Last Word

When I enrolled in this class last semester, I thought I was just taking another journalism elective. I had no idea that this class would make me think about the world that it has. This class has truly provoked more questions in my mind than I had ever intended to think about. I find myself constantly critiquing the media and looking at it in a whole new light.

I always thought that the media was a bit biased in terms of gender and ethnicity, but until this class, I had no idea what the extent of that was. It is mind-boggling to me that we live in a society that is acceptable of this behavior. Behavior that lets images of the unattainable perfect woman set the "norm". Behavior that allows the advertising world to only feature white models and once in a blue moon feature black models, which are, in most cases, celebrities.





This class has not only made me realize these common stereotypes that society is faced with everyday, but it has also made me think about what I will be able to do as a future media professional. As media professionals, it is our job to make sure the world knows what is happening, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, etc. It is upsetting when you turn on particular news channels, read different newspapers or even visit specific Web-sites and get extremely biased news. You know there is a problem when broadcasts only focus on stereotypical matter to make a particular race look better instead of focusing on what is actually happening in the world. That is what news is; it should be completely unbiased and needs to simply be the facts. I hope to someday make an impact on the way the media is perceived. As of right now it is obvious that there are still many stereotypes in the media world that need to be worked on. There needs to be more diversity of broadcasters, more diversity of positive stories in the news and there needs to be a better representation of gender in the news. As a future media professional I will try my hardest to work towards this goal; a goal of better diversifying the media as well as getting negative stereotypes to go away. If every person that took this class this semester strives to reach this goal as well, we could truly make a difference in the world.

Blogging has definitely been a difficult task for me to be completely honest. I'm not quite sure whether it was the blogs themselves or the 12 o'clock on a Friday night deadline. I always did them on time but there were certainly times when I was sprinting down the hallway at 11 p.m., already dressed to go out for the night, trying to do a 600 word blog in less than an hour. In retrospect, I enjoyed the blogs. They caused me to think about topics I might not have otherwise thought about. I especially liked reading my fellow classmate's blogs and responding to them. Some people had similar opinions and some were very different. Either way, I learned a lot from them and they made me think deeply as well. I was most surprised by how thought provoking certain classmates blogs were. I am proud to say that I am going to graduate with these students. I also enjoyed reading comments that people left on my previous blogs. It made me feel accomplished that others respected my thoughts and words. That was maybe one of favorite parts of the class. :)

Overall, my opinion of this class was great. I think that as upcoming media professionals, this was a great class to take. We all need to be familiar with race and gender. They are popular topics that need a lot of attention. I gained a lot from this class and I am thankful for what I am going to take away from it.