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New Media Journalism Final Project

I have just completed the final class of New Media Journalism for the master’s program of Full Sail University.  This by far was the most challenging course that I have completed. Nevertheless I’m proud to say that I made it through.

           This course was nothing that I expected it to be. Even though I had several months to complete my capstone project, I was not fully prepared for the thesis requirements.  In the course prior I created an online article that I titled “The Convicted.” In this project there were many multimedia elements that made this project great and I am so proud of my creation.

           When I submitted the first assignment for this class my professor definitely made sure that I put my best foot forward. I was not aware of what was expected from me in this course.

This course was not of my original objective.  I thought this would be a refreshing final course.

After I reflected on the full requirements of this course and what was needed to complete my final thesis, I gathered my sources and begin to create the thesis of the project that I was so proud of.

One objective that I did meet was the distribution through social media. My cap stone project was posted on all social platforms that I was apart of.  This was very helpful in getting my story out to the targeted audience.  The feedback that I received on social media and from my professor was very helpful.

This course has pushed me to mental limits that I did not think I could reach. I plan to take the studying methods and the work ethic that I applied for this course to my future career and my personal life.  I look forward to seeing what’s in store for me upon completing this program. I’m so thankful that I took that final step of courage and completed my dream.

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Public Relations and Reputaion Management

During this past month I’ve been completing the Public Relations and Reputation Management course. This is the 10thcourse of the New Media Journalism Master’s Program for Full Sail University.  I’m very excited to complete this course and be one step closer to my Master’s.

During this course I was able to study the ethics and expectations of a journalist.  I enjoyed researching the great tips for a public relations representative.  I was able to reflect on the relationship between a journalist is very crucial and coincides with each other.  It is vital that a Public Relations representative know how important their work and work ethics also effects the work of a journalist.  I am looking for more tips from a PR rep to a journalist. In the future I hope this lesson will help me to conduct a great relationship with a PR rep in my career.

My favorite assignment was creating my “About Me” video for my website page. For the first assignment we had to edit the content for the “About Me” page on the website.  I felt that I needed to update my content, therefore adding a video for more detail was great. I had a few technical difficulties editing the video. Although, I made my video as professional as possible, I still wanted the vibrations to come off personal for everyone watching. I was able to give more in depth and detail about myself that I didn’t put in text.  I had fun creating the video and I am also using it as a rough draft.  I plan to make another updated video really soon.

When conducting the interview for the uses of baking soda, my camcorder malfunctioned. I wasn’t able to record the interview on film. Dr. Jefferey Summers was able to show me some of the effects of baking soda and peroxide has on clear retainers. I was able to take tips and educate others. That is the purpose of my website. I want to enlighten and educate anyone who reviews my website.

I’m very excited to see how these lessons will help me to further my career.

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Social Media and Online Community Engagement

During the past month I have completed the Social Media and online Community Engagement. This is one of the many courses for the New media Journalism master’s program at Full Sail University.  This course has been nothing less than challenging and informative to say the least.

One of my three expectations for this course were to find out how news is recovered through social media. With this expectation I wanted to know what posts or articles were considered newsworthy through social media.

I also wanted to know how that news was transferred and dispensed throughout certain media platforms. When certain posts or article are shared on social media, some can go viral with thousands to millions of views. This sometimes can create traffic to a certain person, place or thing. It can be something as simple as a person doing a good deed for the community or an unusual situation that raises more questions and curiosity to the reader. This may cause them to do further investigating on the specific topic.

My final expectation from this course was to earn how to keep an audience engaged and updated on news through social media. I wanted to know how to do the proper follow ups for current news and upcoming trending topics.

In this course I have learned how metric words and hashtags can keep my article on many databases. When creating a post hash tags are very important because it will keep your post in the search engine of that particular trend. For example, I did a story with two law enforcement exerts. One of them worked for the Los Angeles Police Department. I did the has tag for my social media post #LAPD. I did this so that whenever anyone searches the hash tag #LAPD my article will show in the search results.

I also learned how important cross promoting is on social media. Cross promotion is when you include your other social media platforms. For example, when I post anything on Facebook, it will also show up on my Twitter profile with the link to my original Facebook post. This is important because this will give your readers ways to follow you on all avenues.

I also saw it is very important to not be plain or bland when creating a social media post. You never want to start a post with “Go check out my latest article.” That’s very boring and not as creative as I am as an individual. You can maybe start with a question or a great picture caption. Make sure that it is something to catch the attention on the reader.

The things that I have learned from this course will help me engage properly on social media with any audience. Social media etiquette is one of the main focuses of this course.

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Multimedia Reporting

The past month I have been completing the Multimedia Reporting Course for the master’s program for Full Sail University. I had to repeat this course from last month for a better score. I have definitely appreciated the assignments of this course the second time around. 

My favorite assignment was the Special Olympics report. I had plenty of fun catching footage of the exciting event and athletes that were there.  This event gave me a chance to get footage at different angles. Be able to catch the students in action. Although I’ve done something similar but not exact.  When creating the visual report I enjoyed editing the footage of the athletes in action. Getting interviews on the scene was difficult because people were really busy and scattered from monitoring the children.

During this course I also captured the characteristics of an interviewer. While analyzing a few recommended interviews I was able to study the types of questions for an interviewee. I was also able to learn how to keep the momentum for a great interview even if the interviewee may steer away from the questions. My favorite interview to watch was the one of Chris Brown and Robin Roberts. Although she was asking very direct questions about his recent criminal charges against his ex-girlfriend, Brown would redirect the questions toward promoting his latest album. Robert’s would still ask general question still appealing to the audience. She didn’t stop trying to get recent updates about the charges Brown was facing. Although he didn’t really answer many questions with direct questions, he was still respectful and upbeat.  The atmosphere around this interview was very great and uplifting.

With this course I’ve taken it among myself to review a few other interviews from popular reporters. I’m also practiced teleprompter reading just so I can be prepared whenever I have to read while on television one day. I think with this course I should practice my on the scene interviews regardless of the setting. I feel as if I’ve learned everything I can from this course. I can’t wait to use it in the near future.

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Multimedia Reporting

Over the past 4 weeks I have been completing the Multimedia Reporting course. This course has been slightly challenging but I honestly feel as if I have accomplished a lot towards my future career goals.  I feel as if this course has helped to improve my interviewing skills the most. I'm very excited to see how far my new improved skills will take me.

The most challenging assignment for this course was the narrative interview. this was challenging for me because I couldn't find the proper person the narrate my story to the way that I wanted. I tried editing the audio as much as possible but I still was not pleased.  I did some research and watched a few videos from the class to help me become more settle in the narrative. I know that is one of my weaknesses that I want to work on to improve myself. I think that public speaking also would help during this course but it wasn't necessary for the assignments.

My favorite part of the course was the third week assignment. I had a lot of fun conducting an interview with a local upcoming plus size model. I was able to go behind the scenes of her photo shoot. I got some new insight on the photo shoot production how it all effects the media world. While interviewing the model I was able to edit and conduct our interview in the direction that she and I both desired.  The interview and assignment both turned out great. The model said that she will be using it for her portfolio in the near future. The only difficulty of this assignment was getting a third multimedia to include for the post. For obvious reason the photographer of the photo shoot did not want me to publish his pictures to my website until he did so first.

Overall this course was very helpful and informative. I will take everything that I've learned from this course and apply it to the next courses ahead. I'm very excited for what my future career has in store for 

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Digital News Production

This past month I was completing the Digital News Production. This was a very challenging course for me but yet fun at the same time.  This course challenged my technical skills and my judgment of news worthiness.

My expectations of this course was to be an on the scene reporter to any story that I found news worthy. I also expected to learn about the production within a news room.  I was also hoping to go more in depth of video production from live news.

The course’s expectations of me were to do more of the production and learn the odds and ends as I go. The course also wanted me to go out and find stories or follow a story that I deemed was news worthy. This course encouraged me to keep my webpage updated and to keep my social media linked together.

The content that I felt was most helpful were the tips of a great interview. These tips helped me to conduct two great interviews with two local attorneys in Greenville, South Carolina.  These tips also showed me how to use my microphone for my guests and why it’s important to use this with my camcorder during an interview. Although these tips were helpful I don’t think that I used them too well during my assignment. I will definitely make sure to take advantage of these tips for my future interviews.

This course has helped me as journalist because I am now capable of finding my own story, recording a story, edit a story and then publish it to the public. It is great to know all areas of news editing for yourself. This is important so that you won’t have to depend on the skills of someone else.  With a few more pointers and some more practice I feel that I will be more prepared in the future. I’m very excited to see how I can excel these skills in the future.

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Multimedia Journalism

For the past month I have been completing the Multimedia Journalism and it has been amazing.

I’ve accomplished and learned so much and I’m excited to use everything in the near future.

I learned how to edit audio presentations. I was also able to publish my blog webpage and my first podcast.  I plan to build on my webpage and add on creations to promote my brand.  This course was way more interesting than I had expected.  I can’t wait to use everything that I’ve learned to enhance myself in my career.

The most interesting assignment we completed was the podcast creation. I had been talking and thinking about Ideas for a podcast. When the assignment finally arrived I had the perfect idea for my podcast topic.  I decided to cover current events and life experiences along with great food recipes. I covered two upcoming chefs to include on my blog page.

The second assignment I learned how to work with adobe spark. I really enjoyed using this application because it enhanced the photos that I took during this assignment. It was a lot of fun creating the spark presentation and getting the feedback from my friends on social media.

I really enjoyed creating the podcast and the feedback I received from that on social media as well. During this course the social media usage was very important. Getting to know how the analytics of my webpage and how many people view it on a daily was also very interesting and fun to explore. The feedback that I received is another barrier that encouraged me to continue my podcast series.

There were many videos and tutorials to refer to for this course.  I plan to use those an many more to help me excel my skill for my podcast and blog page. The most helpful were the tips from NPRand the Podcast with Dan Carlin. The most difficult part about this course was creating the webpage. I had a lot of technical difficulties making sure that the proper links were included and guiding my readers to the right place. Over all I enjoyed this course. It was very hands-on and I strongly feel prepared to launch my official podcast and blog page.

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Mastery Entry

I recently completed the research and Investigation Skills development course for Full Sail University. I have found many new ways to verify resources and information. Multimedia and social media have both played a big part with in this course.

I was able to reflect on my original expectations of this course and I can say that I have been able to accomplish all of them. Over the past few weeks I have researched and created investigative stories by using public sources to conduct research on cities and public businesses. When collecting data to inform your audience you would have to make sure that the public can reach out and use the public source as well.

During this course I was also able to study the good and bad traits of an interviewer. A few great traits I also picked up are creating an authentic atmosphere and researching your interviewee. Make sure that you Boundaries are confirmed but that you also allow the interviewee to reveal their authentic selves.  Make the interview feel more like a conversation than a task.  Keep the interviews relevant to your audience interest.

I was also able to create an info graphic that would be informal to my website beat. I created a bar graph with the many reasons why millennials have delayed starting a family. When gathering this information I had to conduct a few interviews which can generally turn into casual conversations. I was not surprised to learn that most millennials are focused on financial stability before starting a family.

I also was able to define the experts I want to include for helpful resources of my website. I know my main interests will be fashion, current events and entertainment. You can use all networking avenues to help create a reliable resource. Most experts have started on a personal path and created a successful path to help others.

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A Community gives a helping hand....

After much help and many donations from the local community and close counties, a local woman now has a place to stay, food to eat and clothes to wear. When a local fire fighter asked for help, the humanity of others came showed face.

Gay Booker lost her mobile home to fire back in November 2018. All of her belongings were destroyed leaving her with nothing and nowhere to go.

“I believe I saw her wondering around few times during the holiday season,” said Quan Ellison of the Hot 96.3 the Block, a Greenville radio station. “I gave her some money one time and told her that I would pray for her.”

Since losing everything in the fire, Booker would be seen wondering the town and sleeping on the street. She has no local relatives or anybody to stay with during her hard times.

“I came across her this time and I said we have got to do something”, said Ellison.  Ellison says he spotted Gay on a cold afternoon in front of a local supermarket. He gave her a ride to a local motel and begin to do some reaching out. Ellison made live videos and posts to social media asking for help.

Shane Walton from the Parker county Fire department saw Ellisons’ post and started making some connections of his own. “He told me that he felt the story personally because he helped put out the fire that destroyed her home. With that he felt like it was his personal duty to make something happen,” Ellison said.

Walton made a Facebook post with contact info and a link to a GoFundMe account to help Booker. Minutes later the account raised $200 and Walton was receiving calls, text messages and emails for donations towards the proceeds for helping Booker. Walton even received help from friends in North Carolina and internationally.

Ms. Gay has received, clothes food and shelter since the public social media posts.  A helpful hand even donated a walking cane to help her get around easier.  Most donations were used to help with Booker’s immediate needs.

“When people saw Ms. Gay they literally fell in love with her. If this were my aunt, grandmother or uncle I would have done the same thing,” Ellison stated.

Since the post Ms. Gay has been placed in a temporary hotel out of the cold weather and off the street. She is currently waiting for a spot a local womens’ shelter but people are still pitching out a helping hand to Ms. Gay.  The community has showed how a little help can go a long way.

During a recent interview with Booker Shane, I was able to talk to them about the past few weeks and the difference a helpful community is.  With the late night temperatures getting as low as 20 degrees in the upstate, Booker was up against fatal results.

When Booker was asked how she was able to make it through tough times?  “I did not think or know that there was anyone left in the world that cared about me,” Booker said.  “I gained faith back in humanity. I never lost faith in myself. They will always be in my prayers.”

When Walton was asked why he was doing all of this responded, “My job isn’t just putting out fires it’s about helping people.”

Booker had been staying in a local micro hotel the past week.  She is currently trying to contact her nearest relatives.

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Why the Millennial Generation is Choosing to be Child Free

The millennial generation has many factors that are hindering the population rate. Within the past 7 years the fertility rate has decreased drastically. The total fertility rate of 2018 was 1.8 percent. That put the United States at a negative population growth.

There are a few major factors that have been discussed that millennials say have been links as to why millennials would rather live child free. Some of the reasons are stated as more of personal differences.

Times are definitely changing but finances are always going to be a main factor when expanding a family. Financial stability is very important. The cost of living is expensive. This does not include the student loan debt that some millennials have created for themselves. The unemployment rate in South Carolina is 77.1 percent according to www.bls.gov.

It is also noticed that having a family is not a main goal to be checked off on may millennial checklists. Millennials are taking advantage of traveling and finding their careers before settling down. Some of these factors may be frowned upon but they are realistic factors that are being taken into high consideration when millennials think about reproducing.

More woman and men are making sure that they are are emotionally stable and physically able to have a family. Female health issues are a major factor that is also considered for millennials when starting a family. The number of deaths caused by complications that come with pregnancy and childbirth have increased in the United States but has declined in other countries according to npr.org. The rate of materials deaths are 26.4 percent. Many women fear complications after giving birth such as weight gain, urinary and bladder issues, vaginal tear and scaring just to name a few.

Most millennials have more of a personal outlook with having children. They don't want to make the sacrifice or their independence and freedom. Millennials would rather get involved with traveling, furthering their education and creating better relationships with their partners, family and friends.

With other generations to follow, the millennials have shown where their hearts and dreams are. With a more successful back ground, this generation could be planning for a very successful generation to follow. This generation has shown that they are complete without having children. Whether is be the stress of finances, health issues or stress off the future pf the world; the new generation is taking everything into consideration before they began to repopulate.

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In the past four weeks in my Legal Aspects of Media class, I have been lead to think about the ethics and legal end of media. This. Class has made me wonder about the moral character of a few of our discussions. 

My favorite assignment for this course was the defamation presentation to post on YouTube. I have never made a presentation like that before. It was very new and interesting to me.  I now know how to make certain presentations using slide show images, with notes included. one of the cases that we had to review were Sullivan vs New York Times. Although I was familiar with case and it’s been a few years since I studied it, I was very excited to present it to the public.  The second case was Gertz versus Welch. I had never heard of this case so it was really great to learn about sit and present it as well.  With of these cases gave me more information about defamation, how it applied to media and how it affects me and others differently in other states.  Both of these cases had similar situations but different outcomes.  Libel and defamation suits are very serious and break a persons brand. 

Of all the topics we covered this month I believe that the copyright topics will help me the most as a communication specialist.  Copyright should be a topic discussed by anyone who is using the internet and social media. I remember going over copyright just briefly in undergrad, but this course definitely went in depth for me and helped me understand more of the do's and don't 's when using someone else original work. Copyright is something that is overlooked by many. People  are using work from others on a regular basis without giving the proper citation to their work.  I think that if more people were educated on the seriousness of this topic we wouldn't witness so many cases today. 

The knowledge I acquired this month will prepare me to handle potential legal issues in the communications industry because we get to learn first hand what will happen and how if can ruin a brand and effective trust of the public. Many of the cases could have been avoided with the proper research and moral ethics. This is something that should be applied in our everyday life. Honesty is the best way to protect your brand. 

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During the past four weeks I was completing the course of Writing for Interactive media. The is the third course of the New Media Journalism Curriculum. I have definitely learned new angles for Interactive writing.  In this course I was able to figure a perfect platform for my social media. The platform and format have to be eye catching to the audience. It helped me understand the ways to draw the audience in and hopefully encourage them to stay updated. 

In this course I also learned great points to creating an my "About Me" page. I want my page to reflect all elements of me. This also helped me to make sure that my page gives clear understanding of what I am about, what I am promoting and how to connect with me. After viewing many examples I was able to see what to do and what could use more edits.  I also noticed that the more pictures you have on your page, the higher the possibilities of having a bigger audience. People want to know more about you and pictures are literally one of the view points people can use to get familiar with you. 

Social Media has become the main source of communication in connecting with the world. Social Media is also used as an outlet. This course has also enlightened me on how use social media as a better platform for my profession.  Social media is changing from day to day in order to stay current with the world. As a journalist social media will be used to connect with the audience and to receive feedback. 

In my profession this course will help me promote myself and it will also help me to help promote others. I believe this course asl well as the others are all pieces to help me create a better version of myself to promote to others.....

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New Media and Communications

The New Media and Communications course has helped me to narrow down my interest and help me to create my target audience. Before this course I knew what my personal interests were and I knew I wanted to share with anyone who would listen.I had to figure how I wanted to connect to the audience. I wanted to make a Vlog for all my key interest. While taking this course I was educated on the importance of having a target audience. I knew that I wanted an. Audience that was a reflection of myself and my interest. So I had to find the interest that affected me the most such as healthy relationships, entertainment news and fashion trends. To combine those interest I had to find the “common denominator” of my audience expectations. This course also informed me on tips to keep my audience's attention. You have to make sure that the audience knows that you are here for them. Manager your time to create you blog stay on schedule with your posts.  By narrowing down my target interest I was able to manage posts for multiple topics. There were many current events and topics to discuss from all my interest but decided to reflect on only one topic per week. I chose Youtube as my blog vendor. I chose Youtube because I am very familiar with the website. I didn't want to limit my viewers or have too many restrictions on the content. Youtube is a common website for video bloggers. I make sure that I have an even tone and a calm setting for my video posts. This course has also enlightened me on the importance of creating a relationship and positive history with you content and audience. You have to have a passion about your topics and make sure that your audience can relate to you on a personal level. 

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