Unit 2 Reflection

The genre was something I had struggled with. I was originally going to aim this towards people around my age. However, as I began to write my portfolio, I noticed that I didn't think that would work. I don't think my generation particularly cares about the history of sports journalism and how it has changed. Instead, I think my piece would be better aimed at an older audience, probably 30 and up. I think they are the ones who need to understand where not just sports, but journalism in general is heading, and why the use of Twitter isn't necessarily a bad thing. I used my own opinions pretty heavily throughout the piece, and with the line "I also think that increased interaction with fans on social media can only be a good thing, as they can get feedback used to improve their content.", I think I really conveyed my stance and gave a good illustration of the good social media can do for journalism. I think the conversation around this topic is largely negative, especially in my target audience, since I think people like my dad don't truly understand how the internet has impacted these writers. He just sees newspapers slowly dying out, and sees stories about all the terrible stuff taking place on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and that gives him a negative view of everything. However, the way I primarily use Twitter, to follow sports by getting breaking news and interact with other fans watching the same game, is great, and in my opinion, has improved sports, especially journalism, as reporters no longer have to write their article to get their thoughts out, instead tweeting out instant reactions. I think the sources are pretty clear, being the reporters online presence, whether it be their Twitter, what they write on their website, or their podcast. I would be interesting in research on how writers have changed if they used to write in a newspaper or magazine and then moved to primarily writing online. I wonder if there is any change in their writing style or the amount of articles they write. I don't think there will a change, but I would interested to see if there is any sort of change. In my Pitch, I reached out to people my age, since that was my original target audience, on Twitter. While I didn't get any response to my Tweet, I did have some friends reach out to me and engage in a conversation about the topic. I ended up changing my target audience since I felt that's how the information was best suited to be distributed and would have the most impact, but I think there is still something to be explored with my demographic. I think I can apply a lot of this to life outside of class. For one, the research methods I used can be used in any situation, and I plan on doing so to be better informed on a variety of topics. Not only can it be used for research in any other class, but using the internet and social media to learn I think is an area that isn't utilized enough. I also learned a lot about how to write, especially how to manipulate the style to best fit the target audience, and to be very cognizant of the audience to enhance the writing. Finally, I think even being able to come up with the pitch or an idea is a key idea. Understanding topics that interest me and how I can learn more about them is something that will be with me for the rest of my life, and I hope to continue learning about new things and new interests. I also think that in general, people nowadays want to be more informed, and they have a greater interest in information as a whole, so the skill of being able to provide that information is huge. In every industry, decisions are becoming more and more analytical, relying more and more on numbers and facts than ever before. With industry trending towards being more statistical, I think it is only natural that society is following and attempting to learn more and know more about all topic, so they can in turn make decisions with more data than ever before. With the research skills we used in this class, I can now do that better than I did before, and I think that will better prepare me for adult life as I begin to learn more about a variety of topics.