The Medium Is The Message Final Overview

The project we just completed was a blast and I had a lot of fun. I found all of the milestones to be very interesting, engaging, and informative.

Our first milestone was all about understanding text, which really means anything that communicates. So this could be something we see, read, or hear. We watched a commercial about the new Apple HomePod which as interesting. I’ve never really thought about analyzing a commercial before and thinking about the target audience. At first I didn’t’ really know what to write about, but after thinking about it and talking it over with my family I found it quite interesting.

The second milestone was a historical media analysis. I chose a McDonald’s commercial from 1963. I found it really interesting to think about the different methods used to communicate a message in an ad. It made me realize just how much thought goes into designing and creating an advertisement, even way back then. Here is the video of the advertisement:

In the third milestone we were asked to do an analysis of a historical ad which gave me great perspective of how media has changed over the years. I chose a 1980’s Nestle Crunch tv commercial. I enjoyed this milestone the most because it was fun to see old advertisements. I did a good job of explaining the past and the present but at first forgot to include techniques that were used. I added the techniques like using a catchy song and average people and that improved my grade. It was really interesting to have to think about all of the things involved in the advertisement and why those decisions were made. Here is the link to the advertisement:

For the fourth milestone we had to create a team launch journal which was basically a book where we recorded all our steps, all our drafts and all our ideas for where our advertisements would go. Making the launch journal was my favourite part of this milestone and maybe even this project overall. We started small and our first team draft was simple and contained some ideas we actually used in our final advertisement draft. Here are some pictures from our launch journal that our team created:

In our fifth milestone we were asked to write about a book that we have been reading called “The Gospel According To Larry”. This book was about a boy and his experience with the media. This was the hardest part of this project for me. We were basically asked to write an essay which I’ve never really done like this before. We were asked to include 3 examples from a text that we read which was also not easy. My first grade was a sun  and clouds so I knew I could do better. I was asked by the teacher to think about what Larry learned from all the events. This was what I said in my essay: I think Larry learned that he didn’t have to hide behind the internet for people to know his story. I honestly don’t know what Larry learned because he is a fictional character. But I think Josh learned that he should be true to himself and the public and that he doesn’t need to hide to get his message out. In conclusion, I think the message of this book is that you don’t need to create a fake identity to tell people how you think the world should look. Instead you should be honest with people about who you are. With the internet you can say whatever you want to say without anybody really knowing who you are. You can hide behind the internet. I don’t think this is good because you are not being true to yourself and in the end you won’t feel good about yourself.

Once I made my revisions I got a sun. This part of the project was really hard but I learned a lot about having to really think about the meaning behind everything.

In the final milestone we were assigned to make an advertisement for a local business. At the start, I had no idea how to make an advertisement. I had to create my own individual ad first which was fun and what really got me thinking about how to make an advertisement.  I learned that simple and clear messages are important. I also learned how exactly to create an advertisement and how much work is involved. We were then put into project group and met with a local business, Deep Cove Music. We asked questions that helped us understand what the message was that the business wanted to communicate. This was our final advertisement:

Overall this project was so much fun. It taught me how to work as a team and how to come up with ideas together. I just want to say a huge thank you to my team who helped me get through all this work, my team was a blast to work with and will always be remembered. I also learned how to use Canva which is a digital advertisement making app. I loved this project and I look forward to doing more projects like this in the future!

The driving question for this project was “How does what we hear, read and see influence us?”   Through this project I learned that what we hear, read and see affects us in many ways. It can change how we feel, how we think, how we see the future and how we act.