It is said that to be considered an expert in any one thing you have to do … hours practice . This practice is essential to the learning and developing process but it can be an intimidating thing to take the first step and physically initiate this practice. People often waste this valuable time thinking. They think about the future, they think about all the work they will do, they think about the hours they will spend practicing, they think about the rewards they will receive at the end of this hard work. All this thinking can create a false sense of achievement. It can make the individual feel as though they have accomplished something and as though they are moving forward when really they have not improved or bettered themselves in any way. When we set ourselves goals we are often inclined to tell our friends and family about our future plans. This can work to inspire us as we feel pressure to maintain and meet peoples expectations, we don’t want to let anyone down. However it can also have an adverse effect on our goals. People tell us how courageous and inspirational we are. This support can then create a false sense of progress and diminish our drive and ambition to achieve.

Todays lecture was based on audiences. The first question posed was who cares about audiences? Advertisers, who work to promote certain products and aim to manipulate the audiences associations with the product. Commercial broadcasters, who produce work for public viewing and entertainment therefore it must appeal to a large scale of the public in order to be successful and popular. Government policy makers, who look to the public to base their policies and aim to please as many people as possible. Social scientists, psychologists, academics and cultural theorists who study and analyze the ways in which audiences seek out media, consume media and react to what they have been viewing. Does the media control the public or does the public control what’s broadcast in the media? It’s the typical question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Does the media form a view on a particular topic, then broadcast it with a certain angle shaping society’s views and attitudes? Or does the media reflect and enhance society’s pre existing ideas and beliefs. Maybe these 2 elements work together and bounce off each other to create focus issues and ideals. Is this cyclone successfully shining light on topics of interest or blowing these issues out of proportion?

In todays class we developed the base ideas for how we will divide our project, the key concepts we want to focus on and the way in which we will present the piece. We want to focus on the conventions that create expectations for audiences and how audiences read into different materials and develop ideas which alter the way we live our lives and alter society values and trends. This week I will be focusing on war music and how songs were used during the 2nd world war as a method of propaganda to reassure the public. I will also look at the effects that the media depiction of drugs and alcohol has on society. I will make a montage of famous movie scenes that represent drinking in a positive light as well as the advertisements and campaigns against drinking. This will juxtapose how mixed message effect the individual and how they carry out their lives. We will be looking at how people look to the media to help better themselves and develop the idea of a “perfect person”. We may adopt a sarcastic and satirical approach to the piece by creating a instructional guideline as to how to be this “perfect person” according to the media.