The presentation was nowhere near as daunting or nerve-racking as some of the other presentations I’ve done. I’ve definitely seen an improvement in my public speaking ability this year. Although I did mess up the order of the things I was supposed to be talking about. I think it’s because we’ve done it fairly often throughout the time here so I’ve become more comfortable with it fortunately.

In the morning we’ll hopefully bring it all together successfully and will win the competition!

We are frequently turning over new pages in our best selling 360 degree work.  Our company illustrates many chapters for 18-25 year olds and involves many diverse editions.  We are good at what we do as we are well bound and not too wordy.

One of the tasks was to come up with our own ad agency name so we chose to go with a name that showed our client we weren’t too big headed but new what we’re doing and thus chose MediaOcre.  A play on the words media and mediocre.

After some six hours of presentations and group work we were given the task of choosing a company from a large list that we wanted to pitch to.  We chose Fender.

See how many guitar puns you can find in the below mission statement.

We are a finely tuned group of 360 degree advertisers who will amplify your success and lead you into the future.  Don’t put your neck on the line by choosing other ad agencies, pick us and we’ll help you slide your way to success.  Don’t fret, as we’re bassed in Bournemouth we know all about Fenders and the need to help you slide your way to success.

How many did you get?  9?  Good.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.  Lot’s of fun I’m sure.

We were the talk of the town, but in the end it all really amounted to nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. It was an exciting experience that helped us develop an interesting understanding of people and their attitudes to order, disorder and authority.

This wasn’t, however, our only plan. We initially set up an online petition in order to get free buses. If we got 1000 or more signatures the University promised to hold a referendum about the free buses. We didn’t get 1000 so unfortunately neither of these methods worked out for us in the end.

We had a lot of attention based around our Facebook pages as well and a lot of slanderous language being thrown about, but, having NO FEAR we continued in our task to give the people what they want – free buses!

The main reason for the uproar of the people is coming from our planned Facebook event titled “Bus Blockade”. We intend on blocking the entire road outside of Uni in order to get our voices heard.

Target Audience: BU students and prospective students

How we will achieve this: Sustained media campaign. Lobbying local council, M.Ps, NUS and SUBU president. Online and offline petitions, Facebook campaign, posters, stickers and badges.

I’m in a group with Alex Vince and Matthew Bridgeman and they’ve also got blogs about this issue and will have similar things to say about it I’m sure.

We chose to look at the Stop the War coalition as we felt it was a good example of how the media is being used to benefit the campaign and further it’s goals.

If you visit the website, at http://www.stopwar.org.uk/ you will find recent news, upcoming events etc.  They are most definitely a participatory group in that they give users the ability to get involved with the campaign.  They can join, donate and even come along to any of the demonstrations or gigs they hold.  People and organisations can affiliate with the coalition for a fee.

They are advocates for media policy reform as with the DEC gaza appeal, they campaigned to have it broadcast on the BBC as they wouldn’t air it.  Eventually, Tony Benn, one of the founders, did it in an interview on the BBC.
YouTube Video – Tony Benn to BBC “If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself”

They campaign, have demos, and use the Radio, TV and Blogs to voice their message in order to affect ideological changes.

Very active if you ask me!

These are the coalition’s aims, available at their website

1. The aim of the Coalition should be very simple: to stop the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against ‘terrorism’. We condemn the attacks on New York and we feel the greatest compassion for those who lost their life on 11th September 2001. But any war will simply add to the numbers of innocent dead, cause untold suffering, political and economic instability on a global scale, increase racism and result in attacks on civil liberties. The aims of the campaign would be best expressed in the name Stop the War Coalition.

2. Supporters of the Coalition, whether organisations or individuals, will of course be free to develop their own analyses and organise their own actions. But there will be many important occasions when united initiatives around broad stop the war slogans can mobilise the greatest numbers.

3. The Coalition shall elect a steering committee which reflects the breadth of those involved to carry forward the aims and objectives. Local groups should have regular, open and inclusive meetings.

4. We call on all peace activists and organisations, trade unionists, campaigners and labour movement organisations to join with us in building a mass movement that can stop the drive to war.

5. We are committed to opposing any racist backlash generated by this war. We will fight to stop the erosion of civil rights.

The Station was a YouTube like website that we had to create. It had to give users the ability to sign up and become members as well as add friends to there accounts and post comments on content and other peoples’ pages. It also needed to have a live streaming audio track for use with radio shows. The best design will win a contract to produce it further and will be used as an official Bournemouth University website.

When I started making the website for the Station I thought of all these cool features that could be incorporated into the site that would make it feel more professional and would make it look and behave better than YouTube. Unfortunately, during production of this project I spent most of my time on these less necessary but nonetheless awesome features. This however, was my downfall, as I ended up spending all my time on these I had no time to iron out the kinks in the programming that messed up the most important requirements set by the brief. In the end the registration form broke and I didn’t have time to figure out why. However less than 24 hours after hand in I realised it was because I had one single extra character in the php that messed it all up. I think time management was the key here and unfortunately this is one of my greatest weaknesses. I don’t think I’ll be leaving the most important stuff till last next time.

I got 45% for the project in the end which is really gonna detriment my overall grade for this year but what can be done?

So onto my development as a person I suppose.  Well over the course of this year I have certainly developed as a person in terms of confidence and of course knowledge.  I have been excited about reading theories that really relate to some of my abstract ideas on the world and how it all works.  These should also be an interesting read if I decide to understand further any of them for my later assignments.  It’s a shame I don’t really read much but I don’t really think many people my age do unless it’s for their work.

My essays this year haven’t really been great but I’ve done alright with my production work.  Part of the reason why my essays haven’t really gone well has been down to my referencing.  I went to speak with the marker of one of my pieces after receiving a lower grade than expected.  I was told that I didn’t write the names of the people I was referencing to enough in the text and didn’t quote them directly but simply explained what they meant in my own language.  I even said to my marker that it was odd because I had learned the theories and theorists so well that felt it was unnecessary to quote and that I wanted to show I knew what they meant by saying it in my own words.  After which I was told that it is always good to explain what the theorists are trying to say but you have to write some form of quote or evidence of what you’re referring to in order to show you’ve done your research.  I was also told that finding the original source of the quote is always the best way to go about referencing as referencing books that reference other pieces of work makes it look less professional and not as well researched.