Final Exam Part II
My new found media literacy has become of great interest to me. There are a number of different examples throughout this course that have not only given me information about today’s media, but also has helped me understand it as a whole much better as well. First, through the use of the various programs that we learned such as flash and photo-shop, i am now able to see how commonly they are used in society. For example, photo-shop is used to alter pictures and make things look different than they actually are. This a common technique used by all different types of media to change our perception of certain pictures and things of the sort. Along with this, after using flash and creating our own little clips, i could relate this to many animated movies that i watch and games that i play online. Although I’ve always heard of flash as the running component of these, i never really understood how it worked until taking this course.
Secondly, this course has also given me a much new perspective of media as a whole. After seeing such videos like the cheerleader beating online, it helped me to realize how much media has changed society. Back in the day people needed to read the newspaper or watch the news to get all their information about some new story. However, today in society media is much more in our faces and we not only get the stories immediately but we have the resources at our fingertips. This can be a good thing because it can advise us of new stories quickly, however, like the cheer-leading video, it gives us more access to media that we would have not had in the past that seems somewhat controversial.
Finally, i have also come to understand how media can bring major important issues about our society today and can make them into humorous issues. For example, through the movie Idiocracy, we saw how it was extremely funny, but at the same time touched on many major issues in society that we worry about today. In the movie people are being overtaken by technology and have decreased in intelligence in a significant way. Although the way it is portrayed in the movie may seem like it is a joke, it really is a major issue how technology is truly taking over the human race. Through this it is easy to see how media can take major issues in society today and can turn them into big jokes by altering our perception of them.
Altogether, this course has greatly changed my understanding of media as a whole. Whether it is the new programs a learned, the controversial videos online, or the alteration of serious issues into humorous ones, media has definitely had a major effect on society today. Thanks to this class i now understand how this occurs and greatly appreciate how important media is throughout all of our lives.
