Media Literacy and Our Lives Today
A Connection from Views and Lessons to Current Events
View on Media Literacy (Before)
The media is our surroundings and our forms of communication to others and the community. We have social media: one where we can communicate and socialize with friends and outside family. We also have television media: one where we can watch the news, television shows about real people, or even watch sports and see the outcomes of big games. The third I like to discuss as media is radio: where we can hear and listen to music and news. All of these are communicating and informing us about what surrounds us. They even advertise to us, which all three that I listed do. Celebrities have their own meaning of media however, because they are always trying to avoid the outside world when in public. Everyone recognizes them, so they try to do activities that your average person would take part in, yet just doing it casually and where they don’t get hit with pictures and multiple questions and such. Everyone should be media literate, because this is how we communicate with everything. Our world has turned very technologically savvy, so we need to have the ability to use and understand our media forms. I believe a kid Facebook messaging or responding to a tweet is extremely media literate. Unfortunately, the younger generation is more media literate than adults, however many adults and even grandparents are starting to use and understand the medias, so we collectively are becoming more media literate as a society by the second. Being media literate is very important in our world today, and the more literate you are, the better chance you have at being successful in a world like ours which is run by technology. We also need skills like having the ability to hold a conversation with someone; however that isn't really relevant in this topic. Media literacy is an important aspect in our lives.
Radio and TV
Media Literacy Wordle
Social Media
T-Mobile's "No-Contract" Commercial 2014
In T-Mobile’s commercial, “No Contract 2014,” the company provides a contract-free cell phone service to its customers. Expressed by the multiple tasks Tim Tebow performs, such as helping a women give birth, playing football on the moon, finding bigfoot, saving puppies, and multiple more, T-Mobile demonstrates how someone can do so much more when living a contract-free life, and brings upon emotions such as either freedom to customers who have this plan or guilt to those who are caged in their contracts from different companies. The company’s purpose is to provoke these feelings from viewers, and to also give customers a way out of their contracts in order to allow their customers to be free and provide an attractive cell phone plan and service. The company presents in a humorous, yet informative tone for the audience to collectively laugh at the accomplishments of Tim Tebow, however to also feel the need to be contract free.
Johnny Manziel to transfer instead of head to draft
By: Phil Mickelson (Sports Journalist of the AJC)
COLLEGE STATION, TX
Johnny Manziel, the college football phenomenon and first ever player to win the Heisman trophy as a freshmen, has just undeclared himself from the NFL draft. Instead, he has different things in mind for the next season and Redshirt Junior year in his still young college football career. Johnny had declared himself to enter the NFL draft for May of this year on January 8th, just a week after his spectacular and heroic second half to lead the Texas A&M Aggies to a Chik-Fil-A Bowl win. Johnny had several games like this in his past two years, most notably the Alabama game last year, as the Aggies defeated the soon-to-be national champion. Many expected him to take the money while he can and enter the draft, and he did so. Now, however, he has re-thought his decision and has decided to stay in the college football spectrum. This time however, he will not be wearing the maroon and white.
Johnny Manziel has decided to transfer from Texas A&M University to the University of South Carolina for the 2014-2015 school year. Johnny’s comments include: “I am very thankful for the Aggie Nation’s support throughout these past few months. When I decided to stay in college, I wanted to return, but there was just one problem, the defense is too weak for me to win games on a regular basis and be a contender in the SEC.” Johnny feels that even with the loss of Jadeveon Clowney, the Gamecocks still have a great defense, a National Championship type of defense. This response to his decision correlates with his style of play: flashy and will to win. The defense of the Aggies is not the type Johnny needs, and he has made a wise decision.
Coach Steve Spurrier of South Carolina claims that Johnny Manziel is the best quarterback to play the game and can easily replace Connor Shaw. Even Nick Saban, the God-like viewed coach for the Alabama Crimson Tide, noted that Johnny is #1. “I claimed that AJ (McCarron) was the best after the LSU game this year, but that was just for TV-sake and for them to stop asking me questions. Manziel is the best and out-played AJ each time we played one another. If I had the chance to have Johnny as my quarterback, I would’ve taken him” noted Saban after Johnny chose the Gamecocks. There were many factors going into Manziel’s decision, but one toped the rest.
Johnny enjoys the party life greatly, another reason why he stayed in the SEC, besides the fact that it’s the heavy favorite for the best conference. He claims that if he wasn’t playing football, he’d be in a fraternity. When it came down to it, Manziel had narrowed his decision down to three schools: Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. He chose to attend the University of South Carolina due to the fact that the Sigma Nu house allowed him to live with them while spring training was taking place. Georgia offered the same thing, however Manziel refused because he claimed that their defense was worse than the Aggies’ (refer to the Auburn game…). He also refused Alabama’s offer because he figured he’d already had enough fun in Tuscaloosa after beating the Tide in November of 2012. Manziel noted that “I probably did way too much illegal activity there (Tuscaloosa) so the police will be out to get me, and also some girls will be mad from events that night also. So I’ve decided to take my Heisman trophy award-winning talents to the University of South Carolina in the hunt for a National Championship.” We will have to wait until September to see if he has made the right decision. Until then, stay tuned for the latest on Johnny Football.
Day That I Die
View on Media Literacy (After)
At the start of this semester, my only views on media literacy included social, television, and radio. Now, along with those that I had already had some knowledge on, I can make connections and references from lessons learned and dystopia to real life events. I can also write Satire, which before I had completely no knowledge of what that even was. I enjoyed writing the satire, because I feel that if you pick the correct topic, you can write an excellent paper and satire due to the fact that you can connect with it. I like Johnny Manziel, golf, and college football. From there, I was able to piece them together into an article and topic that I have an understanding and interest for. Then, I could make my satire, and I feel that I did really well on it. So that’s another thing that I learned more about myself this year; If I am discussing a topic that is well comprehended, I will have an easier time writing a well-done paper.
When walking away from this class, I plan to be more prepared for college. I believe that we have discussed topics that will be helpful on college assignments, and I also feel that we had a more college-like atmosphere than most would expect in a high school Language Arts class. We have also discussed current events, which therefore have helped me to understand what’s going on and be able to discuss these with my dad and such. Even though I enjoyed this class and do believe that I have taken much from it, I think that it could be improved by discussing our finished assignments in class. There were sometimes that we’d have Schoology assignments that pertained to current events or that I wanted to talk about with classmates, but we never discussed many. Or we could’ve even just read our assignments aloud to the class after completing them if it was just a paragraph or so. Therefore, we could learn from other students as well as put pressure on each other to do better since you have to read it aloud. Yet, all in all, I enjoyed the class and think I learned much from Media Literacy.