Term Project Update #3

My project is complete. It was a lot of work, but i’m very pleased with it. I hope to actually continue the project further down the road, incorporate even more issues of The Rattler, and maybe even do a study of other college papers in San Antonio. For those who are unfamiliar with my project here is my abstract for the project:

This project is part of an ongoing historical discussion on the evolving state of journalism. The focus of this project is on the content produced by student writers in the St. Mary’s University publication The Rattler. While student writers at The Rattler now engage these topics freely and often aggressively, their predecessors did so only in times of warfare or international instability. The international scope of warfare opened the floodgates of political dissent in student newspapers by allowing these writers to distance themselves from the related issues they faced closer to home. Of the eras preceding the 21st century analyzed in this project, only the period of World War 2 saw the offering of substantial content about politics an social reform.

My research consisted of reading several journalistic history articles, and sifting through hundreds of issues of The Rattler, and reading thousands of articles. There were so many interesting and surprising bits of history to find there, but I could not include them in my project. Creating the charts and making sure my data was accurate and impartial was the most complicated part. Revising my writing afterwards while being mindful of my audience was also quite the task. Further down the road, I will definitely be revisiting this project and improving on the existing presentation methods and adding in even more data.

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