What difference does it make if you live in a picturesque
little outhouse
surrounded by 300 feeble minded goats and your faithful dog
. . .? The question is: Can you write?- Ernest Hemingway
So after reading some of my classmates’ blogs and feeling
clinically depressed due to overexposure to talent, I have decided that I
probably need be a little more serious and actually put some of decent content into
my blog rather than my disliking of black jelly beans and parking. I will try
anyway. So this week we had Skye Doherty come in to talk to us about text.
First thing I saw was the infamous inverted triangle, oh how
I have missed thee. Not only did it haunt me at high school, now uni has decided
to rehash my nightmare and show it in every.single.course. Small psychotic breakdown
aside, Skye started off by saying she how important text was, not only the content but the way it was positioned on the page. I’m not going to lie, it was
pretty tedious stuff. However she finished early and we got to discuss other
things such as the use of gaming as a journalistic technique, not going to lie,
that was surprisingly interesting stuff. The whole concept of educating society
about complex issues through the game medium is a relatively foreign yet
effective technique. Things like the stock market would lend itself perfectly
for this sort of thing. No one understands it unless you’ve had some form
tertiary education in economics (or actually give a crap) so making an
interactive game that explains the concepts in laments terms is perfect for
people like me, who is both the former and the latter of the two. There are
some topics that are a little sensitive however and these topics, in my
opinion, are sort of taboo in the gaming realm. For example, Doherty showed us
a game called “Cutthroat Capitalism”. In my opinion, that diminishes the
seriousness of the matter to an extent. Deciding whether we’d kill, beat or threaten
hostages became something of an amusement when we trialled it in the lecture.
Sure it’s educational but to where do we draw the line?
Is it too far?
In talking about where to draw the line, I study Film and
Television in my arts degree and at the moment we’re discussing policy and also
what is and isn’t acceptable to say in the media. Racism, of course, is a hot
topic and whether or not journalists play a role in “framing” stories in order
to get readership and therefore get the sales. In my opinion, of course they
do. What’s going to get people to stop and read the story, a bashing in
Melbourne’s CBD or violent attack in the vicinity of a mosque? I always wanted to be an objective journalist,
someone who just stated the facts and was all for peace and love man but in
reality, that’s impossible. Everything I write will be from a middleclass,
white girl’s perspective. Someone could tell me and a forty year old, balding
black man to write an objective report on the proceedings of an event we both
attended and they could both be completely different. Why? We have different
circumstances that warp our perception of life. Wow, that was a little too
deep.
Moving on to a quick “note to self”, playing Draw Something
throughout allocated study time will result in absolutely no study and leave
you with a mild-sever addiction.
From I- need-counselling.
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