Gaining Perspective

BCM241 BLOG POST 3: PEER COMMENTARY

The process of giving feedback to my peers has been a helpful experience, one that led me to reflect on my work and how my research could be better planned. The three people I commented (linked below screenshots) on all did a great job of following the assessment criteria and therefore, I aimed my feedback toward providing my perspective on their ideas to hopefully help them with any bias they may have over their niche. All the niches in these pitches were ones I’m somewhat unfamiliar with, thus, my approach was to contribute an analysis of the niche from an outside perspective that may help them in their end goal in some way. I also provided source material for them to investigate (if they want to), I think being able to provide perspective without their personal bias was the most useful feedback I could give to their well-produced pitches. Though I did give small constructive criticism on some of the missed parts of the criteria, giving outsider insight was what I focused on.

Evaluating my peer’s work from a tutor’s perspective was helpful in recognising the downfalls in my own. It helped me to better understand the assessment criteria and I also found it interesting to view other people’s ideas from my perspective. I was encouraged to realise the possible bias I have in my research and how outside perspectives may be helpful in my autoethnographic research. Through critiquing others, I feel as though I could have laid out my blog post better in a more organised way, as well as incorporate more background research. When finding sources for other people, I realised that the same background research would be helpful to my DA, not just relying on observation and participatory strategies of autoethnographic research.

When giving feedback to Celtie’s pitch, for example, was presented and researched very well with lots of background research into the direction for her project. From this I realised I should conduct more background research to better understand what I’m researching. Though her media niche (graphic design) was broad I could see how she had made it specific to her experience and her thought processes on problematising her niche, (little content for beginners), and then making a DA that solved it, (blog and Instagram for beginners) were helpful in improving my understanding of how to conduct effective autoethnographic research through a DA.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of giving feedback to my peers as it forced me to self-reflect on my pitch, evaluating if it had met the assessment criteria comparatively. It was also helpful to understand the autoethnographic research process of other niches, due to some confusion I had previously over the concept, viewing how it would be conducted in other media niches helped me gain a better grasp on the concept, thus aiding my research. I think in future when giving feedback, I could research further about the niche the person is talking about to gain a better understanding beyond what they’ve told me so that I might give them more detailed feedback.