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Deconstruct Media Messages The first form of social media is a blog. It is basically a regularly updated website or webpage, which a small group or an individual runs, and it is written in a conversational or informal style. Starting with the history of blogging, during the early years, different blogging platforms came up. In 1999, there were only 23 blogs on the internet. Political blogs were some of the most popular early blogs. In-depth topic blogs also started becoming popular during this time. In addition, there were some interests in blogging that guides and related articles cropped up. Some popular blogs started in the early 2000s, including Gawker, Gizmodo, and Dooce. Currently, blogs have become only one portion of an individual's online persona. There are some changes in the sense that podcasts and Vlogs have taken on a bigger role in the blogosphere, with many bloggers opting to use multimedia content. In this case, the blog can be trustworthy and authoritative given that it is well researched and based on facts, which are verifiable. It captures a one-on-one interview, and therefore there was adequate room to interrogate the facts that were being laid. There are also direct quotes from the various stakeholders, which guarantees the authenticity and authoritativeness of the blog. The post has a professional touch and has the various goals stipulated, i.e., for the Climate Positive SLC. Specialists and the other audience are likely to benefit from the blog. The blog is detailed enough for informative purposes. However, it may not be appropriate for the novice who does not know much about environmental policy. The blog is too detailed to reach most of the audience. The media was created by Marcia G. Yerman (Fiske, 2016). The creative techniques used to attract the attention of the audience include the use of some pictures and photographs of the key stakeholders and the use of bullets in summarizing some of the main points. The question-answer method was used strategically to enable the audience to quickly capture what
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they would like to get from the blog. The values being propagated in the blog include corporate social responsibility. The message is tailored towards informing. The next media is a radio segment. The radio waves are said to have been first identified by a German physicist called Heinrich Hertz in the year 1886. The radio transmitters and receivers were developed around 1895 to 1896, and radio started to be used commercially in 1900 (Flew, 2008). The period between 1930 to 1955 is called the golden age of radio, whereby frequently used expressions from popular programs became part of vernacular, and people arranged their schedules around their favorite programs (Fiske, 2016). With an emphasis on professional journalism, trustworthiness and authority are guaranteed. The target audiences are the listeners conversant with the language and stakeholders who are involved in environmental matters. There is wide reach and timely message delivery. Conversely, the weakness could be poor attentiveness and fragmentation. People listening are often engaged in other activities such as driving. Nevertheless, the message has been well used. The creator of the program "Science Friday" is not clear, but the guest was Jonathan D. Newman, who was also a cardiologist and an assistant professor. The creativity that ought to have been incorporated include playing thematic music in the background. However, this was a pure talk show. The message is clear, and therefore there is very little room for bias (Anderson, 2013). The message is for informing and persuading the audience that as much as exercises are important, they must be done in a clean environment, i.e., pure air. The talk is based on verifiable facts as the guest speaker is a professional, and the media can be said to be a valid ad reliable source. The next media is a tweet about the causes of smog. Tweeter was created by a group of people, i.e., Biz Stone and Noah Glass, in 2006. By 2012, over 100 million users were posting
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340 million tweets every day (Straubhaar, LaRose & Davenport, 2015). Twitter connects people and allows them to share their thoughts with a bigger audience. It is possible to reach a large number of people quickly through tweets and retweets, and it makes it possible to follow the works of other experts in certain fields. The weakness of this form of media includes spamming and the addictive power of social networking site. The target audience entails people running factories, power plants, and motor vehicles, among others. The image used also reinforces the message and makes it have a visual appeal. The values propagated here also entail corporate social responsibility. Since this is an ordinary tweet, it may be a mere opinion, and the reliability and validity of the source are subject to verification. Another form of media is a newspaper, which highlights the results of a study linking prolonged pollution to a decrease in cognitive abilities. Newspapers can be traced back to the 17th century, and broadsheets with social news were published in Japan during this period. The first English Corontos appeared in London in 1621 (Devereux, 2013). The news book had taken the form of a newspaper by 1640. The trustworthiness and authority of the newspaper can be guaranteed, given that this is peer-reviewed research. The audience is general since pollution is said to affect the cognitive abilities of anyone. The strength of this media form is that it can be stored for future reference as more research is done to improve knowledge in this field. The weakness is that it may require some expert knowledge to comprehend it fully. The message has been created in New York Times, although it is not clear on the person that created the message. Therefore, it is a professional article and calls for less creative techniques other than the research methodologies used. The message is tailored towards informing, and it is reliable, valid and contains facts that can be verified through research.
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Finally, televisions have existed for less than 100 years, given that in the 1940s, only a few households had televisions (Straubhaar, LaRose & Davenport, 2015). Televisions have changed over time by becoming digital, smaller and convenient for any people. The effectiveness of the message delivered can be guaranteed because of both the auditory and visual appeal. The target audience for the message is the entire public. The message was created by PBS NewsHour. It is a call to action instilling a sense of responsibility to avoid the negative impacts on public health. The message is sent to inform, and it is based on real-life events. It is therefore reliable and contains verifiable facts.
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References Anderson, A. (2013). Media, culture and the environment. Routledge. Devereux, E. (2013). Understanding the media. Sage. Fiske, J. (2016). Media matters. New York: Routledge. Flew, T. (2008). New media: An introduction. Oxford University Press. Straubhaar, J., LaRose, R., & Davenport, L. (2015). Media now: Understanding media, culture, and technology. Cengage Learning.