Research Activity: " Ways I am changing my use of media as a result of studying media"

Even before studying media I was well aware of pretty much all different types of media. I listened to music, listened to sports talk on the radio, watched television, used e-mail, had a cell phone, downloaded songs from limewire, had an ipod, watched You Tube videos, and went to movies. I was already using almost every form of media before I started studying it.

So after studying media, my use of media didn't really change in my daily routine. It did, however, change my thought process as I used the different forms of media. For instance, before watching the film "This film Is Not Yet Rated" in class, I didn't really give censorship much thought when I watched movies. I didn't really realize that movies rated worse than R were actually real movies and not just porn. I thought if a movie was rated NC-17, it was just a porn movie, and not a real movie with a storyline and a meaning behind it. I didn't realize how violence was perceived as less important in rating movies than sex.

Soon after I saw "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" I saw the new movie "Halloween" directed by Rob Zombie. It was the most graphic movie I have ever seen aside from the Saw movies, and it also had multiple sex scenes in it, and it was rated R! Then you go to the movie "Orgazmo", directed by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park), which is a comedy about porn, but it is not actually a pornographic film, and it is rated NC-17, and in my opinion it is less graphic that "Halloween". If a kid saw the movie "Halloween" I think he or she would be way more traumatized after it then had they seen the movie "Orgazmo"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124819/.

My others uses of media were much less impacted from studying media. Studying media did not change the way I listened to the radio, watched T.V. shows, listened to my ipod, check my e-mails, visited websites, or used my cellphone. I guess the reason is because I am so set in the way I use media, that studying it doesn't really change the way I use it. The fact that I now know the history of radio or television or how computers came about doesn't change the way I use them, it's just more information that I know now that I didn't know before.