Broadcasting your life

Social networking takes up a huge amount of my life; I am constantly scrolling down newsfeeds, updating my statuses, posting images and checking in at different destinations. Allowing everyone to know what I am doing and when I am doing it. A lot of my life is posted online, I upload images of my nights out, I write tweets about what happened and I even attach a location to show what club or bar I went to. I began to think why I do this and I realised it’s because I am surrounded by it, my friends contact me through social networks, my newsfeeds are covered in photos and statuses of what people are doing, so I suppose I join in as it has become a social norm to do this.  

What I also find interesting is how important social media is for people on special occasions, for example birthdays. I love receiving ‘happy birthday’ posts and photos on my Facebook wall. I prefer to have a photo with an emotional message attached rather than receiving a generic birthday card. Other people however seem to feel differently, this was evident on Mother’s Day, many of my friends on Facebook and Instagram posted pictures of their mothers and attached a loving message. I saw so many angry tweets with people saying “respect to the people who told their mothers in person how much they love them, rather than telling Facebook”.  It seemed many had an issue with people using social media to broadcast their feelings on special occasions.

I also find myself uploading images on Instagram of my outfits and makeup, I then allow the comments and likes to determine how good I feel about myself. If I don’t receive any likes on photos I will remove them almost out of embarrassment. I also find myself looking at other people’s Instagram and becoming envious of how great they dress and how wonderful their makeup is.

Although it may be hypercritical to say I know when I am a parent I will not want my children posting their location and personal life all over the internet due to how dangerous it can be. Luckily I myself have never experienced a negative backlash, however I have seen bullying on social media and have had a number of friends that have had their pages copied with people using their images and pretending to be them on sites such as Twitter. Situations like this do make me paranoid and I am careful who I accept on social media websites, if I have a slight doubt about a new follower or friend request I will block them.

It is very strange that I and many others feel the need to broadcast our lives on social media. Some things people post I believe are far too personal and should be left off social media. I will always keep my personal life and problems off social media, I only chose to share things I would like others to know and see, it seems broadcasting your life is now completely normal.

 

 

Me and the media

media diary

This week I decided to create a media diary, recording what media I was exposed to day by day. I broke the diary down into sections with the date and time, what type of media it was, what device I saw it on and also my opinion on that type of media. My media diary made me realise a lot about myself and my media intake. When analysing my diary I realised my media consumption can be determined by a number of factors. My age has an impact on what media I engage with, many of the television programmes I tend to watch are aimed at my ‘late teen age group’ such as Family Guy and Pretty Little Liars. I am also a lot more exposed to social media, I constantly communicate with my friends through likes on pictures and comments on statuses, rather than going out and seeing them in person. This type of communication is a lot more popular amongst the younger generation as many older people don’t know how to work this form of media. I also find my class influences my media intake, my life style is influenced by popular culture rather than high culture, I am a lot more likely to sit down and watch a reality television show instead of watching a documentary. I also found my gender can affect what media I enjoy, watching a more male aimed film like Deadpool made me realise I much prefer watching a romantic comedy which is more aimed at a female audience.

My media diary did have a lot of typical patterns, it became evident to me that in the morning and constantly throughout the day the main type of media I engaged with was my mobile phone. In order to function in the morning I have to check what I had missed out on from the night before and what new images and statuses have been posted as the day progresses. I also found my main ‘comfort zone’ within media is my bed time television. I found myself watching an episode of Family Guy and American Dad almost every night before bed, it seems I have fallen into a ritual as for years I have watched these types of episodes to settle me down before I go to sleep.  Now I am at university I have also noticed I watch a smaller variety of television programmes as I no longer have a television, instead I watch things on catch up websites. I used to watch a variety of shows such as the news, soaps, documentaries and comedy sketch programmes. I did however find I now watch a lot more films as a pass time with friends.

The media I feel most passionate about would be the social media apps on my phone, they prevent me from becoming bored and I love exploring different images and comments on the apps. I found now I’m at university I am a lot less engaged with programmes like the news and I never read newspapers or magazines. This diary has made me realise I should try and engage with more types of media, through exploring different websites on the internet like people’s blogs and try to explore new television programmes and films I have never watched before.

There are a number of ways I could make a personal contribution to online content, through my blog I aim to share my opinions of the different forms of media I am interested in like comedy films and social media apps, I want to use my blog to create a name for myself on the internet. I could also try to get my work published on certain review websites aimed at my age group. To make my blog a success I have looked at websites such as The Media Blog by The Guardian and the website Film Rant. I looked at the different posts on the sites which allowed them to inspire the approach I will have for my blogs.Overall the diary was a very useful tool which showed my media engagement and made me realise in order to fully enjoy this unit I need to open my mind to more types of media.

 

 

Hail, Caesar! vs Deadpool

Hail, Caesar! is the new comedy by the Coen Brothers, it is a fictional story however the main character of the film Eddie Mannix did exist and just like the character in the film he was an American film studio executive and producer. However he was most famously known for being a ‘fixer’, which meant he protected Hollywood stars image by disguising details about their private lives.  The film was full of famous actors such as George Clooney, Channing Tatum and Scarlet Johansson. In an interview for the film Channing Tatum said “no one turns down a Coen Brothers film”. It appears that the Coen Brothers are hugely respected within the film making industry, I however don’t understand what makes their films so wonderful. I felt in order for me to fully enjoy the film I needed to be a fan of the Coen Brother’s style and their other films. I think a good film director should create a film that can be enjoyed by a variety of audiences, rather than just people that are ‘fans’ of their work.

 

However the film did have some very clever elements, I enjoyed the idea of a film inside a film, as we as an audience get to learn and see what it takes to create a film. I also enjoyed the period of time it was set that being the 1950’s, I enjoyed seeing the vintage costumes and makeup on the screen. It was also enjoyable seeing how Hollywood stars private lives were protected and it was comical seeing the character of Mannix creating different lies to make the stars seem more respectable, he suggested one star should pretend she adopted her own child because she didn’t have a husband.

 

Overall the film was great in some aspects, my favourite scene was Scarlet Johansson doing synchronised swimming, I thought the scene was mesmerising and wonderfully choreographed. After watching this film however I do not feel I would choose to go and see another Coen Brother’s film as I found overall the film dragged.

 

The other film I went to see this week was Deadpool, the film follows the story of an antihero seeking revenge for the man that ruined his life. The character is based on Deadpool from Marvel Comics, his character first featured in a comic in 1991. Although not being a Marvel fan myself, my boyfriend who is a massive fan told me the character stayed very true to how he is portrayed in the comics, he was not censored down which many believed he was going to be. This was very clear to me, I entered the cinema with little excitement about the film as I thought it would be a typical hero vs. villain film, I was very shocked by what it actually was. The film was full of sexual scenes, extreme and graphic violence and it was also very comical.

 

The films mocking undertone is what I enjoyed most, right from the beginning of the film I began to realise this film was going to be different from other Marvel films. In the credits it said ‘directed by some overpaid producer’. There was also a lot of direct contact with the audience which I enjoyed as all action would stop and Deadpool would turn and talk to the audience. It was also cleverly structured as it didn’t follow a traditional linier style, it jumped back and forward into flashbacks and had Deadpool’s voice over explaining the action.

 

I feel certain jokes in the film were wasted on me as I have never been a fan of Marvel films and had not read any of the comics, however this didn’t hugely effect my enjoyment of the film. The main thing I didn’t enjoy was all the violence in the film, not only that but how graphic the violence was, at certain points such as when Deadpool was being tortured I felt very uncomfortable watching it and felt myself turning away from the screen. However showing scenes like this did make me grow to hate Deadpool’s enemy and for Deadpool to find him and seek revenge.

 

Out of the two I definitely much preferred Deadpool, however both films opened my eyes to different types of films I wouldn’t usually choose to watch