Week 11: Evaluation

1. What exactly did this brief ask you to produce?

This brief first asked us to produce a piece of written, visual or audio journalism which was carefully planned, extremely thoroughly researched, ambitious and challenging, relevant to a target audience, and delivered to the highest standard we are capable of.

The brief then asked us to pitch our story ideas to the editorial board for NEON magazine and make changes based on their feedback. We were told that all of the content must also adhere to their style guidelines and fit within length constraints as well as all of the work produced needing to appeal to their target audience. We also need to justify our choice of subject, angle and style when we pitch our idea, and listen to editorial feedback carefully.

The brief finally told us to produce all of our work on our WIX sites which must contain the correct assessment criteria: informing ideas, problem-solving, technical skills, professional practice, and communication.

2. Outline the idea generation process

I first went about developing my ideas by creating mind maps, this was the best way for me to get my ideas out efficiently. Actually developing my ideas turned out to be quite a long process for me as I originally had four and could not choose between them: TV segments regarding pop culture along with a gossip column, a podcast and article about book-to-film adaptations, an article about toxic masculinity, and a documentary about the treatment of underage people in the workplace. I eventually decided on several pop culture TV segments with a magazine spread to go beside them, I chose this because compared to my other ideas it was out of my comfort zone and I felt that it would challenge me the most. This however did not end up being my final idea. Weeks of planning had gone into this idea but no one I contacted was interested in being involved in my TV segments, on top of that I was ill with tonsillitis for just over a week which put the project on a halt. Both caused me to change my idea as I had no time to produce TV segments and a magazine spread. This lead me to a podcast and a magazine spread as a podcast takes less time allowing me to still do the magazine spread, and I had previously made a podcast so it was familiar territory. At first, I was aiming to center the podcast around the same topic as the TV segments, pop culture. This however turned out to be too lengthy as the scope was too wide. One of the issues I was going to touch on in my TV segments was the rivalry between Hailey Beiber and Selena Gomez, and how the media put these two women against each other when they specifically said they didn't have a problem with each other. The deeper meaning of the segment was going to be along the lines of internalised misogyny, which is where my tutor got the idea of making my podcast about feminism as I had previously done a podcast in an earlier term called "How does a feminist survive social media?". I decided to narrow it down to how cancel culture impacts feminism as cancel culture was going to be another one of my TV segments. From there I decided to do a podcast and an article for the NEON magazine titled 'Cancelling a Feminist'. For future projects, my idea generation could be improved by not being as indecisive. This caused me to run out of time to do the idea I had originally settled on.

3. Outline our research process

My research started in pop culture as that was my original idea. I researched politics within pop culture such as Lee Anderson a local Nottingham MP who is for the death penalty and the Nottingham Castle Conundrum which has resulted in a missing £30 million. I then moved onto drama within pop culture such as Selena Gomez vs Hailey Beiber, two women the media put against each other when they specifically said they didn't have a problem with each other, my aim was to focus on the deeper meaning behind it such as internalised misogyny. My other focus in pop culture was Paul Breach a social media personality that is a victim of hate-watching and hate-watching after being accused of sleeping with an underage girl, my aim was to talk about cancel culture and the psychology behind it.

To research the individuals I used social media as that is where pop culture takes place, I used Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. To research the deeper meanings behind the issues such as the death penalty, internalised misogyny, and the psychological impact of cancel culture I used articles and YouGov statistics. I also made a poll to which I had 17 responses. However, when my idea changed I had to quickly research my new topic of 'how does cancel culture impact feminism' otherwise I wouldn't of had enough time to produce my idea. For my secondary research I focused on web-based research, films and videos. The most useful pieces of secondary research were a YouTube video with Jameela Jamil where she discusses cancel culture and feminism as a woman in Hollywood and the texts between Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany regarding Amber heard. This was because they both opened my eyes to how truly wicked cancel culture is to women, letting men squeeze past. For my primary research I focused on verbal discussions, questionnaires and contacting potential guests. The most useful piece of primary research was the questionnaire I created as I learnt that 90.9% of people who answered my questionnaire are feminists and believe that cancel culture impacts women more, this would help me to back up my argument in my article. I also learnt that 54.5% of people support the idea of cancel culture which would help me to create a counter argument. I ensured my research was reliable by only using trusted sources. The video with Jameela can be trusted as she is a prominent figure in Hollywood's feminism scene and has been speaking for years on the subject, the texts from Johnny Depp were evidence used in court, and the questionnaire was sent to people I knew would answer truthfully. For future research I will improve my research by doing more, the only reason I failed to this time round is because my idea had to change very suddenly.

4. Outline your planning process

My pre-production was quite last minute due to my project changing and trying to do as much research in very little time. Even though it was last minute I made sure it was thorough as I needed to know what I was talking about in my podcast and what I was writing about in my article, I also needed to make sure my guest for my podcast knew what we were talking about and was confident with the subjects at hand. I also made sure to book the podcast studio as soon as possible as I didn't want it booking up. There wasn't much of a timeframe if you will, because as soon as I had planned what we were going to be talking about, it was then time to record, then time to edit etc. For future projects I will hopefully not fall ill and have more time to plan.

5. Explore your skills and knowledge development

Throughout this project I have managed to further my knowledge on feminism and cancel culture, I've also managed to further my knowledge on editing software such as Adobe Audition and Adobe InDesign. Adobe audition was quite familiar as I had used it before but this time round I managed to retain knowledge from the first time round and work at a faster pace. However, Adobe InDesign was completely knew to me. At first it looked quite intimidating but after practice and help from my tutor I managed to figure it out. At the end of this project I think that I'm quite confident using the software and would happily use it again. These skills have helped me to develop as a journalist and could easily be used in the future when I design magazine layouts again as working on a magazine has always been a dream of mine. These skills now enable me to think of a possible future in design.

6. Evaluate your final product

I'm very happy with my final product, I put a lot of effort into this project. My projects strength is definitely the article, this is because writing comes naturally to me and I really enjoy it. My projects area for improvement is the podcast, this is only because there are probably a few cuts that are jumpy or a few laughs that are volumes too high but other than that i think my project has no weakness. If I were to do this project again I would first of all hope to not get tonsillitis as that's what set me back, twice. I would then proceed to choose an idea and develop it at a faster pace. At times I had quite low motivation so I would continue to power on because it's all about consistency.