How Network became Fokus Orange
Flashy, brightly-coloured and a touch of orange: that's Fokus Orange. But how did this magazine actually come into being and who writes the articles?
Fokus Orange stands for current information and content on the topic of THWS. We report on scientific and student projects from teaching and research, as well as things worth knowing from the entirety of campus life. Fokus Orange is multimedia. The “Network” newsletter, which was sent as printed copies to THWS’ external partners and companies, and sadly has no longer been able to be published in recent years for capacity reasons was the basis for the current online magazine.
The time had now come to create a new communication medium for the THWS family and its partners. A cross-media medium which presents fresh and relevant THWS topics in an attractive manner and takes them into the public sphere.
The fact that Fokus Orange is so brightly-coloured and modern is predominantly thanks to master’s student Alicia Weigel, budding specialist journalist, and Anna Radlbeck, budding communication designer, who had the job of designing and developing the magazine together with support from the Department of Public Affairs and Communications. We are very proud to be able to benefit so directly from the applied sciences at THWS and be able to present a magazine which was developed in-house.
Student concept
In order to support the practical character of THWS, Claudia Kunze, former Head of the Department of Public Affairs and Communications, had the idea of having students develop the concept for this. Two student working groups from the Trade Journalism and Corporate Communications master’s programme therefore developed concepts for an FHWS magazine in the 2019/20 winter semester. The current “Fokus Orange” online magazine ultimately resulted from both presentations. In a further step, the “specialist journalists” also work for “Fokus Orange” as editors. A total of 20 articles were thus delivered by the young writers in the 2020 summer semester.
A win-win situation
Programme director Prof. Lutz Frühbrodt expresses his satisfaction: “I believe that both parties – the Department of Public Affairs and Communications as well as our degree programme – benefit greatly from this collaboration, working practically and with presentable results.” The Department of Public Affairs and Communications in turn got articles from authors who, as students at FHWS, are also closer to the topics than external editors would be, for example. A win-win situation for both sides.
Both parties want this collaboration to be continued in the coming semesters. Claudia Kunze, Head of the Department of Public Affairs and Communications, sums it up: “Students can apply their knowledge in practice and we get articles from very good authors. There couldn’t be a better combination.”
