I would not trade it for the world...

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!

Connecting our blog with the outside world

Hi Ashlea,

My name is Tarryn and I am currently a Journalism & Media Studies student at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. I just want to say how much I enjoyed reading your blog and thank you for the advice that you give in this post in particular. I am just about to write my first year final exams and have been doubting whether I should be studying at all. Stumbling across your blog inspired me again as it always helps to hear of people who have achieved and found a way to the end of the studying tunnel. It is also reassuring to know that there are those that think it is worth the effort, time and investment. Our journalism class is currently doing a new media course in which we are blogging in groups to learn about narrative and genre. Our group is called 'Tales from a Rhodent' if you would like to take a look. I also have my own blog that I just started called 'Drawing Life with Light'.

All the best with your thesis!

Kind regards
Tarryn

RUTV Documentary Film Festival

Last night I attended the fourth year TV Journ student’s final documentaries and WOW!!! I can’t believe that in three years time I’m going to be producing work that it that amazing, be it in TV or any one of the other forms of media! I am totally in awe at the high standard of their documentaries and the emotions that they elicited in me. There were times when my legs and arms were covered in goose bumps and I could feel the hair standing up on my neck. I also frequently found myself with a lump in my throat and by the second last piece I couldn’t control my emotions any more and was in tears! A five minute long documentary about Rhino poaching in Zimbabwe was what did it. The footage of a one month old Rhino named Nyasha covered in gashes, lying next to a fire with her new care taker, having just lost her mother to the brutality of poachers was too much for me to handle. The text on the big screen then informed us that the baby Rhino died the next morning. These documentaries not only reminded me of the suffering caused by the cruelty of humans, but it also brought human suffering very close to home. I was surprised at the amount of insight the journ students were able to get into the lives of various Grahamstown people. It hits hard when you realize that down the road from where you live are prostitutes who can’t bear to face life anymore, married couples coping with HIV, atrocious backstreet abortion scams and people breaking the conventional and traditionally accepted boundaries of who lives in which area. I found most of the documentaries extremely evocative and I only hope that one day I am not only able to produce such amazing material, but to be able to use that material to make a difference in the lives of others. I hope that as a journalist, I can turn journalistic conventions on its head by not only being a witness and reporter, but to use my talents and skills in a compassionate manner to better our world.

All in a day's work

During this last week Tales from a Rhodent has taken up the challenge of becoming SUPERHEROES in the comic book world. You are probably looking very confused right now and wondering what on earth I am talking about, so let me start at the beginning. Our latest assignment in our Narrative and Genre course of Journalism is to create a photo comic using a website called Comeeko. We would be responsible for the entire creative process from coming up with an idea, storyboarding, photos and dialogue. I must admit that at first it all seemed extremely daunting. Especially as it had to be done as group work, which is probably the most loathed way of working on any assignment. The hellish task of finding a time to meet is the main problem and from what I hear most groups have had many more like people not showing up or pulling their weight. But I am glad to report that our group, Tales from a Rhodent were awesome to work with. They made the assignment so much fun and, as you can see from our comic below, very fruitful. Our tale is one of how when your drink is spiked and transforms in an evil creature out to get you, you need to step up to the plate and become a superhero in order to defeat it. We wanted to send out a message that the spiking of drinks does happen and that you need to be alert and your own superhero. It worked out really well with Nonhle as our super cool hero and Sarah as the ditsy but awesome sidekick. The photo comic was shot at The Old Gaol and didn’t feel like work at all but rather a hilarious photo shoot with the girls. The facial expressions of our drama princess Nonhle had us all rolling around with laughter and brought the comic to life. All in all a great time was had making the photo comic except for the last step of loading it all on to Comeeko which managed to make our dialogue disappear three times! To say that it was frustrating is putting it mildly but we conquered the Comeeko beast and ended up with a really kick ass comic!