Re-Evaluating Media Needs Discussion Title Prepare: This week, you will focus on re-evaluating your digital and social media uses and needs. Review Exercise 12.2 in the textbook. For this task, you will not answer each question individually but rather, you will use the questions to gauge your thinking about your digital and social media experiences throughout the week. This week, you will need to fully reconnect and resume your normal activities on digital and social media to complete this exercise. Reflect: After a week of being disconnected from digital and social media, it must be awesome to re-engage! Or is it? Perhaps you found some serenity in being left to your own thoughts without attending to social media, or that your relationships with others flourished because you met face-to-face or heard their voices over the phone instead of trying to figure out what they really meant by the text messages and the emoticons that accompanied them. Critically evaluate your use of digital and social media in terms of how much time you spend engaged as well as the benefit that comes to you from that engagement. Consider whether you can “live without” some of the interaction, as well as the positive and negative impact that lessening your dependence on digital and social media may have. Write: After reviewing how much time you have spent engaged in digital and social media across the week, write a 250- to 300-word blog about your evaluation. Share with your peers how reconnecting after a week of being disconnected made you critically examine your use of digital and social media. Include a byline at the beginning of your blog post. At the end of your blog, include a full reference for all sources cited in the body of your blog. All citations and references must adhere to APA style guidelines as outlined in theAshford Writing Center. View theFormatting Stories and Blogs document for assistance with formatting your blog. Check It! Your blog must be submitted throughGrammarly prior to submission. Respond to Peers: After you have written your blog, read the blogs of your peers, and post a comment to at least three other bloggers about their evaluations of their digital and social media uses. Your comments should address them by name, be between 100 and 150 words in length, and you must include your name at the end of each comment. Persuasive Media Discussion Title Prepare: This week, you will need to engulf yourself in persuasive messages. It takes no real effort to do this. All you have to do is actually watch the commercials around your news and entertainment programs, pay attention to your surroundings, and really look at all of the pop-up ads on the websites that you visit throughout the week. You will also need to read Chapter 11 in the textbook. Then, choose one of the articles to read: · High Culture/Low Culture: Advertising in Literature, Art, Film, and Popular Culture · Representations of Masculinity and Femininity in Advertising · Ethi ...

1. Re-Evaluating Media Needs
Discussion Title
Prepare: This week, you will focus on re-evaluating your digital
and social media uses and needs. Review Exercise 12.2 in the
textbook. For this task, you will not answer each question
individually but rather, you will use the questions to gauge your
thinking about your digital and social media experiences
throughout the week. This week, you will need to fully
reconnect and resume your normal activities on digital and
social media to complete this exercise.
Reflect: After a week of being disconnected from digital and
social media, it must be awesome to re-engage! Or is it?
Perhaps you found some serenity in being left to your own
thoughts without attending to social media, or that your
relationships with others flourished because you met face-to-
face or heard their voices over the phone instead of trying to
figure out what they really meant by the text messages and the
emoticons that accompanied them.
Critically evaluate your use of digital and social media in terms
of how much time you spend engaged as well as the benefit that
comes to you from that engagement. Consider whether you can
“live without” some of the interaction, as well as the positive
and negative impact that lessening your dependence on digital
and social media may have.
Write: After reviewing how much time you have spent engaged
in digital and social media across the week, write a 250- to 300-
word blog about your evaluation. Share with your peers how
reconnecting after a week of being disconnected made you
critically examine your use of digital and social media. Include
a byline at the beginning of your blog post. At the end of your

2. blog, include a full reference for all sources cited in the body of
your blog. All citations and references must adhere to APA
style guidelines as outlined in theAshford Writing Center. View
theFormatting Stories and Blogs document for assistance with
formatting your blog.
Check It! Your blog must be submitted throughGrammarly prior
to submission.
Respond to Peers: After you have written your blog, read the
blogs of your peers, and post a comment to at least three other
bloggers about their evaluations of their digital and social
media uses. Your comments should address them by name, be
between 100 and 150 words in length, and you must include
your name at the end of each comment.
Persuasive Media
Discussion Title
Prepare: This week, you will need to engulf yourself in
persuasive messages. It takes no real effort to do this. All you
have to do is actually watch the commercials around your news
and entertainment programs, pay attention to your surroundings,
and really look at all of the pop-up ads on the websites that you
visit throughout the week. You will also need to read Chapter
11 in the textbook. Then, choose one of the articles to read:
· High Culture/Low Culture: Advertising in Literature, Art,
Film, and Popular Culture
· Representations of Masculinity and Femininity in Advertising
· Ethics and Advertising
· Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in Advertising
· “Subliminal” Advertising
·

3. Reflect: After completing the reading in the textbook and
reading the article that you chose, consider the ads that you
encountered throughout the week. Think about the elements of
advertising (mentioned in Chapter 11 of the textbook) that
really resonated with you as a result of your attention to
advertising messages throughout the week. Then, think
critically about the article that you chose and consider examples
of advertisements that coincided with it.
Write: Once you have critically reflected on the readings and
the advertisements, write a 250- to 300-word post that discusses
your views. In your post, you must focus on one single element
from Chapter 11 that resonated with you as it relates to your
experience with advertisements throughout the week. Then,
focusing on the article that you read, choose at least two
examples of advertisements that related to what you read.
Choose advertisements where you are able to include an image
or link in your post to help your peers in understanding your
example. At the end of your post, include your name and a full
reference for all sources cited in the body of your post. All
citations and references must adhere to APA style guidelines as
outlined in theAshford Writing Center.
Check It! Your post must be submitted throughGrammarly prior
to submission.
Respond to Peers: After you have written your initial post, read
the posts of your peers and respond to at least two others about
their experiences with advertisements during the week. Your
responses should address them by name, be between 100 and
150 words in length, and you must include your name at the end
of each response.

4. Ashford 5: - Week 4 - Instructor Guidance
We have done a great deal of exploration over the past several
weeks related to digital and social media use. Our explorations
have led us to connect, disconnect, and the re-evaluate our use
of media. This has forced us to think critically about the
prevlance of media in our lives and the impact that it can have
on us personally and on individuals, groups, and society as a
whole. However, what we have engaged in over the last four
weeks is only the beginning of truly becoming digitally and
media literacy. What it has done is made us more aware of the
media around us and the media that we use. That is truly the
first step in becoming digitally and media literacy. You see, this
process is not a destination, it is a journey that is consistently
changing and new mediated technologies continue to evolve.
This week we will:
1. Discuss the impact of mediated messages by reflecting on
specific effects
2. Write about better management of personal digital media
use in a simulated blog.
3. Create mediated messages for a specific purpose using a
variety of media platforms.
Positive and Negative Forces
Just as with everything else in life, the media has positive and
negative effects on us. Most often we will hear arguments
related to how “bad” media are for us and the positive aspects
are mostly downplayed. However, in order to truly appreciate
the value of media, it is necessary that we understand both
aspects.
Potter (2014) notes that there are seven distinct types of effects
that media can be divided into: cognitive, belief, attitudinal,

5. emotional, physiological, behavioral, and macro. This is
certainly a more in depth analysis of media effects that we often
think of on the surface. He also notes that we must think about
effects from a multidimensional rather than a singular “effect”
as we often do. We must employ critical thinking skills in order
to truly understand the impact of media. Potter’s views,
however, are not the only ones that exist related to mediated
effects. What the video below for an overview of some theories
that we use to analyze mediated messages and the impact that
they have on society at large.
Beyond the Boundaries
Digital and social media have a great deal of value to us both
personally and professionally. The issue is largely that we do
not understand how to truly unleash the power of these
platforms to achieve our goals. Rather than thinking of them as
a quick and easy way to connect, if we think of them as a way
to achieve goals, develop relationships, disseminate ideas and
collaborate with others, then digital and social media can
literally become the keys to our success in many cases.
The issues, then, do not lie in the fact that we spend so much
time with media, it is mostly in the way that we fail to
effectively use media in our personal and professional lives.
SOMETHING TO PONDER
1. How much time would you have for leisure activities if you
did not use media for entertainment?
2. Do you think that entertainment media is responsible for
some societal issues that we face?
3. What do you believe are the most beneficial forms of
entertainment media?
THIS WEEK’S ASSIGNMENTS
This week we will critically evaluate how we use media for

6. entertainment. This task will require us to really think about
why we use media in the ways that we do. We will consider the
reasons behind our media use for entertainment. You will have a
lot of time to think critically this week because you will also be
disconnecting from as much media as possible for your blogs!
So your reflection will be on the entertainment media you used
prior to this week and this will allow you to critically examine
your use of it.
REFERENCESPublic Sphere (n.d.) Media effects. Retrieved
fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvgURfZMGoQPotter,
J. (2014) Media literacy.Matthews, D. (6 June etrieved
fromhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/danmatthews/2014/06/06/how-
effective-people)-use-social-media/