In this weeks lecture, our exercise was to walk along the streets of Melbourne City, to find and capture any forms of media. My groups location was China Town. In China Town, the main source of media that is produced and used on the streets is advertisement. A mass amount of advertisement is created for every type of shop along China Town, and many different businesses in general. A lot of effort has gone into the advertisement of flyers that are stuck on the walls of the streets to attract as many people as possible, to get people looking and being interested their shops and whatever else the ads were selling.

The language within the advertisement is also interesting to note, as it is not just English, Chinese language is also being printed onto the ads, in order to persuade many people from different backgrounds, to communicate the message of the advertisement.

David Gauntlett’s reading, was to me, eye opening and inspirational. The reading in my opinion was eye opening because I am beginning to view media in a different way, as I used to believe media was less about creating and more about viewing what was published in the newspaper or broadcasted on the television. This reading enabled me to reflect upon the idea that media is a lot more broader than being a passive audience member, trying to take media in, it is about creating our own media to showcase our own beliefs and what is important to us.

David Gauntlett’s idea that media is the ‘trigger for experience’ was very accurate in my opinion, as media can be created from any inspiration be little or small. And once we are inspired, we begin to feel the urge to create inspiring media, to give someone else the same effect. To beable to learn about media we shouldn’t be learning about media, we should be learning with media, as David Gauntlette suggests, again this seems true as media creators will learn how to truly make and create media by getting their hands dirty, not by watching someone else make media from a distance.

This reading will inspire me this week as I create my Project Brief 2 media, in order to learn more about media itself.

• Through recording the 3 sound clips of me making a cup of tea, my dogs and the water from my pool, I was trying to express my hobbies or what I enjoy doing for fun, I enjoy drinking tea as it relaxes me, I like to be with my dogs and take them for walks and I also love to swim in my pool.
• By uploading the 6 photos to my blog, I was trying to show more of my social and outgoing identity as my friends and family feature in the photos, yet also demonstrate the introverted side to my identity by using the bedroom window photo to express the fact I like to stop often and relax and reflect on my life.
• I wanted to achieve the idea through the videos, that I am the oldest sibling and that a part of my identity is that I help with looking after my younger brothers, such as doing carpools, helping with dinner and supervising them when they are in the pool and overall just being a good role model in their lives.
• This does work to an extent, however what I would do next time is I would begin planning and filming earlier and try to give myself more time to come up with more creative and abstract ideas of expressing myself on this blog.

These sound clips, photos and videos all display what I love, who and what are important to me and what I do in my spare time. What you can see is my friends and family are very important to me, and as the oldest sibling I do like to take care of my younger siblings.

Serving up dinner media 1 from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

Driving my brother to a drum lesson from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

Pool from Maddie Hewson on Vimeo.

These photographs are combined of what is mainly most important in my life, friends and food, family and dinner, my pool, my two dogs, my bedroom window (where I look out, relax and reflect on my life) and my favourite view ever with my best friends.

The 3 audio recordings include; me making myself a relaxing cup of tea at the end of a hard days work which is something I love to do, the second is the sound of my dogs playing (even though they do sound like they are fighting) and the third recording is the sound of the water from my pool.