‘My Media World’ is a collage all about my media consumption and prosumption. 

It fits with Blumler and Katz’ (1975) ideas about the uses and gratification of media, including:

• Entertainment

• Social interaction

• Personal identity

• Information

I was able to apply these four uses/gratifications I’ve learnt, to my collage. For example, I labelled Chessie King, an instagram influencer, with personal identity as she promotes feminism and body positivity which are ideas I identify with and try to apply to my own life. Her instagram page also provides entertainment and information for me as she makes me laugh and she provides new statistics every day.

I recognise that Blumler and Katz’ ideas about the uses and gratifications of media will be very useful when it come to producing my own media, specifically my music magazine. I will need to make sure my magazine is entertaining to look at, informative and has something my target audience can interact and identify with.

From completing the following tasks, I learnt how important and integral media ecology is to every piece of media we consume and are prosumers of. Media ecology is the study of media, technology, and communication and how they affect human environments.

My Lego Cafe – Please click to see more clearly

Our Lego model was a simple way to demonstrate media ecology. We chose to make a cafe as an example of a functioning institution that consisted of many parts that relied on each other. For example:

• Where the coffee came from – creators and distribution
• Who was coming to our cafe – audience
• How a profit was being made and who it was going to – money

How Media Ecology Works – Please click to see more clearly

I created a mind map to demonstrate media ecology. My main focus was social media and how that is affected by and affects:

• Audience
• Technology
• Distribution
• Institutions 
• Money 
• Creators
• Government

I discovered how important social media is and how much each of these factors of the media world rely on it. For example, audiences can interact and find others with common interests on social media and also it’s important for institutions and distribution as they rely on it to advertise their products.

Media ecology is a useful concept to use when I begin to produce my music magazine. I will need to consider my audience  carefully to make it best suited for them, follow governmental standards to make it appropriate and think about how I will promote my magazine eg. by using social media.

Here are the media ecology mind maps our class produced.

I am really excited to be doing media studies. It has always interested me as the media is where we receive all of our information from and it has such a huge influence of our daily lives.

Over the past few years I have enjoyed making holiday and summer videos and loved being able to get creative with digital media so I can’t wait to learn more. I also have good communication skills and creativity that I will be able to transfer to media studies.

Hopefully I will learn some new skills. For example I would like to gain more experience working in photoshop and making videos, as well as teamwork and time management. As I aspire to be a primary school teacher I hope these skills will all be helpful eg. creating interesting resources with these digital media skills.