malcolmsmastery-blog

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New Media Journalism Final Project: Mastery Journal

I am in my final week of my final graduate school course. By the time this assignment is due I will be officially done with grad school. It has been such a fulfilling experience. Graduate school was a challenge, but I am proud to say that I met that challenge head on and conquered it.

This month I am in the New Media Journalism Final Project course.

During my first month of graduate school, I took a course called Mastery. In this course, I completed a Mastery Timeline. This timeline detailed each course I would take during my time in graduate school. The timeline also listed my expectations for the course and my goals for the course.

For the New Media Journalism Final Project course, I listed the following as my expectation for the course;

Prepare for career search.

To meet this goal I found a course on Lynda.com called “Job Search Strategies” taught by Valerie Sutton. This Lynda.com course served as supplemental learning to help me find my dream career.

While the New Media Journalism Final Project course did not make it an objective to teach students how to job search, the course did instruct students to review their capstone projects. I analyzed my article “St. Augustine Game Shops Build a Culture of Gaming Through Cooperative Play” and thought of strategies to further its audience. Through the process of reviewing my capstone article and writing my thesis paper, I discovered flaws in my reporting style and conceptualized the type of content I want to create in the future. Writing my thesis paper helped me become a better content producer which will, in turn, make my content more presentable to potential employers.

According to this course’s syllabus the objectives for the New Media Journalism Final Project course are as followed;

Synthesize knowledge of journalistic principles and professional and academic style guides ƒ

Demonstrate complex understanding of the professional and academic writing process ƒ

Apply journalistic principles to development of a final thesis paper ƒ

Differentiate between journalism and professional style guides with regard to tone, voice, and attribution and grammar in written reports

Evaluate the results of research methodologies in analyses of digital content ƒ

Define the scientific method in the context of written academic and technical reports ƒ

Identify the types of research methodologies used in scientific inquiries ƒ

Discuss the types of evidence used to substantiate claims in professional and academic reports ƒ

Evaluate the implications of research results on theories of new media journalism practices and effects ƒ

Articulate complex analyses of professional and academic textual reports ƒ

Define, differentiate, and evaluate modes of discourse and types of reports ƒ

Incorporate discourse guidelines in the development of a final thesis paper ƒ

Assess professional and academic reports based on mode of discourse standards ƒ

Develop, execute, and measure strategies and tactics for engaging audiences based on analyses of analytic reports

Apply principles and lessons from best-practice case studies to production, publication, and distribution of a final project follow-up report

Use analytic tools to optimize a personal website and final project ƒ

Execute and assess engagement strategies and tactics related to an online portfolio and final project distribution ƒ

Evaluate website design and story layout based on best-practice principles ƒ

Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of professional website layout and design principles ƒ

Analyze website design and story layout in various specializations of new media journalism ƒ Revise, renovate, and optimize digital portfolios, professional websites, and a final project

I completed all of these objectives. I synthesized my knowledge of journalistic principles and academic styles and demonstrated this through completing my thesis paper. I analyzed digital content and made professional comments regarding their efficiency, citing information I have learned throughout my graduate school career. I evaluated data and discussed types of evidence during peer review sessions. I applied the best practices while producing, publishing, and promoting my content. I analyzed my website and completed a website assessment using technical terms and journalistic knowledge of industry standards.

The most beneficial assignment from this course was the follow-up article assignment. This assignment reinvested me in creating content for my site, which is something I had not done since publishing my capstone project. This also gave me another way to promote my capstone article.

Writing about the creation process of my capstone project has allowed me to think about the content I want to create in the future. I plan to create more video content and to produce podcasts. I will take what I learned from my capstone experience and perfect the craft of creating multimedia elements.

During my third week of graduate school I wrote the following in my Mastery Timeline Journal;

“The idea of where I will be 12 months from now truly drives me to do my best to make sure that I’ll be in the best position possible upon graduation. I know that when I get to the final week of my final class I’ll be able to look back at this post and smile at just how far I have come.”

I have kept those words in mind during each month of my graduate school career and I am happy to say that I was correct. I am in a much better position in terms of career marketability. I have industry skills and knowledgeability. My writing has improved. I have mastery of journalism standards. I developed multimedia production skills. I can skillfully report on newsworthy events. I am a journalist. I am in the final week of my final class and I am looking back on that week 3 post. I am smiling at just how far I have come.

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New Media Publishing and Distribution: Mastery Post

I am now in my second to last month of graduate school. This month I completed the New Media Publishing and Distribution course of Full Sail University’s New Media Journalism program. During month one of this program, I completed the Mastery Course. In Mastery I created a Mastery Timeline in which I listed all of the courses I would take during my graduate school career. I also listed my expectations and goals for the courses.

For New Media Publishing and Distribution I listed the following goals:

Read an economic magazine.

Read a magazine on publishing.

Analyze and take notes on articles from such magazines.

As I did not know just how far along I would be in my writing at this time in the program I focused my goals on reading articles that would fit the nature of my final project. For a long term project like the capstone article I knew that having skills in writing on economics would assist me, as most serious topics have an economic aspect to them. My capstone article was about gaming culture and as gaming is a multi-billion-dollar industry, my thought process during the Mastery course was not incorrect.

To achieve my supplemental learning goals for this course I found an article on economist.com and an article on writermag.com. On the economist.com I found the article The Big Mac Index and on writermag.com I found the article Going from “writer” to “author”

Reading magazine and newspaper articles is a habit I have gotten into since starting this program. I find it incredibly beneficial to analyze what works and what does not work in articles and it’s even more useful to see how what I’ve been learning during my graduate program translates into professionally published pieces of journalism.

For another form of supplemental learning, I found the course Wordpress Essential Training by Morten Rand-Hendriksen on Lynda.com.

At the time of creating my Mastery Timeline I believed this Lynda.com course would be beneficial for my New Media Publishing and Distribution assignments, but since my website was made with wix.com, this was not the case. I will still probably complete this Lynda.com course at a later date, since knowing how to use Wordpress will help in the journalism and media industry.

According to the syllabus for New Media Publishing and Distribution the expected learning outcomes for this course are as followed:

Evaluate the production process as it pertains to audience demands and business opportunities

Analyze the 24-hour news cycle and how it has changed the way news is published

Discuss the emergence of the web as a primary platform for distributing content

Identify and employ channels for reaching and catering to an audience with targeted content

Examine the concept of online publishing and develop means of distributing content through new and existing outlets

Create publishing plans as guides for targeting content to specific audiences

Explore the pitching process and engage with publishers to find outlets for publications

Develop techniques for teasing upcoming stories and sell content to new consumers

Explore different marketing techniques and strategies in order to reach new audiences and enhance personal brand identity

Appraise different social media techniques to increase audience and personal profile

Develop optimization tactics to augment search results

Organize content effectively through proper tagging and topic categorization

Design and evaluate strategies for producing revenue based on advanced content generation

Discuss different business models for online journalism and evaluate their effectiveness

Strategize ways to make money on the web through entrepreneurial journalism

Understand the budgeting process and how it helps effectively manage an online journalism business

Through the assignments of this course, I have completed all of the expected learning outcomes for this course. The week 3 readings on Marketing provided insight into the process of determining audience demand. “5 small steps journalists can take to build a bigger, more engaged audience” provided useful information on engaging audiences.

I identified and employed channels for reaching new audiences during the distribution planning stage of my capstone article. I utilized Facebook groups that shared subject matters with my article and became active in said groups. I then shared links to my website and relevant articles within the groups.

For the week 2 discussion board I found online publications that fit the beat of my website. I found the contact information for editors and drafted proposal letters for freelance writing. I plan to continue this process and send out such proposals on a regular basis.

The assignment I found most useful in this course was the editor’s draft peer review. Peer review is a very helpful part of the writing process. The notes I received from my classmates helped me to edit my article and craft it into a neater product. As a result of the peer review, I change my article’s headline so that it was more efficient in detailing the subject of my article. I also made my article less wordy after receiving multiple suggestions to lower the word count. Because of the advice I received from the peer review assignment my final capstone article was significantly stronger than the editor’s draft.

The skills I learned during this course will help me in the professional writing world. I now know how to write proposals to editors, I can create distribution plans for my articles, and I can create media kits. I now have a media kit on my website’s about me page, which will allow advertisers and potential employers to see what my website’s beat is as well as what my talents as a journalist are. Learning about distribution plans has already helped me as a writer as I’ve started to manage my content more strategically by planning distribution for social media engagements. Writing proposals to editors is a skill I was very excited to learn. It’s not enough to be a skilled writer. One must know how to market their writing so that they can get hired to write professionally. As part of my plan for the next year, I will begin sending out proposal letters to editors of lesser known art, culture, and gaming publications to build up my collection of published work. I will then follow the method of sending letters to slightly more well-known publications and repeating this process until I have my writing in publications close to the caliber of Huffington Post and the New York Times.

I am excited to employ the strategies I have learned in this course to increase my audience and to find new opportunities in the professional writing industry.

[malcolmsmastery-blog]

Public Relations and Reputation Management: Mastery Post

I have now completed the 10th month of my graduate school journey. This process has felt long at some times and incredibly short at others. With only 2 months left in my time as a graduate student, I have begun thinking back to my goals and expectations from 10 months ago. During my first month of graduate school, I created a Mastery Timeline for the Mastery course. On this timeline, I listed all the courses I would be taking during my time as a New Media Journalist graduate student. Along with those courses, I listed my expectations and goals for each course, as well as supplemental learning I could complete to broaden my understanding of the subject matters.

This month I am taking the Public Relations and Reputation Management course. On my Mastery Timeline, I stated the following goals for this course.

Continue engaging with my audience.

Create a survey for my followers to take regarding my image.

Create a public relations strategy for one celebrity.

I did not create a public relations strategy for any celebrities because it did not end up being a relevant exercise. I did, however, create a public relations strategy for myself and my brand and that strategy included audience engagement. In week 2 of this course, I created an about me video which I embedded onto the about me page of my website. This video went into detail on my background as a writer, my educational history, my interests, and my goals for the future. By creating this video and posting it on YouTube I hoped to attract new audience members while sharing new information about myself with my established audience. In terms of engaging with my audience, I have done better at this in the past two months than I had in all of the previous months combined. I created an Instagram for my website and used that account to post pictures live from events I covered. I also used the Instagram account to post mini-articles, bonus content, and original fandom posts so that my audience had content in the days between big articles. I have not yet created a survey for my followers but will do so once I establish a stronger following.

The assignment I found most useful during Public Relations and Reputation Management was the Promotional Story assignment. For this assignment, I covered a local pop culture convention and through that story, I promoted public libraries. Using text, photos, and Instagram as a promoting tool I created a story that fits within the artistic and cultural beat of my website.

After completing this course I now have a stronger grasp on how to engage with audiences and on how to maintain a positive reputation. The skills I learned from this month’s lessons will help me in my future career in media journalism.

[malcolmsmastery-blog]

Social Media and Online Community Engagement: Mastery Post

I am completing the 9th month of my graduate school journey. It feels very surreal to be so close to graduation, but with my capstone assignment due in two months I haven’t had the time to relax and appreciate how far I’ve come since starting graduate school last August. That being said I do realize that I have learned a plethora of new skills that I will take with me into any future career, whether that career is in journalism or some other form of media.

 This month I am in the Social Media and Online Community Engagement course. During month one of my graduate school journey, I took a course called Mastery. In Mastery I created a timeline listing the courses I would take during my graduate school journey and my expectations for each course. This timeline helped me to look ahead at each course, learn what those courses would entail, and come up with tactics and strategies to ensure that I took the most out of each course.

 My goals for Social Media and Online Community Engagement were as followed.

 Begin using Twitter to give my audience more frequent updates on my work.

Attempt Q&A interactions with followers of my blog.

Use strategies learned in this course to further promote my brand.

 I have completed 2 of the 3 goals I set for myself.

I have been using Twitter for months at this point to promote my articles and to follow people in the industry. I used Adobe Spark to create social post images to accompany my promotional tweets. I use appropriate hashtags to ensure that my posts reach their target audience. During this course, I began to tweet more frequently. I now create posts during the peak times for posting. According to the tutorial video “Using Twitter for Journalism”, those times are from 1pm until 3pm on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. As a result, I have seen more audience interaction with my posts. I receive more likes and retweets than in past months.

I have not yet attempted a Q&A session with my audience yet, but I intend to do that soon. During this course, I learned about using polls and surveys as a form of audience interaction. I will be using Twitter for a poll concerning the subject of my capstone project next month. I will be using Instagram for Q&A as I find it easier to engage audiences in the commenting format of Instagram as opposed to the tweeting format of Twitter. Though I have not yet completed this goal, the knowledge I have acquired during this course regarding polls and surveys will help me interact with my audience more competently.

I have successfully used the knowledge gained in this course to further promote my brand. Through watching tutorial videos provided by my professor I have learned how to use more social media sites for journalism purposes. I have added Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to my list of journalistic social media sites. Those accounts all have links on the header of my website, along with links to my Tumblr, Twitter, SoundCloud, and YouTube. I now have a presence on nine social media counts. Combined with my website that is ten accounts to keep active and to post on regularly. I also plan on using Reddit in the future. I learned about Reddit in the tutorial video “Social News Platforms for Journalism”, but I have not yet started using the site regularly. According to the tutorial, it’s effective to become a regular user on Reddit before one begins sharing their own content and so I want to save site promotion on Reddit until I have become a regular in subreddits related to the subject matter of my website.

 According to the syllabus for Social Media and Online Community Engagement, the expected learning goals for this course are as followed.

 Develop story ideas by evaluating trends in social media ƒ

Monitor local and real-time data across the social web ƒ

Automate and filter news alerts and updates ƒ

 Examine techniques that use social media to research and report events ƒ

Organize data in a coherent, organized manner ƒ

Aggregate social assets to enrich coverage of stories ƒ

 Practice techniques for developing content-rich multimedia stories ƒ

Develop techniques to write and edit stories for multiple social media channels ƒ

Analyze elements of effective storytelling in social media environments ƒ

 Contrast the unique features and strengths of various social media channels ƒ

Review how each channel can be best used to promote and distribute digital content ƒ

 Review methods for publishing stories across multiple social media channels ƒ

Create and engage in building a conversation with personal learning networks ƒ

Increase shareability by driving targeted traffic to a story and encouraging audience discussion ƒ

 Optimize audience participation ƒ

Identify signals and metrics to evaluate audience engagement ƒ

Use web analytics to develop and evaluate audience engagement

 I have met each of this course expectations by watching the tutorial videos and completing the assignments.

 In our week 1 publication assignment my classmates and I were instructed to use social media sources to write articles on the topics we have chosen for our capstone projects. For this assignment I did research on Twitter and Instagram, searching hashtags that pertained to my subject matter, to find out the current biggest news in trading card games. I then used those sources along with outside research to create an article for my website. In this way, I developed a story idea by evaluating trends in social media.

The assignment I found most helpful in this course was the week 3 publication assignment. This assignment required me to conduct a video interview and use that footage as an added element to an article on the same topic of my capstone project. For this assignment, I used social media to research what was currently happening in the world of trading card games. I discovered the Amonkhet Game Day event happening in shops all over the country. I then attended one of these Amonkhet events, reported on it, and used social media to find a local expert in the field of trading card games and game shops. Once I found this expert I was able to set up an interview, conduct said interview, and edit the footage into an element for the article I had written. I used everything I had learned in the previous weeks of this course, as well as techniques I had learned in past courses, to complete this assignment. It was a good refresher in the creation of videos using Premiere. I also acquired photos, video footage, and quotes to use in my capstone project.

 Overall I am very happy with the results I have achieved in this course. It has been one of the more difficult courses in my graduate school career, but I believe it was a much-needed shift in difficulty to prepare me for the last 3 months of graduate school. I not only completed the goals that I had set for myself, but I met the course expectations and learned new skills that will be sure to help me in my future career in media.

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Multimedia Reporting: Mastery Post

I’m completing my 8th month of graduate school, which feels both amazing and surreal feeling. This month I took the Multimedia Reporting course. Back during the month 1 Mastery course I completed a timeline for my graduate school journey. In this timeline I came up with goals and expectations for each course I would be taking. I also thought of supplemental education I could use to further my grasp of the subject matters.

For Multimedia Reporting my goals were to report on a current pop culture event, use and properly source photography, and to use Feedly to keep up with current events.

I currently do use photography in my articles and have been doing so for many months at this point. The photos I use are taken by me and so I don’t have to worry about sourcing them, though I do give them captions following the AP standards. I have reported on a current pop culture event. In this course, I wrote an article that discussed an Adam Sandler comedy show. I do not use Feedly to keep up with current events, but I do read newspapers and online periodical and pop culture sites frequently to keep up with current events. Hypster is my favorite source for pop culture and music news.

The supplemental learning I found for this course was called Information architecture and wireframing. This was a course on Lynda.com taught by Morten Rand-Hendriksen. The course is described as one that will teach individuals to “develop a content strategy that translates into a better user experience” which I believe goes with the learning goals and expectations as stated in the Multimedia Reporting syllabus.

The skill that I learned the most about in Multimedia Reporting was conducting narrative interviews. I believe that this is one skill I will use often in my desired field as a journalist of art and culture. For this reason the most helpful assignment for me was the narrative assignment. I also learned a lot from the follow-up story assignment. In the follow-up story assignment I learned how to write questions that will get me new information on previously covered topics or people. I also realized during this course that I prefer working with audio as a multimedia element rather than video. While both forms of multimedia have their benefits, audio fits very well with the beat of my website. I began to enhance the text my stories by providing new information through audio and photography. I also started to utilize nonlinear storytelling by telling different parts of the story using different multimedia elements. Overall these tactics have increased the quality of my articles.

I was very happy with my improvement in this course. It was a great experience to take all of the multimedia elements I have learned so far during my graduate school career and have the freedom to use any of those elements to craft a story. This freedom also gave me insight into which multimedia elements I prefer and which ones I need to work with more. My favorite article for this course was the narrative piece I wrote on a local archaeologist. I used text, photography, and audio and it was one of my strongest pieces due in part to what I had learned about conducting narrative interviews.

Once again I feel as if the skills I have learned and honed this month will help me in any future career I have in journalism or broadcasting.

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Digital News Production: Mastery Post

Month 7 of my graduate school experience is coming to an end. This month I took the Digital News Production course, which focused on creating videos as multimedia elements for written articles.

During month 1 of my graduate program, I completed a Mastery Timeline for the Mastery Course. In this timeline, I expressed my expectations and goals for each course I’d be taking during my graduate program. For Digital News Production my goals were as followed.

Learn to produce and publish content for a digital market

Continue to produce content for my blog

Melding the writing skills I’ve learned thus far with my newer technological skills

Begin researching contributing to print of digital publications

I also found a course on Lynda.com to watch as supplemental learning. This course was called Kim Lee: Digital and Physical Production and Design and was taught by Kim Lee.

According to the syllabus, the expectations for this course were as followed.

Develop story ideas geared toward visual storytelling

Practice gathering natural sound

Organize and compose stories exclusively using sound from interviews

Discover techniques for developing video journalism

Integrate video into narrated story production

Develop techniques for shooting news footage

Analyze and critique elements of effective videography

Integrate narration and interviews to tell compelling visual stories

Develop and integrate graphics and computer animation into journalistic content  

Integrate informative graphics into video stories

Embed location-based information into video content

Evaluate the role of video in digital journalism

Shoot, edit, and publish video reports

Develop and integrate computer graphics and animation into informative content

Develop compelling stories by combining audio, still photography, video, and digital graphics

Identify appropriate distribution techniques and channels for multimedia productions

The assignment that helped my learning progress the most was the week 3 video journalism assignment. Through this assignment, I became more comfortable setting up and conducting interviews. I also gained experience using my lavalier microphone with my camera. Having to interview two people on camera for this assignment also meant that I had to schedule said interviews, which is a skill I’ll be using throughout my entire career. The week 3 video journalism assignment is the video I am most proud of producing in this course.

This was the most difficult course so far, as I had very little experience with video editing prior to this. Through the four video assignments in this course, I learned how to collect video, perform video interviews, and edit the footage together to create newsworthy 1:30-2:00-minute videos. As a result of this course, I believe that the quality of my articles has improved and I am now more equipped to work in the journalism industry.

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Multimedia Development and Editing: Mastery Post

Another course in my graduate school journey has come to an end. Multimedia Development and Editing is a course that I was both excited and nervous about. I have had some experience in the subject matters of each of my previous courses, but creating professional multimedia elements for my writing was a new endeavor.

During the Mastery course, I created a Mastery Timeline. For that timeline, I looked ahead to each course and listed my expectations for them. My 3 goals for Multimedia Development and Editing were to; begin using Photoshop to edit images, create gifs and edits to enhance my articles, and to begin collecting video footage for future project use.

The expectations for students by the end of this course were listed on the syllabus as;

being able to implement and understand the editorial process

being able to use pre-production techniques for asset, equipment, and story management

producing stories utilizing a digital camera to collect and gather information

showing literacy in post-production skills by editing text, images, audio, and video for storytelling purposes

being able to define story arc

composing headlines and captions compliant with SEO standards

evaluating distribution methods

deciding which media-distribution channels to use to promote stories                                                                                                                   

I have improved the quality of my articles with the skills I have learned in this course. I did not use Photoshop to edit any of my photos, but I did learn about the ethics of photo editing so for future assignments I will know what the professional standard for photo editing is. I did not yet create any gifs for my articles, but I have learned how to caption the added elements in my articles so that I can caption any gifs used in future articles. I collected video while I was at the event I attended for my week 4 article.

The assignment that taught me the most was the week 2 audio package or podcast assignment. For this assignment I utilized my microphone and audio gathering equipment for the first time. I also used Adobe Audition to edit together natural sound, narration, and sound bites which are skills I intend to utilize frequently from this point forward.

For supplemental education I found a course on Lynda.com titled Photoshop CC 2017 One-on-One: Fundamentals.

Thanks to this course I can now confidently utilize Adobe Spark, YouTube, and SoundCloud to enhance my articles. Not only have I met the course expectations, but I have exceeded my own expectations for what I would learn in the course. Overall this course exceeded my expectations in terms of the skills I learned and developed. As a result of this course I can now use create video, posts, and pages using Adobe Spark. I can capture and edit audio for audio packages, podcasts, and audio slide shows. I can promote my work on Twitter and enhance those Tweets with social posts from Adobe Spark. This course has given me a strong foundation of knowledge in the multimedia aspect of journalism, which has made me more confident in calling myself a journalist.

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Research and Investigation Skills Development: Mastery Post

In my Mastery timeline, I detailed my expectations and goals for each course in my graduate school journey. My goals for Research and Investigation Development were to begin utilizing research and investigation skills in my blogging, to create content outside of my comfort zone, and to cover a local human interest story. I also wanted to develop skills in research to use in all of my writing. I found a course on Lynda.com, taught by Deirdre Breakenridge, that teaches how to interview on Skype and social media and used this course as supplemental learning to go along with the Research and Investigation Development course.

According to the course syllabus the expectations for students were as follows; consider the changing role of investigative journalism, use online research to provide stories with context and relevance, explore types of information sources on the internet, apply digital research techniques and strategies to find information and data online, employ advanced search operators and techniques to improve research across the web, public databases, and web-based applications, utilize public databases from government, industry, and nongovernment sources, define and classify types of journalistic data representations and assess the validity of online data, examine ethical considerations in researching, analyzing, and presenting digital information, evaluate the credibility of online sources, describe the characteristics of credible sources, identify bias and source motives in order to understand their impact on a story, appraise the basic legal ramifications of new-media research and investigative practices, assess the role of transparency and accountability in light of the Freedom of Information Act, and formulate best practices in attribution and fair use of online information.

I have achieved not only the course expectations but also my own personal goals for this course. In week 1 I utilized research and investigation skills to find public records that were relevant to the beat of my website. In terms of interviewing, this course built off the foundation that my past courses have developed. I already began interviewing experts for assignments in past courses, but learned how to better conduct interviews during week 4 of Research and Investigation Development. The assignment I found most useful was the first article, which required information from public records and an infographic to support the article. The use of public records and infographics was new to me, but now that I know how to use them I will utilize those resources more frequently in my article writing. Sites such as Buzzfeed and Upworthy often utilize infographics and so their importance is evident in popular online news spaces. This course has better prepared me for my journalistic career by adding a new layer to my writing skills. Through research, interviewing, and creating infographics I can now write articles with more credible facts and I can display those facts in ways that are easy for viewers to analyze.

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Legal Aspects of Media: Mastery Post

Here I am in the fourth week of my fourth course for my graduate program. It’s amazing how fast these four months of education have gone by and how much I have learned. I am currently in the Legal Aspects of Media course. My favorite assignment for this course was the week 1 article first draft and the week 3 final draft of said article. This was my first time covering an event and while it did not go exactly as planned the assignment pushed me to leave my comfort zone for my journalistic writing.

All of the topics covered in this course were necessary to learn for my future career and writing endeavors, but the topic I was able to engage with the most and take the most knowledge away from was the readings and assignments on copyright. Using additional elements in journalism is becoming more and more prevalent in the online writing world and it’s good to know how laws of copyright ownership work and where I can look to find out who owns a piece of media.

Hopefully the knowledge I obtained this month will help me with any legal issues faced in the communications industry. My biggest hope is that by learning about defamation and copyright I can avoid any such legal issues. That being said after doing the readings I believe I have a firm foundation in knowing my rights as a writer and knowing what counts as defamation and copyright infringement.

My goal for this course was to learn the legal aspects of professional writing. When I created my Mastery Journal Timeline during the Mastery course I did not know what those legal aspects entailed, but I did expect to learn about possible career ending offenses such as plagiarism, libel, and slander. As for my writing I intended to begin using additional elements in my writing. I started that in my last course, but I continued to do so in this course and I also began planning for the use of video and audio in future articles.

Overall this course was incredibly informative and gave me insight into another aspect of my career path.

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Writing for Interactive Media: Mastery Journal Entry

In my Mastery Journal Timeline, I stated that my three goals for the Writing for Interactive Media course were to begin learning about InDesign CC through supplemental learning on Lynda.com, to plan interactive media for my blog, and to begin using visuals for the purpose of storytelling. Going into the course my overall goal was to begin learning how to tell stories in a journalistic manner.

Overall this course has exceeded my expectations. Not only did this course set the foundation for me to write for online publication, but it also taught me how to gather information for my articles. During this course I have learned how to conduct interviews, how to attribute interviewees in my articles, how to write an about me page, and how to narrow down the focus of a story.

Following this course, I intend to continue working on interviews so that I can get more comfortable conducting them. I also want to get better at getting information from my interviewees.

One thing I would like to learn more about is finding interviewees and introducing myself in a way that puts them at ease. I did not have the best luck with the interviews I conducted for my first article. I attempted to interview three people in person for the article in question. One of the people agreed, though as she was my first in person interview and I was interviewing her at her job I did not get the best material for my article. The second person I interviewed was immediately on guard when I told him I was conducting an interview for an article, though he eventually warmed up once the conversation became more casual. The third person flat out refused to be interviewed. None of those interviews were usable in my article however, because I failed to get last names and contact information. In the end I had more success with online correspondents and interviews. Through social media I was able to get in contact with a character animator for the video game I was featuring. That animator was more than happy to answer my questions and since we spoke online his full name and contact information was available on his profile. All that being said I know that I will have to get better at conducting in person interviews and persuading people to talk to me.

I did not get the chance to implement the InDesign CC knowledge gained in the Lynda.com course, but I would like more practice with InDesign before I use it create documents for publication.

I did begin using visuals for my articles. In terms of additional elements, I used photography for both of the stories that I wrote for this course.

My media is not yet as interactive as I would like. One lesson I learned in this course that I will begin to implement in later articles is to end each piece with a question in order to promote reader discussion. I would also like to start creating video or audio to go with my articles.

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New Media and Communications: Mastery Journal Post.

During the Mastery class I created a mastery journal timeline on which I made predictions on what I would learn in each subsequent course as well as my educational goals for each course. For the New Media and Communications course I stated that I wanted to improve my online communication skills, learn to acquire a target audience, and to expand my viewership. For the purpose of supplemental learning I found a course on Lynda.com by Drew Boyd called Branding Fundamentals.

Through the weekly discussions I have honed my online communication skills. I focused on using the R.I.S.E  model, which has helped me give more valuable advice to peers. I will continue to use this model in my future professional writing career. The readings that were part of this course also gave valuable advice on communication. In particular “The Pyramid of Journalism Competency” and the infographs entitled "Perfect Posts on Social Platforms”  and "The Parts of an Effective Blog Post”  were all readings on which I took notes on for the purpose of enhancing my online communication. “The Pyramid of Journalism Competency” has helped me to understand the structure of an article so that I can effectively communicate my ideas through digital journalism. The infographs on posting for social media and creating effective posts showed research on different demographics and their online viewing habits, as well as the best times of day to make posts on different social media sites. Those facts give me a guide to when and where to post, which will get my articles a farther reach. I have also learned the importance of following trends and using comment sections and discussion boards as a form of research. All of this knowledge will allow me to communicate more skillfully in a digital realm.

In terms of realizing and acquiring my target audience this course went above and beyond my expectations. I was pleased with the amount of time we spent working out our content matter and the type of audiences we planned on writing for. Many of the articles we read for the course fit into this goal of audience acquisition. “Top 10 Ways to Find Your Audience” and “Oh My God, Don’t Make Things for ‘Everyone’” are two of the readings that provided me with insight into building a prototype for my target audience. The point from “Top 10 Ways to Find Your Audience” I took the most note of was step 4, engage with empathy. I feel like it is important, especially when writing for oppressed and underrepresented individuals, to keep their humanity in mind and to make sure that your content is treating your audience with respect. This point goes back to my goal of learning how to more efficiently communicate online in that an important part of this industry is communicating with one's audience via social media. This point of being empathetic reinforced my own belief that empathy in writing matters.  I also made note of the practice of surveying people in order to see what they look for in their digital content, which I have begun to do by asking friends about their own digital media consumption and their interests.

I began using Lynda.com during this course. I started with the Twitter Essentials tutorial that was suggested as part of our week 4 assignments. Though I knew most of what that tutorial had to teach it was a useful refresher. From there I went onto the Branding Fundamentals course I originally intended to take this month.

Overall this course has gone above and beyond my original expectations. As a result of the readings and work I have completed I have a strong foundation in the field of digital journalism and a better understanding of how to effectively communicate online.

[malcolmsmastery-blog]

Week 4 Inspiration: Travel

Travel has always been a huge inspiration for me. When thinking of a potential career travel was certainly in my mind. My dream career would be one in which I would have opportunities to travel. My dream career would also earn me enough money to travel for pleasure. Combined with my passion for writing I decided upon journalism. As journalist often have to travel to do interviews or cover stories I felt as if the career path was the appropriate one for me to follow. As an author as well I would want to travel to do location research to add realism to my novels. New York is one of my favorite cities on earth. If I don’t end up moving their someday I would love the chance to travel there enough to makeup for it. I also want to travel to California. I have many artistic friends who are moving or have moved to the West Coast to pursue their own career paths. Not only would I enjoy traveling to California to visit my friends, but I would also enjoy these trips for the purpose of collaborating with artists in the area. All of that traveling requires time and money though, and my goal is to have both of those once I become a successful writer. 

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Master Week 4: Mastery Journal Timeline.

Link

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Week 3 Inspiration: The Future

My inspiration for this week is my future. When I chose to continue my education and enroll as a student at Full Sail University I did so knowing that it would be a challenging year. I knew that I would have to manage my time to balance working full time and going to school. All that being said when I visit the FSO page at the beginning of each week and feel overwhelmed by how much I have to do I think about August 2017. I think about all of the knowledge, skills, and connections I will have earned and developed by the time I finish my New Media Journalism Master’s program. I think about all of the opportunities I will have when I can add that Master’s degree to my resume and the doors I will be able to open. The idea of where I will be 12 months from now truly drives me to do my best to make sure that I’ll be in the best position possible upon graduation. I know that when I get to the final week of my final class I’ll be able to look back at this post and smile at just how far I have come. 

[malcolmsmastery-blog]

Week 3- PLN Journal logo.

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Week 3 - PLN Journal Feedly Reader screenshot. 

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Week 3 - PLN Journal Social Links

The following are links to my Papaly and my Linked In accounts. 

https://papaly.com/User364439

https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolm-carney-5b7bbb96?trk=hp-identity-name