When looking at my experiences with the digital medium, I
prefer my personal experiences to the ones in this class. Before this class, my
involvement with the digital medium was in Tumblr, a pseudo-blog website, and
my personal blog. Tumblr’s appearance shows mostly pictures, usually with
captions of no more than 1-2 sentences, and some solo original text of one
paragraph or so in length. These posts come from people you “follow.” Tumblr
works as a unique way to express thoughts, opinions, or emotions very
succinctly. Most of these posts are of fleeting thoughts or are used as a way
to vent to an audience who chooses to be a part of your audience. This is
different than the way we used the digital medium in class. Our assignment, the
digital story, was a work of fiction; Tumblr consists of posts that are usually
nonfiction. Our digital story required details that were necessary to the
reader, while Tumblr posts rarely consider it necessary to explain everything,
as the author is not writing to help the audience understand. Posts on our
class story were related to one another and we could build on the work of our
peers. This is similar to Tumblr because people have the option to add to or
comment on posts by others and they often do.
My other
experience in the digital medium is a personal blog. My posts are usually
multiple paragraphs and sometimes one topic will extend over multiple posts.
The writing is usually very extensive, even if a topic does not require
extensiveness, and is in some kind of essay format. It does not have much of a
theme; instead I write on whatever topics interest me on a given day. The posts
are all nonfiction but they may be written about something that is fiction,
such as a novel that sparked an idea. This experience has some similarities to
the writing we did in this class, such as the detail that both go into. In
class, the writing required lots of detail and the same applies to blog posts.
However, the writing in class had a plot of sorts and told a story; my posts do
not tell a story, but rather explain thoughts or ideas of mine. The digital
story integrated outside sources into the story and used sources to write it. I
do not use links or other ways of integrating sources unless directly
referencing the idea I am writing about.
Tumblr and
my personal blog are my preferred styles in the digital medium. The digital
story, while interesting to write, was not as fun to write. I personally like
reading fiction but not so much writing it. Tumblr, unlike a blog, requires
little cognitive effort to engage in because thoughts are very short and to the
point. My blog is a place I write when I have a lot to say and am in a thinking
mood. A digital story like the one in class has integrated pieces that are much
more, in my opinion, difficult to work with, when reading and writing it. I
prefer the experiences I had outside of this class.
I have not had much experience in the digital medium I found your post very interesting. I always picture Tumblr as more of just a social media site like Instagram, but you are right. It is a blog. Tumblr is very different than a normal blog. When I think of a blog, I think of something like this or how you described your personal blog, longer with more details. However, I have never really enjoyed blogs like this. I do not use Tumblr much at all, but I usually prefer it to a long blog with many details. I find it very interesting to focus more on pictures and less on what is written.
ReplyDeleteJust as Shannon said, I did not have much experience with the digital medium before this project either. I did, however, also find it interesting that you think of Tumblr as a blog. Although I see where you are coming from, I do not think of it as much of a blog. I think of the traditional blogs, like you described also, as being more of a blog format and as a site like Tumblr as more of a spot for venting and seeking the input of others. To me, blogging, although people do have the ability to comment on it, is more of something that you do for yourself, not for others. But that's just my take on it. I like your perspective as well and it was very interesting to see how you thought about it compared to my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that you prefer the experiences you have outside of class when it comes to digital medium. Social sites like Tumblr and Twitter make up most of my experience in the digital medium. I like that the posts are very short and to the point. In my opinion, it is much easier to read and you get the same main point that you would get from reading a lengthy blog. There are only a few people I would have enough interest in to read all of their blog. I also agree with the preference of non-fiction over fiction. I much rather post about my thoughts and actions than write a fictional story.
ReplyDeleteI have never had any interest in having a blog. I have some friends who use Tumblr, but I, like Anna, never really thought of it as a blog. I always felt that people just use it for pictures. I don't think that blogging is something that people do for themselves. While I do believe that it is the case for some people, others do it for the benefit of other people. There are blogs about recipes, and being a mother, pretty much anything you can think of. Other people comment with their own personal experiences.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Megan that I am not a fan of writing fiction. It is always much easier to write down your own personal feelings and experiences.
I found this post to be interesting to read as I enjoyed the class assignment for precisely the reasons the author of the post stated they did not enjoy the assignment; I found it interesting to work with the online media in a way that I had never done before and to do it in a new, challenging light. So to hear Megan Boes opinion about the assignment was interesting and gave me the opportunity to view the assignment in a new perspective. As mentioned by Boes, websites like Tumblr can involve very little thinking for the viewer and the poster but I also feel that the depth of intellection in the posts could potentially vary, depending on the type of material the poster wishes to post and the type of material the viewer wishes to follow so the in class activity didn’t necessarily have to be more of an intellectual assignment, it just seemed so because we did not have the control over the information we were viewing like we would if we were on Tumblr.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your statement in your last paragraph about enjoying reading fiction but not so much writing it. I am the same way. I love to be caught up in a fiction book, but when I write I like it to be nonfiction. For me it is hard to be extremely creative, I like to use real life situations. I also like how you compared the two ways you blog. Between your personal blog and Tumblr, each considered blogs but the ways used to express your thoughts are completely different, one through an essay format and the other through pictures and just a caption.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about tumblr. I have one as well and I enjoy using that instead of the experiences in class. I enjoy tumblr more because it's more personal. You choose what you want to write or reblog and who you want to follow. It is easier to be creative when you know that others can just unfollow you if they don't like what you have to say or post. I also agree with what you had to say about needing for details in the blog story. We had to put more information so that the reader would know what we were talking about while on tumblr, your posts often don't have much background so they are open to interpretation by your followers.
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