Week 5: Thoughts on the course and blogging

As the short but sweet is winding down, I have to say that this course and the blogging aspect were very beneficial. Compared to previous courses and blogging assignment, these particular blog topics went hand in hand with the topics that were being discussed in class. This made it easier for me to understand the topics at best and be able to contribute the best of my ability. Emergent Media has taught me new ways to look at certain media aspects that I never realized before.

For starters, I never realized how important media literacy was. Thinking about it, media literacy controls a great deal of our lives. Since we are now living in a media saturated world, the more media literacy we have the better off we are. We’ll know what to believe and what not to believe. This can help from serious matters as to health & diet issues to playing games on Facebook such as Candy Crush and Farmville.

With our individual perspective, I was never aware of the stages that we consumed messages in. Whether it be transported, which is my stage mostly, or our automatic state, they were all beneficial in a way that I am now conscious as to what I am actually doing when I am receiving a message. I have increased my media literacy in this area tremendously and I hope to be able to bring awareness to others so that they can increase their media literacy too.

With advertising, I always had a sense of what media channels owned what and that was why they were promoting certain things. However, I never thought of the effects it had on me. Manipulation can get the best of you if you let it. Advertisements make us believe that we need the product by adding puffery and exaggerated opinions. By increasing my media literacy on advertisements, it is easy to say that I no longer let the puffery get to me.

Week 5: Social Media and Entertainment

There is only so much one can say regarding social media and entertainment. So, I have taken bits and pieces from a previous written assignment that relates to this topic completely. Social media and entertainment will soon enough no longer exist without one another. Social media is entertainment and entertainment is social media. Lets take a look at how I used Miley Cyrus as a prime example of the effects of mixing social media and entertainment.

The future of social media is already taking a turn down the entertainment road. As an active Instagram user, I follow many celebrities ranging from actors to artists. Social media is becoming a solid platform for the entertainment industry to provide self promotion and a way to personally connect with fans. For example, regretfully, I follow Miley Cyrus on Instagram. Besides her weird pictures she posts, she also posts video clips of her performing at her concerts, being recorded by Miley while she is on stage singing. If I were to ever consider seeing Miley in concert but questioned whether it would be worth it or not, I could simply play her videos and decide for myself. In a way, by posting these videos, Miley is sort of cutting herself short of tickets bought. Since I can get the partial experience from my phone, why bother buying the ticket? In regards to the influential elements of sex, violence and “bad” language, Miley is also a great example. Since there is no age restraint on Instagram accounts, anyone can create one. Since Miley started off as Hannah Montana, she may still attract a younger crowd. As provocative as Miley has become, she is now setting an example for her younger followers who idolize her. Her raunchy outfits and multiple marijuana posts may increase her younger follower’s beliefs that they have to be sexy like Miley and do what she does.

Week 4: Media Content and Reality

With the lack of media literacy, for some, there is a thin line between media content and reality. Everyday media content becomes more and more convincing as to what our lives should consist of. As mentioned throughout the course, without media literacy, we are unaware as to what messages are important and what messages are not. Advertisements through media content cause us to forget about the products we already posses and make us believe that we need other products to survive. Sometimes the advertising portal or social media site becomes our reality and addiction. With automaticity of checking our social media sites everyday, it becomes part of our daily routine and our day can not be complete without doing so.

The reality of media content is that it has become our reality, whether we want to accept it or not. As the years move forward, so does technology. The more ways that are developed for us to consume media content, the more exposure we will have. Our lives are becoming saturated as we know it, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Those who know what life was like before media content saturation know the difference between a balanced life style and a social media life style. Those growing up in more current times, will only know this media saturated world as “normal.”

Being someone who experienced life before a media content saturated world, I am able to filter out the messages that are spoiling my brain and separate media from reality. My reality consists of the things I actually need to survive, not the things that media content makes me think I need to survive.

Week 4: Social Media and Advertising

A great way to save money on paying for advertisements such as, flyers, billboards, etc., is using social media. Between Facebook and Twitter, it has become very easy to spread the word through advertising. With using social media for advertising, you are able to connect with all of your friends and more. On Twitter, there is a greater chance of an advertisement being spread by “retweeting” a post. Most of my Twitter feed consists of information that others have shared, while a slim portion is original content that I now have the pleasure of sharing. These two aspects easily go hand-in-hand with each other.When it comes to my favorite TV shows or artist’s, I am always up to date with their latest advertisements because I follow them on social media. Now a days, it’s rare to watch a show on TV without seeing their Twitter handle and the featured hashtag of the night in one of the corners of the screen.

One of the most persuasive and successful social media advertisements that I think takes place today is the hit game Candy Crush, featured on Facebook as well an app for your cell phone. Since Facebook sponsors Candy Crush, the advertisements are always on the side of the screen or in your news feed. Once you get hooked on the game, the advertisements make you believe that you have to spend money in order to keep playing the game and buy more lives, instead of waiting 20 minutes for a life to restore itself. With Facebook saturating our news feed, we begin to think that the game has become a normal routine in our life and that it has to stay in our life. The advertisements make us believe that we have to play the game in order to have fun. It is up to us as a society to strengthen our advertisement media literacy, and be able to make the choice whether or not to fold to the advertisement or scroll past it.

Week 3:Online Privacy

The words “online” and “privacy” have a tendency of working against each other. You can’t have one aspect and expect to be able to have the other, it just doesn’t work like that. As soon as someone agrees to create a social media site, their privacy is out the window. Once you put any type of information online, it becomes public information. I don’t have a problem with information being submitted online becoming public. Unless it’s my credit card number from online shopping, but other than that, it is expected.

For safety issues and possible world threats, the government having access to such information could, and already possibly has, prevented events from happening. Or if an issue has happened, checking online history may become beneficial. For example: In the Casey Anthony Trial back in summer of 2011, history of chloroform being used was found after investigation. To link the chloroform to Casey Anthony, investigators found chloroform searches on the defendants computer. Although the verdict was in Anthony’s favor, if it had not been, the lack of online privacy could have had a lot to do with it.

Online privacy should be considered a privilege. I mean, what’s the point of interacting online if it’s just going to be one big secret? To me, that is what the internet is for. Connecting with others and being able to share your thoughts and feelings. Take this blog for example. Even though this blog is a class requirement, I still enjoy knowing that anyone could be reading this and that I have the access to read other people’s blogs.

Not having online privacy can also affect a future job. People who post on the internet and think that they’re post won’t be consequential in five years, are naive. Like I mentioned before, once it’s online it it then becomes public information for the world to see. Unless you use an alias name on your social media accounts like “Frank the Tank,” then you may not have a problem landing that dream job out of college.

Week 3: Negative Effects of Social Media

Self acceptance, grammar, time consuming, and drama were the first few things that came to mind when I thought about social media negative effects. Lets start with self acceptance. As a woman, I see hundreds of girls take to social media to feel better about themselves. I usually see this through pictures that are uploaded by the user. The picture is usually either altered by the filter or the angle at which the photo was taken. As humans, we feed off of responses from others, good or bad. If someone posts a picture of themselves and receives a negative comment, they may start to believe the negative comment is true and begin to think bad of themselves. Their negative view of their body (in most cases, from what I’ve seen) is what leads to the altering of the picture. Social media has the ability to make someone think they have to look a certain way. If a person only receives 10 “likes” on a photo while on of their friends receives 50, they might start to think that the person receiving 50 “likes” is what is considered acceptable, and that they are not. Having media literacy would come in hand in this situation.

When communicating via electronically, it seems as though everything we learned in English class goes right out of the window. The acronyms and abbreviations we have developed through text messaging have sure enough carried over to social media. Not taking the time to write complete sentences on Twitter or Facebook, may cause someone to forget how to write a complete sentence come essay time. I, thankfully, am not a victim of this (anymore). The past year or two I have made it a personal goal to type as if I was speaking out loud so that when the time came for me to speak out loud, I wouldn’t say words like “obvi” or “whatevs.”

One minute its 12 a.m., the next minute it’s 2:30. Time flies when you’re creeping on social media, let me tell ya. I have to put my phone on silent when getting work done, or else I end up snap chatting away or Tweeting about the work I should be doing. Besides a homework scenario, social media can take away from actually having a personal social life. How do you expect to meet anybody if you’re sitting on your computer inviting all of your Facebook friends to play Candy Crush? Instead of reading countless status updates, try reading a good book while sitting outside.

Whether it’s bullying or petty fights between friends, there is one thing you can always count on to result from social media: drama. I can’t begin to count how many situations I have heard that started off with “Well, he/she liked his/her picture on Instagram…” Unfortunately, that statement is strong enough to end relationships these days. Which ironically results back to self acceptance. Jill saw that Jack liked Mary’s photo, so now Jill assumes that Mary is what Jack wishes Jill looked like. It’s sad, but it’s true. Or, if Jill texted Jack three hours ago but Jack has Tweeted between that time frame so Jill knows that Jack read her text and made the decision not to answer, sh*ts going to hit the fan.

We have come to a point in society where social media controls our lives. From our moods to the clothes we wear, it is one way or another influenced by social media.

Week 2: Why are children considered a special audience?

As stated in W. James Potter, Media Literacy, children are considered a special audience for two reasons. The first reason being their lack a maturity causing them to lack in understanding media messages, causing vulnerability which may lead to negative effects. The second reason why children are considered a special audience is because “children lack the degree or real-world experience required to process media messages for their accuracy, and therefore they would be more vulnerable to be misled into believing that the media world accurately reflects the real world.”

With their lack of maturity brings gullibility. Media Literacy describes three parts of maturity that should be considered when analyzing a child’s maturity, cognitive development, emotional development and moral development. Without maturity, media messages have the ability to make the child interpret the message in any way possible. Cognitive development deals with the way children watch television as well as the “several identifiable stages” a child’s brain goes through throughout developing from birth to age 12. Emotional development touches on the development of children’s emotions through interaction with the media. Moral development consists of three levels in which children develop morals. Preconventional stage exists through the ages of 2-7, where children depend on their parents or an older figure to teach them right from wrong. During the conventional stage, children start to come into their own and starting figuring out right from wrong by themselves. The postconventional stage allows the children to understand right from wrong more indepth then they did before. They understand when they see something wrong and why it is wrong.

With their lack of experience,children are subject to consuming media messages as “accurate information,” when experienced viewers know differently. For example: Children’s television shows mostly consists of fictional characters and settings. Comic book characters are an example of media messages kids might take literal whereas adults know that it is impossible to swing from building to building while shooting out a web from your palm.

Week 2: What is Media Literacy?

As said in the class notes for chapter 1, being media illiterate has its risks. You are unable to distinguish the difference between what is relevant or irrelevant media, or what is right from wrong. With being unable to do so causes you to be vulnerable to faulty media reports. I think it is important to have media literacy to avoid those types of situations. Media literacy consists of being able to understand the message thoroughly by accessing, analyzing, evaluating, and communicating the message after we have received it. We should be aware of how to access the media content. Analyzing the content will consist of comprehending the message, while evaluating will require the person to determine if the message is something worth pursuing or isn’t. Communicating the message is a crucial step in being media literate. If you cannot relay the message in a way for others to understand, that may mean you didn’t fully understand it yourself.

As I mentioned before, being vulnerable and media illiterate could lead to poor life decisions. If you are unable to filter out the media messages that don’t pertain to you, you may have media overload when choosing the right message. For example: If someone is looking for ways to lose weight, they can either filter out the high-risk diet pills and go with different exercises, or they can use the diet pills because the media message promoting it said it would be a good idea. The first option would be considered being media literate because they are able to take control of their own life and chose which messages to intercept. Being media illiterate might cause someone to chose the second option because they’re so caught up with every message possible, that they miss the valuable messages. Having media literacy goes a lot farther than people realize. W. James Potter Media Literacy, “media literacy is a multidimensional, consisting of cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and moral dimensions.”

image cite- http://thefeedia.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cartoon-friday1.jpg

Week 1: Social Media and its effects on my life

Social media addiction comic

Social media is my life. Plain and simple. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is reach for my phone to check my text messages and all four of my social media sites. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapcaht. I’m obsessed. It’s like I have to know what’s going on in everyone else’s life before I can start my day. Although social media has it’s addicting tendencies, using social media is very beneficial in several ways.

One way being beneficial is that I am able to keep in touch with those I don’t see everyday. Friends and family that may have moved across the country are at my finger tips. When dealing with a time-zone difference, social media is a better way to connect with others without having to worry about waking them up at 3 a.m. with your joke of the day. They’ll see it when they see it and respond when they can. Snapchat allows photos to be directly sent to the person(s) of your choice. For me, Snapchat allows me to feel like the person I am snapchatting is there with me or I am with them. Several of my friends are currently on vacation right now, and I am living vicariously through there snap chats as they walk along the beach’s of Cancun and Hawaii.

Another benefit via social media is advertising. Young entrepreneurs and business owners can promote their upcoming success with social media. With sharing information on social media, word spreads like wild fire and before you know it, everybody knows about it. With BUnow, our social media chairperson is an essential part of our exec team. Without her, we would be unable to promote our stories along with other campus or world related events. We utilize Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as key social media sites.

As much as I despise the fact that I rely so heavily on social media and technology, with my line of work as a journalists, social media became my life; it’s inevitable.

photo cite- http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ssFkqpZ7RgY/Tte_UKnomLI/AAAAAAAABBI/ykAd3A_x8Qo/OHI0086-WRI-InternetAddiction-500.jpg?imgmax=800

Week 1: Thoughts on the Course and Blogging

As a mass communications major, I assume this course will be beneficial and intriguing. Since it is only the first day of the course, my comments are limited regarding the content. However, from the course description I was able to pull away that we will be focusing on the emergence of media throughout the years. Focusing on how media has grown in every way possible and that it is still growing. Over the past few years, the word “media” has adopted a first name; social. As the course develops, I expect to talk more about social media and its effects on society.

Keep Calm and Blog On

One of the original forms of social media, blogging, is still in tact today. Blogging can be used for any subject on any website written by anybody, that’s the beauty of it. If you missed a recent episode of your favorite show and don’t have time to catch up, (I’m sure) you can read a blog about it on their fan website. If you went on a cross-country trip and want to keep friends and family up to date on your whereabouts, you can blog about it. This past winter, a boy was brutally beat at Bloomsburg University. His mother and sister write a daily blog with updates on his condition. But I must say, as your typical poor college student, the best thing about having a blog is that it’s free of charge!

Having two blog posts per week for the next six weeks is a nice way of allowing us to summarize our weekly focus points. Personally, it is a communication tool for myself to myself. Instead of writing my understanding of the topic in a notebook, it will be written as a blog. As an aspiring journalists, between classes and organizations, I feel as though that I have lost a little bit of my drive to write. Producing blogs has given the lost touch back to me.

image citation-http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss187/livinlowcarbman/LLVLC%20Show%20pics/blog-keepcalm_zpsbe1c1438.jpg