Reflection:

Networked Media has provided me the opportunity to creatively express my thoughts and opinions online. Having completed Media and Communications 1 & 2, I already had a media factory blog set up. This made things a lot easier for me in terms of understanding how to personalise pages. In saying that, I was still required to make some changes to my Blog. What I’ve come to understand so far is that no matter what my thoughts are, I’m allowed to document them on my blog however I like. After an unusual ride on the train one morning, I blogged about the lack of communication there is on public transport these days. And how it almost seems frowned upon to start conversation with a fellow commuter. I also wrote a post about how much I dislike using the library.

However, aside from all the random posts there were some where I attempted to  engage with the course content, whether it was inspired from the lecture or within tutorials. I found my post regarding ‘what makes a blog engaging’ rather ironic. As I was literally typing the words, I was wondering if the blog itself would be engaging to readers, quite a mind twist. Within this blog I referred to two other sites where I explored the one I liked and why, and then the one I disliked and why. I think comparison is the best way to really discover personal preference, especially if you can articulate why or why not a certain element interested or attracted you. In addition to this I also looked into creative commons and learnt a lot about copyright. I never knew there were so many different rules and licences, companies and even individual artists need to obtain.

It was important for us as students to individualise our blogs, this included posting audio, images or video that highlighted the kind of person we were. Anything remotely personal that told our audience something about us. Whilst doing this, we were able to experiment with our technical skills i.e. embedding media into posts. I often found myself inserting images to add visuals to some of my blogs. I also embedded one of my youtube videos into a post, which really wasn’t as difficult as I thought.

Other technical skills included creating widgets, categories, pages etc. I have multiple categories down the side of my page which help navigate readers. I specially have a Networked Media page which takes viewers straight to my posts regarding this subject. Throughout the semester so far, I’ve found the technical side of my blog fairly manageable, however I often struggle to come up with a concept to blog about. I look forward to reading the Networked Media Blog every week as it gives me ideas for my own writing. The freedom of speech is the most exciting element about blogging on your own page, I just wish I had more to say.

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