1 post tagged “journals”
When I first started the Broadcast Journalism program at Mohawk College, I never anticipated learning so much about the Internet in this program. I knew that I'd be learning a lot about the media, the foundations of journalism, and I was excited to gain print, radio, and television experience. Learning a lot about the Internet in this program I consider an added and welcome bonus.
I compare what I've learned about the Internet in this course thus far to my knowledge of guitar. I've been playing guitar for about 5 or 6 years, and after awhile, I felt I hit a plateau in my playing abilities. I was good at what I had learned and practised, but I wasn't entirely sure how to move forward in order to adapt other skills. I tried different instructors, different music and difficult techniques, but I always found myself reverting back to what was comfortable. When I started this course, I knew what I knew about the Internet, and I found myself living in a repetitive cycle of continually visited web-pages and activities. This course has really opened my eyes to some great aspects of the Internet, and how to manuvre and use these newly acquired skills to my best advantage. One area of the online universe I've become very interested and aware of... is blogging.
In our Online Writing course earlier in the semester, we learnt different web-related techniques and websites, and I personally found it very educating and informative.
Also, through our actual journalism classes, I've decided that bloggers are without a doubt, journalists. In this day and age, anyone has the capability of capturing and broadcasting any information they choose on a multitude of different online forums. With cellphones, digital cameras, iPods, and other forms of technology commonplace, the average citizen is quickly becoming an incredibly important part of broadcasting news.
Blogging is not just an online activity, it's an online culture. Anyone with a computer or access to the Internet can write a "blog" for millions of others to potentially see. Being able to express ones opinion in a public forum and debate on different issues, to me, is an empowering form of journalism.
I consider blogs to be 'online journals', and I find no coincidence in the fact that all the word 'journal' needs, is an 'ism' at the end to create a word that's the cornerstone of our program at Mohawk.
I've found an interesting video on Youtube that takes a look into blogging and 'citizen journalism'. It's an interesting watch and I find the content of the video very relevant to our course.
As far as my guitar playing goes, I'm beginning to move off that plateau...
Cam Brown
