Week 2- Blog Posting #3- Media Literacy

Media Literacy is a unique understanding that I don’t think most people have actually researched or spent time asking questions about. We are a society that is bombarded by media messages and if we don’t have the background to understand, synthesize, and evaluate those messages we get lost or we are passive in our media experiences. Aside from Web 2.0 tools, it is important that the very basics of media be taught so that the universal understanding and use of media is creative, explorative, and collaborative. I spent the last week teaching audience analysis and these fundamentals are lost. I asked students to identify characteristics of different demographics among groups and asked them to think about messages need to be created with the audience in mind. Students were programmed to respond that there are no differences between different races and ethnicities as well as different sex and gender groups. I understand the obligation to be politically correct and take a stance that everyone is equal. What my students didn’t understand is the feelings of inequality that many still feel. I felt it was naïve of my students to take this approach and my job as an educator to guide them to a better understanding of audience analysis by looking at the differences of the audience. I found this video at the website for the Center for Media Literacy. This video while targeted at advertisement really addresses the points in my audience analysis activities from class; it is important to ask questions and know your audience. It also emphasizes how important it is to achieve media literacy not only in our education and work endeavors, but also on a personal level because it really can make us understand the why in life and make us better consumers and better at being critical of the messages we process. Teaching communications there is a huge push for incorporating cultural diversity and community mindedness through civic involvement and I found this video to be a great summary of all.

http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article709.html

One of the hardest areas of bringing Web 2.0 into my life has been the pull I have felt from so many new areas. Before starting the program, I was stopping in on Facebook and MySpace, but was not using the Internet for anything other than Google, maps, reservations, and search. Now, I have a website, a blog, a bookmark site, and several social networking sites. I have also found that keeping them all organized and checking in daily has been a lot to handle. I don’t think prior to this class, I would have considered myself computer literate- I’m getting there. I have always used computers; but much more in the traditional standards of writing papers and using them at work for reports and inventory. All of the authorship and collaborative projects are completely new to me. As an undergraduate, I majored in creative writing and have always enjoyed writing in pencil on paper. The technology shift has definitely been something I have put off. I am still nervous about moving into games like Second Life and WOW. While my husband is a true gamer, I am the person that gets stuck on a cliff looking at the sky or the ground being attacked.

All of this aside, I’m explaining that I have always been the type of person to sit down and concentrate on a project by myself. I got into the habit of working to music, but am now finding it more and more difficult to work without distractions with a two-year old running around. If multitasking is much more similar to task shifting, I should be an expert. However I think while I can multitask, I prefer not to. I prefer a quiet place where I can think. It is not surprising that there is more and more research looking at the harmful effects of multitasking. Are we really thinking differently or just accustomed to more interruptions and life’s noise? I found an article that is finding a correlation between the time spent multitasking and the latent effects. Apparently if spending time on the computer or involved texting, chatting, and emailing is how you spend your days, you may be slowing down your ability to process information away from the computer. According to the article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 33, August 25, 2009, “ in every test, students who spent less time simultaneously reading e-mail, surfing the web, talking on the phone and watching TV performed best”. Is it true that our computer is muddling our brains? More research needs to be done, but it is an interesting point I haven’t seen discussed yet. I will be eager to follow the future studies and see how this notion evolves.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/multitasking/