My name is Katherine Elise Heglar. I am a sophomore at North Carolina State University majoring in public relations. Since I am only a sophomore, this was my first class about media writing. Prior to taking this course I took Media History and Theory at N.C. State. I also took Communication Theory during my freshmen year. This two courses helped prepare me for some aspects of this class. I already knew a little bit about the theories of communication and how to analyze media artifacts, although my knowledge was quite limited.
I did not have any experience prior to this class with editing video or audio footage, or shooting video footage. Since I did not have any previous experience this class taught me a great deal about creating media. As a class we learned about filming, editing, and analyzing various types of media. Our best media writing of the week assignments taught me how to look at a media artifact and search for the true meaning behind it. Rather than just watching a commercial on television, I learned how to analyze the intentions of the advertisement itself.
Editing was also something we focused on a lot in this class. Editing video footage is tricky and takes a great deal of patience. With our audio visual project, we learned how to film and gather footage as well as edit it. Script writing was also an essential part of the audio visual project. We practiced script writing a lot in this class. From radio commercial scripts to a full fledged audio visual production script, I took great script writing skills from this course.
The classwork I have completed during this course has helped to prepare me for my future career in many ways. I am studying public relations and hope to work in the advertising industry someday. While taking this class, I got to write my own advertisement during the audio project we were required to complete. The experience of writing my own commercial taught me a great deal about how to be conscious of how to appeal to an audience.
The audio visual project we completed taught me how to think on my feet, something that is crucial in the advertising as well as the public relations industry. While I was working on my audio visual project, I had to entirely change everything that I had written in my script due to one interview that went differently than I expected. Professionally, this was a good experience because it taught me how to work with what I have and make it effective.
The professional blog I completed for this course taught me how to write towards a specific audience. This was helpful because I learned how to pay attention to things like culture and demographic differences in order to achieve what the reader would want.
Analyzing media artifacts every week was helpful professionally because it taught me how to look for deeper meaning in every form of media writing. Being able to see the intentions of those who are pandering to me on a commercial basis will be useful in every day life as well as in my future profession.
This course, overall, taught me to be more aware of the media. I feel as though I have a greater understanding about media and how it effects me after completing this course.
