Connecting life between life at home and life in China is sometimes difficult and confusing, especially for students who are new to life in the Middle Kingdom. Luckily, for students wishing to find a connection between life in China and the UK, there’s DISS., a media platform catering to art, life, entertainment, news and culture for university students studying abroad in China and Britain, specifically those at the University of Nottingham. We spoke with DISS. founder Frazer Worboys, currently back in the UK after studying abroad at UNNC, about why he started DISS. and what he sees for the future of the platform.
Ningbo Focus: Why did you decide to start DISS.?
Frazer: I originally started DISS. as an “upper class” blog so to speak. I didn’t find the options of publications available in the UK good enough or find one that was willing to let me publish what I wanted. So I started a personal blog publishing higher end pieces. When I spoke to my friends I said I would like to accept guest pieces, and they said why don’t you start this as a rival to the main student magazine in the UK. I found enough people wanting to publish their stuff and started designing the site differently and editing the business stricture, from there it’s been a work in progress and now we are repositioned as a magazine for the youth by the youth. Trying to Crowdsource youth opinion by gathering as many articles and opinions as possible.
NF: Why the name?
F: I have always been fascinated by the choice of topics for people’s dissertations, and these are the topics I want people to write on. I obviously couldn’t call it dissertation, so I shortened it to DISS. and here we are! Plus it looked like the best logo.
NF: What challenges have you faced in making the website successful? What further challenges do you face?
F: The main challenge up to now has been exposure. We get content in regularly and have become better at finding writers. But getting their works exposed to the world is incredibly tough. All social media has become a question of how many likes and shares you get and good content isn’t valued highly. A picture of a cat is valued higher than a professional photo. It’s just the way Facebook works. It’s an impulse game and unfortunately those type of things win. Although on the reverse side of that, all it takes is a few articles to reach a lot of people to get exposure, it’s becoming easier and easier to go viral. So it’s a double edged sword really. Social media dominance is incoming though. That being said I can’t complain too much, we’ve had nearly 200,000 hits in the space of a year!
NF: What made you decide to branch out to China?
I decided to branch out to China as it holds a special place for me. I love China and feel like I was given enough support when starting DISS. and I should return the favor and give the people something to read.
NF: What’s in store for the future of DISS.?
F: Video, video and some more video. That’s the thing we’re focusing on as a brand. I’ve been very careful about organizing the structure of DISS. and keeping the brand image and building a reputation for quality with an edge. Now we’ve built that we want as much video content as possible. However with video content it takes fewer people much more time, to create a decent documentary takes hours and hours of work from 3 different people compared to an article which can take hours but generally from one person. The way we’ve encountered this issue is starting 2 minute documentaries. These aim to explain and issue with interviews in the same format as a normal documentary in 2 minutes. Most documentaries create suspense and a story, so we’re just looking to cut out the story and make it short and snappy to keep the millennials interested.
NF: How can people get involved here in Ningbo?
F: In Ningbo you can email us at info@diss.ltd or go onto the site diss.ltd and just fill out the contact form. We are always looking for writers and want to help people grow as writers and let their stories reach as many as possible.
将家乡与中国的生活联系在一起有时既困难又令人困惑，对于那些初到中国的新生来说尤其如此。幸运的是，DISS.为那些想在中国与英国的生活之间找到一个连接点的学生提供了一个渠道。DISS.是一个为在中国和英国的留学生，特别是诺丁汉大学的学生，提供艺术、生活、娱乐、新闻和文化方面内容的社交平台。Frazer Worboys是DISS.的创始人，先前在宁波诺丁汉大学留学，目前已回到英国。我们邀请了他来谈谈创建DISS.的原因以及他对这个平台的未来的看法。
《宁波聚焦》（以下简称NF）：你为什么决定成立DISS.？
Frazer（以下简称F）：我最初是想把DISS.作为一个“上流社会”的博客来打造的。因为我在英国没有找到足够优秀或愿意让我发表想发表文章的出版物，所以我就开通了一个个人博客，发表一些较高端的文章。当我告诉朋友我愿意接受其他撰稿人写的好文章时，他们问我为什么不以此与英国主流的学生杂志竞争呢。我发现很多人都想发表自己写的文章，于是开始以不同的方式设计网站并打造商业结构。现在，这一切进展顺利，我们也被重新定位成由年轻人创建的青年杂志。我们试图通过众包形式尽可能多地搜集文章和观点来展示年轻人的想法。
?NF：为什么取这个名字？
F：大学生学位论文的选题范围总让我为之着迷，而这些主题也正是我想让人们去写的。显然，我不能将其称之为论文（dissertation），所以就缩写成了DISS.。而且它看起来也像是一个很好的标志。
NF：你在成功创建这个网站的过程中遇到了哪些挑战？未来还存在哪些挑战？
F：迄今为止，最大的挑战就是曝光率。我们定期会收到文章，在寻找撰稿人方面也更得心应手了。但是将他们的作品发布出去让所有人看见非常难。所有社交媒体都只关注你所能获得的点赞数和分享次数，而好的内容并不受人重视。一张猫的照片比一张专业的摄影作品得到的评价更高。这就是脸书的运作方式。这是一个冲动性游戏，不幸的是哗众取宠的东西总是获胜。虽然从另一方面来看，它所需要的仅仅是让很多人去分享几篇文章，流传变得越来越简单。所以事实上这是一把双刃剑。虽然社交媒体已经越来越占据主导地位，但是我也没什么可抱怨的，我们在短短一年内就已经获得了将近20万的点击量。
NF：为什么你决定把覆盖面拓展到中国？
F：因为中国在我心中占据着特殊的地位。我热爱中国，觉得在创建DISS.时得到了很多的支持，并且想要做出回报，为人们提供优质的阅读内容。
NF：DISS.的未来愿景是怎样的？
F：视频，视频，更多的视频。作为一个品牌，我们目前的聚焦点就是视频。我已经非常谨慎地组织DISS.的结构、维持品牌形象以及建立良好的品质信誉。有了信誉之后，现在我们想制作尽可能多的视频内容。然而，视频内容需要几个人一起投入大量的时间。制作一部像样的纪录片需要3个各有专长的人花费大量的时间才能完成，而一篇文章一般情况下只需1个人花上几个小时。就这一问题而言，我们所采用的方法是从制作2分钟的纪录片开始。这些纪录片旨在用2分钟以正规纪录片的模式阐述问题。大多数的纪录片都会制造悬念、讲述故事，所以我们只需精简故事情节，使其短小精悍，从而吸引千禧一代的兴趣。
NF：在宁波，人们怎样才能参与到DISS.中？
F：在宁波，你可以通过发送邮件至info@diss.ltd，或登录网站diss.ltd并填写联系表格与我们取得联系。我们一直都在寻找作家，也想帮助人们成为作家，让他们的故事被更多人看到。