Becoming Media Literate
In the Modern World
Media
Media is anything and everything that can be transmitted and viewed by devices connected to the internet. Pictures, videos, and news articles are all prime examples of media that are present on the internet today. Any information anyone could ever want is now just a few taps on a keyboard and a click on a mouse away. Today’s world has a vast expanse of media that is extremely dense; one must become literate in this media in order to be able to function in today’s world. Someone who is not well versed in how to preform basic tasks on the internet will have a hard time accomplishing anything as more and more once unconnected tasks have now become connected to the internet. One needs to have basic literacy skills in the realm of media in order to get a job, manager their finances (online banking is sweeping through the industry), and to protect themselves from being taken advantage of. Media can provide wonderful opportunities to individuals that have never been available until recently, yet at the same time media can cause people a lot of trouble. Media can be especially dangerous to children as malignant materials are prevalent on the internet; however, a media literate parent could take action such as uploading software to prevent children from seeing sensitive material. People can also abuse their media literacy through avenues such as the dark web, where illegal material and information can be purchased or viewed. All in all, media is an extremely useful tool, but one that comes with a lot of dangerous underpinnings. Staying media literate in our ever changing world is essential to live a prosperous life.
The Dark Web
Wordle Mashup
Sad Reality
What is Dystopia?
Dystopia is an imagined place in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded realm.
Why are dystopian novels so popular today?
Maserati Precis
Maserati suggests in their Super Bowl Ghibli – Strike commercial (2014) that driving a Maserati will help individuals step out of the dark and strike down the world’s “giants”. Maserati supports this assertion by incorporating a child narrator who speaks on the instances of “giants” taking advantage of our lives; Maserati also shows a number of “giant” forces such as tsunamis and tornados destructively leveling objects. Maserati’s purpose is to stir that childlike emotion of defeating the larger and enumerable “giant” forces that are constantly working against us in our lifetimes in order to make their brand seem like a helping hand towards defeating these forces. The intended audience is wealthier adults whom will be able to afford a car of such expense; Maserati is trying to instill their brand of cars as an aide which will help these people conquer the challenges they face in life.
Auto-Correct Humanity Response
Association between technology use and disconnection from reality is a difficult subject to tackle. On one hand, as a tech-savvy teenager, it is very easy to disregard this piece of media in which Prince Ea denounces the constant use of social media and cellphones. Ea’s standpoint is that media is disconnecting us and turning us into anti-social beings whom fulfill our needs through screen time. Living in the current technological climate that I do, as a seventeen year old upper-middle class American teenager, means that I have very wide access to social media and the technological forums by which social media thrives. This means I have a cell phone, laptop, desktop, and tablet all at my disposal at all hours of the day. The scope and depth of this information available at my fingertips is nearly limitless and is only getting more intense. This limitless access to information and media is causing a sort of shift in the paradigm interactions between humans, especially adolescents and young adults. People are satisfying their innate need for human interaction though the use of social media and other technology based outlets. This reality is one that unfortunately we will not escape; we as human beings are evolving thanks to the technology around us, for better or worse. I truly believe that we will not reverse the anti-social aspects being derived out of social media and technology use because we are only falling deeper in to a pit of no return. The only feasible solution would be to limit screen time and force natural human interaction; this solution will obviously never be reached because people would clamor for unlimited technology time and would loath the forced interaction. Social media addiction is an addiction we cannot overcome unless aspects of my former plan for limiting screen time were adopted unilaterally across all forums of social media. Once again this is just something that companies and individuals will not want to adhere to; everyone loves their technology and tech companies love their money. As we slide deeper and deeper into social media addiction we will see ourselves transform as a species, it is already happening. The habits of modern day elementary schoolers are unnerving in that the vast majority of them will already have some form of social media before even reaching middle school. Even as children they are killing their natural human interactions and substituting these face to face interactions for screen to screen interactions. The new generation will be the most tech-savvy this planet has ever seen, but due to this reality they will also be in the most socially inept to ever walk the earth. Harnessing the power of this technology and social media already does and will continue to dominate business markets all across the globe. Social media and technology have such a large scope that they can be used to accomplish almost anything. Every new revelation and invention in the foreseeable future will be techno-centric, this is just the reality we face.
Media Literacy Course Reflection
Looking back fondly on my first Smore post regarding the definition of ‘Media’, I realize how much I have changed and how much I have not. I still hold the same basic values in regard to abuse of the internet and the ability of technology to be used for good rather than nefarious purposes; however, my understanding of the depth and scope of what media is and can be has widened tenfold. I now understand the different tools of media through which people are manipulated, both from a business and governmental standpoint. Through the Media Literacy course I learned to understand how media in the modern day truly effects every aspect of our life from birth to death. The course in general and the way it was taught made it one of the more appreciated classes I took in my high school career. I applaud Mr. Owen for attempting to actually educate us rather than teaching us for the testing aspect of our subpar education system. This reality made Media Literacy far different from other language arts classes I have taken due to the fact that those classes were so test-centric and included other less than satisfactory units focusing on vocab and sentence structure. Also I have extreme thanks for the fact that we didn’t annotate senseless amounts of articles just for the sake of it, because trust me that makes up the bulk portion of some language arts courses offered at this school. The course itself doesn’t really need to be tweaked all that much; however, the addition of laptops or another internet-abled device in the classroom would enhance the course by a large margin. The tough lab scheduling led to our class missing some opportunities to participate in the course to its fullest extent but that is completely understandable due to the sheer size of our school and the amount of classes which needed the lab time just as much as we did. All in all I enjoyed Media Literacy and would recommend it to those who are signing up for their senior year schedule. It was a well-rounded class with good intentions at its core.