PSA outline of ideas

A PSA has four essential components:

• Significance of Issue to the Public: What is the proposed issue? Describe the problem and why it is important to the public? Are there any statistics involved which might be useful?  I am looking to explore the types of risky behaviors teens are currently involverd in, online and in real-time. It is important for teens and parents to be aware of the statistics and the possible ways to prevent risky behaviors from happening. According to a CDC report, in 2013, 7.3% of students were forced to have sex without their consent; 46.8% of teens had been sexually active; and 5.6 % of those teens had been sexually active before age 13. 
• Target Audience: Whom do I want to speak to? Mostly, i want parents to be aware of what is going on with their children, because I, too, will want to know when that time comes!
• Message: What is the proposed message? What do I want the person who is watching this to understand? i want parents to understand the "struggle is real" for teens. They are pressured in school and online into maturing (example: sexually) earlier than ever before.
• Action Step: What is the call to action? What do I want the person to do? What can an individual do in the home or community? How will the action solve the problem? I want parents to be aware of these risky behaviors, talk to their children, and be informed about what the majority of adolescents are into today.

Identify the topic for your PSA Risky behaviors of teens today (online & in real-time)

Research the topic and 3 facts or statistics you will use to shape your PSA.  According to a CDC report, in 2013, 7.3% of students were forced to have sex without their consent; 46.8% of teens had been sexually active; and 5.6 % of those teens had been sexually active before age 13. 

Identify the Audience for your PSA: Unsuspe

weekly reading 10

p. 128:  "At least 26 names of cartoon characters are linked to porn sites . . . "

This is infuriatingly disturbing to me! This paragraph also states that 90% of kids age 8-15 have seen porn online and that the porn industry does this purposely to attract children's attention. i mean, I am all for the First Amendment, but this coupled with the paragraph about "crush"/killing animals videos is crossing a line. What is going on with humanity that we have become this desperate and attention-seeking? I am appalled . . . and apparently very naive because I truly had no idea about the information and statistics given throughout this chapter.

p. 132:  (speaking of the scary maze videos) . . . At the moment of the scare, the child (7 y.o. female) cries and sobs uncontrollably, looking to her mother for comfort as the adults in the room laugh."

Yeah, that's not disturbing at all. Put your child in a traumatic situatio, do not comfort her, instead laugh at her and watch the bill for therapy grow. What a terrible idea this is. I am shocked that a parent would intentionally scare such a young child. As we prepare for our first trick or treat, I am worried about costumes that might frighten my daughter, so we are dressing as matching honeybees. I know I sound so sheltered and uppity in this post, but I am just surprised by all of this!

p. 137:  "Every young person will, at one time or another, fail to anticipate the consequences of his or her communication behavior."

As a new parent, I am not looking forward to this stage in my daughter's development. I am scared, nervous, and anxious about the world that my now 10-month-old will mature in and grow up because of. . . this chapter sure did not help to squash that anxiety! I am so glad we have this text as a resource, there are so many things that I have found interesting in it that I  would have otherwise been blind to had I not read it here.

weekly reading 9

 Weekly Reading #9Help on this Pagelink opens in new window

Directions

Evaluation Method

Text and Image Section  

p. 106: “In 2010, more than 200,000 teens under age 18 had some kind of cosmetic surgery—including hair removal, nose jobs, and liposuction.”



This quote follows an excerpt about self-objectification and the sexualization of teen girls. I found this statistic to be very sad. We have become a society so consumed with small dress size instead of large IQ that it is frightening. In my Victorian Literature studies, women who were more “plump” were actually more “sexy” and wealthier than those who were thin. I still do not think the haggard, poverty-stricken, starvation image is at all attractive. I think it is so startling, though, that so many young people are looking at these airbrushed and unrealistic photos and trying to conform to them.



p. 112: “As a result, it becomes the job of the parents to choose whether or not (or how) to attempt to restrict access to particular media content.”



The key word here, I believe, is “attempt.” No matter how much we may try to protect our children from certain genres of media, there will always be a curiosity on the part of our own children or there will be that one sneakier chum who is well-versed in elicit lyrics or pornography. I think our youth are becoming more and more sexualized at a younger age. I think there is a loss of childhood innocence, as stated earlier in this text. Children are maturing faster, pubescently-speaking, and the media seems to be focusing on it.



p. 119: “To support the development of critical autonomy, teaching and learning must be student-centered and inquiry-oriented.”



I know there is a time for direct regurgitation of information for things like important dates, places, people, etc., but at the same time students should still be able to connect those things to critical thinking. Just knowing that MLK Jr. was alive in the 1960s does not fully prepare students for understanding how important his role was to the 1960s. Being able to relay information to students and have them make connections based on their own interpretations and questions is of the utmost importance, in my view.

Week 10: Media Deconstruction

• Do you agree with the claims made in the deconstruction? Yes, I absolutely do. I think that Alltel is definitely speaking to a middle-class, white family. And, sadly, the ethnic group renting the room is a poor display of respect for other cultures by Alltel
•  Is the Century Link ad really a cover for a company that is making profits over customer satisfaction? Probably, I do not believe that most companies have our well-being, as consumers, in their sights. The text that goes along with the Century Link ad seems to suggest that the company is most interested in money and not customer relations. I would have to agree that this is true of most businesses.
• Does the Alltel ad really promote racism or stereotypes of immigrants? I definitely do not think Alltel is doing themselves any favors with the non-white population, I think the appearance of the “renters” is definitely filled with racism and prejudice.
• What is your interpretation of the commercial? I have to say, my jaw dropped when the door opened to the dancing renters performing for their chicken. I can honestly say that I hope they pulled the ad shortly after it aired and maybe reassigned their writers to different positions. I thought it was very offensive.
• How does it differ from the interpretation offered by the Center for Media Literacy? I mostly agree with the CLM’s views. I think this was a poorly though out commercial—on all sides

Magazine Construction

I chose the cover line and sell line based on the negative views of the Common Core Standards. The Cover story (at the top left of the blue box) reflects a few persuasive techniques. I used a sort of dark humor in the “should you drink the Kool-Aid” context to show that the CCS can be seen as a cult-like experience that the government is trying to get you on board about. The sell line, (Common “bore” standards), is also meant to be humorous and uses a pun based on the name of the program Common Core Standards. I thought that both of these article titles would lead the reader to want to read the obviously negative evidential support that I am leading you to believe lies within the pages of my magazine. These lines also use repetition to drive home that the CCS is obvious not the best alternative to the No Child left Behind system that was previously in place. The timing is also right, as I am striking while the educational iron is hot when dealing with the CCS revamping. I also thought that the name of the magazine was intriguing, showing that I (the owner) am all about revamping and concentrating on the education system. In the thought bubble, I used an analogy that has good timing with what is currently going on in the world with the fear of Ebola. Fear is another persuasive tactic I tried to highlight in order to garner readership. The entire persuasive idea behind the magazine is based on the slippery-slope and trying to catch the readers’ eyes with glittering generalities. I also chose the image because it relates to the magazine’s name by showing the core of the human anatomy, the brain. The image also conveys an academic-looking graphic that might just catch the eyes of educators and students alike. 

R&D 7

Read the Common Core standards page titled "Key Shifts in English Language Arts" In a blog posting explain how media the media literacy activity described in the chapter are examples of literacy practices support by the Common Core.

The 5-Step assignment, given at the end of Chapter 4 of our text, absolutely meets the 3 key shifts in language arts now needed for the Common Core:

1.       Regular practice with complex texts and their academic language

Step 1, Watch & Listen, gives students 3 excerpts from MLK’s speeches. These texts are written in MLK’s own language & are therefore relevant to the Common Core standards. Students are also directed to take notes which will help them paraphrase the texts in their own language, so they can better understand the texts’ relevance.

2.       Reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from texts, both literary and informational

Steps 2 & 3 & 5 of the Chapter 4 lesson plan ask students to do some creative writing based on literary & informational texts. They must create characters, a dialogue & recreate time & place in order to better understand the nonfiction texts that they have read.

3.       Building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction

Step 4 requests that students do further research in order to broaden their knowledge base on the nonfiction texts by MLK they have read. 

Media Deconstruction

Media Deconstruction:

Deconstruct the magazine cover below: Click here to get a closer look at this magazine cover. Use the following questions to guide your deconstruction. The answers to this question will require research. 

Authors and Audience:

• Who produced this document, and for what purpose? The “about us” section leads you to believe that this site is run by unbiased Americans, but the last line says that they answer to “God and you” so I think the founders must be a faith-based group.

• When was this produced, and what was its historical context? This document was produced in May of 2014 which makes it relevant to today’s world

• Who is the target audience? I would guess the audience is parents of school children, given the photo & the remarks about education & college.

Messages and Meanings

• What are the messages communicated? There are questions of faith, the value of higher education, and oddly, nuclear energy

• What techniques are used to attract and hold attention? The font and image really grab your attention, making you curious to read the fine print

• How might people interpret this message differently? I raised my skeptical little eyebrow, once I read the fine print at the top. I don’t know how others interpret it, there are all sorts of perspectives that could work here, faith-driven, education-naysayers, etc.

• Who might benefit from (and who might be harmed by) this message? I think the message seems for harmful to people. It seems to deliver some false accusations and opinions right off the bat.

Representation and Reality

• What information or perspective is left out of this message? I think this message seems highly faith-driven, so I think a worldly perspective is left out.

• Is this an accurate and credible representation? No, I do not think opinion can be seen as credible or factual information.

• How does this reflect the perspective or bias of its creator? This is definitely biased by those of faith. It seems mostly to be a little on the brainwashing side, if you ask me.

Text and Subtext

Describe the text and subtext presented in this magazine cover. You can find a example of what this means on p.5 in this Intro to Media Literacy Project. The text here gives you opinions on different subjects, religion, education, and nuclear energy. The subtext, I think, is to ward off all the evil of education from your child & to value Christianity & nuclear energy, of all things.

Language of Persuasion

Starting on P.6 of the Intro to Media literacy document there are 40 persuasive techniques listed and described. Which ones are used in this magazine cover? Association, bandwagon, explicit claims, fear, intensity, maybe, plain folks, glittering generalities, extrapolation, slippery slope, ad hominem, card stacking, cause vs. correlation, group dynamics, majority belief, timing. 

Reading & Discussion #4

I could not get the link to our course blog to work, so I am posting here . . . 

In sum, the best advertisements use images, jingles, and stories to focus attention on the brand. They are not just creative for creative's sake.

I used to work in advertising and this is definitely true. There were specific websites we used to buy similar images for each customer’s advertisements (getty images, for example). We used them across all media we offered (web, collateral, audio, etc.). Now, any time I see an elderly couple on a tandem bike, I automatically think “Del Webb” communities. There were other customers too, who preferred to stick to the same types backgrounds and such & just switch out images, so that their audience would always associate those color combinations with their brand. Although I worked in the industry, these ads did work on me because I know now what images are brought to mind by certain billboards, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47cAxRX3aDg

This ad works on so many levels. The motto "like a good neighbor, State Farm is there" sings in my head every time i see a State Farm commercial. . .  and no one can say "khakis" now without me immediately thinking of Jake. I have also learned from State Farm, that no matter where Iam, my agent can come and save me when I am having car issues. These jungles and images will forever be burned in my head attached to State Farm, well-played, Stet farm, well-played.

Digital Story FINAL VERSION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glAVe25t0F8&feature=youtube_gdata