Public Comm Paper 2

Kaylee McLaughlin: SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON
COURSE TITLE: Public Communication in Society

COURSE IDENTIFICATION: COMM-26001
INTRUCTOR: Dr. Jennifer McCoullgh
COURSE COMPLETED: Fall 2015
ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Paper 2
ASSIGNMENT PROJECT DESCRIPTION: For this assignment, you will
analyze your own media consumption. You will reflect on your media consumption
habits, the role of media in your life, and how your media use impacts you. You
will then discuss your perceptions of the role of media consolidation and regulation
as well as how you may use or think about the media in your future.
REFLECTION: The reason why I choose to include this in my portfolio is
because it is an assignment that did not require any research at all, it was just me
and my thoughts about my media usage; and you do not get to write a paper that
doesnt require some type of research much in college. This piece is a personal
touch of what media means to me and how important it to me and my life.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON
Kaylee McLaughlin
Social Media Consumption
Kent State University
One medium that I constantly use all of the time is facebook. Facebook is one of the most
important social media sites to me because I use this to see what my family back at home is
doing. I have family in California, Florida, New York, and Virginia so I do not always get to see
them and facebook is a way for us to keep in touch and its almost a way to talk to them every
day. I also feel, as bad as this may sound, that twitter is pretty important to me. Not because I am
worried about what everyone is doing, but because one day I have hopes that I will be able to
host E News, which consist of keeping up to date on the latest pop culture, so what better way to
do that than to follow them and see what they are personally, first hand, tweeting about.
Ive noticed that every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is roll over to check
my phone for notifications. In the past few days Ive been trying to keep a better eye on tracking
how and when I use social media to see if I recognize patterns in the usage, which: I did! When I
first wake up, Ill answer any text messages that I received while I was asleep. Then, the next
thing Ill do is open any notifications I received whether thats through twitter, facebook,
instagram, and snapchat. Then, as Im lying in bed attempting to wake up, Ill scroll though my
newsfeeds on facebook first, followed by my twitter account. Most of the time I get on certain
media just because I am bored and to be honest, sometimes just dont feel like talking to people
when Im in a weird mood. There is not a specific time I go to media, if I had to choose, Id say
it is either at night or in between my classes.
In my perspective I feel the media has both powerful AND limited effects on society. I
say this because media does it in the wrong ways: the things that should be powerful are limited
or I believed to be almost silenced, and the things that should be limited are now seen as being
powerful. It is the way the world and media are viewing things these days. Something that is
powerful for example, is women who protest against body shaming companies, but these women
are asked to stop and to be silenced because they are causing a disruption. Things that could be
limited are the constant repetition of media broadcasting the same things over and over again.
For example, when Lamar Odem overdosed on drugs, the media constantly kept saying things
about him and his recovery.
Something that I feel is not necessarily powerful in a positive way, but more of a negative
way is the amount of body shaming and the thinness schema that media has created. Britine also
discussed in her round tables the type of issues it can cause for young girls. She showed that one
thing media has done is distorted images by photo shopping them to make females look more
thin and flawless. In issue four, Britine talks about one side of the issue which was, do media
cause individuals to develop negative body image? The answer is yes, because the media makes
young girls feel that fat is something to be feared instead of loving your body and being healthy
and happy.
As we have discussed in class before revolving around issue 18, internet is now being
seen as a bad thing for children because some forms of media are only glorifying the negative
things that happen on it such as, cyber bulling, cat fishing, and even shootings by young kids that
play online video games. While in fact, it has been shown that children who used the internet
more had higher GPAs in the past year and higher reading achievements after six months. Also,
the children who spend more time on the internet are spending more time reading as well.
Though, I do see both sides to things and understand that some schools have become more
achievement based instead of growth of the students as individuals with their education.
Based off of my own media consumption I feel like I am exposed to more than one
perspective only because I have a wide variety of different mediums, not because I wish to see
different ones. I try to be oblivious to the things on media because I am not informed enough
about topics that are discussed over different mediums. I do not like to hear about all of the bad
things that are happening in the world so I do not watch CNN, NBC, or CBS; any type of
informative news. I know it is important to understand what is happening but, as we have
discussed in class I feel like I never know which media outlet I can trust. I feel like news media
coverage is always trying to persuade me to think a specific way about a certain topic and they
only want me to view them so their ratings increase. I dont want to have a biased few on things
just because of what I saw and heard.
Individuals should be responsible for their own media consumption, to an extent. I think
parents, producers, and the government should be held to the same level of responsibility each is.
For example, if parents dont want their children watching a TV show because they know it is
not appropriate for their age, then that is their responsibility to control what their children are
going to view. Producers have a responsibility to be able to inform the parents as much as they
can by using the TV ratings that they show before a program starts. Were all responsible for our
own lives and what we choose to view and not to view.

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Kaylee McLaughlin: SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON

COURSE TITLE: Public Communication in Society

SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON

SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON

SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON

SOCIAL MEDIA CONSUMPTIPON

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