Blogging about blogging: On mid semester course reflections
As a Professional Communication student, I sometimes feel as though I am drowning in the flood of technical skills my Media student friends bring to their courses.
I especially found this in first semester, having spent a year working upon theories of persuasion and manipulation (in PR) and professional writing (in the Journalism strand), suddenly having to work with editing software and media equipment was a foreign concept to me.
I want to write Media texts, but in a different way to my Media friends. Instead of utilising incredible practical skills and amazing equipment, what I want to do is literally write. Thus, I am ecstatic at the blog component of this course. Where Writing and Editing Media Texts focused upon academic reflection being evident in technical production, this course allows me to engage with theoretical concepts on my own, more literary terms.
Additionally, the hyper-textual element of blogging allows me to construct richer meaning for my reader through the ability to link out to other things. In the process of embedding, linking and creating widget buttons readers are referred by association and implication to many different worlds, texts and understandings complementary to my own original intention. It all reminds me personally of Jacques Derrida’s idea of a matrix of communication. In the Derridian matrix meaning kind of inconspicuously flits about the system, waiting to be recognised through it’s association with something else. To me, this is how I understand the elusive concept of a ‘network’, with ‘networked media’ the particular matrix we are concerned with in our professional studies (for other disciplines it might be a matrix of anthropology, prior court decisions, fashion trends etc.).
Thus far, I have used my blog to curate my own little communication matrix. I’ve linked to the readings whilst discussing them closely, as well as other stuff that has struck me in my trawling through the internet. I’m a regular visitor to reaction gif centred blogs such as ‘what should we call me’, so I’ve been mirroring that style a bit in my posts ie. Putting inane gifs under titles like ‘When I realised the point of this course before my friend did in my unlecture’. I’ve vented about popular culture a bit (when Patrick died on Offspring, my thoughts on the manic pixie dream girl character type) and included some writing pieces I’ve done.
Blogging has definitely motivated me to keep up to date with the readings for this course. One of the distinctive things about blogging is that it chronicles thoughts/academic writing etc. so if you are doing Week 1 reading reflections this week ahead of this submission, it won’t really fly.
Since I love to write I find blogging an incredibly satisfying experience. Having written a diary since I could physically write, an online version of this activity just meant a switch in mediums for me from notebook to mac. What I have found difficult however is the feeling that you are cutting down that tree in the forest and no one is there to hear it- your writing not properly existing until someone else has read it. Thus, I’m ashamed at how excited I was each time Adrian linked to my blog on the Networked Media home blog!
In future I’d love to use the blog as a little exhibition of myself to future employers. I’d include any projects I’ve undertaken related to my degree as well as more informal stuff. I write a lot, so it would also be great to use the blog as a self publishing tool. Finally, I am prone to fixating upon particular academic areas I am introduced to at uni, so perhaps I can use my blog to undertake my own kind of Honours study until I actually can specialise that much!
