Eclectic Interests (From Food to Shows)

"International media"! What comes to mind when you hear those words?  "The British Invasion", the Beatles, Coldplay, BTS, BLACKPINK? Or Bollywood, Netflix K-dramas, or Anime? Those all flash through my head when I think of international media. I find that through engaging with international media, I have found greater understanding for other people and cultures. It is one thing to hear that people from one culture are a certain way. It is an entirely different thing to see the way other people feel. It allows people from other cultures to be more humanized. Here are several of the shows I have enjoyed form various places: Britain :     Sherlock     Pride and  Prejudice     The Great British Bake Off South Korea :     Crash landing on You     Fight My Way     While You were Sleeping     WISUE (Artist) Spain :     Beret (Artist) Finland :     Finnish Blood Swedish Heart (Movie) Austral...

I have been reflecting on many of the topics in class recently: health concerns, sex and the media, family and the media, and advertising. I wanted to apply what I have been learning by setting up some "technological walls" (I need a better term for that). I wanted to limit the types of ads I could see and the possibility that I would run into sexual images. Have you ever been looking for memes on Instagram and then several of them use offensive language? Or an ad on YouTube which you know you didn't look up earlier? I have often accepted them as a fact of using the online world. But those are the exact scenarios that this week I have attempted to cut out. I began by going into my Instagram settings. I have not looked too deeply at them before today. It had many more features than I expected. You can control much of what you see! Here are the settings I changed: In content preferences I: Enabled show less sensitive content Added a filter to filter out posts with certain e...

 Think back to your childhood, what was your families relationship with media? Was your TV in the main room? Were there restrictions to when kids could download certain apps? How did your family talk about media?     Personally my family had a conservative relationship with media. We had a TV room, and we could only download instagram once we were old enough.     What is the most healthy though?      My belief is that media can really help a family be unified and have fun! At the same time, Video Games or Sports channels can take up too much time. I feel it is best if parents talk about what they want to focus on with their families. If the children are old enough, including them in the conversation could be helpful. The important part is that the way media is used is a choice, not an accident. What do you think?  What's healthy in your opinion?

Have you been to the Provo Library before? It's that cool old timey building on center street. The one that is red brick and looks like it's been there for the last century or so.  I highly recommend. It feels like a perfect slice of Provo History, and a great place to access books. You feel a connection to the community there. It also has a beautiful ballroom and an art gallery with local art which rotates out. Regularly, they'll hold events for people in the community.     It's curious because libraries were once the center of new media and media consumption. Nowadays, those centers are online and in social media. Libraries are considered outdated. I remember as a kid going to the library, and it being packed. Now libraries only have a few patrons in them. Do you like going to the library? When was the last time you went to the library?

“Lions, and Tigers, and Bears. Oh my!” “Spooky, scary skeletons send shivers down your spine!”     Fear. What do you think of when you hear the word? Spiders? Snakes? Dark? Loneliness?     I am personally afraid of heights (among many other things!).      Many movies and shows invoke feelings of fear or discomfort. Do you think that a movie can create a fear for someone? Have you experienced that before?     In my experience, I do think that movies can increase fears we already hold. I was terrified of the dark as a child. I thought of all the possible monsters that could be under the bed or in the closet. Movies filled the closet with possible monsters.      Conversely, I also took great courage from movies. When I was afraid, I would think of Scooby-doo. As I got older, I thought of Aragorn instead. I had great role models from media who could go on no matter the odds.     I believe we can learn fear from movies, bu...