Drone Journalism in the UK?

This blog started its life as a way of documenting my PhD project which is now long since finished.

I thought I might know by now what this blog is becoming - if anything - but I'm afraid I'm not quite there yet.

Which means the blog has kind of lost it's raison d'être ...and without that there's not a lot to be said by it or for it.

There are a few potential projects in the pipeline which might give it a new direction and hopefully next time you stop by, there might be something more - I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I've written something on drone journalism at the Frontline Club which you can read here if you haven't seen it already.

Enjoy!

So what next...?

People keep asking me this, so I thought it was about time I began trying to answer it.

After Easter I'll be stepping up the search for the next challenge post-PhD.

I've already applied for a Soros foundation fellowship from September for a new project in the area of military use of social media. And I'm hoping to drum up some more freelance social media consultancy work to pay a few bills in the meantime.

But I'm looking for other options and exciting possibilities in the fields of media, journalism, social media, international politics, warfare, conflict, research and academia.

I have a preference for either being based in London or opportunities in any other interesting places outside the UK.

And it would help if research and publishing information was a major part of the job whether tweeting, blogging, podcasting, writing articles, papers or books etc.

I'm also open to exploring more informal partnerships, freelance projects/work.  
   
But I'm not going to take anything off the table, so if something jumps out at me and says: "This is the next exciting thing to be doing", then I'd go for it.

So if you hear of anything, I'd be interested in hearing from you.

You can email me at daniel.s.bennett@kcl.ac.uk.

And you can find out more about my experience at Linked In.

A note of thanks at the end of the PhD

I'm not sure if a PhD ever really ends.

There seems to be a lot of bits and pieces I'd like to revise and update. Research that I started as part of the project and I'd like to try to finish up for possible future papers.

I'm also hoping to be able to publish the thesis in book form as well which means I might have to revisit some of it for the 654th time.  

But in many other respects the PhD is finished.

I have a piece of paper saying I've passed and the library at King's College, London has a final copy (for a shelf somewhere which will increase the area available in the library for dust-gathering.)

This blog has always been much more of an online research diary and scrapbook than an outlet for my personal story, but I'd like to temporarily hijack it.

I'd be lying if I said the PhD was all a breeze, because with any PhD there are inevitably lows as well as highs. But I'm not somebody who is wondering what the point of it all was.

I've really enjoyed it and I believe it was worthwhile work. I've learnt masses and developed a variety of transferable skills along the way. I believe other people have benefited from the project and others will do so in the future. I've had some great opportunities to do all sorts of exciting things and meet lots of interesting people.

And I'm very grateful for all of that. Rather unfairly, the PhD has my name on the side of the cover, but I am just a small part of the story - the person who brought lots of different things and themes and thinking and hard work together in one place.

And I'd like to say thanks to all the people who made it possible.

In particular, I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family, my friends, my supervisor at the War Studies Department, the Frontline Club, everybody at the BBC who contributed to the project and the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding me.

I've also benefited immensely from interactions with people online who have taken an interest in the project whether through comments on blog posts either here or at the Frontline Club or on Twitter.

In fact, I can't imagine doing a PhD without access to a 'virtual office' of ideas, information and support. (Although it's not quite as frightening as the prospect of writing one on a typewriter...but anyway).

Finally, I want to say that I dedicated the PhD to my grandparents, Donald and Iris Mead. They gave so much to me in so many ways, but sadly both passed away before I finished the project.

I also want to mention my friend Lineu Vargas - a man who not only took a keen intellectual interest in my work but who was also concerned with my welfare more generally. He was tragically killed in a car accident last year.

It's a comfort to me that the last time I saw him, I was able to celebrate submitting the first version of the PhD with him.

And I'm sure he'll be raising a glass of good red wine somewhere to join in future celebrations...

'The border-ness of borders'

In lieu of something more useful as I'm trying to finish off Chapter Two (but eighth chapter out of ten) I offer you the following snippet.

Despite no affiliation to the Geography Department at King's College, London whatsoever, I seem to have recently ended up on their mailing list which includes exciting opportunities to attend all sorts of interesting conferences.

Earlier today I received one such missive inviting me to attend the EastBordNet Conference on 'Remaking Borders'.

I'm fairly, nay, very ignorant about borders so I was delighted to learn that "borders are never what they used to be". Which perhaps goes some way to explaining my ignorance.

I also learnt that "a question here is whether this incessant shifting of borders is a characteristic of borders as such (what could be called the ‘border-ness’ of borders)".

For sure.

Back to Chapter Two, then...wondering if I qualify to be an academic.

PhD references for blog commenters

Not sure what the PhD examiner is going to make of my references. Here is one I've just written:

‘hodgeey’ in N. Robinson, ‘Return to the Fray’, Newslog, 5 Jan 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/01/return_to_the_fray.html, (Accessed 28 Apr 2010).

I feel the apostrophes are necessary for some reason. You see:

hodgeey in N. Robinson, ‘Return to the Fray’, Newslog, 5 Jan 2009, etc

just looks like I've drifted off during my referencing, made contact with some random keys with my head and woken up just in time to finish the reference properly.

But I really do mean 'hodgeey', which I feel I can only communicate by adding some additional marks on the page.

Tweet of the day on journalism

I know it's pretty early on in Monday's grand scheme but this is a classic from journalist Rob Crilly:

'Interesting talk with one of my editors last week. "That job is too junior for you, mostly online stuff." Some papers still don't get it'

I think I might end up referencing some of these sort of nuggets in the PhD, which will probably mean making up my own reference system.

I doubt they'll be much guidance in my King's College handbook. After all, it tells me that when citing Internet sources:

"You should beware when using information from the internet as it can be easily changed (hacked), often does not give an author [?] and is consequently not authoritative. However, if you [yes, you. You crazy 21st Century researcher] do want to cite internet sources [pretty unavoidable I'm afraid when you're researching blogging] it is worthwhile seeking a copy of the source as well [ha - print your blog for me please...], or as a last resort printing and keeping a copy of the internet information [!] (which could be shown to the external examiner if necessary [let's hope it's not for the sake of the rainforests, my sanity and the external examiner's summer holiday])."

Advance warning

I fear my blogging output may become more erratic over the coming weeks. (Hence, the lack of pretty photos and any longer posts in recent times.)

This is what happens when you start another blog (new post for this coming later today) and when you really have to get on with researching and writing an erudite piece of literature that is directly relevant to the PhD.

But hopefully my blog won't reach this rather concerning state of affairs.

I'm informed by other PhD students at King's that spending several months researching an interesting topic which is totally irrelevant to your PhD thesis is a completely normal and acceptable practice (as long you get back on track at some point in three or four years).

In my case, I'd like to think I hadn't strayed too far from the target. But recently, I've got rather too involved with researching milblogging or the lack of it in the UK.

Most of my work in this area is unlikely to make the final thesis, so I need to rein myself in and focus on what I'm supposed to be doing.

Next week's work

A couple of days ago I printed off a few BBC documents about blogging:



Now I just need to read them...