Final Assignment

 This semester was a challenging one for me. I am a graduation senior trying to juggle 18 credits, two jobs, and BLOGGING. I am not a technology person. I don’t really do social networking, or blogging, or commenting, so this was a very new experience for me.

I guess the hardest part of the course for me would have been taking the first step to contribute my thoughts by way of commenting. When I read articles I never read the comments. I’m not sure why really. I like to talk about current events with people, why no do so in an internet forum? I’m not really sure, but for some reason it does not really interest me. The other difficult part for me was the blog it self. I think I’ve always been very self conscious of my writing (even though I’m and English major, go figure) so it was hard for me to put things I write in such public view.

My favorite part of the course has to be the talk radio project. As I mentioned in my post about the assignment, I LOVE talk radio, and always have. I never had the nerve to call up a station however, and contribute to the program. The assignment forced me to do just that, and over all it was a very positive experience for me. I had a lot of fun speaking my mind on air, and I only stumbled over my words once!

I’m not sure that I would consider any of the feedback I have given to be a success. I very rarely had people comment in response to my comments. I think that in the future were I to comment in hopes of capturing and audience that would respond to me, I would say something a little more controversial. I think that most of my comments were quite vanilla. I would say “I like…” or “I agree with…” instead of making a bold statement that would spark controversy and interest. Despite my lack of “success” I do think that comments I made added to conversations, if for no other reason than they were there. Maybe my comments helped to persuade someone else to comment, or at least to think about the article, video, etc in a new way.

I learned a lot from this class, about the need for people to create dialogues about things they are consuming. The interest has created a place for people to be able to share what they know or think with others. Think can be very beneficial for journalists and people from all different professions and walks of life. Commenting does most definitely seem to have an impact on journalists, because it forces them to look at what they are writing under a more sharper lens, knowing that if they mess up, they are certainly going to hear about it.  

I think that in the future I may participate in some commenting, but there is no way I would do it at the pace that I have for this class. I think that I have been exposed to a lot in terms of commenting, and if something should present it self that I have a strong reaction to , I would be willing to contribute my thoughts. I think for me the hardest thing is to force myself to make a comment about something that I’m relatively indifferent to, which I feel like I did a lot. This was pretty clear in many of the comments I left, that passion was totally lacking. Hopefully there will be things in the future that spark my interest and will prompt me to participate in the dialogue.

May 6, 2009. 1.