Fourth Topic : Media Literacy

What is Media Literacy and why is it important for you as FCM students to have it?

Critical Reflection : Media Literacy and its impact on me
1. After referring to Wikipedia, I got to know that media literacy is about approaching, studying, analyzing, experimenting and also evaluating media which are in different kind of forms or genres. Such studies allow people to decode and also facilitate the message which is carried on that particular media form. By decoding message in this way, it actually enables people to know about the role and impact of media and thus being more appreciative.

2. As a FCM student, I actually find this study very useful. This study actually provides me the courage to start my so-called approach and analyzation on the media that happen to be surrounding me. From the research I did, I actually received a lot of extra knowledge compared to the previous time. In fact, sometime I even got inspired from the research I did and thus coming out with my own creation or artwork to convey my message based on some issues to the public. Therefore, I really think that media plays an important role in my life as it allows me to know some of the hidden messages of the artworks.


Personal Reflection On The Class
For this week, we were taught about media representation and cultural stereotypes. From the class, I actually paid more attention on the media representation topic as I really found that very interesting. As a fan for truth, I totally support media representation as most of the time, it is mediating the truth, unlike stereotype. However, I realized another thing as well, that the people nowadays actually prefer more on the stereotype as most of them found it funny to crack some jokes on other people. It creates misunderstanding and discrimination, but people seem to have covered up part of their conscience with all the stereotypes which they think it is delighting. No matter what, I am still preferring the media representation as mediating the truth will always benefit the people.

Third Topic : Media Stereotype

Critical Reflection : What is Media Stereotype?
1. To me, media stereotype is something that, even though it is not representative or classified commonly, it is being generally mediated like it is, with some exaggerations and sarcastic jokes in it as an addition, and results in creating a general misjudged acknowledgment or misunderstanding of the receivers towards those particular ethnic groups.

2. Normally, media stereotype is created with a biased judgment of the ones who mediate those "information" towards that certain groups such as the producers. The effects of this kind of stereotypes was thought to be harmless as it is treated as normal sarcastic humor. However, it is kind of influential and offensive as this stereotype will be endlessly mediated and it will create a misunderstanding of the kids in this current era to the groups that are being made fun of, and hence resulting in unnecessary discrimination within one another in the future.


Personal Reflection On the Class
No class for this week, since it's holiday. So I took a look on that article afterward and realized how those media producers and cartoon illustrators created the cartoons to crack a serious humorous but offensive joke on those particular ethnics. However, I feel kind of uncomfortable watching this kind of cartoon, as cartoon is meant to be bringing fun and joy to the kids nowadays, but not as a media for the adults to trigger the "mental war" among themselves. Therefore, to me, I seriously disagree with this kind of acts.

Second Topic : The Truth Shown Online.

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it ?
If yes, why? If no, why? Discuss this in your own words.

Critical Reflection on the Truth Shown Online
1. Well, as I said in the previous post, I do rely on the internet very much as it is almost like the only main source for the information I receive in my daily life. However, due to the advice given by my friends and also my personal experience, I do not really believe exactly what is shown in every website. Since the first day I utilized this service , I have been warned not to click on those pop-out article as most of them are either frauds or viruses. As time goes by, I started to learn about the hidden risk or danger in the internet. From the learning, I got to know that there are really some websites which are full of those fake articles being created by some unknown individuals, who has no other purposes but just to terrify or deceive the net surfers that are reading their articles, just for the sake of having fun, like the Stanley Baran's comic strip shown above. Besides that, there are also existence of hackers who created some articles to attract network users' attention and thus taking some hidden advantages of theirs while they are browsing that. We should bear in mind about this, just like how my dad used to tell me, "No one will be willing to provide you a fortune for nothing."

2. Normally, I will be ignoring all those articles shown in those anonymous websites as I deeply believe that most of them are providing untruthful information, just like most of the pop-outs articles online. Therefore, I will not get those demanded information from those websites. It is a must to know that, some news or information can be really influential to the public, some of them might even be able to cause injury or death due to the created misunderstanding, therefore we are supposed to take this issue seriously. While reading those articles, it will be more appropriate if we try to do some comparisons with some others well-known websites to ensure the truthfulness of those articles, as once we get deceived by those concocted articles, it will really arise an awful misunderstanding among the people of different races, religions, or even countries. Therefore, to me, in order to avoid misunderstanding, it is a necessity to spend some time in confirming the real truth of articles shown online.


Personal Reflection on the Media Culture Class
In this week, class was really in a chaos. Everyone was paying attention to his or her own topics. Therefore, I only got to learn something from the class, something about how media influence war. Firstly, we are ought to know that, media really brings a lot of impact in either initiating or preventing war. Let's take an example, if there's news about political issue which has been manipulated or bended by those unfaithful reporters, it will seriously create misunderstanding and thus igniting disastrous wars. However, on the contrary, if there are media everywhere to convey message about the importance of peace, such as newspaper, magazine, tv programs, radio etc, it will really arouse the awareness in ourselves, and thus increasing the amount of people going against this pathetic issue. Even though this is not going to cease the war right away, however, as long as these optimistic messages are being delivered, it will sure become a success in the near future. Therefore I once again emphasized, media is actually manipulating what is happening around us, and this class has really reminded me a lot about this.

First Topic : Social Media

-Discuss how this new phenomenon is affecting your life and the lives around you-


Critical Reflection on Social Media
1. Well, this clip has really shown how important this social media is. Using residents of Scoopville and ice cream as the metaphor, it has clearly stated that how social media has changed the current lives of ours. As we all know, magazine, newspaper, television, radio etc, are all useful social media. However, the one which affects my life the most will be the networks, so let's talk about the World Wide Web (WWW) then. For people who seldom watch television programs and newspapers like I do, the WWW plays an important role in socialization. For example, the common websites that I often browse are friendster, facebook, and deviantart. All these mentioned websites do help me alot in communicating or keeping in touch with all my friends, families or peers who have moved or migrated, thus sharing the different experiences that we are having in different places everyday. As the frequent user of Friendster, it even helps me to widen up my eye sight towards the world, as I am given chances to know more friends who are from different countries, and I get to understand more about their countries and cultures as well through all the chatters we had. Lastly, website provides the latest news about politics, entertainment, sports etc for us to read about, and indirectly, it gives us many topics to start a conversation with and discuss about, and thus widening our knowledge about the current world. Therefore, WWW as a social media is indeed an eye opener for the users.

2. Social media does help in establishing a bridge for the gap among the people, and from that, we are able to improve ourselves in this self-proclaimed "E-global village". Well, it is a fact that we will not be able to know all the people in this world, but at least with this networking which happens to be one of the social media, we can meet more and hence improving more. Let's take an example, website like Deviantart has helped gathering majority of art lovers and allowing them to exchange opinions based on the artwork of theirs, and it does help in improving their artwork through the feedbacks they get from each other, just like the improvement of the residents' ice creams in the clip shown above. People improve under other people's comments or perspective, and social media helps enhancing it. Moreover, just like the shown clip, many companies set up a website to get feedbacks from the customers who have utilized their products, in order to improve and come out with a new and better product. This does not only helps saving cost, but it kinds of getting a better response from the public than broadcasting an advertisement.


Personal Reflection on the Media Culture Class
Well, for this week, we were taught about "Media Society". In this class, I realized about how influential Social Media is, as in the current world, we are surrounded by all these media and in fact, we are more like living on them. However, social media has been so reliable until it has an ability to manipulate people's mindset. Therefore, we were reminded to be real careful when we are applying these media, as there might be some people who misuse that for a harmful purpose to fullfil their own selfishness. In a nut shell, this class was quite an interesting class, as we were told or acknowledged about something that we may not realize in our daily lives.

My Personal Intro.

Well, my name is Wong Jue Jin, and do call me J.J if you like to. I am a FCM student, that's also the reason that I am creating this blog of mine. As you may notice, I love drawing normal graphic alot, so in the near future, I might be posting some of my work here as well. So welcome to read my blog ya. Peace y'all.