Response to "Traditional Media in a Modern World"
Reflecting on my learning through the use of a blog has been a time machine, an insightful view on my progress in this course and directly demonstrates the significance of how meaning is created by an audience and how that meaning plays a greater role in our value systems. I can see direct reflections through models of mass communication as discussed in Unit 3, the way that meaning is represented by language as covered in Unit 6, and the influence of digital media on that meaning based on lessons from Unit 7.
Does media have a direct effect on my beliefs or do I gather my media through influencers and opinion leaders who shape my attitude? Do I find media through gratification and seek content that confirm my view of the world or is my view of the world cultivated by the media I watch? In Chapter 7 of “Mediascapes”, Philip Savage (2014) discusses four models of mass communication, including Direct Effects, Two-Step Flow, Uses and Gratifications, and Cultivation Analysis. In analysing my own media patterns, I have more connection with all of these concepts of an audience. Particularly in viewing the way I engage with the internet, I can understand the idea of internalizing direct messaging from the source, being swayed by opinion leaders or modern-day influencers, finding gratification through internet algorithms, and how the media I consume may have cultivated portions of my ideology and value systems.
As an avid reader, how did I build meaning in the novels and texts I read? In their text “The Work of Representation”, Stuart Hall (1997) discuses theories of representation. I often imagined representation in more of a culture context. However, it is important to think on “how we can tell the ‘true’ meaning of a word of image” (p. 24). Under a reflective approach perhaps language projects the true meaning as it is in the world. But there is also the intentional approach, where meaning is imposed by an author on the world through language. Under the constructionist approach we build meaning using systems to represent concepts and ideas. Under this approach, I can see how my readings as a child allowed me room to build my own meaning and have a greater appreciation for the role of language as a placeholder for meaning.
As someone with an interest in political science, this time has also been reflective for me to consider the impact of the media, and internet, on democracy. This course was timely to reflect on the elections in the United States, to ponder on the influence of the internet in our society, versus the illustration of our values through the internet. I previously held this image of the internet steering our current discourse and understanding in society. Reading “The Information: How the Internet gets inside us” by Adam Gopnik (2011) introduced the idea that it is not simply the internet which is changing our world, but perhaps the world is changing, and our technologies are changing to reflect our values. This insight transformed the depth of my understanding of the dynamic relationship between society and new media.
I entered this course with a basic academic understanding of the importance of critical thought in media consumption. I now am beginning to reflect on how we gain meaning from the world as an individual in an audience, and the significance in the influence that meaning has on the values which we form as a society I still hold critical thought as a keystone in media analysis, but this course has provided significant tools for me to apply in thinking on the media and its influence in the world.
References
Gopnik, A. (2011, February 14). The information: How the Internet gets inside us . The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-information
Hall, S. (1997). The Work of Representation . In Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 15–29). London, UK: Sage.
Shade, L. R. (2014). Mediascapes: New patterns in Canadian communication (4th ed.). Toronto, ON: University of Toronto.













