Everywhere I go, I notice and see things differently. I note the way a cafe blackboard invites people to 'like' their Facebook page to receive a free coffee. I stop and stare at the chalk scribbled on the sidewalk urging me to download a new games app from the iTune appstore. I watch as a reality TV show showcases real time tweets as it airs, and cheer as boy band One Direction laughs and verbally reply to tweets from the audience while onstage performing their sold-out Melbourne show. Social media is taking over everywhere.
Admittedly, this is not a particularly recent development. I started noticing and really taking interest in this type of stuff a couple of years ago. But it's only recently now that I do it with a certain feeling of purpose, a particularly analytical gaze in my eye. Now, I'm a researcher. :)
After we (finally) defined our topic a couple of weeks ago I dug myself into a little hole and hibernated with books, e-journals, newspaper articles and various online communications. I took a couple of excursions to go and speak with different people of interest about social media and its use in a business sense. The world wide web has proved to be an invaluable resource, not only in its ability to provide me with a wealth of literary resources but also in connecting me to different social media moguls across the world. I've established connections with a few different persons of interest whom are potential interviewees including Lou Pardi, editor of the Social Media Knowledge blog, Bianca Puopolo, social media marketing co-ordinator at DiscoverSD.com, and Steve Anderson, a social media strategist for LED Events in California. Ironically, I reached most of these people via social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. At this point I am still in communications with them about setting up potential interviews which will be pursued later this week.
Before I dove into the ocean of journals and information currently circulating on social media marketing I made a point of sitting down and considering this project in terms of how it sits amidst my current life goals and priorities. It's a little bit lame, but I know that sitting down and engaging myself in a written (or typed) conversation on a particular project helps me to lay all my thoughts out on the table, identify key points I might be worried about, create strategies to work around these and set explicit goals to keep me motivated and direct my learning. And so that is exactly what I did.
I started with looking at the general learning outcomes in the course, analysing and breaking them down so that I'd have a clear idea in my head of what it it I'm working towards, and then reflecting and positioning myself to realise my own personal goals for the course and the skills and knowledge I want to acquire from it. I also went on do the same for each of the assignments including the Project Brief, Individual Progess Blog, Work-In-Progress Presentation, Final Presentation and Research Report. I now have a set of specific goals that I have set and skills I want to take away from each of the assignments with, all in line with my broader career plan and development.
Doing this helped me realise a few things relating both to my learning experience as a student and as a media professional preparing to assimilate into the work force. First of all, that the key learning outcomes in Media Industries 1 directly relate to some worries I've been harbouring about my career in media as of late. For example, I've been brooding over the fact that even though I know I want a career in the media and have a keen interest in social media, I don't know exactly what I want to DO after I graduate. I know that I want to move back to the US and work within the Entertainment Industry in a media capacity, but I don't really know HOW to do that or WHAT types of positions I'm looking for. Social media is such an emerging aspect of business and I feel like the dream position I'm working towards finding might not even exist yet. Or maybe it does but no one knows what to call it or what exact qualifications are necessary and what the base salary should be. There's a lot of really practical questions that I have and very few answers, and it's frustrating because graduating and getting a job is something I've been working towards for a while now, but I'm still not entirely sure what I'm looking for.
But HOORAH! Media Industries 1 to the rescue. Key outcomes in this course relate directly to researching the media industry both in Australia and globally including the US through our directed research projets. The fact that our research project is centred around the very area I would like to pursue a career in means that this research will give me a much better idea of the positions available and the specifics surrounding them, and give me a more concrete dream to work towards.
Another concern that I have been harbouring as of late is the fact that I've been feeling very out of touch with the happenings of the Media Industry. I took some time away over the past couple of years to adventure overseas and then study at a different college. That was great in giving me a different perspective on the media industry, but it also had very little emphasis on the social media side that I'm most interested in. The focus was a lot more practical and I fell out of touch with the more academic side of learning in terms of issues surrounding the industry, including everything from censorship to privacy and regulation to speculation about the future.
And so right now, a research project is perfect for me. I want knowledge, I want statistics, I want dry research journals and articles and I want to know what's going on. I want to feel informed and well educated about the contemporary mediascape I'm trying to find my way through. I'm very excited about the variety of topics being covered in our research groups, and through interaction and exploring and absorbing the other groups' findings I hope to re-educate myself on the many issues and questions surrounding the mediascape.
One potential problem that I identified early on in this research process is the fact that I do not like collaborative work. I like to be in complete creative control over the production of most projects I work on, mainly because I usually find that is the only way to guarantee the quality of the work, and I also find that I learn more about the different processes involved in the project if I am in charge of them all. This is not going to be the case with this research project. In order to try and nip this potential problem in the bud, I sat down and reflected on the different ways that the collaborative aspect of this project could be benefical for my learning experience. For example, the fact that it is just downright stupid to chase into a career in the media industry and not be open to collaboration. Most media projects are group efforts. I also noted on the fact that having a team of four researchers would open the scope of our project to a much larger range of information and resources, and that in the end I would have a much richer learning experience. Across the duration of the past few weeks I have found that I've actually really enjoyed working with my group and am getting a lot out of it. Sometimes I will still get that nagging feeling that I'm not quite on top of all the different components of the project, perhaps because a different group member is focusing on a particular area while I look at another, but I have found that I can overcome this by simply reading everyone's blog posts and the different articles they've covered so that I have a firm grasp on their topics as well. While this does mean that yes, I am creating more work for myself, I find that it's worth the effort to have that thorough understanding of all the different components of this project. The google doc we have created with a group table to share our findings has proved most helpful with this. I find that I don't need to be in control of all of the aspects if I have at least eduacted myself on them and am still benefitting from learning about them.
My particular role in this research group has been similar to the duties of the other group members. At this point we have basically split the intensive research amongst us evenly and are looking to come together later in our meeting today to collate our findings and decide which aspects we would like to focus and research further, and also begin to mould a particular structure for the delivery of our findings. At this point we will then delegate specific topics and questions for us each to focus on, and later down the track we will also delegate tasks such as interviewing, website building, video editing, etc.
In my quest for knowledge I have found the RMIT Library website to prove most fruitful, and have spent a lot of time perusing e-journals and articles found through various databases. At this point I have covered a lot of virtual ground and have a rich pool of knowledge and resources at my feet, but I think what we need to do now is refine our topic and find a particular direction we want to take. I've found lots of information relating to the 15 or so primary and secondary questions we stated in our project brief, but I feel that the scope here is too wide and we need to settle on a particular direction. Sitting down and discussing the structure today will help us do this.
One strategy that I have undertaken and find most enjoyable is a collection box of newspaper articles, clippings, advertisement posters and leaflets, and any other tangible examples I've come across relating to social media marketing strategies that brands are currently employing. These are great examples for case studies we might want to follow up on. Another research strategy I've employed that I quite enjoy is creating a Pinterest board specifically for our research project and pinning various photos I've taken and online articles, advertisements, games or communications I've stumbled across that exemplify different ways social media can be utilised by businesses. I enjoy this mostly because it involves using one of the very social media platforms we're researching to collate my findings.
Another research avenue that I have found quite fruitful is my engagement with a company called Social Media Knowledge. SMK is an Australian research and training company that is helps businesses become more effective users of social media and digital channels. I first discovered SMK months ago when a fellow student posted about them on the media facebook page, and I then decided to apply for an internship working on the Social Media Knowledge blog. As fate would have it they contacted me back a few weeks ago for an interview and last week I actually landed the internship postion. This comes at the perfect timing for our research project as many of the professionals at SMK harbour a wealth of knowledge concerning social media and it's use in a business and marketing capacity. At my internship interview I mentioned our research project to Lou Pardi, the SMK blog editor in chief, who is keenly interested in our focus and had a lot to say about it. I've been in ongoing contact with Lou over the past few weeks in preparation for the start of my internship next week, and have requested a time to sit with her and discuss our specific research questions which she is more than happy to do.
Last week I also contacted James, the owner of SMK, to express an interest in the possibility of interviewing him, and was happy to find that he is extremely keen to get involved with our project. I can understand that as the head of an organisation that is both research and business oriented we could both benefit from this collaboration, and I see our research exploration through both Lou and James proving very fruitful for us.
At the moment our group sits on the cusp of the end of our initial research stage, having delved deep into the depths of the information available to us, and we're starting to reach out to industry professionals and generate information ourselves. This is helping us to refine the focus of our project, and in the next week we hope to focus on specific topics each and then ascertain which ones are worth including in our final report. We also hope to lock in our primary interviews over the next week and conduct them soon after.
