Caught In A Web - Lecture 2

The web. My whole life it has always been there. I’ve grown up with it, yet my reasons for using it seem to be constantly changing. When I was younger I would play meaningless games such as ‘Dress Your Barbie’, or stalk out the release of a Barbie Dream Car. As I got older, I finally had a purpose to use it. High school assignments helped me branch out and see more that the internet had to offer. Now at university, I seem to use Facebook more than anything. Between untagging hideous photos of myself from the previous weekend and battling people on Words with Friends, I feel as though I don’t use the web to its full potential.

So when this week’s lecture rolled around and they discussed the web, I felt excited to be able to view it from a different angle. To broaden my horizons! Set sail on the voyage of learning!

Web 1.0 has a main focus on companies. It made sense; we’ve all seen those basic websites that is straight content surrounded by hundreds of ad’s trying to get your attention.

Web 2.0 has a focus on social groups. Facebook. MySpace. Twitter. I knew exactly what he was talking about, being a self-diagnosed Facebook addict. Prod-users like myself were filling the internet with pictures, drawings, quotes, videos and endless information that they want to share with the world.

Web 3.0 has a focus on the individual. I just had to look around me to understand what he meant. We all have iPads, smart phones and tablets. We can even customise things so specifically that anything irrelevant to our interest is eliminated from our view. Its border-line stupid. But it gives the internet meaning. Web 3.0 IS internet with meaning.

After the lecture, I felt as though a whole new world had opened up, like I had the knowledge in me all along but it took Dr Redman to put the pieces together in my mind. Call me a nerd, a geek or just plain weird, but I don’t care. I’m going to claim that I enjoy learning while I can, because it doesn’t happen often.

However, there was one point of the lecture that upset me dearly. While the lecture was taking place, my body had given up and I had the flu so I had to watch the lecture on lectopia. Thus, you can understand my devastation when the class were all given jellybeans and all I could do was sit there and listen to them all enjoy themselves. My post-lecture high was shot down in an instant and I returned to my bed of self-pity, cold and flu medicine and numerous tissue boxes.

Out of my comfort zone - Journalism Lecture 1

Journalism. It is a foreign concept to me. I had no real idea what I was going to walk into when the day came to attend the first lecture. I am not a journalist. Nor do I have any aspirations to be a journalist. I simply did the course to challenge myself. To see the world differently.  It was a pleasant surprise that the lecturer was upbeat and excited to be teaching the course, after all, passion for what they are teaching is necessary to keep students motivated. Without having a mentor that loves journalism, how are we supposed to love it ourselves?

There is one aspect of the first lecture that I would love to draw all your attention to. It’s not how to use blackboard or getting to know our lecturers and tutors. It’s the various quotes that Dr Redman presented to his class.

 “Journalism is organised gossip” – Edward Eggleston

“People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true” – Lewis H. Lapham

“Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shi*s into law” – Auberon Waugh

These are all very different opinions on journalism. This got me thinking, there is no real definition of journalism. There is not one specific way to be a journalist. No guidelines you have to follow. No rules or regulations. You can be as creative as you like, write about anything and voice your opinion to the world. I was previously a student in the Health Science faculty so you can imagine my struggle when I have so much freedom to be creative and form my own opinions without being persuaded by others. This lecture made me realise that if I can see something my own special way, I then have the power to persuade others to feel the same way too. I feel inspired already.