Research Blog 1 (20th-24th January 2020)

Last week I began my research into the Journalism sector with hopes of furthering demonstrating and displaying my understanding of the industry I want to get into after completing this course.

I started it off by researching the university courses I have applied to (Journalism at 4 institutions and Journalism + Sociology at one other) with individual Google Docs detailing the key information I will need ranging from the course structure, learning/assessment + general support information, skills I will be able to practice, careers/placement, finance and non Course related information about the University and city/town in general. This has really benefited me especially as I had my first interview on Saturday (25th January) and by doing this research it helped me significantly to gain an idea of what to expect from it.

I also started conducting some library research (as I needed to use a range of different sources and not just rely on the internet) after finding a few books that I thought would be useful and read the first one whilst picking out and noting down key information. I only managed to find 3 books in the college library but they are enough for me and I will be focusing on one book per week to keep my overall research structure tidy.

Next I started to look at the historical context which I knew would consume a lot of my research as it is such a vast so I made sure to specifically allocate time to focus on it and I will continue to do so as it will likely carry across the next 2 weeks too if I'm also going to be trying to keep on top of the rest of my research as well.

Additionally I also created and sent out a survey as a form of primary research in which I asked people basic Journalism questions regarding how they keep updated with the news. Next week I will be carrying on with my library/historical research in addition to looking up social context (with current plans to write an essay on it) and studying famous journalists (case studies on how they got into the industry). I plan to come in on one of my days off (most likely Friday as well Friday next week) to ensure I remain on schedule as I will going on the London trip during the week of the deadline (it's due in on the 13th Feburary but the trip is from the 10th-12th).