This course has made me more familiar with media and its relation to the world. Before this class, I did not have a LinkedIn account (I didn’t find it necessary for my career choice at the time), a professional Twitter account, or have I ever blogged. Although I am unsure if I will ever actually use my professional Twitter, or ever create a blog or use this blog ever again, I am still happy that through this course I had to complete these tasks because it did make me more openminded to all of the different ways that media can be used.

I honestly am not sure on how this class could be better. There are many different platforms used to help to increase the ability of students to understand what is being lectured. Grading is fair and many different things are factored into grading, so it isn’t just based on exams like some of my major classes. I like that our projects and assignments are not all the same. Different platforms such as the youtube video, blogs, discussion boards and quizzes are all used.

I did like the freedom of this class. Having all week to do an assignment, or to even get ahead, was convenient for me to help me to better plan my week and when I was going to get the assignments done. I do not fully understand why we needed to create a professional Twitter account. Unless I missed directions at some point throughout the semester (which honesty is completely possible), besides for creation of it and following a few other students for networking, I have not logged into the account since. I am unsure of what email I used for the account honestly. I feel like if we are going to create it, it should be utilized more throughout the semester, otherwise, it is just another way for miners and hackers and spammers and all of the other people with negative intentions to get some of my private information.

Finally, I think this class is perfect for online. The lecture material is not difficult to the point where I feel like I need the face-to-face interactions, but is still difficult enough that I do need to think about and review the information week to week. Also, with all of the assignments and different projects that I have completed this semester, I feel like an online platform is the perfect way to complete them. Overall, I am very thankful that this was an option for me to take as an online class and that the syllabus and assignments worked well with my hectic schedule. Now, finals week and then graduation!!

As media progresses, I feel that protecting my privacy in the eye of the media is becoming progressively harder to do. We have all heard the joke that our “FBI agent” is always watching what we are doing and knows just as much about our life, if not more, than what we do. I am sure most of us has had a conversation, or searched a topic on Google, and then the next time we enter a social media platform, there are advertisements for whatever we were just searching for. This is done through monitoring and internet service providers. This allows for companies to collect data about what you’re searching for and how long you are spending on different websites, and adapt advertisments towards your usage data. Some of us like when this happens for convenience, and other find this increasingly frustrating and somewhat disturbing. There are ways for us to increase our privacy when we get a new app or a new form of technology, but if you’re like me, you’re honestly just too lazy to read the fine print. Whenever I see the long page of Terms and Conditions, instead of reading it, I just scroll to the bottom and click I agree to the terms and conditions, accepting whatever is written within the fine print.

To protect your privacy, there are many steps that can be taken. According to Potter (2016), just a few steps that can be taken are to: take an inventory of what information about you is publicly available and mapping your information by privacy levels. One way to see what information about you is publicly available, websites like PeekYou.com, Intellius.com, and Snitch.name can be used. When visiting these websites, all you need to do is type in your name and see what information is easily available about you. Another thing to do is to check on your privacy settings and debate if you want the settings to be purely personal, limited sharing, and public. Just by taking these two steps alone, we can increase our personal media privacy.

Social media and other form of media have a major influence on people in the United States and the world. Some people are even consumed by social media and constantly checking their feeds, as well as posting, to ensure that they have a presence in social media to the world. Not only does it have an influence on people individually, but it also helps to connect people all over the world in many different ways.

Through the use of media, we are given ways for all humans to bond over commonalities. Whether it be discussions on new popular music, TV shows like The Bachelor, or having the abilities to discuss world news, whether it be good or bad. By watching the news or scrolling through trending news on social media, we are all interconnected. By using skills discussed in Chapter 3, such as the three tasks of information processing (filtering, meaning matching, and meaning construction), we are able to see different topics in the media, filter out what we think is important, match the message to our previous memories, and then decide what it means to us. After we create our own meaning to a message we can openly share it across any or all of our social media platforms.

Social media allows me to be connected to friends, families, and coworkers in both a friendly and professional manner. Through websites such as SnapChat, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook I am able to keep in touch with my friends from high school and my family who I am not able to talk to frequently. It helps me to still be involved in their lives and to have a way to celebrate their accomplishments with them or to console them in times of need. Through websites such as LinkedIn and Twitter I can be connected to future, current, and past employers as well different organizations that follow my interests. When using these professional websites I can observe for different possible jobs and see when there is new news contributing to my group interests.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.