A PhD starts – a PhD Blog is born

A PhD starts – a PhD Blog is born

 

It seems like a bit of a cliché. ‘Oh look another blog of a PhD student’. I went there: “the height of procrastination”.

But I like to think that the reason that PhD blogs are created is actually something different that to what people really think. It’s not just an additional procrastination tactic. Because that’s just a pure given: everyone knows that amongst all things it seems that PhD students love is coffee, procrastination, thinking about doing their thesis, and blogging about doing their thesis.

PhD students (or candidates by their more formal name) spend three to four years studying, researching, and writing for one sole purpose – the thesis. Obviously that is the end goal, but in a world of where jobs are infrequent, due to education cutbacks, and the globalisation of the academic work-pool. It’s very easy to be left with a PhD and no academic position after.

It seems that it’s becoming more of a fact that without making the essential networks, the necessary publication record on a CV, and showing competency through online communications, you’re going to be stuck. So this is for one reason why this blog is here – to show my journey and my academic actives for future potential key influences, and of course so I can cringe at myself in years to come.

So what is PhD about?

Here is the summarised area of study. Because I do have the expectation that this will change, so I’m keeping my research questions to myself!

Everyone has been making a fuss about social media and political communications. I mean who wouldn’t. Social media use has expanded massively over the last decade. But as a research area there is still much to discover, at least in the realm of political communications. We know why political representatives use social media, we have a good overarching theory of the ways MP’s use social media (Yeah nothing new, para-social broadcasting), we have a good idea who uses social media for consuming political content, the types of people who follow political representatives – and even the general reasons why citizens press the ‘friend’ or follow button on an MPs’ profile. What we don’t know is how the messages MP’s communicate with constituents relate to changes in external and internal political efficacy in citizens.

Alongside this – my PhD will be looking in to creating some new research methodologies that work. Because there is no definitive way how to research social media just yet – Even COSMOS can’t figure that one out yet, so I will be contributing to this field.

Anyhow I’m sure that you have some super important questions, so I’ve answered them below.

 

Have you given your Thesis title a cheesy name?

 

 

Does it have a colon in the title, like every good academic paper should?

Are you going into research full of hopes of dreams only to be ruined by the inevitable weight above your head, and find yourself writing PhD blog posts as your only relief?