Rosie's Ramblings

This summer I managed to read 20 books - a number I’m really proud of given how busy the past few months have been. I thought I’d share a little reading round-up here: what I loved, what I struggled with, and what surprised me. Hopefully, some of you will agree (or disagree!) with my takes. I’d love to make these reading reflections a more regular thing, so we’ll see how that goes. Favourite Read(s) Starting with the hardest question: what was my favourite read? I couldn’t narrow it down to just one, so I’m cheating and choosing two - both books I devoured towards the end of the summer. Evenings and Weekends - Oisín McKenna This novel completely transported me into the kind of life I imagine myself living in London. It moves through the inner monologues of different characters navigating dreams, disappointments, and everyday struggles. What I loved most was its honesty, you often see the glamorous side of city living, but McKenna shows the reality: people just trying to get by. The...

Hi again,  Whether you count the end of summer as the last day of August or 22nd September it has to be said: autumn is around the corner. As someone who loves big wooly jumpers, cozy reading and quiet evenings in the house, I can’t lie, I am excited. In saying all that, it has been a really great summer and not only am I sad to see it end, I am also definitely feeling the shift between the seasons.  In light of that I wanted to do a little blog reflecting on my summer and how I am feeling going into the new season (spoiler: not all positive feelings). I hope this might resonate with some of you who may be feeling the same way.  Summer highlights  So this summer has been a good one. Not only have I been able to travel loads, I have also managed to spend a lot of time with the people I love including some who I haven’t seen in ages. One massive highlight was my not so aptly named ‘graduation trip’ as it took place before actual graduation… This aside it was one of, if...

Welcome to my first “politics roundup”. As well as the more personal entries I thought I would use this blog to engage my political brain and pull together some stories in the news that caught my attention. This may be due to the politics itself, how it was reported or how it made me think differently on an issue. I have always wanted to do something like this but have never really tried so please bear with me and I will try my best. The other more personal blogs will continue so if you don't care for this, feel free to skip and only read the others. The 2am Trump wake up call I’d like to start with one story that caught my eye as an aspiring journalist. This story provided a sneak peak into the demanding nature of the career. During the summer veteran BBC journalist Gary O'Donoghue was woken up at 2am by Donald Trump calling. Now I don’t think many people would be expecting this but for O'Donoghue this was what he had been waiting for. In a panic he grabbed his recorder b...

  As I write this from my childhood bedroom, I can’t help but feel reflective about how moving home from university has been. Even though I knew that this was coming for a while, it still has caught me a bit off guard of how different life can be. The shift from living with my best friends to now with my parents is definitely an adjustment.  One thing I did (unfortunately) expect was how much stuff I would have to sort out. Having been abroad for a semester, I’d already gone through the hassle of moving out of my uni room once and knew that returning to it all a year later wasn't going to be pretty. Now everything I own is sprawled out in my parents house waiting to be tidied away with nowhere to put it. I have already made a few attempts at clearing my room of clothes I don’t wear anymore, but my unsold Vinted pile is threatening to become a permanent feature of the house.  So not only am I feeling quite frankly a bit overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I have, I am als...

  If you don’t know already, I recently graduated ! Which is an exciting feat and makes the last four years of work entirely worth it. However, as everyone who has graduated will know, the question on everyone’s mind is: What’s next? Whether they mean well or not, parents, peers, and even people you've just met will ask what your plan is for the future. This question can bring both fear and excitement for what lies ahead. I’ve been lucky in the sense that I’ve always roughly known what I wanted to do. Fortunately, I’ve recently taken a big step toward my dream career in journalism by being accepted into News Associates to study for my NCTJ. But this blog post isn’t about that because before all that happened, I wasn’t sure how to answer the what’s next question either. Many of my peers, especially those of us in the social sciences are still unsure what we’re doing next. This is through no fault of their own; they refresh LinkedIn, Indeed, and other job sites daily, applying to r...

In a world where information is at our fingertips it is no surprise to see how misinformation has spread. As a politics student who focused on political communication for her dissertation I have seen how easily misinformation can spread. Similarly I have seen how political actors and journalists can use misinformation to push their own narratives, shape public opinion and to influence elections.  Misinformation is defined as false or misleading information shared without the intent to deceive which is often interchangeably used with disinformation which is deliberately deceptive. Whilst their intentions differ, both can have implications for political outcomes when used by political actors. The rise of using social media platforms for political information has allowed for these platforms to become a fertile environment where misinformation spreads faster than ever.  The 2016 Brexit referendum has become famous for misinformation as the NHS bus is a now well known example of fa...