UniBlog: A Rather Uneventful Day

Morning morning! Hope you slept well. Very odd one for me today, as I never usually start blogs the second I wake up - so if this is mistake-ridden - don't blame me, I literally just woke up

Thursday 29th October

One and only one thing happened on Thursday, and that was the Key Concepts In Journalism lecture which covered the following

- Fake News - The Assignment

The Lecture

As per usual, we had a little recap over the past couple of lectures and briefly going over Web 1.0 and Web 3.0 and how before it was very much one (news) source to many people, but now it's many (news) sources to many audiences - especially with citizen journalism.

Fake News

After the re-cap we went into fake news and the differences between fake and real news (trying to spot fake news) and the fact that some fake news articles use a "base" or parts/a picture from a real story however intentionally twist the story/narrative/facts to produce a bogus article.

The Assignment

Wow! We're absolutely blasting through this!

So, the assignment is split into two - and is thankfully (?) a little more "structured".

As much as I like to do "my own thing" and write about what I please, I find having some sort of structure - or template is like a glider uses a winch - it (the winch) pulls the glider into the air....where it needs to be, and then the pilot does the rest - meaning the pilot doesn't have to push a dozen different buttons to get enough power to take off.

With my writing, this sort of puts me "in the air" it gives me a subject to talk about and "guidelines" to stick to - and gives me a place to start my essay/assignment.

Starting without "a place to start" is like pushing the buttons to get the plane to take off - you got to push them in the right combination to get a smooth introduction which leads into a nice, easily readible piece of work.

Enough on gliders - the (first) assignment gives you six different topics for you to pick from/write about or cover. (you picking one of which)

1) The role of Journalism (in society) and explain how (new) technology is affecting journalism/journalistic practices 2) What is News and why does it matter?

3) Advantages and disadvantages of citizen journalism and how it's changing journalism/j-list practices 4) After choosing a genre, discuss how said genre has evolved over time by analysing different formats.

5) Explain and analyse how the (British) media has framed immigration (of EU Nationals) to the UK

6) Explain gatekeepers, channels and forces (gatekeeping) and discuss the role they play in shaping journalism and this outcome - also use current real-life examples

This will have to be roughly (10% over/under) 2,500 words long.

- First of all, apologies for the vagueness - I don't want to copy the assignment word for word, A) because there's a little bit of complicated terminology B) there's probably a rule hidden deep within the terms and conditions saying that I am not allowed to share university material outside the campus - but by writing it in my own words, I don't allow you to get a degree by reading my blogs XD I've chosen to go for 3 because citizen journalism is a small, niche interest of mine - out of the 6 options I feel I could write the most about it.

Maybe it's not a niche interest - maybe I just "understand" the topic and know what the question is asking, not sure.

Bored.

Okay, I admit - I got bored on Thursday, I sort of ran out of things to do after the lecture, so I created an absolutely massive road-trip.

I wanted to see how long going around the world would take - and had I started driving from the Southern tip of South Africa, did a little zig-zag and somehow find myself in Japan - it'd take over 500 hours, and 20 Days. This covered Africa, Europe, a touch of the middle east and Asia.

From here I'd work my way into Canada (from the Japanese Coast) and then do a road-trip down to Panama City - the longest continuous road in the Americas. (stopped by the Darrien Gap). I'd then plan a flight from Panama up to the northernmost regions of Europe...where I plan to hold a little surprise - but I'll keep you updated on that one.

Whilst messaging old friends on Steam, one of them responded....Shaheer.

Shaheer was a good mate, we used to do a lot on Mudrunner, bit on Roblox - we hung out quite a bit "back in the good old days" - but since I rarely, if ever used steam, we sort of fell out of contact.

It was only because I was looking for attendees for the planned surprise in December - had it not been for that damn...that'd be a friendship lost...

He fortunately had Discord - which meant that I could add him as a friend and keep up to date (as Discord is my forth house other than Uni, iRacing and the one down in Surrey.

Boredom is good. Having a boring day is good - and in some ways can actually be fun - I think of it like Christmas - if it was Christmas every day it'd get repetitive and boring and you couldn't use the gifts you got the previous day, because there's more to open

It's all well and good having fun, exciting action packed days where everything is crazy but without those days where you can just lie in bed binge watching British Cop Chases...you're gonna be worn out - and if you haven't got a day to BE worn out and laze about and recollect your energy...then the trips you do to far off lands to do exciting things are just going to turn into chores....and that's where the problems begin - because if you don't enjoy having an active wild life-style going skydiving or meeting lions every week - what's the point in doing them if you can't enjoy them? Then where does that leave you? "It seems I just can't enjoy anything anymore" and that my friends - is the plot to one hell of a book!

Finishing off this day, I had chicken and Pasta - which was enjoyable.

Having known about a 24 Hour (charity) race hosted by Jimmy Broadbent since he announced it on stream, myself and Will (Burfield) were interested, however needed to know the date.

Exactly an hour after the announcement of the race-date came out every single slot had been filled...and we hadn't filled the entry form nor paid the small entry fee.

It was annoying because it would have been great bonding for me and Will in a shit-box car (Volkswagen Jetta) for 24 Hours, but planning what we were going to call the team, our driver line-up and other things got in the way.

Keyboard Motorsport did get in however, so if we have to support anyone, it's definitely going to have to be them and I really think that they are the underdogs for the event.

And with that...we've reached the end...the end of Thursday, and the end of the Blog - so far as I write this it's 11:36 in the morning (on Friday) - and other than having the good old back pain and writing this blog, nothing has happened!

I'll see you in the next one!