Blog 2
COMM 3P18
Kyle Woods
5961107
Prof: Jennifer Good
Audiences have always been a major part in peopleâs lives that have given them the most exhilarating and remembering moments to look back on. As being an active audience member for my entire life and submerging myself into the world of movies, sports games, and concerts online media. Considering myself as an active user of media content has been something that has truly been most impactful on my behalf. From the beginning of time, to current date, users that have been actively engaging in media have all had somewhere along the lines of the same intentions of what they are trying to gain with a specific form of gratification from whatever media they are consuming (Sullivan, 2013). When speaking about specific gratifications that I try and gain from media consumption, it varies based on two criteria: the first being what media channel I choose to consume, and the second being what exactly am I wanted to gain from it. Relating this back to the textbook, it explains a criterion of five factors that media consumers will typically take but sometimes audience members may only look at the gratification as being the main focus and not caring about which channel it is distributed through (Sullivan, 2013). It states that, âyou might choose to watch a movie with a friend because you would like to spend time with that person, even though you have absolutely no interest in the filmâ (Sullivan, 2013, pg. 113). This has been something that has happened to me on a number of occasions if i am trying to just get a different gratification with the use of media channels to gain it.
Looking back from the time of being a small child to where I currently stand today, I distinctly remember always being an active participant in media consumption looking from anywhere of listening to the radio at early ages, to being a member of multiple social media platforms currently. Consuming media has had an effect on me tremendously and seems to become a bigger part of my life as the years go on. I remember looking back to a young age and having an interest to be connected with media but this followed limited t areas as to where I would to seek to gain my sense of gratification. Being super young and living in the early years of the 21st century, technology was just starting to become a bigger picture in peopleâs life with minimal forms of media sources such as the radio, television, gaming consoles, and basic internet. As being a young boy, these were the areas that I would go to entertain myself and try and learn about what was happening around me as well as submerging myself to use it as a form of escapism. Going for any sort of car ride, resembled with the radio being constantly on and listening to specific stations on AM channels for news and weather, and Y108 for my favourite rock songs and listening to people calling in. I found myself always gravitating towards the radio throughout the years as I liked the feeling of hearing things live and seeking to hear my favourite rock songs that I did not know the names of. One of the biggest reasons I felt the radio was such an impactful media channel for me was because I was able to not just be an audience member of content they produced, but I was able to be an active member of the content being produced. I used to always distinctly borrow my momâs cellphone to make phone calls in to the radio station to participate in contests and to hear myself on the radio. I felt this was an important factor because in todayâs society it is a lot easier to engage with media and that was the only way for me to interactive with it at that time. The textbook poses a section that talks about three specific gratifications that are seen in radio users, the one that would be applicable to my situation would be the use of radio as a sense of âemotional releaseâ, what this means is that people find their specific areas of media to get a sense of escapism from the real world to cope with struggle or to entertain them, it allowed me to interact with other people other than my family and get that sense of connectivity that was lacking in my social life (Sullivan, 2013).
As the years went on in my life, there was a distinct time that I can remember it felt like the whole had come together online. The year of grade seven in elementary school was the time I got Facebook. I can always remember hearing from other people talking to one another about Facebook posts that they saw online and being updated on global issues all through their Facebook newsfeed. It came to the time where I felt it was important for me to become a part of this group by adding friends, connecting with people online and building a sense of connectivity through a different platform as I felt left out. After becoming a member of Facebook, almost instantly it became something that most of my time was dedicated too. Facebook became somewhere more than just chatting with friends and seeing their posts and pictures, it became a new sense of connection because the big hit at this time was the game âFarmvilleâ which allowed people to play a game but also be online and associating at the same time. This raises a really good point that is talked about in the âNew gratifications for New Mediaâ article that explains that new rituals that are seen to be introduced and stick to us as being something that we will seek from that point on when we are not consuming it (Sundar & Limperos, 2013). In the article, it states that âsuch gratifications will reflect on those that were unfulfilled, but the realization is clearly driven by the new possibilities offered online a through technologyâ (Sundar & Limperos, 2013, pg. 511). This proves to show the exact experience that took place when I was introduced to all the other possibilities that were available in Facebook became addictive because it was something I was seeking and didn't want to give up.
Because I was a new member of these platforms and had become a daily user, I was able to take and old method of media consumption and replace it with something new and that allowed me to gain more of an experience and be involved with more people and current content that was posted online. The reason this was able to replace my old method that I truly was committed to, was because it was an instant gratification without the wait of it being on someone else time like the radio announcer. It felt as that I was participating in more of a contributive way and allowed myself to not have to wait for peak times of the day, it was a constant sense of gratification that was feeding me more content with the click of a refresh button. The first section of this blog would fall into the âfunctional theoryâ because it talks about humans about what are the reasons why people do what they do, and to understand that each decision that a person makes is typically being done in a way to benefit themselves or the situation in which they are in (Sullivan, 2013). Relating this experience, we can take a look at Maslowâs hierarchy of needs with regards to what my motives are when consuming media content. It explains that the bottom of the pyramid exemplifies peopleâs basic needs in life and as you work your way up the pyramid, it requires you to have the needs below to be as your building blocks (Sullivan, 2013). Relating this to my personal needs, becoming a member of a social media platform put myself into the category of having my basic needs, then the safety and security above that and then the third step being my friendships, esteem, and sense of achievement because within the game I was playing, it was giving me that gratification of what I was always wanting in a new way with more to offer (Sullivan, 2013).
Figure 5.1 of the textbook strikes a fascinating point about Facebook use and the different areas in which these platforms can be used. It talks about how a study was conducted with 1,049 graduate university students and what there use for Facebook were (Sullivan, 2013). The study showed that the majority used it as being social audiences for updates on content that people post and the rest used it for finding content outside of their friend group with regards to news content and updates on global issues (Sullivan, 2013). This gets to my point as being an audience member on Facebook and looking at how age is a major factor with regards to what we consume and how we interpret to decode messages and content.
Moving up to the current state of being an early adult, social media has been a major part of my life for many years now and continue to become more prevalent in my day to day routine. Being a member of a variety of social media platforms and being an active user in media consumption, there are a lot of areas that we do not consider when emerging ourselves into what we consume. One of the biggest things that I have noticed within the past few years is the content and what exactly is being meant by what is produced. The language that is used is something that from a personal experience has been something that has had major effects on people and how they take what they see/hear and apply to their own personal lives. I can relate to this situation because in todayâs society our form of language has become something that has changed a significant amount and is used to substitute meaning with short form or completely different words from the original meaning behind it. This relates to chapter 6 based on semiotics looking at encoding and decoding with media texts. Within semiotics it is typically seen a distinct model of how signs are broken down into specific parts to gain meaning (Sullivan, 2013). The signifier and the signified work together to give the result of what the sign means. For example, when scrolling through Instagram there are specific words that have been posted within peopleâs captions and to me there are signifiers that I have been taught to make sense of with regard to the word âWAYSâ this word is an acronym for saying âwhat are you sayingâ which is again decoded for the original meaning of âwhat are you up toâ. For someone that is not from my hometown and has not been a frequent audience member to hearing this word, it would not make sense to them. In the article âreception theory and moral judgment of Dexterâ it talks about how within audienceâs texts can sometimes be taken to the next step of not only meaning a specific statement or word, but holding personal characteristic to it that really hits home to a specific individual but may not mean anything to someone else (Granelli & Zenor, 2016). The article states a quote that relates to the personal attachment that people can hold to text, âthe individual moves outside of the text itself and compares it to his or her own real-life interpretationâ (Granelli & Zenor, 2016, pg. 5058). This relates to my experience of having a specific word that is commonly used in my day to day language and being able to hold a personal attachment that would not mean the same to others from another city.
To wrap up my blog, I explained my life story of how from being a young child to middle age, then to where I currently stand now, how media has gone through my life in three major phases and will continue to do so by seeking new gratification each and every day as well as the ways in which audiences will decode media content to make sense of it to their personal lives. Â