Media Literacy .

What is Media Literacy and why is it important for you as FCM students to have it?

Media literacy refers to the ability to question, analyze, interpret, evaluate, and create media messages. In essence, it is the application of critical thinking to both electronic and print media. Media literacy skills include: detecting bias, comparing and contrasting ideas, recognizing both fact and opinion, and "deconstructing" images.

It is very important for FCM student to understand and practice the elements in media literacy. Students can learn to be discerning and critical observers and responsibly involved citizens in our media-saturated culture.

Being a media literate,we can easily recognize metaphor and other uses of symbols in entertainment, advertising, and political commentary.By knowing all this, we definitely will improve our thinking skills which can lead us to produce a good media.

This Media Literacy Curriculum Model below is from the critical framework developed by Eddie Dick of the Scottish Film Council.

Media Stereotype

Stereotype

Another word which is maybe worth a dictionary definition:

standardised, often simplified, mental picture or attitude that is held in common by members of a group.


In addition, stereotypes are usually negative representations . They also usually represent an entire social group in a single character – such as the naive secretary, the spoilt child or the strict teacher.

The four parts of the Media Stereotype that I've seen and analyze from movies :

Appearance

this can include, physical appearance and clothing as well as the sound of the voice

(remember Darth Vader from Star Wars?)

Behaviour

typical things that people in this group might do

(children loves watching cartoons)

The stereotype is constructed in ways that fit the medium

(a movie of a serial killer will have a different portrayal of the killer than the news)

comparison
(whether real or imaginary with ‘normal’ behaviour)

Can information from the internet be relied?

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

That's a hard question to answer.

In the days before the web, when you needed to research a topic, you went to a library and looked through the reference section of the topic you were researching. If you were lucky enough to have a set of encyclopedias, then your task may have been a bit easier.

My advise to anyone who is researching ANY topic, looking for answers, or information is ...

research more than one or two sources on the web. If possible, also research an encyclopedia or library resource as well to verify the facts.

Be aware of the site you are reading, and the person or persons responsible for posting that information.

The bottom line is 'I DO NOT' believe everything I see and read on the Internet." I'll use my common sense.

How Does Social Media Affect your life and the lives around you?

First, we have to agree on something. Maybe some of you all can choose to disagree, and I welcome that, but my stance is this:

the web is inherently social.

Not for everyone, particularly not for older generations, but from me back to the babies it is inherently, indiscriminately, and unavoidably social.

Social media isn’t anything special, it is just the Internet in its current form. It is a period that will forever be known as a time where it became as easy to create content as it was to consume it. THAT is the important part of what is going on.

Not new media, not digital media, not post-media and certainly not social media. If all media is social, media must be inherently social and if we agree the web is inherently social then the Internet is, my friends, just a collection of media.Watching video online is no different, and soon we won’t treat it like it is.

social media thoughts(taken from google image)

Now with the Myspace & Facebook evolution, everyone has a crooked picture (the angles) and they are promoting a blog that they are trying to sell ads on.Well as we all know,Facebook and Myspace are a networking web we keep in touch with our peers and catch up things that we've missed.That's another way for us to interact and communicate via internet.Besides that, friends,did you ever noticed the adds that's been always displayed on every corner of those networking page?That would be a way for marketers to promote their stuffs via the net.They use both social and industrial media frameworks.

Hence,I would like to conclude that social media is not only about entertainment.It's also another way to earn money through industrial media frameworks.

Video Intro to Social Media

A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media