Media thus Far
Startin Anew
I've never studied media before, well minus watching the films on television or reading books and listening to songs on the radio or on my ipod. I looked at the course when it became an A-Level option for me and I just knew I had to try it, if you don't try how will you know?
I love taking my own pictures and editing things, or evening writing my own stories which im trying to send off to publishers at the moment anyway, so I thought I was half way there. Haha, how wrong I was! Theres loads more, and im going to give it my all!
I have to admit, I was real nervous. A new school, and a new subject with all new people who I hardly knew anything about! Lucky enough, our media teachers are lovely to us and sometimes im not sure if there teachers or just people like us - thats just how pretty cool they are, they make you feel accepted and even if you've made a mistake they'll help you and let you try again. Jackpot!
So what have we done?
For my first term in media we studied different narratives- more than I realised was out there. Whenever I heard narrative I always thought "someone telling the story or what is happening in a scene," an actual narrator basically, so when we started this subject I have to admit it was a bit much. We where told and shown different ways of narrating different media's and I now understand that a narrative and a story are two different meanings. Narrative - the way events are put together to be presented to an audience. Story - lots of events, can be known as a plot.
We've all discussed how much of the media on average we consume in a week... and wow I have to admit I was quite surprised by how much I used and what the media is - trust me it sounds silly asking but theres a lot many don't know or disreguard as media.
We learnt about Vladimir Propp's 31 functions. Until now id never heard of Vladimir, didn't know that he was a literary critic and Scholar who studied basic plot components of Russian fairytales, but we do now!
In media we also learnt about different character roles, and why they where represented in the way they where. Why they act the way they do and how they have been typically stereotyped. Did I also mention that we studied stereotypes? Haha, this one I was entrigued about because I wondered if my steretype would show, (a rocker/emo) and how the teachers had prepared to show us that stereotype... it did show... and everyone- including me smiled. It was the typical picture of a group of teens with black hair and wearing band t-shirts with skinny jeans - everything I wear anyway.
We also looked at the Binary Opposition by Claude Levi-Strauss, who created the theory that suggested that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict it is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite. <-- See i've learnt quite a lot and it has only been practically 2 months!
Media, here I come!
