Criminology Emergency Remote Learning - Media Literacy #2

This entry will address some of the issues that you'll need for your media tracking blog post. We start this section of the course off with Media Literacy. I placed three documents in the Criminology Teams site (access through your school district Office 365 account). For this activity, please review Media Literacy and Critical Thinking. Also, please review page 16 of the text (in the pdf it's page 52)  Media &Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age which deals with Media Convergence.

From the Media Literacy and Critical Thinking document in the Criminology Teams site,  Long term Effects of Media may include...

1.  Generalizing: Media can influence new and novel behaviours in a generalized, long-term manner. 
2. Triggering: Exposure to affluent lifestyles in media and high levels of advertising of consumer goods teachers viewer over time that in order to be happy you need to attain those things. 
3. Malformed Super-Ego: The superego is something that is acquired through experience as people learn what is acceptable in society. Viewers are exposed to many different value systems, as there are channels. Also, media gives viewers no discipline or feed back on their behavior which leaves them to develop their own superego value system. 
4. FOMO: Fear of Missing Out drives much of our media interactions, especially with texting and social networking. Over time, compulsions to “interact” online can lead to anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, stress. This creates an unfortunate feedback loop- feeling inadequate? seek out more media to make yourself feel better! 
5. Addiction: Media is particularly well-suited to developing addictions. Instant gratification, emotional dependency, preoccupation, delay of negative effects, and cravings or compulsions can all affect mental and social well-being. There is particular concern over video-game addiction; compulsive playing can lead to social isolation, lack of imagination, mood swings, and even a blurring of reality. 
6. Cultivation of Fear: Heavy exposure to negative and violent portrayals lead people to construct unrealistically high estimates of risk of victimization and a corresponding belief that the world is a mean and violent place. 
7. Training: Media shapes our behavior by training us. Over time, viewers seek out the same types of actions the reinforce the conditions they have been exposed to. 
8. Learning Social Norms: People can generalize a pattern from individual media exposures without that pattern being a social norm. When viewers are repeated exposed to violence in media, a person overestimates the rate of crimes that are cleared by arrest. Although these are generalizations, they are not social norms. Social norms are generalized patterns from social information, rather than factual information. Social norms deal more with the rules of behavior in social situations rather than with society’s factual parameters. Sheer repetition of violent portrayals is enough to lead people to generalize that violence is typical way of dealing with problems in society.

From page 521 of the "Media & Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age" book linked above:

Many believe that media have a powerful effect on individuals and society. This belief has led media researchers to focus most of their efforts on two types of research: media effects research and cultural studies research....cultural studies. This research approach focuses on how people make meaning, apprehend reality, articulate values, and order experience through their use of cultural symbols. Cultural studies scholars also examine the way status quo groups in society, particularly corporate and political elites, use media to circulate their messages and sustain their interests. This research has attempted to make daily cultural experience the focus of media studies, keying on the subtle intersections among mass communication, history, politics, and economics. 

Take a look at this Kaiser Family Foundation study from 2010 , it will give us a good idea about amounts of media youth consume (Generation M2). Check out the infographics below as well...

Remember the types of Mass Media include: Print media encompasses mass communication through printed material. It includes newspapers, magazines, booklets and brochures, house magazines, periodicals or newsletters, direct mailers, handbills or flyers, billboards, press releases, and books. Electronic media is the kind of media which requires the user to utilize an electric connection to access it. It is also known as 'Broadcast Media'. It includes television, radio, and new-age media like Internet, computers, telephones, etc. With the advent of Internet, we are now enjoying the benefits of high technology mass media, which is not only faster than the old school mass media, but also has a widespread range. Mobile phones, computers, and Internet are often referred to as the new-age media. Internet has opened up several new opportunities for mass communication which include e-mail, websites, podcasts, e-forums, e-books, blogging, Internet TV, and many others which are booming today. Internet has also started social networking sites which have redefined mass communication all together. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have made communication to the masses all the more entertaining, interesting, and easier.



Consider all these factors when addressing the activity...

Track your media consumption for 24 hours. So for you...at the end of each chunk of time (6 am to 9 am; 9 am to 3 pm; 3 pm to 6 pm; 6 pm to midnight; and if necessary midnight to sleepy time) that you are awake for one day I'd like you to write down what media format you interacted with for that time and guesstimate how much time you interacted with it. I know that you are a generation of multi-taskers (and that you are interacting with this blog right now) so try to be as honest as you can about what you consume/interact with.

"Did you accurately predict your daily media consumption"?

In your response to this question explain how much you thought you'd consume, then identify the actual amount. Next, identify what surprised you about your findings and explain how you consume it (do you multi-task - streaming video with listening to music while gaming and commenting about it via social networking? Do you single-task or immerse yourself in one format/content - watch one webisode or episode of something with no other media? Do you binge - save your media consumption for one dedicated time period? Do you nibble or graze - watch little bits sporadically throughout the day?). Do you mostly consume "user created" media product (You Tube, Tumblr, Facebook, SnapChat, Sound Cloud) or do you consume "mainstream" media products (cable television, Internet websites, radio or online radio like XM, Spotify or Songza, magazines or newspapers)? Finally, are you always "on" or do you "unplug" (in other words are you continually checking, reading, creating, consuming) How do the number of hours you spend online every day, the types of online content you view, and your motivations for where you spend your time online shape your everyday behavior?

Check out this Media Usage Calculator