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BA1002: Our Space: Networks, Narrative and the Making of Place Guide: Blog Exemplar

A guide to library and learning resources for - Our Space: Networks, Narratives, and the Making of Place

Warning: The blog exemplar below is an example of high-achieving student work from a previous year. Please note the author may have been working to slightly different assignment task requirements, e.g. word length, referencing style (it uses APA 6th edition instead of APA 7th edition). Make sure you review the assessment task instructions and marking rubric in your BA1002 Subject Outline to ensure you complete the task correctly.

Instructions: Mouse over the text below to see annotations giving explanations and information on the writing process, parts of a blog post, in-text citations and referencing.

Illegitimate writer's guideThe title should include simple key words. One approach is to outline benefits, edit down to key words and add power words.

Image 1:Great blogs include quality images – it is important to capture your readership with eye-catching images. Always acknowledge your images. Presidio Prison (Solomon, 2008)

Power is a word that is thrown around a lot: just think of the few quotes you can riff off on power: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”; “with great power comes great responsibility” (Lundberg, 2012)Great blog entries begin with a hook… that is a question or quote to get the reader’s attention.
Immediately in the blog response the author draws on key concepts.. But even though power and disempowerment are a major force in our social and individual lives, we rarely stop to analyse the nature of power in the detail that our readings did this week. The author of this blog is able to draw clear and insightful links between the virtual network, week two’s readings, lecture topic and key concepts.

The virtual network I have decided to analyse for my assessment between week 3 and week 8 is Twitter. The author clearly describes the virtual network and their experiences of their online identity.When I first joined Twitter a few years ago, I found the experience immediately disempowering. Big, loud celebrities had all the power and all the followersUse of personal stories and reflection reveal experience of the virtual network Twitter..

But as I have familiarised myself with Twitter, I have come to understand that it is possibly changing the nature of social powerThe tone of the blog should be less formal than academic writing and use language of reflection and personal pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘we. The best blogs maintain authentic, conversational tone.. Believe me, there are lots of things I don’t like about Twitter stillConversation tone is acceptable in blogs. Do you know it is also ok to use expletives in blogs! (E.g ‘Oh yeah’ and ‘ You know’).. The whole internet is “big brotherThe inclusion of authentic and related hyperlinks connect the blog response and reflection to other blog posts and other timely online discussions on the world wide web and in the blogosphere.,” just as Professor Laura Frost over at Quartz.com analyses the frightening aspects of the digital age and its parallels with George Orwell’s fiction of the government of Oceania in 1984. The latest exposure of the NSA’s surveillance of free citizen’s internet activities resonates with Sherry Turtle’s (1995) discussion of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. As Turkle (1995, p.248) explains, Foucault’s extended metaphor of Bentham’s panopticon can be used to explain how people often behave as if they are being surveilled even when they are not.Powerful blogs go far beyond telling someone about a key concept or theory… they use analogies (stories), metaphors, and examples (evidence) to reveal deep synthesis and understanding. Using such devices also engages the reader more deeply – we learn and can relate to stories more easily.

Yet, as Dye and Harrison (2005) explain, power derives not only from authority but also from legitimacy (p.5). In a world where a handful of wealthy powerbrokers control what gets published and what gets on TV, Twitter is allowing people to generate their own content, and directing readers to fascinating new voices. I’ll be watching Twitter in the next few weeks with new eyesGreat blogs use short sentences and paragraphs, and before you post it is always a good idea to edit your blog out aloud!. Is it empowering, or disempowering? What are its “geographies of power” (Allen, 2003).The blog concludes with reflections that suggest the blogger has more unanswered questions and will be exploring the virtual network of Twitter with a new set of eyes or perspective.

ReferencesAlwaysCheck your references using the APA Referencing Guide: http://libguides.jcu.edu.au/apa. It can be hard to get your APA references to indent when writing online. Check with your tutor if 'not indenting them' is OK for your blog.

Allen, J. (2003). Lost geographies of power. Blackwell.

Dye, T.R. & Harrison, B.C. (2005). Power and society: An introduction to the social sciences. Thomson Wadsworth.

Frost, L. (2013, June 19). You probably didn’t read the most compelling part of Orwell’s 1984: The appendix. Quartz. https://qz.com/95696/you-probably-didnt-read-the-most-telling-part-of-orwells-1984-the- appendix/

Lundberg, A. (2013). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, lecture 2: Power. [PowerPoint slides]. LearnJCU. http://learnjcu.edu.auYou must include lecture notes in your reference list. Note the inclusion of the subject title as well as the lecturer and format of the material.

Panapticon. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 10, 2013 fromWikipedia Wikipedia references (and other blogs and wikis) usually include a retrieval date as the information often changes from day to day. This is why a year is also not easily identifiable and has been replaced with (n.d.). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Solomon, D. (2008). Presidio Prison [Online image]It is important to include attribution for all images used with hyperlinks to the original source. Make sure you check the license agreement which will determine copy, distribution and transmission permissions.. CultureMass. http://cdn.culturemass.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Presidio-modelo2.jpg

Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. Simon & Schuster.

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