Looking back...

Now I'm at the end of my time looking at the effects of Digital Culture on society, I can reflect back on what I've learnt and compare and contrast to the start of the term. At the start of the course, I was optimistic however didn't really know what to expect. I was relieved when I discovered we weren't going to have to write any long essays as all the other modules on the course use essay writing as their core examination method. I was grateful for this as I knew it'd be a relief at the end of the year when we had lots of deadlines, that we had already done the work throughout the year.

When I discovered it was a weekly blog I was relieved as I have my own blog anyway which I really enjoy doing and I was quite excited to have something else to write about besides my own ramblings. I understood that as a Journalism student, a lot of the media is produced through blogging and it's a valuable skill to have. While I still agree that blogging is a very good, relevant and useful method to use, my main concern with the course was the content and the relevance to my own course.

I understand that as a journalist we need to understand the background of the internet and the development in technology and things that would concern us in our career with the internet, for example the digital democracy and WikiLeaks part, which are directed at journalists. I can also understand how Augmented Reality and phone apps can affect us as they can transform the way news is delivered and received by our audience. However I really don't understand how learning things about 'the digital body' is relevant to a journalism course. I understand how it is valuable to know anyway, but I honestly don't believe it's correctly suited to the course.

Personally I found it quite difficult to find the motivation to actually write the blogs as we never saw a template or example work at the start of the year. I struggled to find a good balance between being too informal and being too technical. I also had to do quite a lot of extra research in order to understand some terms which weren't explained.

For future years, I think the module 'Digital Culture' needs some adapting to suit the needs of journalists more, as from personal experience the majority of people taking the module are journalism and media students, but more about that in the next post!