Hello. My name is Sylay Haywood, and I’m currently a junior at Old Dominion University. My major is currently Visual Studies, and I have an intense love for art and storytelling! The reason why I am writing this paper is because so I can gather all of what I learned from this class I’m taking, Understanding Media, and apply it to my understanding. I currently have learned a lot from this class, from learning that books can also be a part of media despite being more traditional than digital and discovering more about the origins of how these medias had come to be.
How I use media when growing up is that when I was younger, I used to be a big bookworm before being more active on the internet. I would normally read manga or adventure books in order to both pass the day, and for the joy of it. I also watch a lot of TV shows or movies as well, since I’m engaging in art with visuals, rather than with words! When using media with others, I usually talk to my friends through my social media accounts, such as Instagram, Discord, or even Twitter. I would also interact with new people on these said platforms, either to discuss common interests with them, or agree with a statement they made. I have made a lot of memories with media during the past years, through reading books, listening to the radio in the car, watching TV shows on the big screen, and now being on social media to interact with a large group of people!
How mass media helps us gain insights about ourselves is that it help us relate and understand how we interact with it. It also causes me to be more aware of how my views and interactions with media products or advertisement impact what I see on the internet, especially ads. Additionally, depending on what I click on or see things that interest me, the internet tends to advertise that product more in hopes that I would cave in and buy it. So all these advertisements that are shown to me are personalized, whether it be from emails, or from social media sites.
How this applies to me gaining insight onto myself regarding in mass media, is that when I brought something from books stores or from online sites, they usually advertise themselves to me from their emails. I would also get these advertisements or emails as well when I sign a petition or donated to a fundraiser. I also get emails from my school as well, usually advertising courses that I would be interested in, with knowing what classes I took.
Figure 1. My google email pages, sending me advertisement and reminders of sites I’ve involved myself in.
When it comes from interacting with media, it helps us understand ourselves more, and what genre interests us the most. This is important because we interact with media every single day, so of course there will be things that will grab our attention more than others. We could also discover new interests or things as well.
How media can move us emotionally is because of sedimental values, or entertainment that help us connect us as a whole. This can be in form of storytelling or movies, or music that can both be fun to listen to or has more emotional and relatable meaning to them.
How I can connect this with my own experiences is that there’s some stories that I read that I heavily relate to. Whether it’s because I sympathize with what the characters have gone through because I went through the same thing, or maybe it’s because they got the same character flaws that I’m working on. Either way, a lot of these stories make me feel less alone and even motivates me to better myself.
And example of this would be the books that I grew up with as a kid, such as “Big Nate”, “Dork Diaries”, and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. And soon enough, I realized that this is because these authors had put their own experiences into these characters, which can help us be connected. There are also some books such as “Crowfeather’s Trial” that actually motivated me to become of more open and social person, as that’s what the character I heavily resonated with had to gone through in the book.
Figure 2. Picture of the author of Dork Diaries “About The Author” page.
Figure 3. Picture of the author of Big Nate series “About the Author” page.
How these medias connect us emotionally is that they can help us learn more about ourselves and also makes us feel seen as some of these books or movies have experiences that other people went through before. It also helps us connect with the world on an emotional level, as it help other people see what other people went through and become more empathic.
How personal media can help us feel larger than ourselves is because it made us aware of how much people are consuming the same stuff, we were, especially when it’s something global like printing media, radio, television, and social media. In the end it makes us feel small and unsignificant, as in the end we are products to media, and vice versa.
How this connects with my media history is that when I was younger, I used to read a book called “Warrior Cats”, and it’s always a series I’ve enjoyed when I was younger. When I became older, I realized that there were a lot of more people that enjoyed the same series as me, even growing their own fanbase around it, including the book series have its own website to connect people to! It made me feel less alone, like I have a community that I belong to.
Figure 4. Warrior Cats website.
This also help me experience different cultures as well, as books from outside of the United States can help me connect with their culture, and gain a more open minded of how different we all were. An example of this is when I’m studying and learning how Satsuma pottery was made, I also have to study the Japanese system and how they used to operate before they went through modernization. It makes me feel more curious about their culture, and how they were found, and I would’ve never realized this if mass media hadn’t been created, otherwise my knowledge would be strictly of my own culture and systems.
Figure 5. Jähn, Meiji Ceramics: The Art of Japanese Export Porcelain and Satsuma Ware, 1868-1912, 154.
In the end, since a lot of media has a mass audience, it can make you realize the magnitude of people watching the same stuff you’re watching. Which is the point, as the main goal for media is getting as much audience as possible for their products, or entertainment. That way, their advertisers or sponsors will have faith to put their money into their creations or programs. It also helps us expand our horizons towards different cultures or systems outside of our country, making us more open-minded.
How media can help us gain new perspectives is due to the fact that lot of media has a mass audience, being mass media. As I mentioned before there’s a lot of different people who are listening to the same songs, watching the same news, and watching the same film or TV you’re watching. Even so, they can have different opinions or perspectives from yours, which is why discussing with others can be both engaging, and important for media literacy.
When interacting with social media, I realized that there’s some who have the same opinions as me, and those who don’t. I remembered watching a video as why someone doesn’t think the storyline is as strong as I believed it to be, but after I watch it to see their perspective I can see why. In fact, it could have helped changed my perspective as I realized that their arguments and points are stronger than mines.
Another example of this is when engaging and talking to other people, it makes me realize that indie industries can fall into the trap of becoming corporate and corrupt if they follow the same examples of Hollywood industries due. This includes racism, anti-consumer tactics, and even having a weak communication and feedback system to get this all managed. This helps me gain a new perspective on indie industries or companies, and that they’re not any different from corporate or Hollywood industries if they don’t fix the issues the latter has. However, from what I learn it could be unavoidable because of the capitalistic society we live in.
Overall, this causes me to realize that your opinions or perspectives can and should be challenged, as not only you’ll be able to stand for what you say more confidently, but also you might gain a new outlook on things and realize that your viewpoint might not been strong to begin with. This helps me learn that we should learn more from each other and not be close-minded of our views or opinions.
How media can help us with our personal growth is that it can both help us build our media literacy skills but also made us more aware about the media being presented to us and how we consume it. It also helps us become more mindful of how much media we either mindlessly consume, or whether we want to do more research to make sure the information they’re giving us is credible or accurate.
From my own experience, before doing research I usually just take information into face value and just accept them as facts. The problem is, what I’ve been learning from this course is that a lot of information can either be forged or censored, or they could just be lying to make themselves look better. I also realize that reading things such as blogs or other articles that are not peered reviewed, may not be as reliable as articles that are, or books that are created by scholars or researchers that are experienced. Last semester my professor had recommended me to use books for my research paper, rather than looking them up online, as the former is less bias and more objective to the facts.
Figure 6. One of the books that my professor recommended me to use for my research paper.
The mass media can also help us be more aware about serious issues such as climate change, social justice and genocide. As back in the day before the internet, a lot of these information would be either censored or won’t be released in the first place, either because the government or higher ups doesn’t consider this as important information, or afraid it might kill their image or the civilian’s faith in them.
So in the end, how these questions make me realize is that when consuming media, it can also help you grow as a person, especially when you’re more aware of what is being presented in front of you. The more you build up your media literacy skills by searching for more factual and credible information, the stronger your mind will be, especially when you’re not longer naïve as you were when you’re younger.
In conclusion, media is very important for the world we live in, especially when we’re beginning to live in a more technological world. The first mass media would come from printing from the Gunterberg’s printing press in the 1450s, which would led to newspapers and books. Next would photography and movies, which the former would contribute to magazines. Then it’ll be the electronic resolution, which features television, sound recording, and radio. All of these evolutions of media have mass media in some way, and in different ways, all of these media impacted me more positively than negatively.