All posts by ero52233

Blog Post #13 12/4: Reflection

Over the past few months as a member of this class, I have learned a lot about media and its role in our lives. The complexity of all the different types of mediums and the number of possible topics that are related to each of them is remarkable. I think what will stick with me most from the class is remembering to be conscious of my personal social media brand and how I portray myself on social media, my individual relationship with media and how it can be both a good and bad thing, and how media will play a role in my life for the rest of it, including in my career field.

Some subjects from class I think I’ll definitely follow up on in the future are how media (social media in particular) will most likely be very present in my future as a part of my profession, since I will have a  background/degree in marketing and I plan on looking for job opportunities related to marketing/pr/advertising, which are all closely related.  Additionally, I know I will always have a love for forms of media that are going “out of style” or that are old, like letters and physical hard copy books, so that will definitely be a topic I revisit as I work to keep it as a present aspect of my life.

I think we covered a good amount of material in class and I really liked the pace at which we covered topics the entire semester. If there is anything I wish we looked into with more detail it would be the earlier history of media. I personally find the topic of legacy media very interesting, so I would have liked to learn/hear even more about the most popular forms of media in past decades, and the process of media evolution over time. At the same time, however, I do understand there are only so many topics we can cover in a semester.

For future versions of the class, I would perhaps add a few more modern issues/articles into the mix of things we discuss, but in a way that still accounts for and includes topics and articles from the past. Other than that, I really enjoyed the class and can’t think of any additional things I would add to it. A big thanks to Dr. Menke for a great semester and an eye-opening class that allowed me to learn and become more passionate about one of my biggest interests, media.

Blog Post #12 11/27: Media in Professions

I chose to focus on the strong relationship and correlation that exists between media and marketing. Marketing, under Terry College of Business, is my chosen degree and I will most likely also get a job related  to this field once I have graduated. As today’s world continues to advance in technology, the field of marketing will advance along with the changes that occur in the process of technological advancement.

In one of the articles I looked at, it is very evident that the world of marketing has completely changed, is still changing, and will continue to change in the future and beyond. Named simply, “How Technology is Changing Marketing,” it comments on the fact that new opportunities and markets for sellers will arise with a shift towards higher media usage.

In their words: “The challenge for brands is to connect with customers through all these devices in real time and create campaigns that work across social media, display advertising and e-commerce.” Therefore, now is the perfect time to truly realize the significance of a every aspect of an ad or an image, while keeping new complexities in mind. Very logical and intuitive, I agree wholeheartedly that sometimes media is one of the only ways to capture the attention of potential buyers across the country.

As I continue studying this subject, and when I eventually get a job that utilizes the skills I will have learned in the process of getting a degree, media will continue to play an ever-present and important role in both my life and my career.

Link to “How Technology is Changing Marketing”: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/sep/29/technology-changing-marketing-digital-media

Blog Post #10 11/6: Media Autoethnography

Something I found interesting after keeping a log of my social media usage for a couple days this past week is that whether it was the weekday or the weekend, my media usage seemed to remain consistent. The frequency of on both school days and days without school appeared to be pretty much the same, despite the fact that my activities for each day where not.

After realizing this, I am now very intrigued by my media usage habits because I think that perhaps my focus in my classes is not the only thing being affected negatively, but so is my studying outside of class (whether it is a weekday or the weekend). The weekday I chose to document my media usage, or last Thursday, I had one class, Microeconomics. Even though I only had this one class the whole day, I had problems focusing the whole hour and 15 minutes of it. To compare, whenever I worked on school throughout both the rest of the day and also Saturday, I continued to have problems with focus due to an overuse of media.

Since my Microeconomics class is easy to make up, and additionally my professor posts all her lecture notes after class without fail, these were probably contributing factors to a higher probability that I gravitated towards my phone and specifically to the many types of social media (Facebook, Social Media, Snapchat) in class. It was very easy to lose focus during the lecture because sometimes her voice is monotone, and therefore I ended up using my phone at a much more frequent rate than I maybe I need to be.

Similarly, the same thing seemed to happen when I was trying to study for the remainder of Thursday and for Saturday as well. No matter what time I decided to try to study, I still was distracted or checking my phone for a good portion of the time or at about the same consistent frequency generally as when I was actually in class. Overall, perhaps this is a sign that I need to work to minimize the presence of media usage in my life in order to focus more, be able to work, and to actually remember that the reason I’m at UGA at the end of the day is to get a degree.

 

Blog Post #9 10/23: Audit Your Social Media Brand

In looking at the websites about auditing  a social media brand, it was very interesting to think about the different methods that each source presented. I was surprised to discover that they all mentioned that you should google yourself initially to see what pops up in considering how you are presented to the world through social media.

However, for me, this initial step is ineffective because my name is very common. When I googled myself, to see if anything would come up, nothing did because there are so many people with the name Emily Olson out there and I don’t have a social media presence that is strong enough where it would override the others that exist out there.

A classmate would get probably think that my social media presence is normal. I’m a “normal and happy” student, friend, family member etc. I find this interesting because this is the image I tend to present, even if it’s not always how I’m currently feeling in the moment. To an employer or a graduate admissions committee, I would probably make a  relatively good impression on them in regards to my social media, but it honestly depends of the specific company or university.

I think really defining how I want to use each form of social media that I currently have an account for (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest) will definitely help me refocus on what I’m actually getting out of social media. Making these changes will not only allow me to figure out how I want to alter the ways in which I use social media, but will allow me to redefine my presence/usage through improvement overall.

I do think that I as a person have a personal brand, especially when it comes to refining and adjusting an image for a future career. I do present an image that I want to maintain to be “clean” of anything that may prevent someone from hiring me in the future. I think I’ll need to have a “personal brand,” especially in the next couple of years, in order to look into setting up  informational interviews, seeking out internships, and finding out more about other career possibilities.

Blog Post #7 10/9: Social Media Interview

For the probe this week, interviewing someone with social media practices different than my own, I decided to interview one of my hallmates. By creating her first social media account in 6th grade, when she was just 12 years old, she began her relationship with social media at a relatively early age.

Facebook was the first account. Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter all came later, with the creation of her Instagram account halfway through 8th grade, and the creation of her Snapchat and Twitter accounts about a year after that. Throughout time, her use of social media has definitely evolved. For example, once high school began, she stopped using Facebook altogether and then she began to focus her attention primarily on the other three social media platforms.

In fact, she did not start using Facebook again until about halfway through her senior year of high school. Around December of 2015, she decided to finally “clean up” her account by unfriending people she wasn’t actually friends with in real life and getting rid of old posts and pictures from middle school. Additionally, she began using Facebook differently when it came time to search for a roommate through the UGA Class of 2020 Facebook group.

Today, she still consistently uses Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, and sometimes Facebook. On a day to day basis, she says she uses social media probably about 45 minutes total. With Snapchat being the social media platform that she uses the most, she states, “I like to use it to communicate with people and to see what my friends are doing every day through their stories.” For Instagram and Twitter, the other two social media platforms she uses most frequently, it’s interesting because she uses them about the same amount of time on a regular basis, just in different ways.

For Instagram, she explains, “I use it as a way to post quality pictures and as a way to look at other people’s lives (sort of similar to Snapchat in this respect),” however, for Twitter, she states, “I use it as a form of entertainment. There are constantly funny tweets that people post, and in addition, Twitter can be a good way to stay informed about all that’s going on the world (when it’s accurate, which is rare).” Finally, though her Facebook usage is less frequent, the social media platform does still does have its uses. She says, “I use Facebook primarily for the purpose of staying connected with and updated for the clubs I’m involved in on campus.”

Finally, what I found most interesting about my friend’s social media usage was how well she knew each of the followers or friends across all her social media accounts. As stated earlier, she does know almost all of her Facebook friends in real life, about 90% to be exact. The remaining 10% are people she friended when she was looking for a roommate, who now also attend UGA as a part of the freshman class. Similarly, in regards to both Twitter and Snapchat, she knows almost all her followers and friends, the only anomalies being a few celebrities. If fact, the only social media platform where she doesn’t know almost everyone she interacts with is Instagram. She says she knows about half of her followers, but she keeps her account private so she has to approve every follow request she receives.

Overall, it was very intriguing to find out more about my friend’s habits. She definitely uses all the platforms in ways that are similar, but also very different to my own. Because I don’t have a Twitter account, I found it especially interesting to hear about how she uses that platform in particular. Additionally, in learning about how many of her friends or followers she knows in real life, it was surprising to see how many people she had met in person and actually knew, on Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter at least.  Generally, I now feel like my perspective on the different types of social media has broadened in ways I have never experienced before after the completion of this interview; it was eye-opening to find out more about each of these social media platforms through someone else’s viewpoint.

Blog Post #5 9/26: Media Ecology

Overall, the media of college in 2016 is shaping the experience and the content of my studies and my life as a college student in multiple ways that I would not have foreseen five years ago. As innovative advancements in media continue to be created and all the different forms of social media have become increasingly popular, I have found myself interacting with media, specifically the technological forms of it, at a much more frequent rate than I ever would have imagined in 2011, or at age 13.

The reason that 13-year-old me would be surprised at how much technology I utilize today mainly has to do with the fact that I have always considered myself behind on the latest devices and social media as each have evolved. In other words, while I’m not completely out of sync with the times, I did definitely start using some aspects of technology much later than my peers. Therefore, the evolution of the role technology plays in my life is definitely existent, but it has been slightly delayed when compared to other people my age. Today I consider the frequency of my use as somewhere in between moderate and high.

As a result of my past interaction with media, I found this week’s topic to be very intriguing because it was one that I had never heard of, yet it is something that poses a very important question for me in my everyday life. From normal day to day phone and laptop use for social reasons, online access to textbooks, eLC, email (both school and personal), and other online resources for homework and in regards to my education, there are so many ways in which I utilize media, without thinking twice about the process of it.

However, I do believe the frequency of my use is something I need to be more aware of. I honestly have no idea how many hours of the day I use both my phone and laptop for non-educational purposes, but at this point I can say it is too much. When I consider my social media use specifically, it’s difficult to say whether or not I need to be using all the different kinds of accounts that I have (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat) as much as I do.

As I think about how others use these apps, and the frequency with which they use them, I can’t help but compare my usage to theirs, thinking “well at least I’m not as bad as so-in-so'” when social media becomes a distraction from schoolwork and studying. It’s in scenarios like those that irony is present, especially when I know I may actually may have a problem myself, and could in fact be a hypocrite in my own right.

Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree that there are many awesome advantages to having social media and other forms of media as such a present part of my own college life. However, I definitely think that I need to start analyzing and considering how much usage is too much, when it’s useful or necessary (for both for the social and educational reasons), and what the best balance is for me personally when it comes to the amount of time I devote to each part of my life.

Blog Post #4 9/18: The Email Issue

While considering whether or not email is a legacy medium, many factors come into play. I do believe that the two pieces for this week tallied with what I have personally experienced or seen happen when young people send out emails. However, I found it interesting that there are so many college students who struggle with email etiquette and the formality of this medium in general because I personally haven’t had many issues recently with this form of communication.

Despite the fact that I was surprised at the number of college students who have never been taught how to “email”, it definitely makes sense. I suppose there isn’t really an opportunity to learn unless one is taught by parents or a past obligation has existed in regards to sending and replying to emails for and from teachers in high school. Because of necessity, I ended up experiencing both and I took advantage of what I learned from each through these opportunities while I was still in high school, which perhaps is something that not all people my age have encountered.

Through my past experience and everything I learned while struggling to use email effectively, I know that is easy to have no idea what the next step is.  This is probably because in the current generation of young people, everything is fast paced. Social media and texting serve as rapid response forms of communicating and interacting with others, while email can take up to  multiple days while one just waits for a response. Therefore, emailing is a legacy media in this sense, but at the same time it doesn’t appear to be so because it is used so expansively, by universities especially.

Blog Post #3 9/11: Legacy Media

Though it may still be considered a residual medium today, it’s definitely possible that hard copy books will become a legacy medium or even an obsolete medium in the future. Somewhat of a legacy medium already, it is easy to see how eBooks might replace and already do replace the physical books and textbooks that are very prominent in every college student’s life.

In fact, this replacement often starts even earlier than college. Many high schools in today’s day and age are making a shift towards online textbooks and assignments as early as freshman year, in order to continue with the idea of innovative “21st century learning” or something along those lines.

For me personally, it was very interesting to read the article on “The End of Legacy Media.” The fact that it was written in 1998, the year I was born, meant that the author of the article predicted that hard copy books would become an obsolete medium by the time I was 10 years old (2008).

However, I would say that this is far from the case, even now in 2016. While perhaps the use of books is inherited from older generations, I know that I, as an individual, prefer physical copies of textbooks to online versions of them. Through my eyes, books are definitely still a very present part of my day to day life.

Part of my reasoning is dependent on how well I can learn the information. While online textbooks have their specific benefits, and I definitely can use them with ease, the hard copies of my textbooks always seem to help me retain information more easily. I think it has something to do with the format of them, which allows for me to focus on the root of what I’m learning because of the very visual aspect that exists in a physical page of reading.

Additionally, when I am just reading for fun, I almost always prefer flipping through real pages. This may sound strange, but because I have a deep love for reading (I have since I was little kid), I appreciate the tangible feeling of turning a page and also the scent that fills the air every time I crack open a book. Since those sensory feelings are linked to one of my favorite pastimes, I feel like something is missing every time I read an eBook.

Overall, though I can’t predict what will happen in the future, I do know that hard copy books will always be something that I will prefer (at least for now). If they do become an obsolete medium, I know I will look back on them with a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart just because of the memories and experiences that they bring me back to.

 

Blog Post #2 8/28: Writing a Letter

As it becomes less and less common to utilize the letter as a way to communicate, it also becomes more and more interesting to see what happens when you do write one in this day and age.  When it came time for me to do this very task, I decided to write to my best friend back home from Colorado.

Because we have known each other since 1st grade, you would think it would be easy to write her a letter of a decent length. Truthfully, it was, since we can usually talk for hours in person. However, at the same time, because technology is such an integral part of our society, it was definitely different trying my hand at such a different type of communication.

Since we mostly contact each other by texts and calls now, this felt much different. The thing that was difficult was writing with the thought in mind that each word I wrote became our entire conversation in and of itself. By expecting a long wait time until her response, I felt like I needed to include both questions about how she was doing and the specifics of her life in Colorado, but also how I was doing and what’s been going on with me here in Georgia all at the same time.

Though letters do not have to be long, I found it refreshing to create a long response rather than a short one. The short bursts of messages sent in a matter of seconds virtually just don’t have the same amount of meaning, or the feeling that someone took aside more than one minute of their time to write out their thoughts, elicit a response, and interact with family and friends in a way unlike any other. I’m glad I got to try out this form of communication, and I would like to continue occasionally sending letters through the mail in order to reignite a human connection that is centrally infused within the thoughts written with pen and paper.

Blog Post #1 8/21: First Blog Post and Tetrads

Hi there! My name is Emily Olson. I am originally from Colorado, but my family just moved to Alpharetta, GA. Since I lived in CO for 16 years, it’s definitely been different here so far, but I’m really liking it. I am very excited to live in the South and experience new things unique not only to the region, but to Georgia itself. I’m currently majoring in Marketing, however, I’m also interested in studying Advertising, Public Relations, or Media Studies. As you can see, I have quite a few interests, so I’m hoping this FYOS will help me learn a little bit more about that last one at least.

Tetrad: Online Newspapers

Enhances: Online newspapers help increase awareness of certain issues and provide access to news at a speed like never before, while encouraging an informed lifestyle for readers as all newsworthy events are reported on and different viewpoints on politics, entertainment, culture, and other areas of interest are published and presented.

Retrieves: Online newspapers allow for a quick passage of information and news globally, in a more accessible way. They revive a connectivity with other parts of the world on a much larger scale, while public knowledge and awareness is improved as younger generations make use of this modern method of information sharing.

Reverses Into: Inaccuracy occurs when online news stories are published too quickly online. In order to keep up with the constant occurrence of events, locally, nationally, and worldwide, many online newspapers report on and post about news material with little turn around time. As a result, not enough information is always included to create completely unbiased, well-researched articles.

Obsolesces: The physical paper newspapers of the past have becomes less popular. Many people forgo the “daily paper” altogether, relying on online newspapers and mobile news apps to fulfill this aspect of information sharing in a different, but more modern way.