Images can tell a story to the viewer in a number of different ways. I have looked at how angles, distances and framing have been used to communicate a story to the viewer. Another important factor that plays a role in telling a story is the mise-en-scene that can help represent people, places, events and things. In the future I will be able to use the knowledge I have about framing, angles, distances and mise-en-scene to make my media specific to the target audience demographic.
Throughout the Media Studies course I am hoping to learn a variety of different skills over a wide range of topics. Also I would like to learn how different aspects of the media are produced, such as magazines, radio, TV shows, Music videos and other producers of media.
The media skills I already have are, creating media on various platforms, being able to identify different types of media. Since I haven’t studied any subjects like media before in the past I am limited to a strict vocabulary and have not yet learnt how to read deeper in to media and learning the meaning behind each individual piece. This would come under what skills I would like to acquire from media studies because i would like to be able to view media much more in depth and detail. Other skills I would like to learn is how to use software for editing such as Photoshop.
During the course we will be working with camera for photo shoots and filming videos this will be useful for me because I the skills I learn from doing the shoots and filming will help me in my photography course. Along with the filming skills that are transferable I am also hoping to learn how to work well in a team, this will always be useful for me because there are many situations in which I have to work in a team and not just in media studies. When learning how to work well in a team I can possibly learn other transferable skills like communication, research and analysis these skills are all vital when working in a team and also when you are doing your own individual work so I think they would be great skills to acquire throughout the course.
Media is used to inform, educate and entertain the consumer. The task we had was to create a mood board for the different types of media that we are a prosumer and consumer of and how they relate to the Uses and Gratification terms. The Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratification are a way of sectioning the media into Entertainment, Personal Identity, Social Interaction, Education and Information. By sectioning the media aspects it has helped me understand how things such as a new Album or TV show can cause social interaction. However some can be put into more then one section because they might cause social interaction and at the same time be my personal identity. In conclusion the mood board has given me another way to view media and think more in depth about how different aspects relate to the Uses and Gratification terms. I think this will be useful in the future because it will give me the ability to identify different aspects of media which the therefore make it easier to create my own pieces of work that I can relate to what i have learnt from this task. To maximise the popularity of my own magazine i must make media that is in high demand from the audience. For example the most popular magazines are the ones which have the most important/interesting media in them. Also it is important to consider a target audience when creating media because by doing this you can make the media you are creating specific to the target audience and therefore maximising popularity.