The Medium is the Message Reflection

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the amazing I Have No Idea What To Call This Blog!

[pauses for applause]

[crickets]

Okay whatever.

So this is my mid project reflection post on our first project in our 2020 humanities year, entitled ‘The Medium is the Message’

Part Zero: The Medium is the Message

So our second project in 2020/2021 school year was a project where we reached out to a business in Deep Cove, and offered to make an ad for them. Then we did side projects learning about what medium is, and what message is. Medium is the plural form of media by the way. Than we crafted ads for our businesses

Part One: Launch

To start I am going to tell you about the launch of our project.

At the start of our project we were only told three things. It would have something to do with ads, we would be doing it in groups, and it would focus a lot on team work. As the days went on, we learned more and more about the project.

Part Two: Building Knowledge

In building knowledge, we looked at techniques and appeals of ads and did side activities that helped grow our understanding of the project. We learned about the nine appeals, twelve techniques, and strategies called Ethos, Pathos, and logos.

One of the first things that we did was analyzing the ‘Welcome Home’ apple ad, which I will leave a link to here. The making of that video is also really cool so here is a link to that. We looked at the ad and analyzed what we thought the message was. Here is a little bit of that.

I think that they are also promoting self love and self care. I think this because in one scene, she tries to swipe away the mirror, as if she doesn’t want to see herself. But then she makes the mirror bigger and accepts herself. I think this is the message that could be targeted at teens that are going through hard times or bullying at school. I also think this could be targeted to adults that are going through depression or a death in the family and anything else that makes someone feel sad. 

After that we moved onto milestone three, in which we looked at a piece of historical media, and analyzed it much like we did milestone one. Here is a look at that.

Although I do not agree at all with any of the messages in this ad, or the ways said message is portrayed, I understand that this ad was released in times that did not respect women as much as we do today. In modern time, even having this ad made would probably bankrupt this business, but in the 1910’s this ad could be made and put out into the world, no impact will probably be dealt on this company’s

After this we did an advertising survey, where we interviewed one of our family members and compared the answers to our own. That looks like this.

The only difference I see in mine and my dads answers are his points of view on the question. What I mean is he thinks that have it a logo visible on clothing counts as a name, and a logo, not just a logo. I do not think this is true because the logo, unless you know what the logos brand is, does not give you the name of the company, and if you say search it up than you have to search up the brand by the logo. So you would have to describe the logo and hope enough get a match. The way we see the questions is the best way I could find the demonstrates historical perspective.

Next, we did a project called the commercial dig. This is where we watched 30 minutes of TV and analyzed the ads that came on, and wrote down their appeals and the techniques that the ad company used.

After the commercial dig, we did the persuasion in advertising, in which we found two online ads, two print ads, and two commercials. Then we analyzed their use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, which are three of the main techniques advertisers knowingly or unknowing lay use.

Side Part: Ethos, Pathos And Logos

So I’m doing this to explain ethos, pathos, and logos, which I briefly mentioned at the start, and I realize not all of you know what it is, and I should probably explain. So Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Pretty simple. Ethos is when an advertisement tells you that the product is trustworthy. So this would be when a ad has ‘real people, not actors’, or ‘scientists say that this is the most environmentally friendly shampoo’ or when a celebrity endorses a product. Those are all Ethos. Pathos is when an ad plays your emotions. So when there is an ad that shows a dog dying and it’s a shelter telling you to help save dogs, that is Pathos. Stuff like that is Pathos. Logos is when a business has a really cool logo. I’m kidding. Logos is when an ad appeals to your sense of logic. So when an ad says that it is the best it is appealing to your sense of logic and that they are the most logical choice of product because they are the best. That is Logos.

Part Three: Develop and Critique

So in develop and critique, we started developing the ads for our businesses. We worked through one week, every three days, making a new draft.Below is a slideshow of my first three individual drafts.

Next was team advertising drafts, which was fundamentally the same as individual as drafts, except as a team. In this activity, we made two to three drafts that combined the versions of our individual drafts. Then we drafted and email with the three drafts and sent it to our business, looking for feedback, which my group just received.

Milestone Three

For milestone three, we looked at another historical ad, but this time, we were being graded on historical perspective, as well as analyzing texts, where as last time we did historical media and we were only being graded on analyzing texts. For this milestone, I chose a beer ad from the 1900’s.

Then I used historical perspective to analyze the text, following the marking rubric.  This is a little look at that.

The differences between these two time periods perspectives are astounding. The differences are like hot and cold. The past perspective sees this ad as normal, as just another ad, whereas the present perspective would see this and file it in the category of ‘never ever ever buy from this brand’. The past values of the world see white men as the supreme gender and race and they wouldn’t bat an eye at a racist or sexist ad. But the present values are quite the opposite where most people in the world are trying to be better about race discrimination, gender discrimination, and any other discriminations. 

The values of the world have changed a lot over just a hundred years. And they probably will in another hundred. Just by looking at one ad you can see the differences in values and what was considered okay and what wouldn’t be now. It is astonishing how broken the world has been, and how broken it still is.

Nearing the assignment of this assignment, we finished the book we were supposed to read as a class, The Gospel According to Larry, which I will leave a link to my full review here. Each week, we discussed in groups, the book. Earlier this week, we finished the book, and today we did our last discussion.

Today, we did one of my favourite side projects, where we made an ad for a medium that we would use to get a message out. My medium was a book, and my message is that kids should spend more time reading and less time on their screens(which is funny cause I was doing that on a screen). This is my ad.

Part Four: Reflection

Over the course of this project I have learned a lot and had a lot of fun. I know some kids didn’t have as much fun as I did, but I had some fun. I feel like I could have done better on some of the side projects, but I really liked this project. I learned about how advertisements work and how, if you look a little bit harder at anything, you can find the hidden message in anything. I think that the driving question, ‘how does what we hear, read, and see, influence us?’ can be answered in any multitude of ways. But lets save that for another day.

(Side note, I spent like four hours on this.)

I should probably get some sleep now. Bye.