Lecture Feedback

After running four seminar’s following the lecture I gave last Thursday on New Media and Disaster, I feel that I can safely say that the lecture was a success!

Feedback from the students suggests that the lecture was well organised and they were able to follow and understand the topic. The best part – they found it interesting!

When will the next lecture – no immediate plans for the future but I would certainly like the opportunity to do this again! Time now to get back to the PhD and get down to business!!!

Sucky Technology

Yesterday I seemed to have a day of computers going to hell on me! It started early Friday morning….happily sat working, attempting to shorten a report I had been working on. Felt as though it was a productive morning, over 1500 words written up! Went to log off the uni computer – having saved my work, thought I’d email it to myself and the damn thing disappeared. After another half hour of searching the file had indeed disappeared. Even the computing people weren’t able to help.

Royally annoyed, I gave up for the morning and had lunch etc with my family. Went to use my computer at home later in the day and somehow it deleted a crucial email.

Not a good day for computers! Its now Saturday and am back to attempting to cut the report up! Unfortunately its not quite the quick editing session I’d hoped for!

Ah the joy of modern technology!

First Lecture

Today I gave the first lecture of my academic career. The lecture concerned a sociological analysis of New Media and its role in communication during a disaster. I felt as though I had sufficiently prepared for the lecture and despite knowing all the students I still felt that gradual sense of dread of having to speak publicly.

Time will tell on Monday to see whether or not the lecture made any sense! Will certainly be interesting to see how the seminar’s go!

Lecturing…..definitely a case of practice makes perfect. Beyond glad that I’ve had the opportunity though!!

BBC – Democracy Live

BBC has come up with another ‘First’ – Democracy Live – http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/issues/default.stm

Could be a very interesting tool in terms of research!

Don’t have enough time to go into detail now – have to teach – but its definitely worth a look!!!

Have the ‘media’ grasped the concept of Twitter?

I only ask – a recent report from the Nieman Lab (Lowrey, 2009) suggests that Tweets need to be personalised & not simply a repeat of RSS feeds! http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101894

Now I don’t like to criticise the BBC – they are my first choice for checking the news! However it would appear that they are not taking the advice that is available for successful use of ‘Twitter’:

To illustrate:

BBC RSS Feed:

Iraq sends back UK asylum flight

Iraqi asylum seekers returned to Baghdad by the UK government are refused re-entry to their homeland, and flown back to Britain.

BBC Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/bbcnews

Iraqi asylum seekers returned to Baghdad by the UK government are refused re-entry to their homeland, and flown.. http://bit.ly/3giUef17 minutes ago from twitterfeed

 

Spot the difference? No I can’t see any either……

Will keep an eye on this! Need to get back to work for now

Do we share too much?

This morning I noticed a Twitter update supplying a link to a Times Online ‘Dear Tanya’ question in Women/Families. The title of the question reads……..Dear Tanya: Before she died my mother told me I was born as a result of rape.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6871254.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=1063744

Whilst I wasn’t surprised that such an ordeal was present on this page – with the individual wanting advice – I was surprised by the comment section that followed ‘Tanya’s’ Reply.

The article was released today and already there are 5 comments and 5 recommendations.

This makes me question – are we sharing too much? is it a release? should members of the public be allowed to submit comments on such an issue. Writing into Times, I am guessing the individual is aware of the publicised nature of such a question…..how useful are public comments at such a time & again – I ask – are we sharing too much online?

Rupert Murdoch Speech – Media World Summit Beijing 2009

To see a paper copy of Rupert Murdoch’s speech at this years Media World Summit see -

http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/10/12/aggregators-plagiarists-and-kleptomaniacs-rupert-murdochs-beijing-speech-in-full/

Literature Review Make-Over!!!

After a week of teaching today is PhD day! My aim today is to give my literature review on Citizen Journalism a complete make-over!! After discussing a few things with my supervisor and attempting to teach my undergraduate students in SO602 how to write a literature review, I figure its time that I do some work on my own.

Hopefully this year, teaching students how to write a literature review has gone a little more smoothly! Will have to see with what they come up with as an example paragraph next week!

As for mine, the majority of the work is there already, I’m just not happy with the way it flows! Far too ‘bitty’ at the moment!

So I best stop blogging about it & get on with it

Women Use Social Media More than Men!!!

News Alert from the Nieman Journalism Lab reveals that more women are using social media than men:

For more information see – http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/10/women-use-social-media-more-than-men-whats-news-orgs-response/

The Sun Reject’s Labour

British tabloid newspaper ‘The Sun’ has backed Labour since 1997 – front pages today suggests that this is no longer the case.

A dramatic revelation by the tabloid newspaper – although – would we really expect any less from a tabloid?

For further information from The Sun see: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2661063/The-Sun-Says-Labours-lost-it.html

For Analysis from the BBC see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8281859.stm