They say time flies when you’re having fun (an obvious cliche), but four weeks have raced past me as I have been stimulated and enthralled in this blogging experience.  Starting with only the most basic knowledge of blogging (Facebook posting and the likes) I have accumulated some indispensable skills.  At first, the course appeared quite daunting but dwelling on that was useless as everyone in the class was (and still are) in the same boat.  As I learnt from the very first week, “Successful blogging is not something that happens in one class.” (Miles, Adrian. 2006. p 66).  This is something that has stuck with me throughout this experience.  You can only be taught how to behave to an extent and looking back to week 1, I knew the rest was my responsibility to discover.

I’ve always been quite a cautious online presence.  I’ve always avoided conflict and the possibility of offending someone therefore, blogging wasn’t a huge adjustment for me in terms of creating a respectful persona.  I’ve also always tried to keep a sense of intelligence and independent thought about my writing (hopefully evident in Week 5’s post), steering away from jargon and slang.  By being thrown in the ‘deep end’ of the blogging world, we have been examined on our ability to swim (or sink as the case may be) as we would in the real world– and isn’t that what university is about?

Blogging has been particularly useful as it is an individual process of exploration and discovery.  The way information sinks into my brain is by working things out for myself independently.  For example, in Week 3 we worked on embedding photographs and music into our blog– without breaching copyright.  The social nature of blogs seemed so far from scholarly work that copyright and ownership hadn’t crossed my mind.  Thankfully the reading of the ‘Arts Law Centre of Australia’ website opened my mind to the scary, yet avoidable world of copyright infringement.

A blogging issue arose through my indecisive nature.  I wanted to have a very minimalist blog, but through viewing pages like Eternal Passenger, I found myself longing for a striking splash of colour and a photography focused blog… but that isn’t me.  There’s something quite chic about black and white– it doesn’t date or clash with photographs in individually themed posts.  I was content with the theme I had customised for myself and the widgets I was beginning to create as well as being able to change their location.  Week 5’s reading on hypertext clarified my decision to keep the theme of my blog.  The blogging world is a community where we are all interconnect. “We must write with an awareness that we are writing in the presence of other texts.” (Landow, George P. 2006. pp 107-124).  We are actually reliant on each others blogs for inspiration, conversation and debate.  We have not created a paper diary, we have entered an online world.  Thus, individuality is of utmost importance.

Hypertext is another blogging issue within itself.  It is a thread that theoretically links the whole web.  A powerful tool which will assist your blog, but poses legal questions.  Incrimination causing legal action may arise when hypterext is used to link to a corrupt or illegal website (this even extends to what may seem as petty crime such as not referencing material correctly) “Hypertext thereby blurs the distinction between what is inside and what is outside the text” (Landow, George P. 2006:117-118).  In many ways, this means that the link presented through hypertext becomes your responsibility.  Hypertext destructs the isolation of texts and brings all writing together.  This enable entrance into the community aspect of the web.  “To make a contribution to a larger community,” (Adrian Miles, 2006. p 67) is what blogging is all about.  We can only be smart and measured with our rights and not be fearful of the legalities involved, otherwise our blogs will not flourish.

Blogging has become routine for me.  I’ve never made a habit of a journal or diary and I had to force myself to annotate my European holiday so it wouldn’t be lost in the void that is my brain, but blogging has been completely different.  Call it OCD, but I’m in a fully ingrained routine where I have a pulling need to post about each of the readings, lectures and workshops of both my networked media and media 1 classes.  It’s become a form of note taking where forgetting a post is not an option as it equates to falling behind.  It’s hard to keep up, but I love it.

Bibliography:

  • Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print.
  • Miles, Adrian. Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online]. Screen Education, No. 43, 2006: 66-69.
  • Landow, George P. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2006. Print. 69-71, 77-85
  • Miles, Adrian. Blogs in Media Education: A Beginning [online]. Screen Education, No. 43, 2006: 66-69.