Week Four // News & Me

Task 1: Write a short essay of about 400 words about the below stated issue: news and you. How often do you read the paper or watch the news on TV? How important is it for you to keep up with current events?

News is playing a vital role in our life today and people are getting much influenced by the news nowadays. What is your opinion on this statement? Is this a positive or negative development? 

As we all know, news has gone through a significantly long history since its first appearance and is continuing to maintain its importance to humans. However, it is noticeable that people’s thoughts and comments are usually affected by the exposure of news. 

As time flies, the improvement in the forms of news display varies from the newspaper to television news report and even on computer. Therefore, we cannot deny the fact that news has successfully blended in as one of our routine daily tasks. Some people say this phenomenon is a positive development while others oppose. But in my point of view, I would recommend that the news is a very positive development to our daily lives. 

Firstly, I can share what I have learned from the news and share my opinions with my friends and family. This kind of act can contribute to good relationships with others and also helps us start a conversation more easily. At the same time also increasing our knowledge.

Secondly, because people nowadays emphasize the freedom in speech and thinking, I can express my feelings or ideas considerably through columns in the newspapers or even write on my own personal blogs on computer. 

Thirdly, news provides us with a large variety of information and knowledge that we might not know. On the contrary, children and teenagers who are not yet mature may mimic the crime acts they learn from the everyday news. In this way, violence and crime rates will show figures increasing respectively. Furthermore, if a celebrity who is worshiped by many people makes an inappropriate announcement, chaos may strike by the two sides of people. 

To conclude, news undoubtedly plays a critical part in our life and can influence us rather vastly. However, it is important to make good use of our abilities in deciding whether a piece of news is trust worthy or misleading.

Week Three// What Is Theatre?

Task 1: Write a short essay of about 400 words on the 'subject-matter' below stated. What is theatre? How do you think theatre, as a media form, communicates messages to its audience?

Based on Wikipedia, Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance. Elements of design and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, “a place for viewing”) and θεάομαι (theáomai, “to see", "to watch", "to observe”). Modern Western theatre derives in large measure from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre scholar Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general. Theatre today includes performances of plays and musicals. Although it can be defined broadly to include opera and ballet, those art forms are outside the scope of this article. 

Theatre is a type of media form which can bring messages to the audience. There is more effective if we use theatre as a media form because it just like a story telling for people to recall the facts or the story. The writer has to be creative and think of ways to set an emotion into each character which can be felt by the audience such as comedy, romance, mystery and so on. Besides, they need to think on the type of audience would be aiming at and have to keep in mind of their target audience. According to Wikipedia once again, theatre has involves the audiences in variety of ways. Audiences have been engaged differently, often as active participants in the action on a highly practical level. Audience participation can range from asking for volunteers to go onstage. By using audience participation, the performer invites the audience to feel a certain way and by doing so they may change their attitudes, values and beliefs in regard to the performance's topic.

Reference: Wikipedia

Week Two// Task Two: Media Use in Social Groups

Task 2

Identify at least four social/cultural groups and what media you think they use.

As we know, different social group uses different media facilities. Social groups can be divided into 4 large groups. They are youngster, teenagers, adults, and elderly.

Youngsters: This group communicate with each other via electronic media and digital media such as sms/txt and mobile oriented social media tools. This segment loves video and anything text better be short. They are tending to be straight forward and they love electronic devices.

Teenagers: This group crosses over in a mix between Web-based and mobile usage. The most popular social media tool for this group is email, although we note a trend towards more use of Social Networking tools for communication. This group prefers Facebook or Twitter. Mobile usage of social tools seems to be around Twitter, Blackberry messenger or iPhone apps. This group also likes less text in blogs and on websites and enjoys video. Their content creation however, remains heavily text-oriented and very little use of video.

Adults: This group generally sticks to the Web (about 90% of the time) rarely using SMS/txt messaging. This group is likely to print and read a document on paper rather than a monitor. Some of them are more distrustful of social media and the content therein. Their approach to content creation is textual and rarely visual through video and images. But some of them are very up to date. They are exposed with the world of technology, which is affordable to them. As compared to teenagers, theirs tools or gadgets are more advance. For examples like smartphones or tablets (digital media) which includes tons of advance apps.

Elders: They fairly regular use of Social Media and this seems to be driven as the result of familial communications. New tools are not easily adopted and this age range is more politically conservative and traditional in their media consumption habits (radio, TV, print news.) The easiest way for them to communicate is to speak and write. Use of social tools seems to be on services like Facebook where they can work within a set framework. The use of social tools drops significantly as would be expected. Clearly there are generational preferences to the tools available.

Infographic: httpwww.community102.com

Week Two// Task One: Media Forms

Task 1

Get photographs of at least 10 different types of MEDIA FORMS, and describe them. Make sure you note your references if you get the photographs from somewhere else.

1. Primitive Media

Primitive media bear the marks of the human touch. It reveals the aesthetic and subtle communicative possibilities of primitive media. The end of every medium should be to reveal the connection between the natural, the cultural and the spiritual elements of a community. Primitive media, unlike mainstream media, have no implicit or explicit agenda. 

Reference: http://www.angelfire.com/nd/nirmaldasan/editorials/february2007.html

2. Printed Media

Print media is one of the oldest and basic forms of mass communication. It includes books, newspapers, weeklies, magazines, monthlies and other forms of printed journals.Print media has the advantage of making a longer impact on the minds of the reader, with more in-depth reporting and analysis.

Reference: http://download.nos.org/srsec335new/ch5.pdf

3. Digital Media

Digital media is a form of electronic media where data are stored in digital which is opposed to analogue form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission (e.g. hard disk drives or computer networking) of information or to the "end product", such as digital video, augmented reality, digital signage, digital audio, or digital art.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_media

4. Broadcast Media

The sequencing of content in a broadcast is called a schedule. With all technological endeavors a number of technical terms and slang are developed please see the list of broadcasting terms for a glossary of terms used. Television and radio programs are distributed through radio broadcasting over frequency bands such regulation includes determination of the width of the bands, range, licencing, types of receivers and transmitters used, and acceptable content.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media

5. Film Media

'Film' encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. The name comes from the photographic film also called filmstock, historically the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist—motion pictures or just pictures, the silver screen, photoplays, the cinema, picture shows, flicks—and commonlymovies

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media

6. Art as Media

"Media art" refers to artworks that depend on a technological component to function. The term "media" applies to any communication device used to transmit and store information. By incorporating emerging technologies into their artworks, artists using new media are constantly redefining the traditional categories of art.

Reference:http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/arts_mediatiques-media_arts/art_mediatique-media_art-eng.php

7. Electronic Media

Electronic Media is information or data that is created, distributed and accessed using a form of electronics, electromechanical energy or any equipment used in electronic communications. The common equipment we use on a day to day basis to access Electronic Media is our television, radio, computer, cell phones and other devices transporting information to and from us by means of electronic involvement.

Reference: http://www.electronicmedia.co.za/

8. Written Media

Written media offer access to readers whom you might not be able to address orally. It is a relatively inexpensive way to reach a large audience and also a permanent, indisputable record of what you've said — for both you and your audience. Written media give a chance to think your message through carefully and double-check it before you deliver it.

Reference: http://writingforresults.net/Acro_3/3_medium/2_writtn.pdf

9. Spoken Media

Conversation, the most common type of speech, involves immediate interchange between the participants, who convey their reactions either in words or through facial expressions and bodily movements. There is more spontaneity in conversation than in writing; self-correction occurs in the flow of conversation,

Reference: http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/mediumterm.htm

10. Drawn Media

In drawing, "media" refers to both the material that is manually applied and to the base onto which it is applied. The media applied can be many things but the method of application is a stick type object with a point (not a brush) that transfers particles of media to the base. The point of the stick can be minute as it can be large. The medium applied can be graphite, fusain, pastel, ink among other things. Bases can be paper, plaster, canvas, wood or basically anything that accepts the medium applied from the point of the stick.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artistic_media