Why is Media Literacy important for you as FCM students to have it?

As FCM students, media literacy is important to us because by having this knowledge, we would become better media workers. Through Media literacy we would be able to learn how to judge, analyze, and make use of media effectively. Besides, we would also be able to detect misinterpretation, false claims and various manipulations in the media. With media literacy, we will be aware of what the media is feeding us, and not just blindly absorbing media messages without much thought thereafter. Being the future media worker, I need to know what factors to be accounted for in creating media content. Media literacy empowers us about these factors, such as media ownership, money and values. Thus, we can become better storytellers, when using the media to communicate with the world. Since Media Literacy is about thinking, it is highly essential to media creators like us, FCM students, so that we never create something that give raise to critics such as stereotype, and plagiarism.As a conclusion, media literacy is an important knowledge that must have for every future media producer like us as a FCM student now as it enables us to create something which is new, creative and meaningful.

What is Media Literacy?

The media awareness network’s website has a list of expert’s opinion on the definition of Media Literacy. Below here is the link to the website:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/media_literacy/what_is_media_literacy.cfm


First, according to Jane Tallim:
“Media literacy is the ability to sift through and analyze the messages that inform, entertain and sell to us every day. It's the ability to bring critical thinking skills to bear on all media— from music videos and Web environments to product placement in films and virtual displays.”

Secondly for Elizabeth Thoman, she defines Media Literacy into three stages.
“Media literacy is an overall term that incorporates three stages of a time leading to media empowerment: The first stage is about we become aware of the essential of controlling media's influence; the second stage as to learn critical viewing point; and third stage as to further explore the issue.”

Thirdly, Rick Shepherd stated that:
“Media literacy is an informed, critical understanding of the mass media. It involves examining the techniques, technologies and institutions involved in media production; being able to critically analyze media messages; and recognizing the role audiences play in making meaning from those messages.”


Another explanation for Media Literacy found from Wikipedia,
"Media literacy is the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms."
It encouraged the public to ask question as well as to detect media abuse and gain better understanding about particular information. It also serves the purpose of producing good media creators.

As a conclusion, I define Media Literacy as the ability to read and write about media; able to analysis and make critical reflection on the message carried by media and finally create a clear message and statement.

Personal Reflection- week 7

For this week Media Culture class, our lecture section is conducted by Madam Helena Song. Basically is all about Media Representation and Cultural Stereotype. At the end of the class, I found that this week topic is much easier to understand because there were moment of interactions between the lecturer and students. It was very fun and eventually the whole class wake up from the sleep when Madam Helena encourages all of us to participate in a class discussion. Besides, we were also given the opportunity to watch a few short videos explained about Cultural Stereotype. Those videos not only provided all of us have a good laughs but at the same time we all learnt some useful knowledge from it. As a conclusion, I think this week’s Media Culture class was one of the most enjoyable one, so far in this semester. I hope our lecturers able to keep making the class more and more interesting as we progress through the remainder of this semester. (If can, more videos!)

Critical Reflection 2- Aliens Stereotype

We have seen so many films about the alien and many of the films showed Alien have bad personalities and is bad guy. Even though now we have much more advance technology compare to last time but the true stories about Alien is still unknown to us. Whether they have really came to Earth from the outer space? We still don't know yet and not sure whether should believe the existence of the Alien but we do believe in the fact that our galaxy and space may have the possibility live by the Alien. Since we not really seen Alien before, but why do people depict Aliens with cruel intent that snatch people from earth to do their crazy experiments and whatever else? All of this is because the power of media. The media creator tries to create some stereotype for the Alien, so that they could grab the audience attention but at the same time they will change people view about Alien. When someone stereotypes someone as something, whether they want it to or not, that image spreads and soon others will begin to see the victim as the stereotype. This is just same like a virus spread because even though without any prove, audience will still feel and believe the alien stereotype that has been created by the media. Besides that, stereotype of how an alien looks through media is also another thing which is no concrete proof.

Diagram 1.1 (see above)-Do you really think Alien look like this? Or all the while we are just influenced by media stereotype?

For example, let us talk about the popular science fiction-disaster film in 2005, The War of the Worlds. The story tells about the worlds was being attacked by the Tripod machine which was operating by the Aliens. The Tripod machine able to vaporize all human within its range, and it starts to destroy all the buildings in its path. (Do the real Aliens have such machine?) Besides, the Tripod is harvesting blood and tissues from a helpless human victim. (This show Aliens are cruel killer and intent to kill all the humans, but in truth do they really like that? We still don’t have any prove yet and it was just an imagination message convey by the media creator). All the weapons on Earth were no match to the Alien Tripods Machine. (This shows the Alien technology is much more advanced than humans). In the end, the Tripods were breaking down because the invaders and their weeds were suffering from terrestrial diseases, which they have no resistance to. So, after audience watched this film especially the children, they will started to afraid of the Aliens because they thought if one day Aliens really invade Earth’s, they will be killed by the Aliens. So this is why we must think and treat Media stereotype carefully because it can create us a negative image or perception on certain thing.

Diagram 1.2- War Of The Worlds (2005)

Another famous film in 2004 which really bring negative stereotype on Alien is “Alien VS Predator”. This film show to us that the Aliens were evil, cruel and they killed humans. Besides, it is a horror type film as the Aliens looked really frightening and create a very scary impression to the audience. This is how the negative stereotype has been created towards the Aliens.

Diagram 1.3- The Alien in the film, Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

So, personally for me, I think it is actually depends on our own self whether we should trust media stereotype or not and more importantly we must have the knowledge to make critical thinking on the media stereotype. One should always remember that sometimes what our eyes see and what our brain think may not be true all the time!

Critical Reflection 1- Female stereotype

People always have their mind that "Female is weaker sex; they always need a hero to protect or save them.” Is that really a reality or a true fact? Why people will have such thinking? Without any doubt, the answer is all because of the existence of media. Media have create negative image on female towards the audience and they make used of female stereotype to change people thinking.

When I was small, I like to watch fairy tale cartoon from Walt Disney's. This is because most of the fairy tale story will always have a boy as the strong hero who go rescue the girl as the weak character. Then, the girl will fall in love with the boy who save her and after that, they will live happily ever after together. As you can see, most of the fairy tale has the same happy ending. But then, my point is why can’t the girl go rescue the boy? Why every time the boy is create as hero and the girl is always the weak one who was waiting to be saved by the boy? This show the media creator have create female stereotype and the purpose is to make the film more interesting. Children are very easy to get influence, whenever they saw something they will try to learn or copy as well because they thought what they see is real. Even though is just a fairy tale, but children like it, and they thought is actually happen in reality world. But actually, this is just a trick of a media creator.

Media creator have create countless of cartoon, movies, comedy and etc by showing the girls as the weak one and always need a boy to protect her. Their purpose is to influence people, change people mind and create another image to audience. Actually, all of this is just onscreen portrayals of girl.

Diagram 1.1- Sleeping Beauty (1959)

For example, Walt Disney's fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty (1959). The Princess Aurora had been place in a deep sleep after being curse by evil sorceress, Maleficent. Prince Philip braves all obstacles to reach Stefan’s castle prior to battling Maleficent who turn herself into a gigantic Dark Fire- Breathing Dragon. After the death of Maleficent, Philip climbs to Aurora’s chamber, and save her by removes the curse with a kiss. As the film ends, the prince and princess both live happily ever after.

Diagram 1.2- Twilight (2008)

One of the modern day female stereotype adaptations comes in the form of Twilight (2008), a movie based on a novel. The movie shows how a handsome vampire, Edward Cullen tries to protect his love one and save his girlfriend, Bella Swan which is a human from another sadistic vampire, James. When James tries to kill her and she is seriously wounded, Edward come and rescues her. As u can see, the film shows Bella Swan is just a normal human and a weak girl compare to vampire which have supernatural power.

Diagram 1.3- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Another example showed a female Asian stereotype which is all too common in popular media. In the movies Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), a female character name Cho Chung acted by Katie Leong was powerless to all men who preyed on her mind and body. When Malfoy and his gang leeched her for information she could not help but “give it up”.

What Media Stereotype is?

Media stereotype is a conventional or formulaic conception or image of an individual or a group by the media. The media represent people by using gender, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic class, occupation, difference race and etc.

Media Stereoptype

Thank you, Madam Helena for giving us another informative website. (http://web.media.mit.edu/~ayah/MediaTheories/#conclusions).
This week we are ask to read through an interesting article on media stereotype from the website. Though it was quite long and it took me quite a long hour to read through but it still inspired me to read because it is so interesting.

This week's discussion:

1) What media stereotype is?
2) From your personal experience, what other media stereotype (besides the example from the article) you have seen either on TV or in the movies?

Personal Reflection- Week 6

Hurray! For this week, I got noting to comment on Media Culture class because all of us are having a public holiday on Monday. But unfortunately, even though there is no class, our blog assignment is still going on. We are still given another new assignment by our dear lecturer. So, I guess I have to spend more time on reading the new articles given by our lecturer, so that I can fully understand the written message from the article. Anyway, I must say it is time to enjoy another new blogging week!

Critical Reflection 2- No, internet cannot be trusted 100%!

This is my other answer for the question. I said “No” because there was some sort of information or issue in the internet are not 100% reliable. Therefore, in order to really get the true answer, I must search through the internet for many results, or similar websites regarding the topic. After I have found many same answers and found that it is consistent, then only I would trust the information or issue in the internet. As we know, Wikipedia's is one of the famous and easy use free encyclopaedia use to find articles. Although Wikipedia’s provide us we with plenty of explanation and are a compilation of referenced materials, but the sources are not 100% reliable. This is because Wikipedia’s allowed other writer to re-edit the articles and some writer have put some unreliable information on it. Thus, it is important for one to have conscious and knowledge on how to identify which information is authentic and which is deceiving. Besides, there is some website from internet that was used to cheating or deceiving the audience and make them purchased their products or for specific purposes. My conclusion is even though internet cannot be trusted but still there are many people using it including myself, this is because internet provides us the easiest way to get information. So, I must say one should know how to filter out those the inaccuracy in internet in order to get the accurate info.

Critical Reflection 1- Yes, Internet Can Be Trusted!

For this question, I will certainly give positive answer, which is “Yes”. I do believe and trust to the internet. Well, I believe not just I alone will going to said “yes”, I believe everyone from whole over the world will said “yes” too. This is a fact because if nobody believes in the internet, then nobody will use it to search material or information and also internet will not going to become as popular as today. One could just believe the information is true without any thinking because some of it comes from a reliable source. Besides, internet is a very easy accessible compared to newspaper, books or documentaries. With internet, I can get any facts or info in just a few minutes and with just a few clicks. This is why sometime people prefer to just trust the resources they found in the internet rather than go library to do research. By the way, some of the information from newspapers or books is originally come from the trusted website in the internet and it just reprinted by publisher. Well, actually everything in this world is “balance” (have positive site and negative site) and the same goes to internet, we trust internet because we think internet can be trusted and is true that some information from the internet were original. But, there were certain information in the internet cannot be trusted because it has been distorted by the writer. So, my conclusion is we can trust internet, but we must know how to judge and decide which is the most suitable and accurate to choose.

Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture

A Comic Strip entitled:

"Rumors, lies and innuendo spread far, wide, and fast on the Internet." taken from "Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture" by Stanley Baran, pg 324.

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it? If yes, why? If no, why? Discuss this in your own words.

Personal Reflection - Week 5

Honestly, this week's lecture was much more fascinating compared to last week. Somehow, my instinct told me that I do really enjoy this week Media culture class. Well, first I must thanks to Mr.Radzi for made me realize how 'Powerful' the mass media is. After I read the lecture slides and Iistened to Mr.Radzi explanation, I finally understand that mass media actually have the ability to deceive public. Mass media can make public to believe something fictional and might cause the whole worlds under panic and chaos. Mass media can neither bring goodness nor badness to us too. So, I think this matter is depending on the person who present or conveys the media message to public.

Sadly, even though the lecture was very informative but there were many students still did not pay attention in the class. The class was so noisy and hard for me to concentrate on Mr.Radzi lecture. I can see only a few of us were listening, whereas others were on their own conversation. Well, perhaps Mr.Radzi’s lecture still not enough to get full attention from student, but for me, I think it is okay for me to listen Mr.Radzi lecture. In the end of the class, I finally understand and see ways of using these media theories on my future media product for the audience. I do agree in future it does useful for me, and so I must study them more until I am able to use them appropriately.
Okay, I think that's it for this week then, hopefully next week class will be as interesting as this week class!