Plans For my Edit

This week has been quite uneventful on the story front, as I had an essay due. However, I did spend some time reading over Verica’s comments and brainstorming ideas on how to make it better. So, for this post I thought that I would discuss where I felt I needed to improve and how I plan to do this

Genre: My story did not really have a genre, and as a result it lacked direction. I had tried to make it a little bit informative and a little bit human interest, when really I needed to have one or the other. To combat this I am going to cut out some of the unnecessary facts and replace them with quotes from locals. This will hopefully steer the story to more of a ‘human-interest’ standpoint.

Data analysis: It was noted by Verica that I did not have enough information about the zones at NorthWest. One of my downfalls when collecting data is that I am unable to analyse it and correctly distinguish which sections of information are the most important. So while I edit I am going to pay extra attention to the information I have, and evaluate if it is necessary. Once I have made that judgement I will add extra depth to the data I am going to use.

Hierarchy of influences: I feel as though my opinion did slightly influence the way in which the piece was written. For example, the only quote I included with reference to opinion on Hobsonville Point was quite negative. I think this was an unconscious decision fuelled by my annoyance at the house prices and lack of yard space. I am going to try and add a positive quote to balance this out.

So those were my musings for this week. I hope that you enjoyed reading and have a wonderful day.

P.s. NorthWest opens on the 1st of October! I hope to attend and talk to locals about the opening.

Week Seven

Hello!

This week was not very exciting on the story front. The majority of it was spent researching for the next Journalism essay and waiting for a few results. However we did learn about framing and received our story marks, which is going to be the topic of this week’s post.

Chong and Druckman (2007, p. 103) describe framing as “The process by which people develop a particular conceptualization of an issue or reorient their thinking about an issue.”

I found this incredibly interesting, and began to ponder whether the frame impacted on how a single piece of news was portrayed to the public. During the tutorial we discussed this in further detail and I soon found out that- yes, yes it does. We were all given a different news organisation to research. Our topic was the Syrian Crisis. Some focused on the numbers fleeing Syria and their plight, while others detailed the economic and housing issues that countries such as Hungary will have to face. The idea of framing is incredibly interesting to me, and I feel that it is a real reflection of the writer and newspaper. For example the Newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch were far less understanding of the refugees and what they had been through.

Thinking about framing in the context of my own story, I decided that I needed more of an obvious frame. Not in a biased way, but in a way that will give my story direction. I feel as though I had too many points, trying to address all of the issues. I need a couple of strong ones focusing on two or three of the main concerns people have.

This week I also received my draft mark. The mark was alright for me, but not the one I strive for. I still have a lot of work to do in order for it to be a high grade piece of work. My structure definitely needs improvement, as does my punctuation. I also need to make my story more compelling.

So that is my update for this week. I hope you enjoyed reading and have a wonderful day.

Chong, D. Druckman, N. (2007). Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science. p 103. doi: 10.1146.