Reflection

I’m going to start out by saying that this class was by no means, what I had expected and simply put - I was pleasantly surprised. I expected to be watching shows and movies and to be writing essays about them, but being able to blog about them instead was awesome. So far in my academic career I have been instructed solely on academic writing, and while I enjoy that, I do feel that it is easy to lose ones sense of voice and personality when writing formal essays all the time. That is what I really enjoyed about this class -- we were able to work on both our formal and informal writing styles, the latter being typically overlooked.

I, like my others in this class, had never blogged before, and was a little turned off by it. I admit it, I had some stereotypical thoughts about blogging and thought it was nerdy. But, after blogging for this class, I have a completely new view. It is a forum that allows for much discussion that would’ve otherwise gone unmentioned. I had certainly thought about what TV shows and mainstream movies are trying to hint at, tell us and so forth but this class increased my knowledge of that greatly. Not only did the subject material help, but the insight of fellow classmates really got me thinking.

As far as what I struggled with in this class, I had trouble narrowing down my ideas. Once I watched a show and began blogging, I had trouble keeping my conclusions narrow. I just felt that there is an infinite number of ways to looking at each and every show that has been blogged about in this class. It was hard for me to pick one. Another thing that I had a hard time with was changing the structure of my blogs - maybe that’s not a bad thing though. I thought about this when writing, and ultimately didn’t worry too much about it too much, as I thought that it established my personality, something that is important when blogging. I like to think of myself as a good writer, and I genuinely enjoy writing, so it was tough for me to break out of my comfort zone. Having this class formed around blogging rather than simply essays is a great way to do that. It was interesting to read a blog and get this sense of voice from classmates, and then relating that to who they were in person.

I think that I share with many other classmates in that I enjoyed being able to watch whatever show we wanted and to be able to write about whatever angle we wanted. If we were confined to specific shows, I feel that this class wouldn’t have been nearly as beneficial to all of us. I was fairly happy with the content of most of my blogs, however I did do a decent amount of tweaking when I went back through. I focused on cleaning them up, trimming the fat, in a sense. I tend to get carried away and drag on about certain points so I aimed to eliminate some of the overlap. I also worked on the appearance of them, and put videos directly in the blogs rather than links to you tube. I learned that appearances, paragraph length, and voice were all-important things to consider when blogging. Though the ideas and content are the crucial, if you are lacking in the other areas, you blog may be overlooked. It is really important to consider the audience (something that I knew, but didn’t necessarily put too much thought into).

This class has certainly changed my outlook on TV and mainstream media in general. While I had certainly thought about it before, I am much more aware of what shows are getting at when watching now. I am a much more educated viewer than I was. In the past it would’ve been easy to get lost in a show, and think its only goal was to make you laugh, cry, etc…but now I realize that shows go a lot deeper than simply getting emotional reactions from people. All in all, there is a lot more to the TV business in general than I thought. While I have always had respect for Hollywood writers and the people who come up with these ideas, I really am amazed at how complicated shows are today.

Blog = Fog ---> Reflection = Perfection

I came into this writing class excited, for I have not taken a writing class for years and found the topic, Television and American Culture, to be something that I was truly interested in. I will be honest, as soon as I heard we would be blogging, I felt immediate disappointment. The classes that I have blogged for in the past have been the worst assignments given in college. Each and every student DREADED our blogs. To my surprise, however, I really enjoyed blogging this time. I have never read blogs about things that I was interested in before, just other students work about ancient art and really boring topics before because I was forced to. Little did I know, there is a whole blogging world out there that interests me in something I like to read, talk, and hear about- Television. I can find a blog on any and every show that I watch, and more often than not they get me thinking about deeper meanings of the shows, character analysis, and predictions for future episodes that intrigue me!

It was difficult at first, not to find a show to blog about, but to blog about it without summarizing the episode or season because I felt that people were not familiar with what I was talking about. After a few tries, and researching popular blogs to see how the pros were doing it, I started to get the hang of it! I actually enjoy discussing shows that I like, and allowing myself to critique them as well.

I also enjoy trying to really find my sense of voice when blogging. At first, I am pretty sure I didn’t have one. But now, I am slowly but surely gaining one and really find it interesting and challenging to grasp one that truly suites me. I also took pleasure in reading my classmates blogs and trying to hear their voice as well.

I found it hard to believe that my views about the television shows that I liked and disliked could be changed just by writing and reading a few blogs. After reflecting on how much I have learned throughout this course it is clear how wrong I was. I have learned to look at television in a whole new light. Any time I notice something funny, or off, or offensive, or even conversation provoking, I think about how I could propose my ideas in a blog. I am very thankful that I have taken this course, for many reasons. But if for solely for the fact that I now think more creatively and less mindlessly while watching television, I am more than pleased.

Reflection On Blogging

Prior to this class I honestly thought that not once in my entire life would I write a blog. In fact, the idea of blogging sounded kind of juvenile to me; all I could picture in my head were over-enthusiastic people ranting and raving about how such and such was the best/worst thing they had ever witnessed. Upon learning that a major portion of this class involved keeping a personal blog I was a little anxious at first because I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

My first blog on the show Undercover Boss followed a summary type format very reminiscent of the writing styles taught in most classes, but as my blogs progressed I experimented with different formats triggering my creative side and allowing me to better represent my opinions. I really enjoyed the un-strict guidelines that a blog provides, granting the ability to truly personify my writing style because there is no set layout on what a blog is or should include. Reminiscing on shows that I had not seen in a while, and remembering what I enjoyed or disliked about them, took me on an analytical journey that helped me to appreciate the shows in a new way.

Blogging created many obstacles for me that I had to overcome in order to develop my voice. Before this class I mainly watched television strictly for entertainment purposes and rarely analyzed the veiled connotations of many of the shows on television. The first step in my process to become a better blogger was to watch these shows in a questioning manner, thinking about the who, what, where, when, and whys of the shows I was writing about. After doing preliminary research I had to consider how to draw the reader into my blog by making valid points that were engaging and thought provoking. I felt that introductions like the one I wrote on the show Man vs. Wild helped in doing this because it provided an exciting yet relevant intro to the series. Creating a blog that was comprehensible to viewers was also one of my primary goals. I wanted to develop blogs that were simple enough in nature to be an entertaining read, while still looking at facets of each show that were not evidently known. In my blog on The Soup I tried to keep the conversation light and did my best to interject personal commentary whenever I could. Pulling away from summarizing shows was, and is, still very difficult for me. At first, forcing myself to look at shows with scrutiny frustrated me because I had a difficult time formulating my thoughts. Making my blogs visually stimulating, as well as interactive via links, helped me to overcome some of this issue, but it is still a work in progress.

To me blogging is a very personal type of writing that allows the author to critique a show, pointing out things they like or dislike, disregarding other aspects of the show in order to provide a stronger argument. In a sense blogging is similar to keeping a personal journal on your thoughts only other readers have the option of examining it. Blogging gives me the ability to provide my personal touches and opinions while still portraying over-arcing themes from the show being analyzed. While the tendency to create a blog that everyone will like is tempting, blogging is really about describing how you feel about a certain subject; in the case of this class television shows. This highly uncensored form of writing is something that you do not see in scholastic texts. Blogging allows the writer to really show their voice without any constraints or guidelines.

Over the course of the semester (if you could call it that) I truly learned to enjoy the art of blogging. It was interesting to read about what other people thought of shows that I had seen and I gained some insight into other series that I was unfamiliar with. Everyone had a unique voice to their blogs which showed off the diversity of my classmates and enabled me to watch their writing, as well as my own, further develop throughout the course. The structure of these blogs really allowed me personal growth as a writer because of their relaxed guidelines. I now feel that this style of writing should be implemented into more college level writing classes because it really enabled me to express thoughts in a manner I was previously unfamiliar with. By making someone follow a strict mold it is much harder to learn how to think outside the box so to speak. After writing all these blogs I now look at television in a very different light. Television really is a world community now and has just as many sub-cultures as the population watching it. TV creates emotions, conversations, and a common ground among people who use it daily as some form of outlet source, representing people’s ideas and views on society. There are infinite possibilities on where television can go in the future as it is now a staple commodity in our lives. Blogging is sure to follow television’s trends and has really opened my eyes to a new form of expression that I can actually see my self taking part in again.

Reflection

When we were first told that part of this writing class would include posting a blog, I was not happy. I had never read a blog, and I certainly had never even thought about posting one. However, I found myself thoroughly enjoying our class blog. I liked reading what other people thought about popular shows, and I enjoyed sharing my own thoughts as well. I loved seeing how people's voices were apparent in their writing, especially as I got to know people in the class. Putting a face to a blog is an interesting perspective on a somewhat-anonymous way of sharing thoughts.

The hardest part of the blogging for me was trying not to repeat myself. When I start writing a blog, I find that it often takes on a direction of its own. Sometimes this direction is not at all what I planned on writing, but I like the new ideas that come to me as I'm putting together the blog. However, I found myself repeating the same main points and concepts in my blogs.

I also had a hard time coming up with ideas for my blogs. I didn't have much interest in summarizing a show, and since I don't follow many shows I found it difficult to find TV material to write about. However, by thinking about what shows I had recently watched that created some type of reaction in my thoughts (suprise, disgust, laughter) I was able to come up with some blog ideas. My Toddlers and Tiaras blog stemmed from the shock I felt after watching an episode of the show. The Biggest Loser concept came to me when I realized the irony of eating pizza while watching a weight loss show. Each blog was generated from some sort of reaction to a TV show.

My favorite part about the blogging was being able to connect a TV show to a larger concept. I found that this way of writing mimicked the way I typically think. I'm a "big-picture" type of person, and I tend to think about how a show fits into our culture instead of simply enjoying the TV program. I decided to write about Deal or No Deal because while watching the show, I realized that each contestant had very stereotypical personalites that tie into our idea of "good Americans". Although this can be a curse when I'm simply trying to relax and watch TV, I found the blogs to be a great outlet for these thoughts. I liked having the chance to share my thoughts with the blogging community as well.

I loved that we had so much freedom in terms of writing our blogs. Many writing classes that I have been in require a very structured and specific type of writing. I really enjoyed the opportunity to write about a subject of my choice. I think that this also made reading the class blog more interesting. Reading 17 blog posts on the same required prompt would have been miserable! Instead, we had the opportunity to hear the thoughts and opinions of our classmates, which always provides a unique learning experience.

When I went back and revised my blogs, I fixed a lot of grammatical mistakes. I tend to write fast, so this is an issue for me. I also tried to take out parts that felt repetitive or unnecessary to me. I noticed that throughout the course of the class, my writing seemed to flow a little better. I became more comfortable writing a free-flowing blog rather than a structured essay-type of blog. My first blog about Toddlers and Tiaras follows a typical introduction, body, conclusion setup, but my last blog about Wifeswap has a much less structured feel.

Overall, I thought that this was a great class that allowed for much more freedom and expression than most writing classes. I was pleasantly suprised by the assignments and my enjoyment of blogging! I loved getting to know my classmates through their blogs, and I thought that everyone had very unique outlooks on TV. My relationship with TV now involves a broader knowledge base since I have been introduced to so many new shows through my peer's blogs.

Blog On

I’ve always had a love hate relationship with blogging. It’s hard to understand how extremely personalized, un-fact checked, and unedited work has become such an online influence. Its appeal becomes increasingly obvious as soon as you start participating in one. Admittedly, I’m a hypocrite. I’ll come clean and say as much as I like reading and visiting blogs-I’m sure they constitute ninety percent of the webpages I visit- I have never had any interest whatsoever in writing blogs or commenting on them. But as soon as I started, I could instantly see the appeal. I notice when that when I blog, I am constantly thinking of the millions of potential readers, ambiguously surfing the web. Maybe a few of them will stumble upon my blog, and maybe some of them will even read it. Blogging is like meeting a group of people for the first time, albeit without ever knowing who they are or what they think. You want your blog to be inviting, amiable, funny, you want your blog to appeal to everyone, but mostly you just want it to be liked, and returned to again and again.

Blogging is very much like any kind of writing but its peculiarities as a form sometimes make it hard to get used to. Seeing my words on a page accessible by any of the millions with Internet access, made me first feel like a bit of an exhibitionist. It takes a while to get use to the fact that your words are out there exposed for all the world to see. In this way blogging is just a reminder that anybody serious about writing, or their own writing should be prepared for the fact that others will be able to read, and perhaps disagree with either their ideas or style. I’ve also come to realize that blogging is much less an exercise in stream of consciousness dissemination than I had thought. It requires preparation and organization of your thoughts and arguments.

Blogging can be cathartic, exciting, and maddening all at the same time. Many of my strengths and weaknesses with writing in other forms are similarly visible in the blog. It has been hard for me to find my own ‘voice’ while blogging. It is hard to be conscious of those uniquely characteristic parts of your personality that imbue your blog and create an imagined individual to your readers. It’s also makes one realize just how difficult writing as a form can be. It’s difficult to be satirical in a short paragraph that is probably going to be largely glossed over without the sensory ability to show visible facial expression or audible tone. This is where blogging has to be separated from other forms of writing. I find myself revising my blogs to be concise and digestible, and to communicate my underlying mood more patently, as again, it is hard to build tension or irony in several abridged sentences and paragraphs. It’s also hard to be timely, and by extension prescient, which is what I think all blogs aspire to be. I often find myself wanting to indulge my own thoughts about things that are not necessarily bound to the present.

The lens of timeliness is how I’ve now come to understand TV and the experience of watching it. I’ve come to realize that if something is on TV it must be related to current trends in some way or another. I even noticed this on pay-tv movie channels like Showtime and starz. After Dennis Hopper died you could watch Blue Velvet, Apocalypse Now, and so one, decisions made maybe even subconsciously by some programming director. I’ve also come to see how communal TV can be. Events can be broadcast and shared experientially by billions of people. The world cup is perhaps the most recent and glaring example of how the world embraces television as a source of not just entertainment but also community and national pride. Television is thus much too multi-faceted in terms of the meaning it communicates and the goods, both tangible and ineffably, that it provides its audience. Something this meaningful and entrenched in the human mind won’t be going away if there are still people around to watch it.

The Reflection

I think what enjoyed most about the class and blogging in general was that part of my homework was watching television. This class allowed me to view programs I wouldn’t normally view and to look at them with more of a critical eye. There’s watching television and then there’s really watching television. I had a tendency to be one of those people who put the television on in the background and never really pay attention to what’s happening on the screen. When you’re blogging on television it makes it kind of hard to ignore what’s going happening on the screen. Now I really watch television. I find it difficult to form opinions on the shows I’m watching and not sound too opinionated when I blogged on them. I think the most difficult part of blogging was keeping a balance between what I’d seen on the screen and how I felt about what I’d seen. I’m definitely under the strong opinion that my last two blogs on Last Comic Standing were definitely my better blogs from the class. I feel that in the two blogs I posted on Last Comic Standing I have a strong combination of my opinion as well as summary. When I went about revising my blogs from class I really just went through and read them again making spelling and grammar corrections. I really enjoyed the points I made and the summaries as well. There wasn’t much I wanted to change as far as the content of my blogs went. My blog on Glee I worked over after the initial classroom workshop and when I went back and read it earlier today I was pleased with the content. Not having ever blogged before I personally feel as though I did pretty well through out the class. I noticed that by watching the program once and then watching a second time while blogging helped to add more duality towards my pieces. I certainly feel as though I progressed and improved vastly from my first blog to my last.

I’ve greatly enjoyed learning about the dynamic world of television. I definitely think that I have a greater appreciation for media and how it works in our culture. As I stated previously I was one of those people to use television as a background noise. I don’t feel like I can be that person any longer. This class has helped me to look at television with a closer eye, you could say. I never noticed before on Last Comic Standing that each of the comics showed throughout the show would be in the showcase at the end. Also I never noticed that most of these comics would be getting tickets to move on to the semi finals. Really watching a show for the first time has its definite benefits. I also never gave much notice to the shows opening until I watched and blogged on Pretty Little Liars. To be perfectly honest this shows opening really nails it and if I was flicking through the channels I’d most likely stop at a show like Pretty Little Liars thanks alone to the opener. This class has if anything given me new eyes and ears for television. It’s not just another entertainment outlet, television is truly a topic of conversation. What used to just be mindless noise and colors is now thought provoking and conversation starting. I think that I’ve progressed as a writer in the sense that before this I’d never blogged and now I have a better feeling for what blogging is and how to go about it. I’ve certainly progressed as a television watcher. I really enjoyed this class and the way it made me think outside the box and even try to think like a network executive. Having previously been a creative writer it was a refreshing change to step outside my box and really get critical and analytic with television and writing.

Blog Reflection

This class was nothing like any previous writing classes I’ve taken in the past, so the format was initially a little weird for me. I don’t regularly part take in any form of blogging or forums online, so the first couple of blogs that I wrote were probably the most difficult for me. In particular, the most difficult thing was having a good sense of voice in my writing. I graduated (now that this class is officially over with) with a degree in Integrative Physiology, so the only papers I’ve written are very formal and scientific and do not allow for much voice. My previous papers have been mostly factual rather than opinionated as they are in this class. I think that while my voice has gotten stronger throughout this summer term, I believe that there is still a lot of room for improvement which will only come with time. I was actually very excited to be able to watch a television show and simply talk about it (blog it). It was a change of pace from what I’m accustomed to doing, and I really enjoyed it.

One thing in particular that I learned from this class was the many different ways to pre-write. I normally just stick to outlining just to keep things simple, but I found that using post-its and small scraps of paper to reorganize your ideas really helped me generate new ideas, and allowed me to see where I needed to have stronger arguments and supporting information

As I expected, most of my revisions occurred in my first blog about the Half Pint Brawlers. I didn’t have much of a sense of voice and spent a lot of time summarizing instead of analyzing the show in detail. I also added a comparison section to Little People, Big World to contrast the different little people shows that are on TV, as well as how the show fits into today’s TV culture. My other revisions consisted of more critical analysis and less summary, in addition to working on the flow of my sentences and paragraphs.

This class has drastically affected my engagement with TV. Prior to this class I had one or two shows that I really enjoyed watching and was a loyal fan to. However, after reading our classmates blogs and talking about good and bad TV shows, I find myself watching shows that I would normally overlook. I am more critically analyzing shows on their content and character rather than watching TV to just relax. This happened with one of my favorite shows Modern Family. I used to watch it because it was really funny and entertaining, but since taking this class, I have written an analysis paper about the show and now have a totally different perspective on the shows storylines and characters. I also learned a lot about the history of television from reading chapters in the book and I have a greater respect for some TV shows and less for others because of it.

In the end, this class really opened my eyes to new media and in particular blogging. I got to know a lot of my classmates better through reading their blog posts and it was easy to connect with people who had similar ideas. It’s encouraged me to get out there and use new media and start to blogging and commenting on other peoples posts. This was an eye-opening experience for me and a good change of pace from my previous classes.