To blog or not to blog

I missed my first lecture on blogging. No, its not because I was too hungover to function, contrary to popular belief I am not an alcoholic in the making. No, I missed it for academic reasons-I promise! The precise academic reason was a drama rehearsal. This is not, however, the point of my story. The point is when I heard that this term we had to create a blog my first reaction was to try to stop myself from throwing something. Of all the things the journalism department could have given us a course on, they had to give us one that involved computers! Please don’t get me wrong, I love my laptop as much as the next person but it (the laptop) does not hesitate to do everything I don’t want it to do, especially late at night when I have an assignment due at midnight or early the next morning. For this reason (among others) my laptop has been nicknamed the monster. Another aspect that made me want to stomp into the journalism department, sit in the foyer and yell until someone paid attention, was the fact that I am terrible when it comes to working computers. I must be one of the most technologically illiterate people I know. Friends, one in particular who sat next to me in high school when they forced us to take computers and who I turned to every time something went wrong with my computer, joke that I am cursed when it comes to computers. So, as I made the long walk up the hill to the journalism department for my first tutorial I was slightly nervous, very irritated and muttering every expletive I could think of about the journalism department.

Sitting in that first tutorial, having been divided up into groups made me no less nervous. I was no longer so irritated; rather I had that terrifying sinking feeling that made me realize how much trouble I was in. Looking back on it, I should have just taken a deep breath and realized that this is all part of the ride called university, and in particular journalism. Being afraid of something doesn’t stop you having to do it even though, for me, this meant hours of fighting with my laptop (aka. The monster), running from drama rehearsals to journ meetings and generally behaving like someone who has three assignments due the next day and hasn’t started any of them. It also meant embarrassment. The type of embarrassment that you feel when you look at photo’s (on facebook) from your last drunken night out. The embarrassment was due to the fat that more often than not I had no idea what was going on. Oh, I knew what assignments were due when and what they were supposed to be on, getting them onto my blog with photos, backlinks and all those wonderful technological things was another story.

The first time that we met as a group to make our blog look ‘interesting’ made me sigh with relief. I was not the only one who felt totally clueless about how exactly to give our blog a ‘skin’, add widgets or gadgets (whichever you prefer) and make our blog something that everyone would want to look at! Sitting in the computer labs trying desperately to apply a skin, but because the html address was written in what looked like Japanese (!) it was not possible, got me thinking about what the point of this ‘nightmare’ course was. I seriously questioned as to whether this could actually be considered journalism. Our tutors had shown us how easy it is to set up a blog-anyone can do it and they do. Soon everyone will have a blog-an online diary to share details about their live that most people won’t care about. So if blogging is a diary then it can’t be considered journalism surely? On the other hand has blogging just opened up the media to a larger group of producers? Will blogs have the same influence that mainstream media does? Will they be able to influence people’s thinking, help shape ideas and provide people with an understanding of the world in which we live?

So maybe I have to re-consider my opinion on blogging. Now that I have acquired (most of) the skills that you need to be able to blog I realize that blogging is journalism. It may not be seen as mainstream media but it is gaining more and more recognition. Despite spending hours hibernating as I struggled to finish yet another journalism assignment, despite constantly threatening to hurl my laptop out the window and despite constantly questioning myself as to whether I was doing things ‘right’ I have live through my blogging experience. It was not always easy - writing to a particular theme and in a particular style when the last thing you were thinking about was drinking. Although to be fair, drinking is never that far away in a Rhodents mind.

Well now that I have completed my last official blogging assignment and lived to tell the tale I am off to the Rat. Like I said, drinking is never that far away in a Rhodents mind.