Skip to main content

Hands-On Assignment 2


Media is any medium used for mass entertainment, information, promotion and/or communication. This can include radio, newspapers, television and the internet. Social networking are online platforms used to interact with others and create both interpersonal and parasocial relationships. I currently used Tiktok, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. I use all of these sites for entertainment and documenting the parts of my life that I choose to show. 

Pinterest and Twitter are not sites that I use daily, so I don't use them that frequently. Reddit and Tiktok are great for mindlessly scrolling and getting lost, so they are used multiple times a week. Instagram and YouTube are used almost daily for me (with YouTube definitely taking the lead). I do not watch many TV shows (or anything that would be on cable). YouTube has been my main source for TV-like content for years. 

The only social media sites that have any affect on my emotions are Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube. These are the main platforms where people tend to glamorize their life. In the past, If I spent too much time on TikTok or Instagram, it would affect the way I feel about myself and my appearance. After some growth and realizations, it doesn't affect me as much anymore. It has not often affected how I feel about my friends and family. It has only happened when comparing my experiences with family and friends to those I see online (ex. a group of friends at a festival). However, social media does currently affect how I feel about the world. I remember there was a time in the summer of 2020 (when so many negative things were going on in the world) where I couldn't stand to be on social media. It made me view the world as only a bad place. Spending some time away from social media every now and then can be great to gain a clearer view of everything. 


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Social Media & The Entertainment Industry : LJ8

       This week's readings were very intriguing because it's something I think about often. Social media has affected the entertainment industry in various ways. Streaming services are starting to ruin the "going out and seeing a movie" experience, with digital media driving "46% of movie box office revenue, despite making up just 14% of studio marketing budgets" (Malnar, 2020).  Likewise, music streaming services and traditional ways of promoting and showing music are being affected by social media. Record labels are already beginning to shift away from focusing on streaming services, saying "With an expanding number of partnerships including Facebook, Tiktok, and Snap, among others, social media is already a meaningful nine-figure revenue stream for us and is growing at a faster rate than subscription streaming (Ingham, 2020).       I believe there are pros and cons to this advancement. Before social media, famous people usually had c...

Images and Messaging : LJ5

Focusing on Flickr this week was very refreshing, as it's not a social media platform that I hear or think about that often. I remember that I used to use Flickr when I was a kid (around and thought I wanted to be a blogger or photographer. It was cool to get back on the site and see how things have changed. It was intriguing to read about the impact that Flickr has had on how we as a society view photos, since Flickr was in the photo-sharing game long before Instagram. It marked the beginning of the shift in how we take and experience photos as well. "The everyday image becomes something that even the amateur can create and comment on with relative authority and ease" (Murray, 2008). The average person can now become creators of content as well as let go of the hierarchy surrounding photography. In explaining that "the nature of photography now is it's in motion" the Journal of Visual Culture highlights the shift in how we view photos (Murray, 2008). I thi...

Metrics and Analytics: LJ3

Reading Chapter 6 has given me more in-depth knowledge on topics I had previously known about. I found it very interesting how much goes on behind the scenes for companies that are trying to grow on social media.  While companies "want visitors to respond to each post" they "also seek higher levels of engagement through liking comments of others and making comments" of their own (Lipschultz 2021).  Reading page 165 specifically made me think of interactions I see happening online everyday. Companies use "trendy" words and try to speak like they are human, and not a corporation. Social media has made these companies decide to speak informally and like they are our friend (probably to make us feel they are more "relatable"). I always found it to be cringe-worthy and very strange.  It also highlights how social media has changed the landscape for things in the real world.  Another interesting part to this reading was the statistics on social media i...