I wrote a
piece of feature journalism that provides information and opinions about
whether illegal file sharing has a positive outcome or not for the audience as well
as the music artists. I aimed to target the older generation, people that are
more interested in serious and important news, and maybe even investigators or
researchers that are interested about the particular topic. I wrote my article
for the newspaper “The Guardian.”
First of
all, commenting on my research skills, I believe that I did well when it came
to referencing and gathering personal opinions and quotes from the artists
themselves to see how they felt about illegal file sharing. I did this by
researching the topic online on reliable and valid websites. I used websites such and Twitter to find personal opinions that were positive and negative, from the celebrities themselves. I wanted to find out what was there point of view and how it affected them as musicians and artists in this particular industry. One particular artists that i looked at online was Shakira and she strongly agreed that illegal file sharing is indeed a good thing and that it benefits everyone. Tynchy Stryder was used for his negative points about illegal file sharing on my article piece. I was also able to
incorporate some of the research information I was given in class in my
article. This helped me balance the two
sides of the topic. However, I believe I could have done better when collecting
research with figures and statistics to back up my two sided argument. I feel
that from researching the two sides to my argument, I learnt how to balance my
written work to make it fair and to avoid it being just one sided. This will
help me throughout my course as I will adapt to think about more than one side
to my work.
In terms of
language and writing skills I believe I did well at using specific vocabulary
that targeted the audience I wanted to please. I used quite technical words to do with marketing and selling such as 'merchandising'. this would interest audiences such as people who are interested in the marketing and selling of music related products, albums and singles. I had to write rather formal and
appropriate as the newspaper I had written the article for, is very
intellectual. On the other hand I felt that I could have added more
intellectual language and words to my article.
When I was
introduced and taught how to go about designing and laying out my feature
journalism on InDesign, I was quite baffled, but as I continued designing, I
quickly adapted to the programme and was able to create something worthwhile.
On the tool bar, there were many tools I used to create my article such as text
box to write my text in, rulers to align my columns etc. I have also learnt how
to import pictures onto InDesign which made my article look quite effective.
One problem that I had during the process of making my article was that I had
some difficulties printing my work. In the end I was able to save the document
as an image and pass it onto a USB which was then inserted into another
computer. From there I was able to print and I found out that the problem was
to do with the computer that I was using at first.
I never had
blogged before and being able to have blogged my first article was quite an
interesting first time experience. There were some networking problems that in
the end were solved and I was able to post my work onto Blogger. Audience Feedback
“The layout of the columns was well presented. Next time be sure to read over for any mistakes and use even better facts that include statistics” i think this is a valid point. I agree that my article looks attractive enough to appeal to its newspaper and audience. I could have added more valid and extended acts about positive and negative points on illegal file sharing.
Target: Next time I have the chance to write
a similar piece on feature journalism, I will emphasise and research for more
figures and statistics for my writing to make sure my article is relevant for a
formal and knowledgeable newspaper. I would also like to make more use of online articles and news about illegal file sharing so that i could develop a more balanced argument.
