Media ecology is the study of media, technology and communication and how they affect human environments. It presents media through eight elements that are crucial for media to be successful and one element cannot work without the seven others, making them interdependent. These eight interconnected elements are:

• MONEY
• GOVERNMENT
• SOCIAL MEDIA
• TECHNOLOGY
• AUDIENCE
• DISTRIBUTION
• INSTITUTIONS
• CREATORS

My poster shows how distribution is affected by these eight elements. I believe that the government, creators and money are the most important elements for distribution to go ahead. Our government determines what will and will not be distributed, creators make the content and media to be distributed and money is the driving factor for all elements of media. The government can heavily influence our society’s perception on media and creators are responsible for society’s opinions and feelings on current media.

Media impacts on society’s understanding of all issues, events and stories circulated through the media that our society consumes everyday. It is down to the distributors to decide if something will be negative or positive before distributing it for the world to see. We most probably read, hear and watch bias, false or incorrect information everyday.

This research will be very beneficial when I’m making my music magazine, I will make sure to use catchy headlines and interesting stories about the creators in my magazine to engage my audience and make distribution easier on social media platforms. This will ensure I make a good amount of money to grow my music magazine and distribute it again.

The collage above includes media texts, social media apps I use, TV shows/movies I enjoy, shops I buy from and music artists I listen to. This gives an insight into my interests and the media I consume and might produce on a daily basis; making me a prosumer. All these different types of media fit into 4 categories:

• ENTERTAINMENT
• PERSONAL IDENTITY
• SOCIAL INTERACTION
• EDUCATION AND INFORMATION

I have represented all 4 sections in my media prosumption collage, all the different types of media displayed will fit into several different sections of the Uses and Gratification theory from Blumler and Katz. The Uses and Gratification theory was made to explore why people use and make media and what we gain from it. All the categories give us a separate reason to contribute and use media so Blumler and Katz created this theory to help us understand how media satisfies us.

For example, the series Greys Anatomy could be put into 3 categories: entertainment, education and information and social interaction. Most social media apps e.g. instagram and snapchat could be put into all 4 sections, which explains why such a huge amount of the population use social media and helps us to understand why we are all prosumers on these apps so often. My media blog exhibits what I mainly use media for and this is entertainment because I feel this is what satisfies me most. Sometimes I will use media that fits into the other 3 categories but my prosumption is heavily based around entertainment.

I think my media diet collage and the Blumler and Katz theory will help me in the future when it comes to understanding all media is different and has different uses for all types of people. I now know what type of media interests me and other people most meaning when I am working on projects I can have a direct target audience depending on what types of media I present. For example when I produce a music magazine I will aim to include all 4 types of uses and gratification to engage as wide of an audience as possible.