Final
Firstly, I like being able to put names to concepts. Before becoming ‘media literate’ I was only able to look at images and advertisements and get certain feelings towards them. Like, “this image makes me feel this way etc. But after this course I can look at all different types of media and understand why they are illiciting such responses from me. Is it propaganda? A postmodern image? Does it take away my agency? Will it influence my commodity self? I feel that having a mastery of the vocabulary greatly increases my understanding and personal filtering of media imagry.
This course has also forced me to think towards the future. By achieving an understanding of media principles and theory’s in the present age, it becomes easier to apply them to a future prediction. How will we advertise 20 years from now? 50 years from now? 100 years from now? Will images still define our lifestyles? Will they still maintain their status as the unnatainable?
Apart from the theory aspect of Media Literacy, I am pleased to have acquired a very basic understanding of digitial media applications. I enjoy having the skills to edit photo’s in photoshop, or to get creative in illustrator and even create and post animations for the web on Flash (after much frustration and headaches of course). No matter what field of work I ultimately end up in, having these general skills can only benefit me in a workplace that is naturally increasing it’s demands for media literate employees.
