Critical Essay – Pine

My digital artefact is Pine, a digital zine which gives creatives from around the world a platform to share their work for free. As a writer, I understand the struggles behind potential or attempted publication—financial issues, lack of portfolio, and the high-standard expected by established publications. I decided to fix that problem, giving artists an opportunity to get their work out there no matter if they’re a professional or rookie.

Making – Pine

For BCM114, I made a digital zine, Pine. But you knew that already. Check it out on Instagram, or you can even check out Issue 1: Self or Issue 2: Earth.

This semester has been a constant rush of making, rethinking, and making again. Though Making is the final module in the BCM114 subject, it feels to me as though it’s been going on the whole time.

Prototyping – Pine

Firstly, please go check out Pine on Instagram.

Secondly, please go view Issue 1: Self on Issuu.

Issue 2: Earth will be released on October 16th. Stay tuned, my dudes.

Let’s just jump into it.

Pine: The Seed is Growing

My digital artefact seemed to operate in this perfectly sad timeline: ideating, prototyping (and developing a false sense of hope), iterating and remaking. Wishful thinking and a false start allowed me to think that Pine would be an exception to the rule, and that failure isn’t inevitable. The future of Pine is hanging in the hands of Issue 2: Earth. That is, hanging in my hands.

Ideating – Pine

The idea for Pine started with frustration. As a writer, I want to get my work out there and published, but sadly, a lot of journals take submission fees. As a poor uni student, I don’t really have $20 spare to submit to a journal that I may or may not get published in. I was frustrated in the situation I was in, so I decided to create something to fix that.

Pine the Zine

Pine is a Wollongong-based e-zine (or digital-zine) for everybody. Creative aspects of the world are often targeted at those we know as artists, however there are creative people everywhere. We encourage those people to embrace their creativity and to let the world see!

I don’t mind what gender you are, what you’re studying, what your favourite colour is, or where you stand on the “where does sauce belong?” debate. I  just care that you’re creating things – and I want to see it.

Editions should be monthly, if not more often (depending on the success and amount of submissions that are received). Follow @pinethezine on Instagram or Pine the Zine on Facebook if you’d love to check it out.

Students and Twitter: A Reflection

Earlier this semester, I conducted research into why and how students and educators use Twitter to communicate. It started from the idea that students either love it or hate it – I fell somewhere in the middle, so I was curious.

A lot of papers have been written on why teachers are putting Twitter in their classroom, or more broadly, why Twitter is being used in high schools. However, I couldn’t find any data about why university students and their educators are using Twitter, especially within a communications degree. This left me with a gap which is exactly where my research fits in. One difficult aspect of this task was that I was left with so much outdated, irrelevant, or unreliable previous research. Though I needed a gap in knowledge, it felt like I didn’t have enough sources to reference or quote.

I decided that conducting an anonymous survey would be easiest – BCM212 students have to be on there anyway, so they would definitely have an opinion on the topic. One concern I have is that people purposefully messed up my survey. For example, 100% of participants said they used Twitter for BCM212 in one of my first questions. However, when given a list of reasons they use Twitter and asking them to select all that apply, only 57% of users said they used Twitter for BCM212, and only 91% said they used Twitter for their Communications degree. Though fault partly goes to me for basically asking the same question twice, it was inconvenient and annoying, making me second-guess myself.

The interviews were more successful. I managed to receive a range of different responses which led me to my conclusion: that Twitter is convenient, so students enjoy using it when they aren’t forced to.

My largest issue is working with educators. I spoke to my tutor who said I couldn’t speak to BCM212 educators/tutors/coordinators in regards to this research. Unfortunately, this left me a little stuck. I continued on nonetheless, as the student opinions are as important as the intent behind the decisions. Due to this set-back, I was taken further away from the students-educators-across the world communication realm and was led to where we ended up.

In hindsight, I would’ve restructured my survey questions had I known how my interviews would take shape, and I would’ve began from a different spot if I had known that I couldn’t talk to tutors.