I've learned a lot in this communications class. The first thing that comes to mind is all the theories we have learned. I find it so interesting how there is theories with extensive research about how media and communication can affect us all. I also enjoyed learning about how the communication professionals would take one theory and evolve from it and make it better or adapt it to their own personal beliefs and make it into a theory. I also enjoyed learning about the research process and how research methods also have their place in communications theory and research. Whenever I used to think about the scientific method or research I would automatically think of a scientific process in a laboratory or something more on the science side of the spectrum. I enjoyed learning how we can also use the same methods and adapt them to our areas of research in communication.
I really became interested in how communication and media impacts us all. The theories made it easier for me to understand how we can all be affected by media differently. Being exposed to these types of new communication ideas made me want to analyze my media consumption more. Not only did I begin to do this for myself but it also made me want to analyze the consumption and media habits of the people around me. It sparked an interest in me and made me want to reevaluate my media consumption in fear that I was being manipulated by the media. It also made me become more critical of what I see on TV and made me vastly aware of the underlying meanings .
The stereotype discussion and textual analysis was probably my favorite topic of the entire class so far. I loved looking at media content and searching for the deeper, underlying meaning that media texts were trying to convey. Before doing textual analysis in this class I used to simply look at images and not think much about them. However now that I know that all of these images have a deeper meaning and agendas I look more into them and find myself analyzing them much more than I used to.