Monday, 19 March 2012

I missed out on Jellybeans :(


Lecture 2:

This last week has been a bit of a shake-up for me as I found out I will no longer be able to attend lectures due its rescheduling and consequent clash with another of my subjects. After an initial freak-out I was reassured by the man himself (Dr Redman) that I will be just fine if I listen to lectures via Lectopia each week. I have therefore dedicated each Tuesday morning to lying bed listening to my JOUR1111 lecture.

So this week's lecture focused on news, with emphasis on “old media” and “new media.” Many forms of old media such as radio, newspapers, television and magazines are beginning to lose popularity in favour of new technological ways of communicating, namely on the internet. When I think of my own media uses I agreed with what was being said. The comparison between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and the newly emerging Web 3.0 was a large focus of the lecture. While Web 1.0 is a maybe a species destined for extinction Web 2.0 is thriving in the 21st century with the invention of social networking site like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter. However there is now a new beast arriving on the scene (I was unaware of this up until today) that will change how we use the internet once again. It will allow for much more individual and personalised information and when I first heard this it all seemed a little scary to me. Too personal perhaps.

So this was all interesting stuff but I was wondering how it related to me, in this course, doing journalism. But of course I soon found out it relates a heck of a lot to journalism as it changes how news and media reaches people, is exchanged and shared. If we are now getting most of our news online and without having to pay much, if anything, for it then how do journalists get paid for their stories? Do we have a job?

It is indeed an exciting time to be a journalist, as Dr Redman told us last week. I do believe there is a bright future for journalism, it is just a new one that must be adjusted to and we will have to continue adjusting. I can now understand why we will be keeping a blog and getting a Twitter account. Its all part of the process of being a journalist in the 21st century.

On a different note, I'd like to post a link to an article I read about a photographic journalist working for National Geographic. I've often dreamed of being a journalist along these lines and I found what she had to say honest and interesting. While many people may think its a job where you simply wonder around taking thousands of photos until you get a few good ones, there is a lot more hard work involved than that, not to mention a lot of stress with deadlines to meet and money budgets. By the end of the article though I was thinking, “wow, she has a pretty amazing job. Hard work, but hopefully rewarding.” Have a read if you've ever considered photographic journalism or even travel journalism.

Also this website allows you display your own photo journalism portfolios and features some amazing photographs. I would love to be able to go to some of these places and bring back stories to share. Here's the link to the website if you want to have a look at some of the photography other than the ones below.



A picture tells a thousand words” - I couldn't agree more!

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