On hearing that we would be blogging during this course my first thought was of disbelief and went along the lines of “I did not come to university to learn how to blog, any idiot can do that”. Well having today at exactly 11:15 officially reached the end of the narrative and genre course I am happy to admit that I was wrong and that although blogging was very different from anything that I have seen or done before it deserves its place in the Journalism & Media Studies course.
Most of the work that we have done in our Journalism & Media Studies course has been done individually, which suited me fine as I tend to be a perfectionist. You know the old saying “if you want something done right you need to do it yourself” well I’m pretty sure they based that on me. I was then as you can imagine not exactly impressed to find out that our blog assignment was to be done in groups. Now no one who has ever done group work can blame me for my initial feelings of “oh no” and the sarcastic “this is going to be fun” as eight out of ten times group work results in a few people carrying the weight of the entire group. The nightmare that is usually group work turned into a dream for me as I was lucky enough to be placed with four fantastic ladies who have made working in a group an absolute pleasure. Meetings were easily organised and attendance was never a problem. We approached our blog as if we were adventurers exploring newly found territory each watching out for our fellow explorers. Together we navigated the technical difficulties and even on one occasion fought and defeated the ‘Comeeko beast’.
The course had the constraint of a genre but that never stopped our creativity as it could work along side the genre. Our blogs had to be based on the experiences of being a first year at university, which was not a difficult genre to work within as all five of us are currently first years at Rhodes University. It was actually a liberating experience because besides the compulsory posts such as the profile, opinion and the letter to our younger selves’ pieces we were given creative licence to blog about whatever we liked as long as it related to first years or university students. In this respect even though we were working in groups each teammate was responsible for their own productivity in the form of posts. I really enjoyed this aspect of the assignment as it allowed me to work as an individual within the team. I discovered that blogging could be a great way to relieve stress and get things off my chest. These made me more productive and actually want to blog. Especially when I realised that by sharing events and feelings that were happening in my life I could help other people realise that they are not alone in the way they felt.
The character of our blog never restricted my story ideas as it was ‘a day in the life of five diverse students’ which allowed us a broad scope for imagination and creativity. I did feel that I was restricted slightly by the imagined audience’s judgement of my opinions. I always thought carefully about how my fellow classmates would react to what I had written before I hit the ‘publish post’ button. I do not consider this a negative aspect because I think that all writers whether professionals or amateurs should think about the impact of their words before they release them upon the world as once they are out there you can not take them back.
It is for this reason that research is also of importance as what you write is going to be read not only by your classmates but by anyone in the world. It is therefore wise to make sure that you have researched your subject and do not write rubbish that will undermine your credibility. I learnt this early on just because I did not want to be embarrassed by my posts especially the profile that I did. The profile was the post that required the most research as well as dealing with people as sources. People love to talk or at else the ladies in my residence do which made getting story ideas that much easier.
I believe that during this assignment my writing has flourished. I have learnt from my mistakes as well as those of my classmates in what has a positive or negative impact. It also allowed me to experiment with my writing techniques and try new things like the letter to my younger self which I never would have written if it were not for this course. Blogging has opened a whole new world for me in terms of personal growth and a different way in which to fulfil my professional goals. I have actually started my own blog which I intended to use to showcase my photographs and interact with other photography bloggers in order to expand on my skills.
At the beginning of this course I thought that blogging was something akin to a diary and had absolutely nothing to do with journalism but I was wrong. This kind of citizen journalism could be the news of the future. It is interactive, informative and fun. What more could you ask for!
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