Over the past 12 weeks I have learnt more about Media then I thought I would have before I started this course. I didn’t so much come into the course with an open mind, and never really understood the opportunities in the industry itself.

Media one taught me how to look at media from different perspectives and from a view that I wouldn’t normally. This relates to two of my posts on my blog which I feel links key ideas of the course. The first one is about textual analysis. In week 5 we did a reading about the relationship between producers and audiences and the way different texts are interpreted by the viewer. What this allowed me to understand is that there is no right way of interpreting a text, but there can be a preferred way that the producer wants us to see it. These key ideas had impact on my project briefs specifically PB 4 about the way that I wanted the marker to interpret my findings. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameo-pollock-turner/2016/04/04/a-beginners-guide- to-textual-analysis-week-5-reading-1/).

This idea further linked into my initiative blog posts. I really enjoyed these blog posts because I got to share media coverage from my own point of view and raise ideas that hadn’t been done so in lectorials and workshops. I felt really confident in my initiative posts in regards to them contributing to the way I learned as I got to research different ideas that interest me. In my initiative post about missing children in the media I felt that I raised valid points for people to think about (as they wouldn’t normally be raised) and also feel that it demonstrates my engagement with the course on a deeper level. because. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/ cameo-pollock-turner/2016/04/21/week-7-initiative-post-racial-divides-in-missing-people-in-the-media/).

Lectorials and more so our workshops also contributed to the way I learnt and helped me to engage with other students about media objectives. In week 7 we talked about collaboration in both our lectorials and workshops which is shown to be a very important part of the media industry. The blog post that I did about this lectorial showed my engagement in class discussions and my understanding about how important it is to all have the same objective and understand the appropriate way to work with other people. (http:// http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameo-pollock-turner/2016/04/19/media-lectorial-week-7-collaboration-a- dominant-role-in-the-media-industry/). I feel this also contributes to the way I learnt because I was able to learn from my other group members in PB 4 about text and narratives in media. Working in a group project is not something that I leapt towards at first, but with the outcome and learning from the others made this assignment very beneficial and I’m overly happy with the outcome of media 1 because of it.

One of the most effective ways of learning I found for myself was peer reflection and reflection upon project briefs. I feel as if this was very beneficial to understand what is required for a high standard mark and what is expected in the course. I really enjoyed at reflecting on other people’s work as well because it allowed me to see the different interpretations of the project briefs and how people use their skills with programs such as audition and premiere pro. I feel as if my workshop reflection blog posts demonstrate well my engagement with the course because they show my interactive path with different students and applying this reflection/ feedback to my further development of other briefs. Not only did this help me for this semester but has set out a clear guideline for next semester and the standard required. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameo- pollock-turner/2016/04/19/reflection-on-pb-3-video-portrait/).

Another key idea that I learnt about in Media 1 that I felt was reflected on often throughout the course was audiences. We did a few readings about this and my blog post on the week 9 reading ‘Audiences’ demonstrated my engagement with this idea as it raised questions about the future and looked into the idea of audiences on a bigger scale. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameo-pollock-turner/2016/05/05/week-9- reading-audiences/). A key idea that I learnt through this reading and the lectorial is how audiences have developed at a rapid pace over the years and will continue to do so also that the media industry needs to find new and exciting ways to interest these audiences (as they are consumed on many different platforms). I found this an important part of the media course because it made us realise about the bigger picture of media and the active relationship they need to have with audiences engaging with them on a personal level. This was one part of the course that made me more interested in the media industry because I really love working with people and giving them what they want. I feel like with looking at audiences it made me have a closer idea about work attachments and what I might want to do for that in relation to working more closely with audiences.

One of the more interesting things that I learnt towards the end of the semester was in week 11 about Culture and Technology. I made a blog post about this which I feel demonstrates my engagement with the course and the key ideas and objectives of Culture, Media and Technology. (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/cameo- pollock-turner/2016/05/16/week-11-reading-1-culture-and-technology/ ). Specifically what I learnt was about the close inflicting relationship between culture and technology in the twenty first century. With the readings that we did I now feel it is acceptable to appreicate the availability of technology and use it to our advantage in the media industry and day to day lives. The overall idea and key learning I took from this was the important relationship that media practitioners need to know between culture and technology and the massive part it plays in peoples everyday lives even if it goes unnoticed. I really enjoyed the help of readings, as authors use specific examples that I can relate to myself which makes me understand it more on a personal level then just the logic of it.

The part of this course I found most challenging was the use of audition, for some reason I couldn’t wrap my head around the logistics of it and felt that I needed extra help in this. Not being able to use this program set me back a bit in PB 4, but I was able to get help from my group members. Another area that I found challenging was at the beginning with blog posts. We were given a sheet about what is expected (which was a minimum of 4 posts a week) but what I didn’t realise was this was the bare minimum and a lot more depth and out of course practice was expected. This was something I was able to over come and with practice blogging became easy and quite enjoyable. What I discovered about my own creative practice is that I worked a lot better with take homes, for example in our workshops we were always given project brief outlines online, but what I needed was to print it out in order to completely understand the task that we had to undertake and set myself goals for each day in order to get it completed on time. Another part of creative practice that I didn’t know about myself before this course was practice set tasks. I really didn’t enjoy doing this and since it wasn’t marked I found it very pointless, but now looking back it was actually so helpful and I wouldn’t have been able to create the videos I did for my project briefs I did without practicing these new programs.

Overall I am quite happy with the outcome of this course and feel I have maximised what was offered to us. I have learnt a lot more about the media then I thought there was and am very excited about applying the broader aspects I have learnt to more specific areas of media.