A Reflection of the Past in the Multimedia World

“Communicating in the Multi-media World” was certainly a class I do not regret taking. This class was just an elective for me and was not part of my major at all, but I found this class to be one of the most beneficial classes I have had at Albright College. The only part of the class I would change is the structure of the class. I felt that if we had weekly media-lab work days then more of our stress and questions would have been non existent. Other than that the readings and lectures were relevant to the purpose of the class.

Honestly, I did not know very much about journalism, citizen journalism and blogging. What I did know was the bloggers, such as Perez Hilton can put whatever they want about whatever they want and consider it a blog. I also knew that anyone could blog, because my cousin blogs about her family and children. Other than that the subject of online journalism was pretty new to me.

I learned a lot about this class based on the readings and discussions we had in class. I learned how much of an impact blogging has on the media. I was very shocked to learn that the reason why Dan Rather left his job was simply because of a blog that someone posted saying that he was lying about something. Also I didn’t realize that there was a difference between citizen journalism and regular journalism. I knew that anyone could post something on the internet, but I didn’t know there was a different name. I actually am very opinionated about this, because I feel bad that people go to school to be journalists, therefore I believe they have the right to write on the internet. I just think that not everyone should be opened to write anything, unless you want to consider them bloggers.

The topic that interested me the most was the chapter about the spoilers. Personally, I have done this to my favorite television show. I thought it was interesting about how intense spoilers are. I never realized the hassle they go through to find information just to post on the internet. I believe this is okay because if people can put pornography on the computer and it be allowed, then honestly anything can be allowed.

Now I am going to focus on acstudentvoices.blogspot.com. I think this was an excellent value that you added to this class. I enjoyed being able to blog myself. I liked how you made us read about blogging, citizen journalist, etc. But more I liked how you add us do things hands out and show us how easy it really is to post on the internet. I never had used audacity or moviemaker before and found them pretty easy to use. Like usual technology doesn’t always run the way you want it to, so I ran into a few problems, but once I got the hang of it I was fine. The hardest part about the homework assignments was the actual interview portion of the assignment. Sometimes it was hard trying to find people that were willing to voice their opinion of Albright issues and put them on the internet. Overall, I felt that you graded the blogs fairly and gave constructive criticism to work on if you felt there was a weakness about our blogs.

“Journalism is the production of news reports and editorial through media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet. Journalists—be they writers, editors, photographers, broadcast presenters or producers—serve as the main purveyors of information and opinion in contemporary society.” (Encyclopedia) I agree that blogging is a form of journalism by the definition and that citizen journalism, blogging, and journalism deal greatly with communication. In the United States, freedom of speech is allowed and I believe in this generation that is how people are going to be able to voice their opinions. The internet is a big part of the world today and if you want the world to see what you have to say, it is the easiest and fastest way to do so. I do believe that sometimes sites should be aware of what people are posting, but I believe that everyone has a right to post.
Overall, I believe this class was beneficial in communications. Everyone needs to keep up with technology and if the future is the internet, then this is where one needs to learn to communicate. It’s interesting to read stories about the technology, and how much of an effect it has on our world today.