Time to Reflect

Approached with the task to reflect critically upon the last five weeks of my blogging experience. I found it necessary to start from the beginning in order to convey my last thoughts about it. Learning the theories of narrative, genre and ideology last term with Priscilla Boshoff. I thought the move to teach blogging in term four was a brilliant one. As it made me use the theory that was taught to me in a more practical and technical way. Although many of my fellow classmates were disheartened by the course and accused it of not being real journalism since anyone could do it. I thought blogging was the future of journalism as it demands just as much attention to detail such as broadcast and print journalism.

When I heard that we had to work in a group to produce a blog that caters to the needs of first years. I was slightly disappointed as I have not had previous success when it comes to group members. Most of the time my group members would leave me with all the work to do while they enjoyed their weekend. But this time was different. Being put in a group with three of my dear friends: Chris, Thirusha and Dean. I had high expectations for the blog as we all had similar tastes in music, design and humour. Therefore this made it easy for us to get along in the meetings that were held. Usually Dean would make himself a cup of Milo and the rest of us would joke about the posts we would put on the blog. These meetings were informal but they got the job done in the end.

The same can be said about the tutorials where our tutor, Nicole Hyman, would advise us on the tasks that were due in the week. She went beyond the call of duty and arranged extra tech meetings in the JMS (Journalism and Media Studies’) computer labs just so we knew how to sort out the layout and gadgets of the blog. Nicole was an immense help to Fresh Meat’s success. As her never ending faith in us gave us, well me any way, the desire to excel in this blogging task.

The work load this term differed extremely from the last terms of JMS. The tasks were always coming in and I really don’t recall a moment where there was no JMS assignment due that week. Many people complained about this as it affected their other subjects but really I did not understand their whining. I remember one week when I was faced with a 1500 word Politics assignment, a three page Politics tutorial, a three page Sociology tutorial, two English paragraphs and a JMS2 application form to fill out. This work load did not stop me from posting about ten posts that week and also completing an opinion piece for JMS. Therefore I felt that my productivity of my blogging was efficient and I went beyond the call of duty to write extra posts for the blog.

The story ideas for my posts came mostly from everyday life of being a first year. Everything could be used to illustrate the life of a first year as I obviously am a first year and could relate everything to a first year level. Therefore I thought the genre of the blog did not limit my ideas for the blog and its posts. The choice to make surviving first year the theme for the blogs was a clever one. As students did not need to exert much intelligence as the ideas for stories and sources to interview were right in front of their faces. Though I must admit interviewing my friends for sources was a daunting challenge as they could afterwards see the result of my questioning. Although in first term I was faced with writing a profile about a fellow first year. This profilewas different as that fellow first year could read what I wrote about them which could lead in that person not liking what I wrote and eventually not being my friend anymore. Though later I realised that judging and criticism is a part of a journalist’s life and I had to get used to it.

The fact that my assignments had the potential to be read by any one who had internet access frightened me as I knew that my writing skills were not up to check. This made me work on my grammar, punctuation and spelling which in turn even positively affected my English grades. On the negative side the colloquial style of all my posts also boiled over to my other subjects. Once I found myself using the term ‘on the ball’ to describe South Africa’s Foreign Policy over Zimbabwe in one of my Politics tutorials. My tutor was not impressed. Therefore the fact that I was given total freedom in my writing technique disadvantaged me in terms of my other subjects which demanded critical and concise writing.

Blogging has given me the opportunity to express my self better. Before I used to think that my opinions did not matter as I thought they were the same as everyone else’s. But after reading many of the other blogs out there I found that my opinion differed. Blogging has given me the incentive to voice my opinions more critically and clearly. This has helped me grow as a person and also a professional journalist. On a scale of one to ten I would say that my personal growth due to blogging deserves a seven. It has taught me how write a story about relatively anything and also conduct a very structured argument.

In terms of research I found that hyperlinks and trackbacks were a great alternative to writing down reference pages. Hyperlinks were fun to play around with and attach to the actual subject matter on my blog posts. An example of this is when I mentioned something about a student in a lecture proclaiming that they were Jesus. I found an interesting web page that gave the definition of Jesus and made it a hyperlink to the post.

All in all if I had to evaluate my blogging experience I would give it a ten out of ten. My group was awesome, my tutor was awesome and the blog was awesome. The lectures on the other hand, Alette and Sim, need to be more organised in their task assignments. The explanations of what to do in the tasks were clumsily written and did not give much insight in what to actually do. But other that that my blogging experience has to be one of the highlights of first year at Rhodes. With the cooperation of my group members Chris, Thirusha and Dean, I hope that Fresh Meat will carry on delivering awesome advice to those first years out there.

This is not the last you've heard from me

Lesh