CI First Paper

My informal response is about videos one and four and chapter one of the classroom textbook. While reading the first chapter and watching the videos there were many ideas and things that came up in my mind. The chapter brought up a much more serious and real issue of media literacy within education. The chapter listed many useful and good reasons why the use of the media is so crucial to the education system, both for teachers and students. The chapter helped me to better understand media literacy in detail rather than a brief overview. The video clips also provided me with a more visual approach to media problems and useful ways to use the media.
As I watched the video clips, the one of the voter involvement and the other one with the media issues, I realized that there are many different ways that people can use media and what effect it has on our daily lives. The first one with the two young men getting people involved with the 2004 election has various ideas that it is portraying. The first thing that ran through my mind was how people get use the media to inspire other people to do things such as vote. The young men in the video were trying to get different sides of the political spectrum and young people involved in the election. By interviewing the different politicians the people were using the media to show that politicians are normal people too. The idea of choice versus chance was also important I thought along with music. The different cultures coming together to recognize either their similarities or differences and how they used the media to do it was important and I think is one of the most important factors of media. I agree with this video and think it important that people are involved with issues. The rap music especially was noted to go along with a specific culture of African Americans and the idea of knowing the politicians and making informed decisions.
The second video that I watched was not actually real people but cartoon-like people. I think that this video showed an important message of frustration and lack of control that young people might feel by the media. The video portrayed high school students and even at that young of age should get involved in current issues that affect them. One of the key things that stood out to me the most while watching the video was a few times the camera would zoom in for about two or three seconds on a pair of lips talking. I thought this was pretty neat and a subtle hint of the main idea that talking about issues is crucial to creating a better society. Media is one of the most popular ways to communicate with people besides actually physically talking. I agree that is video is a good example of how students can stand up if they are misrepresented and how frustrated they might feel if the media displays them in a wrong view that they do not agree with.
One thing that I did notice quite about it was how important the role of music was in both of these videos. I agree that playing certain types of music affect a specific group of people. The videos played music for young adults rather than older adults; both videos were targeting young people to get them involved. The music, the narrowing in on the lips, and the interviewing of politician gave me a positive response to the videos, they made me want to watch other videos similar to those. I personally feel that through my background that getting involved with not only political issues but other community issues as well is important, I feel that the more you get your voice heard the better off you will be. If you do not get involved then you cannot complain, being educated about media issues or even using the media to portray your message is vital to improving education and society itself.