Final Reflection Paper (MMC 6400)

I had taken a Mass Communication Theory class in undergrad, but this graduate class truly taught me exactly what mass communication theory really means. I feel my first takeaway from this course was learning about all the different theories and how they apply to our lives on an everyday basis. The second takeaway would be how generous and helpful my professor was, when it came to better understanding the course. The third takeaway would be the individuals I interacted with for the past fifteen weeks and how generous they were with their words and actions when it came to discussions and group projects. One of the assignments that I found beneficial was the audience engagement discussion because we discussed how applying the audience engagement model can impact readership with media companies. Hearing everyone’s thoughts and ways of how it can be applied was very informational for when I have a career at media company. Another assignment that I found beneficial was literally every group presentation that we had to do, because these so fun yet enlightening. The first project was on social learning theory we chose the media artifact, Schitt’s Creek to show how the theory is applied. The next project was on The Office, that we chose as our media artifact and how it applied to the cultivation theory. The last project was on Friends, and how it applied to media and cultural imperialism. An assignment that I thought could be improved would be deconstructing a mass media study. My reasoning is because of how difficult it is to find a mass media journal and so a suggestion would be to make it a little more a broader and say that we can also deconstruct an article that discusses media as well. All in all, this course was an amazing experience that taught me so much that can be applied to my future career.