Homosexuality Is Un-African

The package assessment was our first New Media assignment, we were required, in peers to choose a topic that was going to be accessible to us and write a main news story that is 600-800 words and a picture  with links to:

Ø  An additional news story (600-800 words) on the similar topic but with a different, fresh angle and a picture.

Ø  A poll question relating to the topic that was chosen.

Ø  A social media feed of about 20 words that could prompt people to open the link.

Ø  Finally, we were going to post it on the blogs we created.

The Main News Story

Myself and my partner Sinenhlanhla Mgwaba, jointly chose to write about  homosexuality . Our main news story focused on homosexuality in the African continent. In the article we looked at the,reasons, stereotypes, myths, religious and cultural obstacles or influences  that  make African leaders, traditionalists and people consider homosexuality to be un-African. We did research and spoke to a homosexual man, Andile Dube. For the additional news story we focused on adoption and raising children.  We included facts we found during our research and  opinions by adoption centers and by homosexuals that are already raising children and those that are looking to adopt including the legal issues surrounding adoption by homosexuals.

Working With A Partner

Working in peers is not easy , both myself and my partner wrote the articles together, and it was a challenge because we have different styles of writing. We did it all as a team, from the interviews, titles, sub-headings to the pictures and captions, we edited the articles  and learned how to track our editing. For  the main news story we interviewed Andile Dube, we photographed him, added and added a caption, similarly with the additional story.

We left out a lot this during our assignment, we not do everything the package required. For the picture we included the caption but not the by-line, and those mistakes cost us marks.

What I Learned through This Assessment

I have an idea of what on line media is, it requires a lot more efficiency.  It requires one to be computer and internet literate. It allows you to explore the various sites and forms of online communication. From U –stream, to creating blogs, online media is vast.