Author(s):
Jody Zellen

In public relations and politics, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing a
biased interpretation of an event or campaigning to persuade public opinion in favor or
against some organization or public figure. Interested in the metaphoric and literal meaning
of spin I created the iOS app “News Wheel.” “News Wheel” explores the poetics of ever
changing news headlines. Each time the application is launched, a wheel appears on the
iPad or iPhone screen composed of 9 pie-shaped slices depicting current images from the
front page of the newspapers. A tap on the wheel causes it to spin, and another tap to stop.
Each time the wheel stops current headlines from one of nine RSS feeds appears on the
screen. The more taps, the more headlines. Selected words can be deleted or rearranged by
the user to create new textual relationships. Pressing and holding down a word allows it to
be dragged across the screen creating a chain of text.
Lately, with each passing week, the news spin seems to get increasingly out of hand, with
mainstream news sources being labelled as fake news by the U.S. President while outright
lies are touted as facts. “News Wheel” gives literal form to this troubling phenomenon
allowing users to rearrange headlines to create their own poetic narratives. “News Wheel”
becomes an interactive, creative and poetic way to view, juxtapose and interpret world
events.
The public can interact with the app. Create poems from the headline texts. The collages
can be saved to the device and later shared. The app can be downloaded for free to an iOS
device however in this presentation the public can “play” with the app in a public space and
share their experiences and creations with other viewers who become an audience for the
users performance with the app.

Modality of presentation: iPad, iPhone
URL to work: http://newswheel.info
URL to Video: http://newswheel.info/lbcc/newswheel_lbcc.html