Oh dear God what have I done? - This being literally the first
thing I said to myself as I entered the Great Court, I had what was probably,
without any hint of exaggeration, a full scale emotional meltdown. The intricate
engravings adorning the sandstone walls and the vast lawn that showed no sign
of ever being brown in its entire plant-y life was disconcerting, this
place wasn't high school, so what was I doing here? This anxiety was my only companion
as I made my way into the depths of Forgan Smith.
The fear of this new world aside, the first lecture of my University
career was surreal. As I sat down in the theatre, our lecturer Bruce quite
matter-of-factly said “YOU are the journalist,” and of course my thoughts were
something along the lines of, “YOU are being absolutely ridiculous, I have been
at university for 10 minutes." The content terrified me, the death of
newspapers, the public’s perception of Journalists and the increasing amount of
citizen Journalists could only mean one thing, the era of the Journalist was
over. I began to get the impression that there was no work for Journalists,
that their work was second to the ability of the public to access information
right at their fingertips (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger). Eventually I had
resigned to the fact that this degree was worthless. The lecture did however
progress, and my anxiety did lessen as I began to realize that JOUR1111 was
trying to teach me how to overcome this technological boom, how to keep up with
this generation of new media. Then it hit me, I AM the generation. Facebook,
and as sad as it is to say, Myspace, practically raised me, and I’m going to
prove it- prove that perhaps Journalism isn’t a lost cause amidst a new age
society.
Sure, just thinking about the blog made me want to, for want of a
less dramatic word, die. I’ve never ‘blogged’ before; sure I have a Tumblr, but
reblogging pictures of cats in people clothes in no way legitimises me. I will
say however that the near absolute freedom this task allows for is refreshing –
maybe this new world isn’t so bad after all. As for coming posts, my interest
in photojournalism should assure you that there will be no shortage of photos,
and by photos I mean news worthy photography, and no photos of flowers that were edited on Paint.
In all, social and interactive media is the future, and the industry begs us to evolve – so we must. After all, I'm generation Y - I got this.
- Shannen
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