Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Media Education

Dr. Leech
Last week we had a presentation from Dr. Leech talking to us about Media Education. We learned about commercials and how all commercials have two layers of menaings. There's the text which is what it says out loud to you, and there is the subtext which is what goes on underneath. The subtexts are what the commercial are assuming or implying. Subtexts are often abd and are what drag a viewer intot he commercial. They scare the viewers into buying the product. Subtext is not acceptable when a need was created that didnt used to exist.
Throughout this peresentation I learned how to identify what the subtext and texta re. I learned to not fall for the subtext that is making me want to go out and purchase the item that i didn't use to need, or even want. That night when i went home, when i sat down and watched TV, when the commercials came on I sat there and analyzed them. I saw a commercial for the H1N1 vaccine saying that if you did not get the shot you would get extremely sick and even possbily die. Before learning about the double layers this commercial probably would have scared me, but instead i took it into perspective and thought aboutt eh facts. The fact is that if 75% of the population were to get the needle which almost that amount of people ahd then 5% of people get the flu and learn how to fight against them then it will be cancelled out. In my family there are 6 people that live in the hous 4 of them have gotten the shot and both me and my older brotehr who ahve not gotten teh shot have had the flu, and thus havebuilt amunitiesto it and knwo how to fight it off. Then i saw a commercial for Axe spray for men, the commercial showed that if you used the spray women would follow you around. I thought about this and this commercial is using women as a game. The media portreys women and men in terrible ways.
I think that after this presentation I wont look at a commercial the same I will think about what it is actually saying and not take it to heart.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Media Consumption Inventory
Media consumption is everybit of media or advertising that you encounter through out the day. You can probably tell that this would therefore be alot of thigns from cell phones to books to billboards. After some little tallys in class I discovered that i have 120 hours of media consumption per week. Considering there are only 168 hours in a week that is alot. That only leaves me 48 hours of sleeping and doing other thigns that don't involve media consumption. I tallied that i have 23 hours of print media consumption. The most of those hours are spent on readinfg internet sites, and close behind is hours spent reading magazines. The amount of hours spent reading novels and books is very low. Then we Have electronic media consumption, i have 96 hours of it. After reviewing the amount of hours in this section i found that I spend the most time, by quite a bit, is the amount of hours i spend on my cell phone with 35 hours. Then at 15 hours i have both the amount of hours spent surfing the internet and the amount of hours listening to pre-recorded music. As I said media runs our lives, almost anything we do has some sort of media involved in it. Media is everywhere, and will only continue to be a major influence of our lives.
Since the amount of hours spent on my cell phone is the highest amount of hours between anything, I have decided that for one hour everyday i will turn it off and not use it. I am already on the road to doing this 5 out 7 days in a week when I am at dance i turn my cell phone off, and onyl turn it back on once I'm leaving or need to use it.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Learning Styles:


I found out that I was a Tactile learner, my overall results for this are 25% Auditory, 20% Visual, and 55% Tactile. I learn by touching and doing 'hands on' things. I prefer to touch, move, build, and draw things to learn them. I learn better when there is physical activity included in the process, and have much difficulties sitting still. When bored i will find reasons to move around, or fidget. While sitting in class I am not able to sit still, whether im tapping my foot playing with a pen or doodling i will be doing something. I am very coordinated and have great athletic ability.

This show alot about me, because I am a dancer, coordination is greatly needed and while dancing there is not one point where at least one point of your body is not moving. This shows that if i want to learn something i best bet to do this is by physically doing it, for example learning a new dance move, the teacher tells me what to do then i have to keep doing it over and over again until i prefect it.



After taking the test on this website i found out that I am a visual and Tactile learner. I would benefit from using sight and life experiences, and then using them to relate back to work. I can pickup information really easily by listening to it, but I am too active to listen to it all without speaking out or stop listening. I understand work well from class demonstrations, group studies, and learning games. I tend to sit in the back but would do better off in the front, because I get distracted very easily.

This shows that although i have lots of potential to do well if i tried, the classroom setting isn't the best for me because since I do get off topic easily I need to take lots of short breaks to keep me going. I now know that to help me concentrated it is perfectly fine to fidget and do something like tap my pen.