Author Archives: Emma Watson

READING SUMMARY Klosterman explains the belief that all people, including him, will never be truly satisfied by love. All of us, as Americans, have the “inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship” that we think is a normal part of life (Klosterman 2). There will never be a right-place-right-time type of romance,Continue reading “Monday – Klosterman’s “This Is Emo””

READING SUMMARY Interactivity has no set definition and its ‘definition’ is constantly changing, but media is considered either interactive or passive. Smith, though, argues that no media is truly passive. Rather than defining media as either passive or interactive, Smith chooses to separate media into a different two categories: “the kinds of things people doContinue reading “Monday – Chapter 8, What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss”

READING SUMMARY Chapter 7 of What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss covers what a medium actually is in technology, focusing on television, film, and the internet. Each new medium automatically changes existing media and how it shows realism. For example, paintings were once the most realistic medium, then photographs, and then television; a medium’sContinue reading “Monday – What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, Chapter 7”

READING SUMMARY This reading by Klosterman analyzes the question of why watching a prerecorded sport event is not as pleasurable as watching the same game live. If the game is finished, it will automatically be less interesting, and you’ll just fast-forward to see how it ends. There are two categories of reasoning for this: theContinue reading “Monday – Space, Time, and DVR Mechanics”

READING SUMMARY This reading discusses the filmmaker’s choices with how movies and television shows are filmed, meaning what images we as the audience see and how we see them. A shot is an excerpt of a film, or what is recorded by one camera operation. There are many different types of shots, like close-up orContinue reading “Monday – Film, Space, and Mise-en-Scene”

READING SUMMARY This podcast discusses two stories, both involving things “on repeat.” The first story is about a comedy skit put on by Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Shaal. Kurt sang an obnoxious and loud song about a horse as Kristen danced. The audience laughed, but then Kurt and Kristen kept repeating the song and dance.Continue reading ““On Repeat” – Monday”

READING SUMMARY The semiotic method involves interpreting signs; signs are anything that have meaning. The method of semiotics is well-suited for analyzing pop culture. There are four elemental principles of semiotics. The first is that the meaning of a sign can be found within its relations in a system, so to figure out the meaningContinue reading “The Semiotic Method”

READING SUMMARY The “Creating Visual Hierarchy with Type” video tutorial explains how visual hierarchy is important in creating a sense of order. It leads viewers to where they should start, move text, and end, as well as lets them know what the most and least important visual information is. Headlines can pop out with largerContinue reading ““Creating Visual Hierarchy with Type” and “Using the Gestalt Theory to Guide Layout””

READING SUMMARY Chapter 4 of White Space is Not Your Enemy goes over the 13 amateur layout sins. Centering everything is not good, though it is often the go-to design. Warped or naked photos should also be avoided; photos need to be proportionate when resized and hairline borders should be used when photos have ambiguousContinue reading “Chapters 4-5 WSINYE”

READING SUMMARY Media and its content affect us greatly, today more than ever with technology. These questions about how media impacts us can be answered by social scientists. The three methods used by these scientists are content analysis, survey, and experiment. This reading focuses on the first method, content analysis. Content analysis lets the researcherContinue reading “Media Effects Research – Monday”