Why is media literacy important for me as FCM student to have it?

Media literacy is all about learning. First of all, as an FCM student that considers media literacy is important, I could feel the importance through my assessment of most assignment. It makes me understand which media to be used for which assignment to convey such messages or ideas of mine. Other than that, it makes people thinks and ask question in order to understand. For instance, when you were looking at one of the famous artwork by one of the famous artist, at the first sight, you might not know what it was all about. Thus, you start thinking, and then you start asking question based on the artwork. As a n artist, you might not choose to use the direct way to present your ideas or messages through art. There are various ways. In my words, I think that if an artist’s artwork makes people think or even ask question, I think the artwork shall be a succeed. It is about creativity too as a creative person would think out of the box which do things that are unusual. To be creative is to be different from other people. 

About media literacy...

-the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms.

-uses an inquiry-based instructional model that encourages people to ask questions about what they watch, see, and read. 

-provides tools to help people critically analyze messages to detect propaganda, censorship, and bias in news and public affairs programming 

-to understand how structural features (such as media ownership, or its funding model) affect the information presented. 

-enable people to be skillful creators and producers of media messages, both to facilitate an understanding as to the strengths and limitations of each medium, as well as to create independent media. 

-an expanded conceptualization of literacy. 

-By transforming the process of media consumption into an active and critical process, people gain greater awareness of the potential for misrepresentation and manipulation (especially through commercials and public relations techniques), and understand the role of mass media and participatory media in constructing views of reality.

source from: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and had been edited.

In my own words, it is about learning and gaining knowledge. It is important definitely. It is not only about listening or seeing, it's also about thinking and analysing.

Personal Reflection on this week lecture

For the lecture this week, I would it was quite interesting that the lecturer kept asking “yes or no” question and the reply from student is either no or silence. It was quite clear about the topic of “representation and stereotype”. Though it was still the same as usual with those boring looking slides, the lecturer really did quite a good job which she tried so hard to get into the group of “teenagers”. By the way, she kept asking whether she is “in” enough to be the lecturer or not. Ok… she isn’t that “out” I would say. She’s always willing to upgrade herself with the techs and fashion I think. Though I wasn’t concentrating for the most of the time, I still get what the lecturer was trying to bring out. And the video (as a desert after the boring main meal…) was interesting and damn cool. Hope to get more cool stuff week by week.

Personal Reflection on Media Culture Class

After the past few weeks of media culture class, I've found that there's nothing interesting (and I'm not saying that it's boring...) about the class overall. Compare with the classes in semester 1, the class is a little bit dull with just presentation slides for lecture session. I expect for some movie. Perhaps the syllabus for this semester isn't much about watching movies, but it will be much more interesting to have some in class.  

Example of media stereotype

Other than what have been said in the article given, on TV we can find some commercial that playing the role as stereotype in people life. For instance, when you ask a child of what to eat for lunch, I’m sure that the answer will be “KFC”, “Mc-Donald” or “Pizza Hut”. A lot of commercials are to sell their products. Hence, the products are advertised in an interesting and attractive way. So that people have the willing to buy. Commercials nowadays play role as parts of life as what is being shown on TV probably the first choice for those beginner users. The commercials are influencing people’s mind and keep telling the audience the same thing. The brand might just pop up when we are fed up in choosing which brand to consume. Or in another way, when people mention “Tupperware”, it directly relate us to the plastic container though it is just a name of container brand. “Pendrive” reminds us of the USB storage device though it is also one of the famous brands which came out with the initial design of USB storage device. It is not about how well you know the brand, it is about how well the brand sell their product and even name every similar product same as theirs.

What is media stereotype?

Media stereotypes are needed in life especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries. It’s needed for an audience as wide as possible to quickly understand the information indicated. It is like something that reminds you of another thing. Such as cowboy is a stereotype of American heroes. It is a kind of representation or reflection of something to another thing. There is one thing I’ve seen in the article that we are told to read. “Repetition teaches the donkey”. This is a proverb telling that when you keep seeing something or hearing it, you will end up learning it and believing it. Your brain will be crowded with the information, either fake or true, that have seen through the media stereotype.

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it?

Can’t be denied that I often take what is on the internet as truth or just as references. When one is facing a question, he would post is on internet to find out the answer though it isn’t always the correct one. The “relationship” between man and internet is getting closer and closer nowadays which a man couldn’t live without it. Don’t you think it’s silly? (though, the same thing happen to me either.) We know that same information on the internet might be fake, we still rely on it. What’s the point? People are getting lazy and lazy. Lazy to think, lazy to look for information other than what’s on the net and even lazy to compare which is the truth. When we look back the time in older days, how human being look for information and how human being gather the information. They are always using the manual way to do so. As the recent generation, we couldn’t choose the manual way as we are fighting against the time. People need to be fast, to be effective in working and to be the pioneer of all. We are competing day by day. Day by day, technology is getting improved than before. Thus, we rely on the internet which we thought is reliable. Is that so? Are we actually lose our mind and become lazy to think? In older days, human invented computer. Nowadays, computer (technology) created our minds. It is silly to say that but it is true. Perhaps someday in future, computer will control our minds and even our living. Even myself is one the “victims”.

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it?

It’s an interesting topic and need to be concerned. First of all, we couldn’t tell if the information on the internet is telling the truth. Let’s take myself for an example. There are a lot researches to do for my university assignment. Thus, where to look for that information? Without thinking much, I surf the net for the research. For instance, when I key in the words that I want to look for, within a few seconds, a lot of results from different website appear on my computer. With just a easy click, I can look for what I want. Search engine such as Google, yahoo!, msn and so on. On the other hand, Wikipedia, which is a very familiar website to gather information, normally appear for one of the results for most search engines. As everyone knows, anyone of us could edit the information within the place. This makes the information in Wikipedia doesn’t seem to be so reliable. But, do you really about that? Most of us, without thinking much, directly refer to the words written on the net. Without thinking much. Is this the reflection of man’s laziness? Or man, nowadays, getting more and more reliable on internet. And of course, this is not a good sign or a positive circumstance. We know that besides surfing the internet, there are a lot more ways to look for information. And I can tell that these sources are more reliable than what is on the internet. But, most of the students including myself might be too lazy to check out more in a library. They would prefer sitting in their room facing their computers. And again, this is absolutely not healthy. Anyway, I still take what is on the internet, not as truth, but as references.

Personal reflection on the media culture class

As for the class this week, in my opinion, the PowerPoint that been used in class is boring to me. Other than words, I couldn’t find much picture in the PowerPoint. As feedback, lecturer should cut down some words and includes more necessary pictures so that PowerPoint will be more interesting. Thus, sleeping in class will be effectively avoided. Other than that, lecturer should be more interactive with students. He might be good in explaining but not in interactivity. 

Social Media (2) How this new phenomenon is affecting the lives around me?

On the other hand, there will be no PRIVACY once you start using those social media especially via internet. Social media such as blog, facebook, you tube and so on. Anyone of us can post anything such as video clip, diary post and so on. Once you’ve chosen to use those social media through internet, there will be no consideration about protecting self-privacy as people can see anything posted by anyone. Let me take blog as an example. In the older days, writing diary is a private thing which no one can see one’s diary without one’s permission. But, as we can see, nowadays, online diary aka blog is no longer a private thing. Just with an easy click, you can view anyone’s blog without the owner’s permission and hence writing a diary is no longer personal. Besides, people might know your friends through social network such as facebook. This could bring good and bad effects.

Good: we could find those “long-time-no-see” friends through the network

Bad: you could get some negative friends and get negative messages.

Social Media (1) How this new phenomenon is affecting my life?

After viewing the video of "social media in plain English", I would like to share some of my opinion. Using ice-cream to represent social media in that video is quite interesting. Ice-cream in older days has only few flavors, but now we found lots of flavor in town. This is creativity. People become greedy when there are more choices. How this new phenomenon is affecting my life? Nowadays there are more and more different kinds of social media. Each of them provides a place for posting feedback, comments, and even rates it. For instance, at first I didn't know what or which to choose. Hence, I’ll refer to those comments or feedback to help in making choices. This helps a lot which I don't need much time to figure out which is better. In return, I’ll post my own comment. It makes thing easier and even faster in process. Thus, things would be improved as well according to those comments and feedbacks.