Assessment Task #2.2 FINAL BLOG/JOURNAL REPORT
Media Industries 1
Due date: Friday, 8 June 2012
Assessment value: 20%
By Ashleigh Denham, s3283832
Role- as it evolved/changed throughout the project, your position and function within the group structure, the issues you faced and your part in formulating solutions.
The name of my research project is Dead Air. My team’s research question was: What is the importance of radio in our present landscape of predominantly visual-oriented media, and what will radio be like in 2022? Within this question, my original role within the group was to focus on early history and entertainment within radio. I was to contribute four thousand of the twelve thousand-words required for this report through exploring this topic. My three other group members each had their own topics of focus, in which they would also report four thousand words per topic to make up our collaborative word limit.
As our research progressed, new ideas began to formulate, and we formulated a group decision to broaden my area of research to arts and entertainment within radio, and in this allow room to include radio history within the subsectors and introduction of my report.
Our team made a mutual decision on four subsectors to work with in our reports, to use as a guidance tool and a method of ensuring all our reports reflected the main key points and research question, and to ensure each report related to each another. We decided to focus our findings on strong influences that have shaped radio to be what it has become today. Thus, our four subsectors became: the convergence of audio and visual media, technological shifts, generational differences, and lastly, the various modes of participation within the platform of radio (such as social media).
As our research continued and the report began to come together, a collaborative decision was made that just three of us would continue to work on the four reports (worth four thousand words each.) Thus, each of us would focus on our report of four thousand words, and together write the fourth report, also worth four thousand words. We now gained an extra report to work on, so we allocated the “music” report to be a shared effort, and that our fourth team member would focus on building our website. Our fourth member would also contribute to our conclusions, as well as fine-tuning and adding shape to our four main reports.
My responsibilities as a member of the research group included attending and contributing to team meetings, formulating research plans and establishing key components of the final report, completing research and report for my area of focus (arts and entertainment), contributing to the music report, utilising networks in attempt to track interview opportunities, working with fellow team members in a productive manor to find solutions to issues that arose, editing a small series of videos to publish on the website, contributing to the development of our group presentation content and speech, and staying connected with team members (in person, via email, Google Docs, and our Facebook group).
Progress – in your research capability, in observing your learning behaviors, in identifying your strengths and weaknesses.
I believe that my research capabilities have increased greatly in since undertaking this research and report task. I now have greater insight as to how much research must truly be undertaken for a report of this multitude. During this research task I utilized a number of readily available resources, some I was not previously familiar with. Through this I learned to combine findings from various platforms of information, and not work purely from the single major information supplier.
Throughout the writing and researching stages I showed attentiveness toward my learning behaviors; how and when I worked best, as well as recognizing my strengths and my weaknesses. I discovered that I learn best when demonstrated a practical way of doing something, then experiencing it for myself. Once shown the effective ways of conducting research, I knew I beheld the knowledge I needed to put it into action. Once I put it into action and became familiar with the resources and how to properly conduct effective research, I was able to conduct my self in a manor that proved effective and beneficial to my group contribution as well as my individual report progress.
I consider a strength I have within the area of research and report writing to be taking and pursuing a genuine interest of the research topic. I consider myself being good at collecting large amounts of information via profuse amounts and varieties of resources, and then extracting the parts I believe to be most relevant and beneficial to my report and topic of focus.
A weakness of mine in which I have recognized through this research task is being able to contribute decent information to other segments of my groups report. I found that during group meetings I was often unable to contribute effective ideas or information to topics that were not my own, as most of my knowledge was of my area of focus and interest.
Strategies – research strategies, collaborative strategies and personal learning strategies, which ones did you try, how appropriate do you think your choices were, what worked/what didn’t work?
One research strategy that I utilized in the course of this task involved collecting a large amount of information from a variety of resources, bookmarking and annotating relevant chunks of information, using theses chunks to guide, shape and inspire the beginning stages of my report writing, then lastly stripping back that information until I was left with the parts which would most benefit my report. As this strategy worked effectively for my study, I would definitely use it again when completing research in the future as it helped me to gain a strong vision of what my desired outcome would be. I provided myself the information I needed to delve deeper into my topic of focus, then concentrated on finding the most valuable and constructive research findings.
A collaborative study strategy that we facilitated as a research team involved linking each other via Google Docs and Dropbox to each other’s reports whilst still in their working progress stages. Here we would reflect on one another’s work, provide feedback and general impressions, as well as relevant research findings for one another’s topics of focus. This strategy had a positive influence on the way in which we interacted as a research group as we were always connected and had the opportunity to relate as a research team out side of the university domain.
A personal learning strategy that I have employed throughout this research and report task has been using my online blog as a means of personal reflection on my progress within this subject. In addition to this, I have been able to publicly display my research online for followers and fellow researchers to view and comment.
Problems – nominate a few key problems or difficulties that you faced and discuss how you resolved these.
One issue we faced was attaining interviews. We wanted to use interviews as apart of our research and report content as well as to publish on our web page. Although we did end up with some form of interview for one of our reports, we had originally hoped for more. I believe this aspect of our work failed due to a lack of time management, as well as lack of communication from those we were trying to reach. When one interview was almost secured, just as all was looking promising, it became very hard to attain a reply from the person we had been in touch with, and thus the dead line quickly approached and left us no time to pursue the interview further. Although this is something we cannot control, it is something to keep in mind next time we try to communicate with someone in this manor.
As we were after something visually engaging we could include on our web page to attract an audience and feed interesting and relevant information to viewers, and we were unable to post footage of a recorded interview, we decided to record vox-pops and publish these in stead. This was a successful solution to our problem and was achieved through collaborating as a team and thinking of realistic alternatives. I learnt from our slight failure of time management in this part of our study, and now have a better idea of how long attaining an interview would take in an instance such as this.
Connections & intersections – what do you see as the value of this course, what have you learnt overall about your problem solving skills, your learning, your group interactions and your networking abilities? How do you see what you have learnt about yourself via the process the content of your research fitting into your future career development and future work?
This course has acted as a significant contributor to the great amount of valuable information I now hold regarding the media industry, researching strategies, group interaction and my personal learning skills and behaviors. Due to this course I now feel more aware of the nature of the media industry, and how best to approach my pursuit of a career within it. Throughout the course, I was exposed to various elements and information I had not yet been taught or discovered for myself. As I now hold that knowledge I feel sufficiently informed of what I can expect to be ahead.
I have discovered that I work efficiently within situations where problem solving is required. I have the ability to think innovatively both in an individual and collaborative setting, and through the experiences I have been apart of in this project I feel I have confidence in my capability to problem solve in future projects and work spaces in a professional and competent manor.
My learning is at it’s best when followed up on soon after information has first entered my mind. I found I would best retain information when I would research further on topics discussed during the course, take notes on key points and reflect back on them throughout the course of the subject to ensure they were learnt long term and did not stay only in my short term memory.
I have learnt that group interactions need to be frequent when working in a research team. Communication is key. Working collaboratively with everyone’s ideas and learning how to give relevant and informative feedback are important elements that I have learnt through group interactions in this research task.
I discovered that I hold valuable networking opportunities and connections with those in the industry, however I need to keep time management in mind when planning to conduct an interview with them and learn how best to facilitate and pursue these connections. I have learnt from this experience and now hold a clear idea of how best to approach this in the future.
I unquestionably see what I have learnt about myself via the process of undertaking this research fitting to my future career development and future work as I have recognized the ways in which I best relate with others in a professional research setting, I have developed skills in research and working effectively within given deadlines, in public presentations and public speaking, and in pursuing genuine interests in a particular area of focus. Most importantly, I have conducted research in an area of which I am particularly interested in pursuing as a career in, radio. I now have a strong understanding of the nature of radio, beyond surface knowledge. I have delved deeper into radio and still my passion remains for this type of broadcast medium, I am yet more intrigued and enthused to carry out a career in this area. I feel like this research I have conducted and the report I have contributed to will benefit me in applying for job positions in radio as I will have a strong knowledge of the industry before I have entered it, and I consider this to be appealing to employers.
