masoncommmajor

[masoncommmajor]

Personal Reflection

Throughout this entire process, I experience some minor trouble with finding a specific topic since my discipline is relatively broad.

In short, the Communication field is a broad, but necessary spectrum that touches on interpersonal communication, public relations, broadcasting, and even bit of psychology and ethnography. In the COMM classes here at Mason, we learn a lot about how communication ties into society and development. On the other hand, we learn about communication, just as regular people and students, from a different standpoint than we do in actual Communication courses.

I initially picked Communication as a major because I could not just major in “journalism.” Now that I think about it, I am glad I am majoring in such a broad major because of how applicable it is to so many potential job positions. Communication is a part of human understanding and development and to be able to understand the different angles covered within the major is important for writers especially.

The research I conducted for this project was not too difficult because my Communication professors have made everything at Mason in terms of resources so accessible. I learned a lot about how to access the resources my professors have had available for years and found some useful information for my other projects.

I did not learn a lot of new information in terms of those resources because I knew a lot about what kind of databases and publications to pull from beforehand. However, the main thing I struggled with in completing this project was picking an angle to cover when looking for my sources. Since the discipline is so broad, I had a hard time choosing between my concentration, Journalism, and a broader topic such as interpersonal communication patterns. I ended up covering most all disciplines on the spectrum of communication–especially public relations and communication theory.

I believe a lot of communication scholars like to touch on the media directly when discussing patterns and topics, which was a challenge to get away from. I did decide to include several media-related articles in the end because of how relevant the articles were, especially in this political climate.

Politics was another topic that came up along with my research in communication and journalism. Separating the two can be tough, and I was expecting less of my formal publications to be littered with political journalism than there actually was (especially the journals from the National Communication Association). This didn’t come as a surprise or disappointment, however, because I also ended up including the relevancy of politics in the communication discipline in some of my topics.

Overall, I think more people should understand the important role communication plays in our world. It’s not just a matter of “talking” or “media studies”, it is a complex field with different facets. Going into college I did not expect to learn anything about theories, rhetoric, or public policy in relation to communication/journalism, but I am so glad I did.