What is my hubris you ask? Assuming
that when my lecturer said “Blog every lecture” he meant ‘blog once a week’,
not ‘BLOG ABOUT EVERY LECTURE OR FAIL’. Woops.
So, without further ado, or any
further panic, I present my thoughts on my first lecture for JOUR1111 –
Introduction to Journalism and Communication.
I walked into the lecture theatre nervous,
but full of anticipation. Finally, I was starting the course I’d been waiting
for since I was 12! I would be a famous journalist in about 3 years!
Well, not quite. But one thing the
lecturer told us is that we are already
journalists. Now, I’ve run a blog before, but nothing professional or ‘newsy’
as such, so this was information that shook up my way of thinking a little. Now
that I’ve started this blog of course, it makes sense that they would tell us
that – they wouldn’t want us to freeze up at the thought of typing some words
onto a page.
 |
| I remember it happening something like this, minus the crappy photoshopping-at-uni-without-a-tablet. |
Our lecturers had us (or me, at least)
thinking about what it means to be a journalist in this day and age – the
challenges we, and the profession, will face, and what we might expect in the
future if we wish to pursue a career in journalism.
He asked us why we should study
Journalism (and Communication). Of course, I knew why I personally was studying it – I’ve wanted to be a journalist since
about grade 8, and over the years I’ve only consolidated and strengthened this
idea. But the list of reasons he gave were also acceptable. News (gossip) is
part of the ‘very fabric of social life’, it’s pervasive (and persuasive). It’s
interesting. And with the rise of the internet and Web 3.0 (something he spoke
at length about in a later lecture), we truly are a part of the media, whether
it is through viewing, context, creation of or use of the news and the media.
But there will always be challenges in
a profession that has and is continuing to change so extensively and rapidly. Some
of the challenges discussed I hadn’t even considered, so I’m glad we were told
about them in advance. Bruce told us about Paywalls, and how it will affect
online journalism (something I’ve already discussed over here), the impact of
social media, and, related to that, the implications of this new creature – the
citizen journalist.
He also touched briefly upon how the
public perceives journalists – something I’ve also had discussed in other
courses, and which I’ve seen described as the “breakdown in trust between … the
media and the public” (Savigny & Temple 2010: 1054)
Of course, he also discussed the need
to create this blog, and the need to make it super cool and fancy and
informative (or maybe that was just what I was thinking?).
I know that everyone else has already
blogged about this, but I hope my take on the first lecture for JOUR1111 had
you think about the lecture in a new or interesting way.
If I missed anything you think was
important, feel free to leave a comment below :)
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