I consume many examples of media everyday. I watch it, I listen to it and I produce it. This is evident through my collage I have made as it shows how throughout our everyday life media is used and is a big part. It’s used in many ways such as a key part of entertainment, as well as used to provide information and surveillance. Personally I use media a lot for entertainment by watching shows and movies on platforms such as Netflix. However, I also use media as a social interaction for example using apps on my phone like Snapchat and Facebook Messenger to interact with my friends and family wherever I am.

From seeing how the media affects and helps my everyday life and how through particularly social media we can share our life experiences and friends, family or anyone can see what you post. We can interact with each other on these platforms by messaging, liking/commenting on each others posts and reposting. Media plays very a important role and has influence in virtually every aspect of our lives. It is considered as the best source to know about the happenings of world. Newspaper, magazine, radio, television and internet are the different types of media. It greatly affects our lives because media has the power to influence our thoughts. This influence is sometimes positive and sometimes negative.

In my collage, I used the Bulmler and Katz Theory which was discovered in 1987. This theory explores the ideas of the uses and gratifications that come with each media. I showed this in my collage as a regularly use each component in my everyday life as part of the audience and portrays my own uses of media and what particular ones I enjoy and use most frequently.

The use of information in the theory explains the self education to suit personal needs; advice on practical matters; information on events or issues of personal interest; curiosity or general interest, such as Online News – Guernsey Press, Daily Mail, BBC. Personal Identity explores the media reinforcing personal values; models of behaviour; content explored to challenge, adjust or affirm sense of self e.g.  Culture Pages, Good Housekeeping Magazines, Facebook, Instagram. Integration and Social Interaction explores identify with others to gain a sense of belonging; find basis for real life interactions; substitute for real life relationships, for example drama series and reality TV. My most commonly used is entertainment that conveys escape; diversion; emotional release; filling time; aesthetic enjoyment to the audience, like Reality TV, Love Island, KUWTK, RHousewives, Netflix, Instagram, Facebook, Films

I’ve discovered from this research and reflection that the media is key for businesses to promote their product, e.g. magazine, and to know what other products have been successful with the target audience. Also to consider this when making my own magazine cover as it is one of the most important for businesses to earn profit from what they have created.

Media ecology is the study of media, technology, and communication and how they affect human environments. Also it looks into the matter of how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value. The word “ecology” implies the study of  environments, their structure, content, and impact on people. Media Ecology can argue that the media acts as extensions of the human senses in each era and communication technology is the primary cause of social change. This relates to nature as a symbolic relationship to Media Ecology, because of the large structural changes in both. Which is evident in the “Water Cycle” because if one of the components don’t work the whole cycle won’t.

This image below is an example of my own system which can relate to media. The ecosystem portrays the idea that each component helps and supports each other to make the process run as easy as possible while making audience/consumers happy. We tried to create the idea of goods being imported from overseas and coming to land to be sold in a shop and then bought by a consumer. Each process is valuable, from making the goods high quality and brought to land safely without getting damaged to then having the consumer satisfied. This shows that each process is relying on each other similar to “The Circle of Life”.

The Media Ecosystem contains the components:

• Audience – prosumers, communication technology, uses and gratification
• Creators- Musicians, Actors, Youtubers, Designers, Film-makers, stars and celebrities
• Institutions – Media companies (public/commercial)
• Money – profit, expense, revenue
• Distribution – platforms that deliver media to an audience, e.g. Wifi, Cinemas, Satellite
• Social Media – sharing, communities
• Government – Rules and Regulations, the law
• Technology – consuming and communicating, data

I showed the significance of my allocated component through the mind map below. We explained how our component “distribution” is dependent and being depended on by all the others. Then we showed the links between them by connecting each component on this mind map :

This is the classes ideas of the different examples or medias and their concepts and how they all connect to each other. Also portrays the study of media, technology, and communication and how they effect human environments.

As I’ve seen from investigating the different components in media, when making my own magazine I will need to think about the process and how each component will link together to make my product work and up to high quality. For example, the use of social media because not only does it help discover what the audience (and finding my specific target audience) wants to see but also helps promote the product. However also linking to the laws and rules I will need to follow which determines the cost and quality.

As I study the course of Media Studies, I would like to learn more about the insights of producing a music video and magazine covers. This is because I have a big interest in all kind of media as well as the industries and how they attract their audiences. For example, artists making music videos and the planning they have to do to ensure their music gets seen by their audience so that they can earn from it.

The subject Media Studies will allow me to achieve a range of different skills that may help me in other subjects I study and further on in life. Skills that I hope to learn are:

• communication
• time management
• researching
• teamwork
• connotations/denotations
• creative approach to tasks

The skill that I think is most essential is the ability to communicate information clearly and effectively because it is a key skill that employers will want in their employee, not only to communicate with customers but with their colleagues.