As I had initially stated within my very first blog post: although open to this new experience, I found myself cautious as to the ‘unchartered waters’ that is the networked media. Having not had much experience with the process of blogging or reading other online blogs, I found myself in a difficult position in that I wasn’t accustomed nor did I have sufficient knowledge of the foundations of blogging. At that point however, I had acknowledged the blogging process as if it were a structured step-by-step task. I soon discovered – from Adrian Miles’ ‘unlectures’ and my fellow bloggers- that this was the inappropriate way to approach these blogs. It was a realization that exactly typified the epitome of this course: Experience happens when we question our assumptions. Therefore, the ultimate challenge I found personally was to push aside the structure that had been so ingrained within me throughout my schooling life, and allow for my rather uncontrolled personality to be a direct influence of my work.
I found myself pleasantly surprised when the casualty of my natural speech came through easily in my blogs. Ironically, it was the factual information that I found rather difficult to integrate into my blogs in both a witty and engaging manner. For instance, I spent an extended period of time devising an interesting strategy to refer to the double loop and single loop learning information so that my voice does not vanish amidst the facts. Throughout my process of blogging and the experience I gained I’ve found it much easier to integrate both my voice and information in an interesting way, which I discovered by asking friends to read the blog and comment on both factors. I’ve also been able to find the appropriate balance between my unpolished thoughts and the claims I choose to make in my blog. Despite the blogs being that of a casual space, everything we publish remains on the networked media forever therefore, we must encompass the ability to validate the claims we make
(this is where hyper linking proves particularly useful) Furthermore, I found the technical side of the blogs less challenging than I had assumed. For instance, linking out to other texts and embedding videos into my blog proved simpler than I’d imagined. In reading over my blogs -specifically comparing my last few to my first- few I see a remarkable difference, not only in the content, but in the coherency in which that content is organized. I’ve developed my writing skills through the process of writing the things I want to discuss. Through encompassing the freedom of writing about my interests, I’ve found that I’ve in essence, become a better and developed into a more compelling writer (something that was not a strong point for me throughout my years in school).
I certainly found blogging to be an activity that I have enjoyed most throughout my time in my media course. Not to delve into yet another philosophical rant, but I found myself becoming more and more confident through this process of blogging. It is indeed a space for one to express ideas and thoughts that do not correlate with any of my subjects. It is a space where the individual can speak freely, without the constraints of formal speech and structure. It is a space where one can simply let their consciousness wonder off onto the page. Because, within contemporary culture, we have become so centered around structure and organized rules, we tend not to acknowledge the genius of letting ones consciousness take over and fill up the page on which we write. Personally, all of my greatest ideas have stemmed from my expansion upon the unpolished ideas within my stream of consciousness.
I will continue to write blogs outside of this subject because, as clichéd as this sounds, it is soothing. It’s a space where you can get everything off your mind so that you sleep a little better at night. It’s a space to argue what you believe in. It’s a space for documentation. I’ve come to truly appreciate the amount of uses one may get out of this blog if they lend themselves to its unmethodical and almost chaotic nature.
I’ve always found the thought of speculation to be purposeless. Looking back on that I’m also severely judging the idiocy of my past self. The benefits of this blogging process is that it sparks an incentive in us to want to speculate, to question, to theorize about the world around us (rather than passively absorb all that we are told). This speculation process is, to me, a salient factor in foreshadowing the future of humanity, the society we exist in, and our interactions within it.
Finally, I’d like to point out my favourite blog, which is that about the ‘essay’. I’ve applied the idea that, within an essay, both you and the reader discover something new together you hadn’t previously known. I extend this notion to blog writing. For me, the simple process of blogging has encouraged me to speculate to a point in which I am learning something new through the creation of every blog post.
🙂
