Having been able to participate in the EURSS has been a great opportunity as well as a challenging task over the course of the summer and autumn 2021. When applying for the grant I knew little about academic writing and getting the opportunity to plan, structure and execute a research project has been a very educational process.

In my essay I would like to adress the interactive nature of our project in more detail. Choosing an alternative presentation method and putting our project on the web was an idea that we had from the start and I’m glad it followed through. In the beginning we figured participatory elements in the presentation would reconnect with characteristics we found interesting with the news media of today. Our home supervisor helped us in the early stages in developing the idea and key features thereby. A concept that was introduced to me was cross disciplinary research, essentially combining two lines of education in one project, in our case the journalistic with the artistic.

The most prominent features of interaction on the website can be attributed to the comment section and the quote randomizer and they surely stand out as a bigger part in the interactiveness. But besides that more spread out design elements such as emoji representations, menu maneuvering and color coded quotes also play a part in making the project more intriguing.

The application format for EURSS was well designed as it required quite a well defined idea but still emphasized that changes could be made and the project could grow and evolve during the summer. I found adapting the mindset of a researcher somewhat challenging, and working in a team really helped with this as my project partner and I had different backgrounds and so could combine our expertises. 

Our host supervisors from Vrije Universiteit in Brussels also really helped us from start to finish, always being there on Microsoft Teams for discussing ideas and the trajectory of the project! Getting the chance to work on a research project with a web format in mind has really been a rewarding process and for that I am thankful.