Blog Post #1

I have been tracking my use of technology for the past few days. I mainly use technology for my entertainment and keeping up with the world. I spend a few minutes in the morning watching the daily news as well as keeping up with the weather. During the day I like to keep myself busy and stay active but I do often come across holes in my schedule. I tend to fill these holes in my schedule with browsing the internet, talking to friends, or watching television.

In school, my class and I are learning about advertising in media. We looked at the four big ideas of media studies an watched several clips of commercials to identify the ideas.
The four big ideas of media study and analysis are:

1. Messages are constructed
2. Messages are representations of the world
3. Messages have economic and political purposes and contexts
4. Individuals create meaning in media messages through interpretation

While viewing the commercials, I was able to recognize that all ads are created in a way to promote a product or idea. One of the commercials was promoting Dove healthcare products and their main idea was be yourself but also use Dove healthcare products. The advertisement sported a little girl which played into the emotions of a parent who could have been watching. The next commercial we watched was for an environmentalist group who used the same format as the Dove commercial but instead of saying "Be yourself" they talked about how Dove ruined the rain forests for the palm oil in their products. I thought that it was interesting to see how different companies convey their ideas and how some can interact with each other through advertising.