisation they work for and their country of origin. A single portrait is used throughout each section.
Take a look at the slideshow here
OK, so you’ve seen both (hopefully!), what do you reckon? Really interested to hear comments from Guardian consumers, professionals, commentators et al.
My feeling is that Kevin Rushby slideshow works well. Partly it’s the good quality and visual richness of the images, the high production values (clean and crisp music, what appear to be bespoke graphics). But it’s also the content – snapshots of people and places, with local atmosphere communicated via fascinating images and sounds.
Is there a point to it? A narrative? A message or story it’s trying to tell?
Not as far as I can see, perhaps a reiteration of the incredible diversity of the global population, and the enviable position of the journalist/ travel writer / photographer, with their ability to cross continents and earn a living!
Turning to our other Guardian slideshow, looking at the World Social Forum, at first glance there is a slightly clearer story – the World Social Forum has been taking place, 7 participants talk about it

It seems to me that the WSF slideshow is less successful, on a number of levels.

Their audio quotes are quite disparate, as if the question posed was quite general. Rather than a series of photo of each participant, there’s only one, and there’s nothing much in the images which helps reinforce what the WSF participants are saying, nor vice-versa. There’s no sense of place, of people meeting and coming together.

The webpage gives little contextualisation about the event and the slideshow itself, so it feels like there isn’t a common thread, or narrative that develops through the piece.

Perhaps participants at the World Social Forum might say that to impose a narrative on the event and its visitors undermines the very essence of it….but then audio-slideshows are on the Guardian website to reach a wide audience, who maybe need more story to grab them and guide them along.