Week 2: Media Impact

Chapter 2 talks about understanding the research and effects that media have on society. From theories to research, many development of these theories can help us to understand how media affects us personally. Out of all the theories, the two that I found to be the most useful theories is the agenda-setting theory and the uses and gratification theory.
The agenda setting theory is a theory that predicts the amount of attention given to an issue in the media affects the level of importance assigned to it by the public. A perfect example of this theory is when Farrah Fawcett died a few hours before Michael Jackson died. The media's attention move from Fawcett to Jackson instantly. Who is to say that one life is more important than another, but the way the media covers it show that Jackson death was a more important story to cover than Fawcett was. This is why people sometimes use the term, "yesterdays news" because something else always comes up and its the decision of the media to make it a big story or not.
Another theory is the uses and gratification theory. This theory is concise because we have the option of choosing which music, movies, news, and entertainment media we want to consume. This theory shows how people use media in various ways such as: surveillance, meaning keeping ourselves inform of current events, like for me is reading the news. Diversion, in which we use entertainment lets us escape the pressure of the reality. One example is when we go to movies, it allows us to briefly escape our daily life and live in a movie's setting. Conversational currency, in which keeping up with finding topics to talk about with our friends is always conversation starter. This also leads to social integration which is the shared knowledge we acquired through media that lets us have common ground between associates when connecting to people.

Week 1: Media Autobiography

 
We are surrounded by constant media everyday. Newspapers, magazines, movies, recordings, radio, television and the Internet are all types of media that I encounter everday. When i was young, television, books, and newspaper was our source of information and entertainmnt but these days it seems that the Internet seems have all the media source availible in one place. This is why I don't read the newspaper as much as i should, and mos of my reading the news is online.  I also use to watch the news on television but ever since I got an iPhone so most of the news information comes from my phone. Music, news and entertainment is so convienant to carry with advance technology these days that my average Internet usuage is atleast  25hrs+ per week. The Internet today houses almost everything we need when it comes to media. From movies to emails, the internet connects everyone together. I rely a lot of the Internet for research, news and entertainmnt more than most the media sources available. But one thing about the internet is that it's credibility could be questionable. Compare to books, magazines and other media that has to go through publishing, the Internet is doesn't have as much restriction than that of publishing media. I do like social netwoking sites like facebook. I believe it is a good way to keep connection to friends, family, and networking. It's especially great experience for my career in communication.