Weekly Updates in Writing
Angel Nguyen
Smore 1: What is Media Literacy: FIXED
What Media is
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lit & Comp
7 January 2016
Media to me is everything around that influences people. For example, the news, billboards, magazines, television shows, the list can go on and on about what media is. Basically knowing what is happening in the world is known when people are exposed to the media which is what being media literate is. Having the ability to acknowledge the current events of what is happening in the political news world or even in the reality television world is considered to be media literate. With the knowledge obtained through the many different media platforms, it is easy to become connected to the rest of the world. For example, back in the day it would have taken days or even years to receive news of an event happening but now there is media that informs or even entertains us everyday people to know the current events happening around the world such as the Hydrogen bomb in North Korea or the news about our soldiers oversea in battle. Having such easy access to media really increases the number of people informed on different media literature. In my experience, I have been recently informed on micro beads. The reason I stumbled on the topic was though a media platform, more specifically, a video on Facebook that informed me on the banning of micro beads, which then made me media literate on the topic of micro beads. Overall, media literacy is the ability to know and understand what is happening or what happened through different media platforms, for example, video or in print. But on the other hand there is always that opposing force that will undermine the good of what media literacy is for. An example would be how terrorist groups would use the media to send threats when it is suppose to be for the good of the people. Overall, media literacy is there to benefit and educate us human beings.
Different media outlets
Media collage
Digital and Print
Smore #2: What can I do?: FIXED
Animal Cruelty: What I Pledge
Angel Nguyen
Mrs.Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
11 February 2016
While researching and writing this media activism project I have come to realize that there is not enough coverage on this topic. The topic of animal cruelty. The one area where only some can hear the helpless animals cry while being stuck in a cage with many others surrounded by their feces. I from now on pledge to raise awareness. Awareness for the animals that do not have a voice to cry out and the animals that are simply just born into the situation and cannot get out. I also pledge to help other people around me get to understand that it is not just a world we live in but also with many others such as the animals that live here too. Simply by posting videos or pictures on Snapchat, Instagram, or even Facebook I can help educate the people around me about the animals in need. Last week, I actually helped raise awareness through my Snapchat at the Georgia SPCA where many adoptable cats and dogs were. The next day many of my friends were very interested in adopting them that even I was surprised in the amount of people that asked me where the place was located. Through the little action of a ten second video I helped some little cats and dogs, imagine what all of us combined could do. Think about the amount of animals we can take out of misery if we helped adopt or helped bust these farms from animal cruelty. With the exposure, many benefit from helping these animals if they are saved. There will be less lawsuits to the higher ups like companys that try to do good but are under the spotlight for practicing animal cruelty and less animals in pain from staying in cages and injected with steroids to grow at an unrealistic rate. But with my help of starting this exposure, little by little there will be a change.
Smore #3- Superbowl Commercial Analysis Preci: FIXED
Doritos advertisments
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
8 February 2016
In the Doritos commercial, “Ultrasound” (February 7, 2016), made by the Frito-Lays company, claims that men or more specifically, husband's, are thoughtless and not as caring compared to their wives or in general, women. Frito-Lays excellently describes their claim by portraying the husband as a messy, uncaring potato sack because of his nasty shirt and jeans, by also making the husband eat Doritos chips in the ultrasound room where it is supposed to be a sanitary place, and by showing how insensitive he was when the wife asked him to put the chips away but he kept doing the opposite of what she asked. Using such images to portray the husband as insensitive and uncaring, Frito-Lay did it in order to create the perfect image of what a husband would be if all he cared about was eating his Doritos because it was a Doritos commercial. Frito-Lays’ audience is all the people watching the Superbowl because they as a company had paid millions to show their commercial during that time slot, and through the humorous tone that was shown, it captured everyone's attention to keep watching til the end.
S'more #4- How does Gender in Advertising affect society?: FIXED
Does it reflect societal values or dictate them?
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
10 February 2016
The impact advertisements put on society is mainly reflecting what the society already portrays. Advertisements only just points out what already happens because no one else would obnoxiously state the obvious. But through commercials, we, the people watching the commercials, will be able to laugh or criticize the things that society does. For example, the Doritos commercial points out the insensitive side of fathers that many already know to be true but speak about. The commercials reflect society on how they objectify men as weak while women are strong. Usually they illustrate women to understand better with more common sense compared to men. The values of society are pictured all over these commercials and advertisements in order to usually make the commercial funnier, because the commercials with more humor is almost more appealing to the audience to watch. It is almost like the audience prefers watching the commercials making fun of them because it is all true of what the society’s values are. Overall making the commercials more enjoyable to everybody because the audience is basically watching their daily lifestyles in live action or more specifically, on screen. Strangely enough, if people bluntly went up to each other and said the things in commercials, there would be problems arising because of how straight forward the text is in commercials.
Smore #5- Media Manipulation: FIXED
Hypocrisy? In Advertisement?
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12th Grade British Lit & Lang
14 February 2016
Through manipulation one can achieve anything if the persuasive skills are up to par, meaning if it is convincing enough to sway the audience. For example, the television commercials presented on Valentine’s Day are supposed to portray the love and affection between two people on the most romantic day of the year. But no, the commercials are usually airing videos of couples fighting or complaining about what each other did not purchase for their significant other that day. Strangely enough people are used to seeing videos like this now. Not only in commercials but random videos on Facebook are showing clips of couples fighting about getting each other nothing when there was supposed to be a silent agreement to buy each other gifts. Obviously, that agreement would almost always end up in a bad situation. Overall making videos and commercials hypocrites of what people would be doing. They sway the audiences mind to their advantage either encouraging fights to make the couple buy flowers as a “I'm sorry” gift or plainly just make the audience buy flowers because it is an easy way to get the valentines gift over with. But overall, there is total manipulation all over advertisements. Reasonably speaking manipulating peoples minds are all what the commercials and advertisements do, to sway the audiences mindset.
Smore #6- Should Apple Fix
Should they...?
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
27 February 2016
In my opinion, Apple should not provide the new IOS to the FBI. Even though the FBI says they will only use this encryption on that one phone no one will actually know if that is what they will do, or if they secretly use it later on. Plus, if Apple makes this “backdoor” for the FBI then it will lead to new opportunities for hackers to gain access to the millions of iphones out in the world today. On top of that, what the FBI is asking is a little too much because it does not just mean the San Bernardino shooter’s phone but i means affecting the millions of other phones and devices under Apple’s company. This whole case fight is not about if Apple can do it because they can fix the encryption because they built it, but it is a matter of privacy that will be broken if done so. For example, if I knew that Apple was going to give the government the means to have all access to all of my Apple products I would feel like my whole life was leaked online. The only reason it would hurt me so bad is because technology is all we have now that we depend on because they are always with us, like our iphones are always the first thing we remember to take outside the door. So without the knowledge of our own privacy in our hands gives us an uneasy feeling because we owners only knew that our individual selves were the only ones seeing what we saw, now the government would be able to see too.
S'more #7- 1984: Agree or Disagree?
Disagree...
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
26 February 2016
My group disagreed with the statement, “Patriotism means supporting your government during times of war”. The reason why we disagreed was because a person does not have to support your government in order to love your country. And patriotism's definition is the love for one’s country. Sadly enough not all countries are righteous, some are in fact corrupt like the third world countries where the government takes money from the citizens that put them in power without knowing. Then leaving the citizens under an unrighteous person in charge. Overall, citizens following the government can be patriots, but not all patriots are followers of the government. We do not have to follow the government that is in charge of us just because we live in this country. An example would be how the United States went into war more specifically the Vietnam War. The United States did not have to join the war but we just wanted to. We wanted to join in and help the Vietnamese people against the Viet Cong. But in the end, we, the United States did not gain anything after we lost the war. We in fact, lost a lot. The draft made men eighteen and older go to war which made families back in the United States furious at the government. So the citizens of the United States still felt patriotism but did not agree or support the government because of the decisions made that disappointed them. Honestly, I do not agree one hundred percent with the government right now but my love for this country is outstanding. This country gave my parents and grandparents a place of refuge from a war, and ever since then their lives have improved so much. With each and everyday goes on my parents’ patriotism grows as we live here but we do not always agree to what the government does.
S'more #8- Get it Straight- Politifact
Reflection
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lit and Lang
27 March 2016
While reading the article going along with the quote i realized that many of the politicians go above and beyond to make the opposing candidate look bad. Especially when the politicians go against Donald Trump. It is important to look up the legitimacy of the candidates because they might be hiding a past like Trump and his connections to the mafia. With society today I am most likely sure that many do not fact check the people they are voting for mainly because it is so easy to just check a box next to the name that many of your associates are voting with. Which is one of the worst problems in the United States because many will indeed vote for Trump even though they do not know what he is actually running for. Listening to the media is one way to get information but it depends on which source because news channels seem to be biased according to which one you watch. Overall, the problem of not looking up the candidates is that we are choosing the next leader for the next four years and what if we do not know everything that these candidates are trying to achieve while in office with all the power they could ever imagine.
S'more #9- Ain't Rebellion Fine
The Uprising
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
27 March 2016
S'more #10 - Government Wins Again
Government Wins Again
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lit and Lang
27 March 2016
The ways Winston and O’Brien are somewhat copies of Edward Snowden are that they go against the government, aka Big Brother or the Party. They both were part of the Party by helping them but have recently realized that it is in fact the Party that is the problem to society. Both Winston and O’Brien at first work for the government like Edward Snowden and have pretty significant jobs for the society to run smoothly according to the Big Brother. Sadly, the difference between Winston and O’Brien to Edward Snowden is that Snowden has already been caught and is now still telling stories of what he has figured out about the government as he was working formerly as a National Security Agency subcontractor. While on the other hand, Winston and O’Brien are still part of the Party as inner and outer party members that necessarily cannot really go out against the government or else they will be vanished. Vanished from all documents and records of anything that implied their existence. And the difference between is that Snowden is still in existence giving out information of what he found to be wrong and corrupt in the government that the people should be trusting but instead is doing the opposite and manipulating them. But overall, all three,Winston, O’Brien, and Snowden have the same goal, the same image to change society, and the same vision to expose the government that is degrading the citizens of their knowledge and freedom. That even though the government is suppose to protect and make the lives of their citizens easy and up to the standards of living they take away their rights and restrict the knowledge of what they, the government, is doing, when they are suppose to tell the citizens what they should be doing because they elected them, the leaders.
S'more #11- Is Technology really from Heaven
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
30 March 2016
After reading the quote, it made me think about the connection between science and technology. The mere dependence between each other. Like what would happen if one was not as developed would the other thrive and how it would survive without the other. But in Orwell’s quote, the thought of how he articulated his words was that of one cannot be without the other. But in order for science and technology to thrive they also needed to be in a good environment. Like how plants grow they need good soil, drainage and sunlight. Well, in Orwell’s point science and technology need an unregimented society with the ability of free minds to think for themselves and not any one party in charge for their so called thought crimes. So if the question is if technology is sent from heaven, no, it is only made, not sent, from the society it develops in.
S'More #12- Happiness vs Freedom
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
24 April 2016
In my opinion what Winston knew that mankind did have a choice between freedom and happiness but it all depends on the actual individual to decide. What I thought was that even though happiness seemed the better of the two choices in the long run it was not the better option. There is all of the additional happiness that comes with freedom too. For example, the freedom to love whomever one pleases. Which very much coincides with the book because love is basically banned in Oceania. Ultimately, I think I would have chosen freedom over than what Winston chose which was happiness. I see many people today in society and in the celebrity world that basically give up their freedom for their happiness. Like for some there are many that cannot escape the paparazzi so their freedom is gone basically like he citizens of Oceania being watched all the time to happiness is not always the answer when there is freedom to choose from.
S'more #13 - Gaslighting
Is it easy?
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lit and Lang
28 April 2016
Smore 14: Can we Autucorrect Humanity
Angel Nguyen
Mrs. Danley
12 British Lang and Lit
8 May 2016
Part 1: In response to Prince Ea’s message about technology i totally agree about how technology is actually disconnecting us from each other. The original use for technology was in fact to help communicate better with everyone but instead it was made us into unresponsive beings hooked onto tiny screens. To control or even start to tackle this addiction is to start our kids young. Many parents now in today’s society are just giving up too easily and saying “yes” to more time playing on the ipad or laptop when we should all be encouraging the kids to play outside. Just like how us, the generations before them played, outside where the sun shined and the dirt was anything we wanted it to be. On the other hand, if there is the possibility of not fixing this soon to be pandemic there will be horrible results ready to happen. For example, the lack of independency from technology will take over like how the Disney movie WALL-E predicted Earth to be like in the future. A soon to be place like that would most likely be Japan, the country in the lead with technology. With the little power I have in my capability I would harness it to limit today’s youth on technology. The amount they spend on little screens no where near compares to the fresh outdoors that they are missing out on. WIthout the slap of reality, the kids of the future will suffer because of today’s leaders. Ultimately making the next generation bred into slaves of technology like Prince Ea said how it could be “our permanent reality”. So relatively speaking if everyone tried to pitch in and basically fix our youth from being so attached to technology I think there could be a saving grace from it being our permanent reality.
Part 2: Honestly thinking about my views on media literacy I feel like it has somewhat deepened. Due to the fact that after writing so many reflections in the smores it made me grasp more of opinion in my head about things rather than just being neutral and staying safe, but actually taking a stance in what i believe. I have learned that media literacy literally has many different perspectives to it. That there is no wrong or right answer just that as long as there is a point trying to come across it is correct. Strangely enough, I will take away the ability to have a voice in the class. Usually I would not speak up in my language arts classes but it seems like this year has made me grow my own opinion and let me stand by it. The class made me truly voice who I am and not be shy about my opinions of an article we read in class which i really appreciated. honestly , I have loved every second I was in the classroom. The only thing that I did not like so much was the Ted Talk because speaking in front of cameras are not my strong suit and on top of that we had to edit the video, so the whole time uploading the video online, I was probably cringing.