During the media texts and genres seminar, we discussed the development of our own values and whether media has an influence on how we view and behave towards certain aspects.

Media:

1. Appearance – makeup and clothing
2. Political opinion – Twitter, Facebook, blogs
3. Feminist beliefs – celebrity status (Emma Watson)

Not Media:

• ?

I quickly discovered that it was easier to find what the media has influenced rather than what i have discovered for myself.

Through the pictures shown on the powerpoint (police and students) we were told to write down the connotations of the images:

Police – brutal, corrupt, racist, violent

Student – lazy, alcoholic, drug abusers, skint, miserable, always on phone

=After discussing the connotations with the rest of the class it was pointed out to us that our connotations seemed to be based on the images that had been displayed on the powerpoint rather than forming our own opinions, therefore, reinforcing that media influences our every decision/behaviour.

From the reading we went over Stuart Hall’s representation approaches:

1. Reflective
2. Intentional
3. Constructionist – persuasive avoids the trap of assuming that the world has no effect on meaning.

• Stereotypes are shortcut judgements of people
• draw us to specific people/avoid on the way they look/act
• dangers = grouping specific people with a bad reputation e.g. Muslims and teens.