What does Medium is the Message mean ?

How do we hear, think and see influence us?

Reflection

Introduction:

What is Medium is the Message mean exactly? How do we hear influence our daily life? How does the medium have do with the message at all? I had these questions at the start of the project. I didn’t understand, I though that the medium didn’t matter that the only important part of media is the message. From my milestones and project I learned that this is farther from the truth.

Milestone 1: Welcome Home Text Analysis

Link to “Welcome Home”: https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiv4feY44PtAhUNr54KHVTFB9IQyCkwAHoECAMQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D70P7-pkyP4Q&usg=AOvVaw22Wo0NC2haVxGV3bJMem6P

In the first Milestone our mission what to decode the “Welcome Home” advertisement by Apple. Apple made an advertisement labeled Welcome Home concerning selling their Home Pod and their Apple Music with their advertisement. At the start of the process we were meant to draw what we felt about the advertisement to better know how they wanted other people. At the start I drew sadness, then I drew confidence, then joy and finally hope. This made me appreciate how much work went into the advertisement and what had to be planned to make me feel all those emotions. The next step is that we had to write a paragraph or more concerning the message and the targeted audience of the advertisement. I decide to write a page structured first with the main message, the product their advertising and the their targeted audience. My answers to these questions were that the main message of the advertisement was that buying the Home Pod will make the happier, that they were selling Home Pod  and their Apple Music and that the targeted audience were adults in their late twenties and musicians. I use the music, the actor in the advertisement, the movement and the environment changes as evidenced to back up each of these claims. In this advertisement one feature I believe I should of improved is using a variety of different word in my text. To solve this issue I will use a thesaurus when I’m using one work too much thus I could find an alternative word. However, element of my paragraph I did well was adding a great deal of detail in my documented. This advertisement taught me how to analyze every detail of an advertisement.

Milestone 2:

Five Key Questions:

This exercise helped me greatly for milestone two. For this we had to analyze a piece of media given to use by the teacher. The group I was in was group was my west group or my advertisement group, and we had to analyze this paper advertisement. In order to analyze our advertisement we had to use the five key questions, who created this message, what techniques are used to attract my attention, how might different people understand this message differently from me, what lifestyles, values, and points of views are represented in or omitted from this message and why was this message send, profit and/or power.

We as a group came up collectively with answers to all of these question. The first question was easy since the labeled their business’s name on the middle of the advertisement. We decided the technique they applied were eye catching and used vibrant colours. Additionally, for our third question we thought that people think that Toblerone is good candy to ear during Halloween. For our forth question we stated that Toblerone was trying to show off a new chocolate bar because the chocolate bar at the bottom is black instead of gold. Finally, for our fifth question we established that the company was making the advertisement for profit. These five key question helped me to better understand media.

Historical Media Analysis:

Pages link:Milestone 2

This milestone had to be my favourite out of any of the milestones. This is cause of my recent love for history. History is a subject I use to not like and thought to be boring when I was younger. However, once I started to explore history books and podcasts I learned that history is extremely interesting and complex. For this milestone we had to choose any historical piece of media and analyze it’s message and the targeted audience of the text. The media I chose for this text was First World War propaganda called “Destroy this Mad Brute” concerning the imperial German army. I wanted to do propaganda about the German army because I think their really interesting and fun to learn about. They are considered one of the best armies in the world for their organization of their many men and their amazing artillery it the start of the war. Additionally, they were one of the first armies to wear helmets instead of just hats and to change the colour of their uniform to a grey in order to fit into their environment. The message of the media I explained was that German soldiers were blood thirsty savages by how they represented them as gorillas and how they have the gorilla capturing an innocent defenceless women. Moreover, the targeted audience of this media I believe is young men because of the USA need for more soldiers in the army. One element I think I should of improve is reading the criteria and focusing on the elements they want me to focus on in the criteria. I think I delve to deep on the five key question and should of focused on the basic criteria for the assignment. However, I believe I did a wonderful job describing the view people had back then on the German army. I really fond of this assignment and I hope we get more creativityand choice in the next assignment concerning history.                    

The Gospel according to Larry:

This book was one of my favourite books read for school. I love how complex the book is and how they treat the events of the book as if the book’s events happened in real life. The book The Gospel according to Larry, is a fictional book that takes place in the early 2000s, it’s about a a seventeen year old named Josh who creates an online Website named www.thegospelaccordingtolarry.com(also used as a website for the book). On this website Larry created an anonymous identity called Larry, this persona would give sermon concerning advertisement, minimalism, poverty, addictions and relationships. In order to analyze The Gospel according to Larry we did worksheets about a certain portion of the book and then discuss it in a group. Overall, I was very fond of the book and I hope we read more book that has the same amazing writing as this book in the future.

First Worksheet:

Pages Link:The Gospel According to Larry Discussion Work

The first worksheet is most likely the worksheet I worked the hardest on. The first step toward completing the sheet we had to finish the first two chapters of the book and then answer the questions on the page. In the first two chapter of the book we learn the exposition of the story and a few details the will be extremely important in the future. We first learn about Josh’s childhood best friend, Beth who is obsessed with Larry’s sermons, however doesn’t know Josh is Larry, wants to start a Larry fan club at the school. Another piece information we find out is that Josh’s mom died a few years ago and now he lives with his step father, Peter, who is a business man and isn’t very fond of Larry’s ideas. We also learned about Beta-Gold, who made it their goal to track Larry down and share his identity with the world. I answered the multiple subjects they wanted us to write about on the worksheet with big detailed paragraphs. The first topic they wanted us to answer is to come up with two questions we have to discuss with your group and your answers to those questions. The question I can up with is should everyone practice ant-commercialism and will Beth find out that Josh is Larry. The first question I stated that it doesn’t really have an answer and I believe that anti commercial is both good and bad belief to have. For my second question I answer with thinking that Beth would eventually find out due to how Josh takes inspiration from his daily life. Next they asked for a passage I was particularly fond of, I chose

“Is there any time of the day when we’re not being used and abused by the advertising companies?. I chose this passage because it made me think just how many different advertisement am I being subjected to a day. Next, they asked what we connected to, I stated that connected to his love of philosophy. I don’t know much about it however, I have been exploring to see which philosophy is for me. Coming up with adjectives for both Josh and Larry is extremely difficult for me since I see them as sort of the same person. For Josh I describe him as being a sage for his heavily based philosophical ideas and his radical view on the world. For Larry I describe as minimalistic because of how he has stated in the book for having only seventy five possessions. After, they asked us to choose a vocabulary word, I decided on the word pilgrim, which means a person travelling someplace for their religion. My favourite subject they asked is investigate where they asked us to choose something that you found interesting and find out more information through websites. What I chose is the whole plot of the book 1984. I learned a great deal looking at the plot on how totalitarianism functions and how people can easily be brainwashed in a totalitarian government. When I came to discussing our work from my worksheets I was surprised to find out how supportive my group was. They let me speak even though I am extremely quiet and discussed everyone’s ideas concerning the book. However, I think I should of improved on adding more detail to other party of the worksheet. What I think did really well on though is adding great deals of detail to the investigation part of the worksheet. In general, this worksheet was extremely fun to work on and especially fun to look into 1984.

Second Worksheet:

Pages Link:The Gospel According to Larry Discussion Work 2

The second part of the book is when plot get interesting. For the second worksheet we had to finish chapters three and four. In these chapters a great deal of interesting events happen that forward the plot. First, Josh and Beth find out their is going to be a Larryfest, an event to honour Larry’s beliefs about anti-commercialism. However, Betagold sends Josh an e-mail stating that they will find out who he is and calling him a coward for not revealing his identity. Josh is a little nervous however, that doesn’t stop him from going tot the festival. This mistakes causes Betagold to find who he is and expose his identity to the media. His life falls apart, he loses his relationships with both his best friend and his step-father. People to start make advertisement about Larry and focus their attention at Josh as a person instead of Larry’s messages. This give Josh the idea of a pseudocide. This worksheet didn’t turn out as well as my last worksheet however, I still heavily enjoyed the process. I extremely enjoyed writing about the U2 band in the investigation section. One thing I wished I could of improved is picking a better subject to connect and compare to my life. The subject I decided on was festivals because I was lazy and just wanted to get the connect section of the worksheet done. However, I believe I did amazing at explaining the history and what the U2 band does in the investigation section. At the moment I the worksheet as being decent and sort of average. After this worksheet I was highly excited to see what was meant to be done for the third worksheet.

Third Worksheet:

Pages Link:The Gospel According to Larry Discussion Work 3

The ending of the book I find both intriguing and exciting. After, Josh come up with idea do a fake suicide or a pseudocide, he starts to plan ways after he is presume dead that he can take up a false identity. When the time comes he disguises himself, leaves his registered bike near the cliff top and tell everyone that a seventeen year old child jumped. People fall for this trick and this that Josh, Larry is now dead. This includes his whole family and his best friend/crush Beth. In the epilogue it tells us the story of how the writer in this story feelings after writing the book.The third worksheet was quite smaller that the previous worksheets. This is due to me trying to finish the most of the worksheet at the last second. One thing I want to improve in the future is my time managing skills. I will try to do this by setting more reminders and always doing a good portion of my work each day. However, I think I did fantastic on my question on the topic of how Peter and the world will react when they find out he is alive. I answered these questions in detail and gave multiple directions for how each question can go

What I have learned:

I have learned much information concerning the driving question from the Gospel According to Larry. The first lesson I have learned from this story is that people care more about the medium then the actual message. What this means for me is that an person who loves video games will most likely won’t care about the message about the video game, only about their personal entertainment from the game. This translates to in the book, that people are more interested in who Larry is than is actual messages. This message I find very important and caused me to understand the driving question better.

Milestone 3: Historical adverting analysis

Page link:milestone-3-historical-advertisements-.pages

For milestone three we had to dissect an historical advertisement. We could choose any advertisement we want however, it had to be an advertisement in different era that the era we are living in now. I chose a Coca-Cola advertisement that takes place in 1941, during World War Two. I was extremely excited to start working on the milestone and chose this advertisement because I love learning about World War Two. We had to answer questions of what is the message of the media, who is the targeted audience, what are the specific techniques and appeals that are used, what was the past perspective on the issue and how is it similar and different. I stated that the message of the text is that women can do anything due to the uprising for employment due to men leaving their jobs to fight in the war. I believe the audience is most likely women due to their being just a women in the advertisement used in Coca-Cola. Additionally, I think targeting women would widen their demographic audience thus they will get more customers. I think the technique that they applied is, making a vague claim, by saying their drink is refreshing however, giving no proof for this claim. An appeal that they use is reassurance of worth by showing the women in the advertisement as hardworking. My view on how this advertisement has changed is that no, it hasn’t. Back then it would be commonly seen as a movement for more women’s rights and now we still see it the same way.

Unfortunately, after I handed in the paper I had to redo the milestone due to their no clear structure. This made my worksheets better and in the end gotten me a better mark then I would of gotten. The revision made me feel nervous however, I think I benefitted from looking at my working again and realizing what I should of done. However, I still have questions concerning what else I could of done to market the milestone even better. I think I did amazing at explain the different perspectives people had on the issue at the time. I hope we do more assignments the help me understand advertisements affects on people of that age.

Milestone 4: Photo Journal

Previous Blog Relating to this topic:https://www.blog44.ca/sabrinag/2020/11/09/purr-suasive-reflection-of-advertisements/

For milestone for we had hand in our team launch journal. The team launch journal is a numbers documents on all that we have done for the business advertisement project. For this project we were tasked with making with creating a business for a certain advertisement we wanted to choose. The tabs include, Look, Listen and Learn, Ask, Understand, Navigate, The Mood Board, Create, Highlight and Launch. One thing I wished we could of improved on is being more organized with our work and stay on topic. Frequently, our work would get jumbled with pictures or other paragraph. Additionally, we would get off topic often and we should stayed on the subject the teachers wished for us to discuss. Next, I can try to fix these mistakes by speaking louder and becoming the leader of the group. However, I think we did an amazing job on letting everyone contribute to the final project. We didn’t add anything without confirmation from the group and everything that we decided with we used majority vote. This project made me realize how hard and tiring it is to make one decent advertisement. Additionally, it additionally made m think about how important the size of the advertisement is and the appeal of the advertisement. The final product of our launch journal I’m not the happiest with. I think I could of added more details and effort to each of the pages to show that we worked hard. I hope in the future that my group can focus more on the project.

Milestone 5: The Medium Is the Message Analysis:

Page Link:milestone-5.pages

Milestone five had difficulty with. For milestone five we basically had to write paragraphs about The Gospel according to Larry and the Medium is the message by McLuhan. McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher who believed that medium impact the message immensely. I was nervous at first to do the project because I was not very confident on my understanding of McLuhan’s text. This is due to my business advertisement group working while the teacher was explaining parts of his theory to the class. However, I think now I understood enough for me to achieve a basic grade. One core idea I think I should of improved on is diving deeper into how do we hear, see or think influence us. This was one of the main question that I ignored for the other question they wanted us to ask, how does the medium influence the message. In order to avoid this in the future I will attempt to read the instructions for the assignment more carefully next time. However, I think I did amazing at adding great detail for the basic criteria they asked us to write about such as the message and how different media reaches different audiences. In the future I hope to take better notes and understand assignment concerning books or ideas of another persons better.

Milestone 6: A Deep Cove Advertisement

For milestone six we had to post our final advertisement. If you have seen my previous blog post you would know that we are currently we done multiple advertising drafts for a business of our choosing. In this milestone after all our drafts, brainstormed  and discussions we had to make one draft that we will sent to the business. I was extremely nervous to start to make the final draft since I though it would impact a big chunk of my grade and we still haven’t heard back from our business about what they though of our previous advertisement drafts. Before the project we gotten criticism on our previous final draft. The critique I got for our final draft is that our title and our captions should switch places, the wood from one photo didn’t fit with the wood from another photo and that our text was hard to see. I personally believe we didn’t solve all these issues an may have created a few more design issues. In order to make a more readable text we added underline and in order for the images to look separate we change the colour of the first image. I think we should of improved on focusing more on what business advertisement’s are typically like. I could of easily found examples of their advertisements on the internet and analyze them to see what is the usual format for the businesses advertisements. However, as I have said before I think we did a wonderful job at contributing equal amounts of work. We all did around the same level of works. Overall, this final draft made me realize the struggles of a graphic designer.

Group members blogs I could find:

Medium Is The Message Blog post |

The Medium Is The Message Final Blog Post – I Need Caffeine.

Media is The Message Reflection | Gabi’s school blog

How does what we hear, read, and see influence us? – As always, Brooke.

The core competences

Comprehending Text: Have I applied a variety of strategies to comprehend texts and express an understanding of how test uses features?

I believe I show a average understanding of compressing the text. This is due to the fact that I believe I could of work harder and put more effort into my work. For both of text pieces their referring to, The Gospel according to Larry and McLuhan work, I think I should of worked harder on understanding what they really meant. Ways I could of done this is by watching YouTube videos and reading articles online. However, even though I didn’t put my full effort in this competence I believe I have an average understanding and somewhat get the themes and messages behind the text.

Take Historical Perspective: How can we overcome our current concerns, beliefs and values to understand those of the past?

I think I full understand and was able to think like a person living in the time period. The assignments that incorporated this competence was Milestone Two and Milestone Three. I think I did amazing evidence to back up what I though were in the minds of the people during this time period. Moreover, I describe a variety of different beliefs people might have on the subject. I used both websites to support my claim and even took information from some of my most favourite history podcasts. Overall, I think out of all the competences I showed the best understanding in this one.

Designing Texts: Have I used writing and design processes to plan, develop, create and define engaging and meaningful text considering purpose, audience, and message

I believe the farther we got into the project the better at this competence I became. At the start I didn’t fully understand how to compel the targeted audience to my advertisement. However, I think with all the notes, stepping stones and feedback I was given I was able to I believe clearly create an amazing advertisement. One aspect of the project I wished I could of improve was my design. This due to my designs not having that much use of photo and the one with photos doesn’t look unique in my opinion. Overall, I think in the future I could be even better at these skills.

Innovating Designer: How might I designing a solution to a problem, process, or challenge?

I think I struggled a great deal in innovating designer. I believe this due to which milestone this competence relates towards, milestone six. I think the challenge had with this one is that the solution I come up with has to be agreed upon by our group. I found this somewhat difficult since I had my own ideas that I wanted to try that didn’t connect with my groups ideas. I can improve on this competence in the future by trying to think up ideas that seem like what our group is wanting in our work. Overall, I think with experience with working with other I can master this competence

Conclusion:

In conclusion I believe that the Medium is the Message means the sources of which the message is used greatly affect the message. FFor example, if you were creating a story, if you were making a comic it would be more fun and silly. While, a life action TV-series might be look more serious due to it being realistic. Their are many other examples I could give you however, the main message for all of them would be the medium shapes the message. What we hear, think or see influence us immensely because those are significant part of our selves. What we think, see and hear influences our actions or a reaction. In general, this is just my opinion everyone will have different view on these question because we all hear, think and see differently!