Reminiscing

I found the genre of blogging for people my own age highly stimulating. At first I didn’t blog beyond my assignments but gradually I became more comfortable with the genre and would come back to res with lots of ideas for blog posts. Putting an opinion out there is both scary and liberating. Chances are that someone has had a similar experience. This has lead me to understand that often I think I’m the only one whose felt lonely or conflicted but instead these are common issues within the first year group.

I found myself writing far more this term than ever before. And I really enjoyed being able to explore opinion pieces as well as revisit Profile writing. I found that, especially in my Profile, my writing had improved greatly. I think this is because I’ve written far more than in previous terms which has meant that I’ve began to practice writing skills. For the first time I felt like I merged the theory of writing with the practice of it.

I found generating ideas for the group assignments like the blog planner or Comic very easy because the audience were people like me. I felt confident voicing my opinions with my group as they are all people whose I respect as equals. The dynamic in our group was a good one with everyone being accountable to their work. In working a group I got a better sense of what interests the average first year as I was working with four of them. Often their response to issues would inspire my story ideas. The assignment briefs were also rather open to interpretation which meant that I didn’t feel stifled. The things that I felt passionate about, like Student Volunteership, could often be used in an assignment.

Working in a group meant learning to work around other people’s schedules instead of my own. I found this challenging as most of the time the meetings would happen at the end of the day or in the evening, times when I really wasn’t in the mood to debate colour choices of text for 20 minutes. All of us had strong opions often leading to lengthy debates about the blog. But these debates always resulted in good choices for our blog even if it involved 20 minutes of discussion. All of us are creative people meaning that we could build on one another’s ideas thereby making the idea stronger and better.

I felt that this term was about a seven in personal growth. I intend on specialising in television so working with a group is a fundamental part of this discipline. And if I take nothing away from this experience, I’ll take the skills of group work with me. I learnt to be far more cooperative in a group as well as learning not try to control everything. Delegation was another major skill I learnt. I tend to want to do everything on my own but I was able to trust my group to do their work. I was able to become far more accountable in terms of doing my share of the work and in coming to meetings. So personally I’m far more patient and supportive of others. Professionally I am cementing the skills that I’ll need in my future career.

I do believe that Blogging can be used as a form of Journalism as journalism is founded on the ability to communicate with the masses. As we move forward into a far more technological age where face-to-face communication is being bypassed by the web, Journalism needs to adapt to meet its consumers’ new lifestyles. This can be done through blogging. Blogging not only appeals to the masses that have internet access but also connects many people via the internet. Blogging also moves journalism out of the professional realm and into the civilian journalist arena. This has been happening for a while what with pictures from people's cell phones being used in hard news. Blogging also requires far less time and money than a television broadcast needs.
This theme meant that we were never short of ideas as most people in first year were experiencing what we were. We could draw inspiration from our personal lives as well as from Grahamstown. The disadvantages were that I soon grew tired of the restrictions of the category. It seemed that everyone was tackling the same issue like first year spread and it became harder to put an original spin on an issue. For example with our photo comic, we had to think quite hard to find something original in the overused idea of spiked drinks.

With regards to researching facts, I found that most of my blog posts didn’t need any research since they were inspired by personal experience and therefore very subjective. In the instance when I blogged on student volunteering, I only referenced the CSD webpage on the Rhodes homepage though hyperlinks. When writing my profile article my research was limited to Franci Williamson’s facebook page and to her friends. I feel that my blogging assignments didn’t need any research. Had I been doing an article that was based on facts and statistics and not my own personal experience then research would have been necessary.

Dealing with sources was remarkably easy since most of the first years on campus had heard about the Journ one blogging assignments and were interested in them. Most people weren’t intimidated by the fact that their opinions could be read all over the world. Instead they were excited and far more willing to participate. The issues that we dealt with weren’t heavy for the blog since everyone is affected by spiked drinks or sexual harassment. This gave us the freedom to express ourselves relatively anonymously.

I really enjoyed the relaxed genre of blogging. I was able to make my writing far more personal by discussing my personal opinions and experiences. I didn’t feel restricted by style and tone which made me feel far more comfortable with blogging. In fact I often came back to res inspired by the day and wanting to blog about it.

This week when I wanted to post Philippa Yaa De Villiers’ poem Tea is for Thabo, I stopped myself since it is quite a controversial poem. I realised that even though I feel free to express my political views others don’t feel the same. I would post it on my own blog since I think many South Africans needs to read it but I wouldn’t post it on my group’s blog because it doesn’t represent everyone’s feelings. So ethically I realised that even though blogging allows for a lot of freedom, I should be sensitive about posting things which aren’t shared by my team members.

Looking back, this assignment of blogging has been the most fun and interesting. The combination of theory, practice as well as group work have made it both educational and fun.