Reflexive Piece

With the start of the new term also came the start of a new genre for the JMS 1 students, blogging. We were required to work in groups to create this foreign media and the task seemed daunting at first. However, as the process developed, I found that my group and I created a masterpiece that I could never have conceived of had I been working alone. This is one of the few times that I have found working in a group beneficial as we all had different strengths to bring to the table and we ended up getting along famously.

Besides a group environment offering support and guidance while working with a genre I knew nothing about, I also found that I was encouraged to be more productive during this term. My group was passionate about our blog especially Pieter who updated daily. This inspired me to be more creative with our assignments and incorporate the character of our blog into my writing. Another factor that made me want to be productive and put effort into my writing was the fact that I knew people from all over the world could be reading my work and that naturally made me want to write better content.

Our group generated most story ideas during our weekly tutorials where we had time to interact as a group and discuss what we did and did not want to be on our blog. I generated the story ideas for our compulsory assignments by myself, drawing inspiration from what was happening in my immediate surroundings and from other JMS 1 blogs. I do not feel that my ideas were stifled in any way and felt free to write about what I thought was important. As I have said, I found tutorials beneficial in terms of generating story ideas, but I also found them helpful in clarifying exactly what was expected of me and my group as lectures were at times vague. I felt comfortable at these meetings and confident enough to raise any concerns that my group and I were having. During group meetings I felt excited about our project and the ideas that kept coming up; during every meeting some improvement was made to the task at hand, especially when we were producing our photo comic.

This experience has allowed me to grow as a person and as a journalist. I have found that working with a cooperative and intelligent group of people can be highly beneficial and that I can learn a lot from my peers. I would rate my personal and professional growth at a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10. This experience has also allowed me to accept blogging as a form of journalism and also found that working on a real publication that anyone could read caused me to think about what I am writing a lot more carefully. The character my group assigned our blog was not confining as allowed a broad scope of discussion and issues to be brought up. The fact that I was writing for fellow first years allowed me to be honest and down to earth in my writing and not include any academic flourishes that one normally used to impress professors.

I do believe that blogging is journalism as it is a platform for writers of all ages and from all backgrounds to voice their opinions and concerns. Blogging is one of the only forms of journalism that is not censored by corporations and it epitomises freedom of speech. For example, our blogging group would not have been able to write about issues that affect first years in any other publication as our views were subjective. Blogging is the only media platform that allows subjective reporting. I do not feel that we were “confined” to the theme of surviving first year, but that it was more of a guideline that gave our blog focus. I feel that even if we had not been given this theme, most of our posts would have been about first year and our experiences thus far, because that is what is directly affecting our lives at the moment.

As I have mentioned before, I did take more care with my work knowing that there would be a public audience reading it, and the same applies to research. Even though the blogs were written with a personal style I still found it necessary to check facts, as a wide audience would be reading our material and therefore there was a greater chance that someone would find fault with something we had written on our blog. The research that I conducted while working on our blog was checking with other first years whether they agreed with what was being written or if our content was too generalised. It was important to make sure all first years could relate to our blog and that it did not only appeal to the members of our group.

I did not find my dealings with sources different from previous journalism genre assignments. Sources were willing to appear on our blog as they understood that our blog character was light hearted and not to be taken too seriously. I did not have to deal with an angry source but I did find it challenging interviewing a good friend of mine because of the familiarity. I feel that a stranger might have taken the task more seriously, but I feel that the piece ultimately benefited because I was able to give insight and depth to my writing because I knew the interviewee very well. I definitely learned to experiment while working on our blog as there was more freedom to be creative and address issues that I felt were important without having to be concerned with academic register, referencing and so on. I did not deal with any ethical issues personally but our group always had to make sure that our content was not generalised or defamatory in any way. We wanted our blog to be free, creative and daring but also fair.

In conclusion, I have found creating a blog within a group to be a valuable experience that taught me a lot about writing, ethics, technology and productivity and I am sure the knowledge I have gained will stand me in good stead in the future.