Notes of Media Literacy (HSS Elective)

TIP

Forum 1

Think about your personal experiences with the media.
~~Identify a favorite media product from your childhood—a song, book, TV show, or movie etc.~~ ~~Describe what it was about.~~ ~~Why was it so important to you?~~ How much of an impact did your early taste in media have on your perception of yourself? How has your taste shifted over time? Do your current media preferences reveal anything about you?
Include a word count of your post.
Due Date: Feb. 28, M on day, 11:00 pm

The media product that leaves me a great impression is the magazine Vista. Because of the strict school rules, I could not access the mobile phone in senior school. Vista was the only media product that connected me to the outside world during the time. The latest news ranging from tech to politics in the world was posted on the Vista. This news is like that Google released a new smart glass, Trump won the presidential election, and war occurred in an area.

Keeping the habit of reading Vista affected me a lot. For one thing, it significantly broadened my mind by letting me see the lifestyles foreigners lived and how western people think about we eastern people. It expressed me many fresh ideas and opinions that I never thought about, which changed my world view from the world is divided into two sides to the world has many hidden spaces. Furthermore, days in senior school were the roughest day for me because I was surrounded by countless exams and felt extremely nervous. Reading the Vista gave me an effective way to become soothing and cozy, which helped me get rid of the anxious condition. Before reading the Vista, I did not know America comprehensively. From the experience of watching CCTV and listening to the official radio programs, I thought the United States was a place where the products were expensive and the residents were wealthy; every individual there was friendly to the Chinese people. After the trade war, however, I could never hear any good news from official media products. I was so surprised why our attitude to the US changed so tremendously. To some extent, the articles posted on Vista gave me some answers. These articles logically analyzed the background of the trade war and listed a lot of unvoidable conflicts between the two countries. It helped me understand the two countries' history much better and figure out the most important reason was the national benefit. After that, I gradually practiced thinking independently instead of readily accepting all opinions of an article. When seeing a new event report, I prefer to figure out the author's stand by the hidden clue in words. It helps me not be affected by others' opinions. I can say it is Vista that practiced my independent thinking ability.

(385 words)

Forum 2

Explore one current event topic online. Find two news reports on the same event, one Chinese and one English from outside of China.

Briefly explain what this event is. Compare the two reports:
What are the similarities between them?
What are the differences, if any?
Why the similarities/differences?
Include links to the two reports. Include a word count (minimum 300 words)
Due date: March 7, Monday, 11 pm.

The event was a political event that Joe Biden sent a delegation of former senior U.S. defense and security officials to Taipei. Both Reuter’s and Huanqiu‘s news reported this meeting. The basic information like a place, time, and people were all listed in two media. In other words, whatever reading the articles from Reuters or Huanqiu, people could learn that the visit strengthened the relationship between Taipei and the western world. The news from Reuters gave details about how this visit happened and analyzed what feedback China gave to this event. Unlike Reuters’ report, Huanqiu emphasized and criticized that this visit was a one hundred percent wrong decision made by the government of the United States. The reason for the similarities is that both Reuters and Huanqiu are highly authorized media responsible to mass people for the accuracy of their content. In this case, both media would not change the information about the event, such as the place, time, and people. Audiences can learn about the basic information from them. However, Reuters and Huanqiu are the authorized media serving different countries. Because of the subtle relationship between China and the United States, Taiwan issues are often a sensitive topic that two countries have many disagreements about. In Reuters’ report, the delegation to Taipei is a powerful approach to protect Taiwan, especially during the rough time when war between Russia and Urakaine happened. Reuters’ article expressed that America cares about Taiwan and that mainland China was a devil eager to eat the small island. But when Huanqiu posted this news, all words in the article were serving for claiming the “One China” policy and warning the government of the United States. After reading Reuters’ report, readers might think that Taiwan was dangerous now because mainland China would only attack Taiwan; thus, this necessary visit to Taipei was a kind of protection from the United States. But after reading Huanqiu’s article, people might think that the United States broke the old promise and threatened China on purpose.

Links:

Forum 3

~~Have a conversation with your grandparent(s)/parent(s) . Compare your childhood heroes and heroines with hers/his/ theirs .~~
~~What differences are there between the generations in what you consider heroic qualities?~~
~~What are some similarities and differences between the heroic qualities you and people from an earlier generation identify?~~
~~Are the good qualities of your personal heroes something you can find in today’s movies or TV?~~
~~Which cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs, if any, do you think have influenced how heroes and heroines have changed throughout the last few decades?~~
How have the media helped establish the values you identify as important qualities in people?

Include a word count (minimum 300 words)

Due date: March 14, Monday, 11 pm.

My childhood hero is the Green Arrow, a superhero from DC’s comics. My parents’ childhood hero was Lei Feng, a communist soldier who devoted himself to the development of our country. The Green Arrow is a virtual character created to inspire people. His heroic qualities are brave, handsome, and persevering. Lei Feng’s heroic qualities are honest, helpful, and hard-working. Qualities of the Green Arrow represent individualism, and the qualities of Lei Feng symbolized the group. The similar aspects are that both of them contribute to society. To some extent, they are a so-called kind person. The differences between them are that the Green Arrow is a fictional role, but Lei Feng is an actual communist soldier leaving many touching stories behind. The Green Arrow is not only a superhero who saves the world several times but also an ordinary person who fails a lot of things in life. Lei Feng, however, never saves the world like the Green Arrow. His stories are all about how does he help people nearby and how he sacrifices himself to the group. He is a perfect person, and everything he does is right. The Green Arrow’s qualities are common in today’s movies or TV. The Green Arrow is a fictional role, so many roles in film or TV have similar attributes like the Green Arrow, such as the Hawkeye from Marvel. But the situation is different in Lei Feng’s qualities. We seldom see a person like Lei Feng in drama or other media products because people do not believe such a perfect person exists in the world. People always have drawbacks. Adding Lei Feng’s qualities to any fictional role in movies or TV is unrealistic. In cultural value, Lei Feng is more like a symbol that leads people towards the perfect people. It expresses the core socialist values of our society. The Green Arrow is just a cartoon hero created to shape children’s value view by showing them a righteous cartoon role. Many people like my parents have been affected by Lei Feng’s stories and become helpful and kind in the past decades. Though they can not be perfect as Lei Feng, they become better people. There are many media product that helps establish values in people’s mind. The most common form is the poster everywhere. Whatever the Green Arrow or Lei Feng, there are many posters in our lives about them. All of the posters strengthen their qualities in people’s minds.

Forum 4

This article posted news that the stock market of both mainland China and Hongkong become bearish recently. It thought that China took a more strict policy to keep the virus out of the country, which greatly influenced some ports, especially in those cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Ningbo, where the number of confirmed increased rapidly. It revealed some opinions of specialists from different areas. All of those opinions agreed that the Chinese government's strict "zero tolerance" strategy is improper and will affect the Chinese economy and the global market.

This year, the ruling Communist Party's growth target is 5.5%. The author of strongly did not believe this goal. He claimed that if this is achieved, that would be well below last year's 8.1% expansion. But he considered it aggressive at a time when construction, which supports millions of jobs, is in a slump due to a crackdown on debt in the real estate industry (CBS News). From this view, we can see that the author did not regard the Chinese economy and stock market. He blamed the stock price sink on the Chinese government's strict policy against the coronavirus. From the sentences above, he is not a friend to the Chinese Communist Party and suspected the accuracy of Chinese economic data.

The reasons why this kind of perspective can be adopted had two aspects. For one thing, the Chinese government had a bad history of creating fake data. Furthermore, most readers of this media did not want to believe the growth of China, so the article tried several approaches to meet their requirements.

In my opinion, this article is an ordinary article among these kinds of media who did not accept the development of China. Because those negative reports are too many, they could not change anything. People who disliked China still dislike China. People who supported China would not read the article.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/covid-19-outbreak-in-china-threatens-global-supply-chains/ar-AAV4YoU?ocid=uxbndlbing

Forum 5

This is an ongoing conversation on media representation of nationality/ethnicity. Choose a film that affects your perception of westerners [“a native or inhabitant of the west, especially of western Europe or North America” (“Westerner” as defined by Merriam-Webster) ].
In your own words, briefly describe (less than 50 words) what this film is about (Avoid plagiarism by summarizing in your own words. A direct copy-paste from the internet will lead to a zero for the post.)
How has it affected your perception of people from this specific western country? Please explain with examples.

Include a link to the film (if available) or to an introduction to this film.

Include a word count (minimum 300 words)

Due date: March 28, Monday, 11 pm

The film I choose is Saving Private Ryan. This movie told a story happening in WW2. Ryan was an American soldier who was trapped in the enemy's area. Although it seems an impossible and expensive mission, the general sent a team to save Ryan's life. After all of the team members died, Ryan was finally rescued. When I first watched this movie, I was shocked by the spirits of the American people. I was confused about why so many people willingly sacrificed themselves to earn just one life. It is apparently not a correct math equation. This movie made me believe that American cherished every person's life. In this movie, the director did not film horrible scenes in that people fought against each other or some brave soldier killed a lot of enemies. All of the scenes were peaceful and soft. Under the peace, however, audiences felt more about the value of life and the relationship among ordinary people. The movie had many micro scenes. Ryan was not so helpful that many sacrificed soldiers performed better than him in the team. Still, other team members did not leave him behind. There was one scene in which Ryan caught an enemy, but finally, Ryan let him go. Because all the good characters in the movie were the Americans, the people of the United States left me a good impression and let me think that they were so kind in reality. Watching Saving Private Ryan helped me learn about the American army. I was greatly influenced during the process because this movie's information was so positive. It only showed significant aspects of the American. This film was definitely a successful media product since its rating on Douban was 9.1. Hundreds of millions of people left their comments on this movie. As a film in 1998, it helped countless people worldwide learn about the United States and its value view.

Forum 6

This is an ongoing conversation on media representation of nationality/ethnicity. How much do we know about people from other countries? Choose a media piece (it can be a film, a music video, a TV drama, a news article, etc.) that affects your perception of non-westerners other than Chinese. Russia/Ukraine will not count because we have discussed them already.

In your own words , briefly describe (less than 50 words) what this media piece is about (Avoid plagiarism by summarizing in your own words. A direct copy-paste from the internet will lead to a zero for the post.)
How has this media piece your perception of people from this specific country? Please explain in detail using the first-person narrative “I”.
Include one question for further discussion in class.
Include a link to the media product.
Include a word count (minimum 300 words)
Due date: April 11, Monday, 11 pm

This film talked about a story about Jin’s escaping experience from North Korea. In order to buy medicines for his wife, he illegally went to China and then went to South Korea. In the end, he was trapped in South Korea and his son died because of escaping to see him. It was a really bad ending.

Although this film did not describe the scene of how bad the North Korean government treated its citizens, I could feel the people in North Korea living in fear. The atmosphere this film expressed was so dark and inhibited, which repeatedly remind me of the bad situation in North Korea. Jin had almost zero knowledge of modern society, which reflected that North Korea was a country without freedom. Jin hoped to become an ordinary person in South Korea because life here was much better than in his country. All of the settings gave me a bad impression of North Korea. After watching this movie, I had a feeling that I was afraid of living in North Korea. Although I neither went to North Korea nor South Korea, the perception of these two countries had been deeply rooted in my mind. As a media product, the movie successfully influenced me and all of the audiences. In fact, there were a huge amount of similar films which were negative about North Korea. The plots in this kind of movie are all about how North Korean tried hard to escape from the country. These films played a vital role in enhancing South Korea's culture and reducing North Korea's national image.

My further question is while so many films had the similar plots, why there is no other films showing up positive aspects of North Korea. Does it mean that the real situation in North Korea is so bad.

link:

北逃 - 维基百科，自由的百科全书

Forum 7

For this week’s forum about gender, you are going to select a piece of media and describe the roles of female and male characters in it. This media piece can be a film, a music video, or a TV drama.

In your own words, briefly describe (less than 50 words) the role of the female/male character in this media piece (Avoid plagiarism by summarizing in your own words. A direct copy-paste from the internet will lead to a zero for the post.)

Why are they depicted this way?
How has this media piece affected your perception of gender? Please explain in detail using the first-person narrative “I”.
Include one question for further discussion in class.
Include a link to the media product.
Include a word count (minimum 300 words)

Due date: April 18, Monday, 11 pm

The movie I chose was Malèna. Malèna was a beautiful woman deeply missing her husband who was thought to be dead in war. Because of her beauty, female envied her appearance and male wanted to gain her body. Although villagers admired Malèna’s beauty, they treated her badly and finally made her became a prostitute.****

The film use a lots of scenes to depict Malèna’s beauty. I thought the purposes was to reveal people’s envies and dishonesty to woman’s good appearance. The director shaped Malèna a perfect woman. Malèna was so pretty that females envied her and males wanted her. In this case, the beauty became Malèna’s guilty that led her lost hope to life. In my opinion, the director hope audiences to realize that female had low social status and were much weaker than male.

After watching the Malèna, many ideas appeared in my mind. I started to think what did female’s appearance can bring about in reality. It was so true that in my primary school, senior school and high school, the most beautiful girl in my class always suffered a lot. There were many boys in the classroom wanted to be these girl’s boyfriends. And there were many negative gossip about these girls coming from other girls. Same as the Malèna, the tag female made them an object instead of a fresh person. Males fell in love with not beautiful females’ souls, but their bodies. People, even including female themselves, did not regard themselves as independent individuals, which led the perception that female’s life must depend on male’s life. This perception was still popular and many people did not realize that.

My further question was what influence such kinds of movies could have to change the situation that female was regarded as objects?

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malèna_(film)

(312 Words)

Forum 8

Forum 8 Your understanding of LGBT and the media representation

This week’s online forum will focus on representations of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgendered (LGBT) in the media. Please address the following questions adequately.

In your real life, do you know anyone from the LGBT community? How is your understanding (or lack thereof) shaped by your personal experience?
How is your personal experience different from / similar to the media representation of this group? Explain with examples.
Please use the first-person narrative “I” in your post.
Include one question for further discussion in class.
Include a word count () minimum 300 words
Due date: April 25, Monday, 11 pm

In my real life, I actually have some gay friends in my high school. Take one of them as an example. When he firstly told me that he was a gay, I was a little bit shocked because he looked really common like other boys who were not gay. Then he shared me that he had trouble in dealing the relationship with his family while his parents hoped he could marry a woman in the future. Because of this, he lied to his parents that he was addicted to both males and females, and promised that he would fall in love with a girl on the college. I was really sorry for him. It was so ordinary that most of our parents in current society could not accept a gay in the family. Most of them hold the traditional conception that their children would bring them new life to enlarge the family. Besides, other people of LGBT all faced the same problems, which led many of them want to end the life.

In recent years, I had watched many LGBT vlogs from Bilibili and Youtube. This is a good way to learn about those group. From their vlogs, I had a brand new perception of LGBT. First, it was a huge group in our society. Second, many of them already had a normal life in our country and foreign countries like ordinary people. Third, many of them raised children through different ways such as adopting. The most different was that it seemed that LGBT people in the media were all confident but LGBT people I knew in daily life were not so confident and ashamed of themselves.

My further question is when the new generation grow up and master the society, can the whole society accept people of LGBT?

Forum 9

This week’s online forum will focus on representations of people with disabilities in the media. Please read Chapter 12 “Representations of People with Disabilities” in Diversity in US Mass Media.

Choose to answer one question from “ Reflection Questions and Thoughts to Consider ” (p. 274)
Include one additional question for further discussion in class.
Include a word count (minimum 300 words)
Due date: May 9, Monday, 11 pm

I agreed with that the goal of being “normal” drives every decision made by media workers.

For one thing, Whether the citizens are disabled or not, most of them hope own a healthy body and a normal life. As the audiences of all kinds of media product, citizens’ choice plays a significant role on sale performance of a media product, which leads media workers decide to post which kinds of topic in the media product. In this case, if a tv show’s director put a lot of elements of disabled population in the tv program, audiences are reluctant to watch this program. Therefore, the media workers naturally derease the amount of element of disabled population, which in turn causes audience seldom see many news about diabled population in the news media.

On the other side, topics of disabled population are really sensitive and easily triggered a problem. This senarios is more dangerous in entertainmant media where people often play jokes to make audiences laugh. And disabled topics are not suitable in these types of media because when people talk about the disabled people, they are often not aware of their words including discrimiantion to disabled populaiton, and these words are easily misunderstood by other people, which led to a dangerous results like Obama’s “Special Olympic” event. And the director of a media product does not want this embarrassing situation. The easiest way to avoid these kind of mistakes are dereaseing the appearance of disabled topics, which is conservative but effective. Therefore, it is not surprising that the disabled population is not more present in entertainment media.

My further question is that does the phenomenon of little present of disabled population in media product will increase the discrimiantion to the disabled population from the society? If it will, what changes media workers can do to shift current situation?

Forum 10

For this forum, you will need to refer to the final project guideline and design your own media project. Please address the following items:

What media project do you plan to do?
Why do you choose this topic?
Your narrative rough draft (around 500 words)

Due date: May 23, 11 pm

My project is about how media love variety on campus represents the sex. There are two reasons that I choose this topic.

For one thing, love variety today not only exists in influential television station but also in more and more college television station, which was benefited by convenient media producing technology. Furthermore, people's perception to sex changes along the development of society. In the love variety, college students perform themselves to others in opposite sex, which will reveal their perception to sex.

Rough Draft:

Have you ever watched a love variety? When thinking about the love variety, what is your perceptions of them? In traditional love variety, you might have this perception. A line of females stand on the stage. A male appear and describe himself. Then the male pick up a list of females, waiting for any of them select him. It seems really stereotype the both female and male. However, there is a new kind of love variety becoming more and more popular. That is campus love variety.

The form of this new love variety is not individual to group, but individual to individual. Under the brand new form, male and female guests are invited to stay alone in some quiet places like milk tea store, grassland or classroom. They communicate with each other, share their hobbies, express their own perception to love. After experiencing several hours moment, they will learn about each other. In the end, they can decide to whether become a couple or not. After watching a series of campus variety on different college, I interview one of my friends who participate in this variety, and conclude some points.

Unlike the old love variety, the importance of appearance of female and wealth of male are greatly weakened. In a campus love variety, guests are all ordinary college students. Most of them own an ordinary appearance and similar background. This variety even does not mention this point, and the appearance and wealth never become the reason one guest reject another. There are many reasons about it. In traditional perceptions, males are regarded as people earn the money for family, and females are considered who can not earn such amounts of money as male. However, in modern perception, both females and male are independent person who can do the same things. The campus love variety shapes totally different sex of people who just fall in love with each other instead of wealth and appearance.
In the process of searching a partner, males often perform bashful than females. In most of the series, both male and female guest are shy at first. However, it is usually the female guest that try to master the topic of the conversation and do something to avoid embarrassment. It is really an interesting thing because people often think male is brave than female. My friend is the male guest in one of series in his campus. I know he is . Some reasons can explain it. The first one is female perform more brave than male in a relationship. The second reason is males are afraid of embarrassment more than females, which cause the scenario worse.
The campus love variety show the open mind of both male and female. Drinking, smoking, going to a club, those are thought to be bad habits in old days but can be accepted in people today. In campus love variety, guests do not consider these types of tags as a bad tag. For example, in one series of campus love variety in Xinan Jiaotong University, the male guest directly told the female guest that he enjoyed drinking. The female guest does not feel any thing wrong.

In a conclusion, the campus love variety brings a brand new form in which people can see new generation bravely chase the love, males sometimes can be more bashful than female, and the most importantly both of them are free and independent individual.

Notes of Media Literacy (HSS Elective) ​

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