Blog Post 3

I have noticed that I look at media as vehicles for messages rather than just general entertainment to be consumed. I am more capable of seeing characters and their motivations throughout shows and movies. The media is more dynamic and well thought-out than it originally seemed. Previously I could only give a deep analysis of purpose and message with literature and only picked out things unique to that when reading but never with watching a tv show. I can now do that with a tv show without too much conscientious effort. Watching the media in class and then analyzing it has helped when it comes to doing so on my own. The group effort to input ideas has really helped me think from different angles when I do it individually for the papers.  

Blog #3

Ever since I started taking this class, watching shows has become a lot more fun. Looking for the hidden details in a show is like a mystery. Findings the connections between characters and their motivations to do the things they do is what makes a show good. Ideas in a story become clearer to me the more times I watch an episode. The show Sherlock has become one of my favorite shows to analyze. Simple things like a comment a character makes or just a simple facial gesture can actually be a signifier to something deeper. The writing structure in each episode becomes more fluid and almost predictable. At times, knowing what kind of person each character is helped me to predict what they would do next. While sometimes I am wrong, there have been plenty of time where semiotics has proven to help me predict character development.

Besides helping me to better understand writing structure in shows, I’ve also learned to look at media through Marxist lenses. By doing so I feel as if it is easier to pick out which advertisements are meant for different social classes. A commercial for something like an apple watch, or a Ferrari is meant for the hierarchical elite. While a McDonalds commercial is meant for somebody in middle or lower class. What is interesting about these two commercials is that they are both run on the same channel. If you look at it from a Marxist perspective, you realize that this is a form of false consciousness. Commercials meant for two completely different types of people played on the same channel so that they appear to appeal to everyone instead of the intended audience.

Blog Post 3

While taking this course, I’ve noticed that I’ve become much more aware of the media and the kinds of messages it tries to portray. I’ve begun to not absorb media so mindlessly anymore. I’ve tried to take a step back and analyze the messages at a much deeper level. For example, we watched Once Upon a Time during our second week of class. I absolutely love this show and have followed it since it began. But once I went back and analyzed the details at a much deeper level, I began to have a much deeper appreciation for the show (which I honestly did not think was possible).  While this class has helped me have a deeper appreciation for shows like Once Upon a Time, it’s had the opposite affect on shows like I Love Lucy. This past weekend I was surfing through the channels and came across an I Love Lucy marathon. Because we had spoken briefly about it in class, I decided to tune in and take a look. And basically, Professor Johnson, you were right about it. While Lucille Ball paved the road for actresses behind the scenes, I Love Lucy did nothing to help the image of women on TV. The message consistently seemed to be, women are always messing up and we need a man to come in and save us. It’s sad because this message is lending to the idea that women are not capable of being successful or independent. It’s this hegemonic ideology that men are more empowered than women.  It’s so sad to know that a show that owes all of its success to a woman, did nothing to help her image in real life. But even though I’m a bit more critical of the television I watch, I will still always consider I Love Lucy one of my favorites. 

Blog Post #3

  This observation is less one I have about Media and more one that I have had about my self. I have always found myself critical of media I consume, more specifically Literature. Having had Literature classes I found myself capable of understanding the works and analyzing them but when trying to do the same with television or a movie I find myself unable to articulate my way of understanding them. I feel that after the first chapter we've done I am better equipped to analyze these media artifacts as I now have new ways of using some of the same literary devices I was so accustomed to.
   I recognized and applied this understanding to last week's premier of the series Heroes: Reborn, a mini-series continuation of the popular NBC Science Fiction Drama. I found myself categorizing the signs and symbols as they showed up, as well as finding the parallels in the way camera shots were used between this new series by the same director of the old series, made easier by the fact I used the first episode for our paper.  Now that I knew these way to apply my previous knowledge with the techniques we have learned in class it felt more natural and I didn't feel like was trying to stick a television show in a literature sized hole. I hope as this class continues I'll be more at ease analyzing and expressing that analysis through my writing. I can only hope that more practice both in an out of class will be what makes me better understand the media artifacts and what makes them work so that I can learn how to write for them, which is a goal of mine.