Further descusion

I think that research methods are really important to studies of communication. I recently completed the quantitative research course at SJSU. This course required persistence, but was very interesting at the end of it all. One of the most fundamental research methods that I took as vital was the survey research method. I conducted a study on how the perception of reality television shows such as, flavor of love or the hills, alters the perception of reality on U.S. citizens compared to people who were raised outside of the U.S. This was fun to do because we were able to conduct a survey and then code it to where we were able to make sense of what people answered. In our research we found that people who watch reality television shows consistently felt that there partner should be very attractive sexually to them. This was cool to find out because we often read many research studies for our courses, but generally never have to conduct one.

Positives and Improvements

I have taken a couple of online courses in my current career at San Jose State University. This course had a lot of positives that could be said, but also had some areas that could be improved in my opinion. One thing that I liked about this course was the flexibility to construct blogs at your own time. I have been an extremely busy student over this semester and often struggled to finish certain assignments during the semester. Taking a full load in units and playing a sport for the university required me to have good time management. Because we were able to post blogs 12 hours apart instead of something like 24 hours, I was able to constantly have control over my assignments that were due. One area of the course that I thought could use some improvement was the quiz section. At times I felt extremely rushed to complete the quiz. I could read the chapters before taking the quiz and make notes in my book and still run out of time. Maybe if there was a larger allotted amount of time I would have enjoyed some of the quizzes more.

Dec6-8 Culture

There were many sections in the book that caught my attention. This text covered and briefed many different communication study aspects that were possible. Because there was such a wide range of possibilities it was hard to choose one subject that classified as my favorite. Although this became a bit tedious, one of my favorite sections was on how culture can create or not create limitations. In my previous blog I stated that there was no way I could deny the fact that culture helps shape the person who I am today. Meaning that we are definitely “creatures of our culture”. Ruth states that our culture directly affects our habits, beliefs, and impossibilities. Culture is not just defined as what race a person is, but rather the surroundings they encounter on a regular. Because of this it is important to keep an open mind when encountering other cultures or religions. Today’s world is based on a global standard where different cultures interact with each other constantly. It is necessary to become open and learn about one another as to become ethnocentric towards one another.

Using Media More Responsibly

In the media there are a mass of messages to be interpreted. It almost seems as if there is an overload of messages to people to often view the media. Because of this it is important for society to become more responsible with viewing the media. We learn that the media often contains messages that promote inequality with race, gender, and many other subjects. With these messages we have to be able to judge the truth and know what is reality and not be influenced by negative messages perceived by the media. It is known that many people fall into the traps of the media. For example girls see top models on television and want to look like them. As a result they fall under the perception that they have to extreme diet in order to be similar to watch the media says a women should be. Knowing the truth and being able to judge what is being viewed or hear will help society become more responsible towards the media.

Chapter 11- Medium and Messages

This was a very interesting topic to learn about. After reading through some of the examples of medium being the message, I came to the conclusion that I agree with McHluhan’s theory. It basically states that the frame through witch the message is conveyed is as important as the message. The main reason why I find this to be true is because too many companies spend an extreme amount of money on advertising or sending messages through TV. Messages need to be heard, so they need to be voiced through popular channels. As a result television serves as the prime example of the medium being important as the message. With out messages being able to be heard by many, there would be no message. Companies extremely rely on these mediums because they pay off. For example, the Superbowl shows the most expensive commercials. They can charge so much because it is the most watched event on television year after year. Which means companies are battling to show there message to most people possible at one time. He also brings up the point that television is a cool medium, which I find to be partly true. Overall messages need to be family safe on basic cable network stations because of the amount of television kids watch. Messages cannot be too vulgar or extreme for TV. Other networks that are less censored do cause for a more than cool medium because messages tend to be more adult directed or oriented.

Week 13- Cyberspace Freinds

I have had a number of relationships over the Internet. Although I have had relationships through cyberspace I have not had any that were exclusive to cyberspace. Most of the relationships that I deal with through the Internet usually consist of friends that I’ve already made, family, or classmates. I am not too sure why I have not had any sole cyber relationships. As I think about this, I believe that I just not comfortable with talking to complete strangers. Making friends that you only speak to over the Internet is like having a close friend, but never seeing them. You allow them to know so much information about yourself and them in return, but who know what they decide to do with that information. Of course there are exceptions to only having friends through cyberspace, for example the class we are all taking right now. Although we all attend the same university I may never see or speak with some of my peers outside of our communication through the blogs.

Chapter 6-Self Disclosure

For this blog I choose to discuss self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is described as the voluntary revealing of information that would normally be unobtainable. In most interpersonal situations people are reluctant to self-disclose about certain issues. When I think about how I self-disclose information, it usually occurs between family members or close friends. I do not feel comfortable letting random people or associates know information about my self that I would otherwise not want to tell people. This makes me realize that knowing who u can self disclose towards lets one know whom their real friends are. Sometimes it may be easy to talk to a certain friend or maybe you just have a lot of trust in one particular friend. Being able to tell valuable information about yourself is a balancing act because you do not want to end up getting stabbed in the back for it. Which I know for a fact has happened to many people in this course.