Film & Media

This analysis explores the ever-evolving landscape of children’s television and media, from cable to the current world of streaming platforms like YouTube. Studies have shown that media regulation has become increasingly complex, especially with the monetization-driven culture streaming provides in the digital age. Through analyzing the given dilemma, this study highlights concerns about inappropriate media exposure and the challenges of managing screen time. The primary objective is to further advise parents, caregivers, and content creators on the effects of children’s media on development to foster a healthier media environment that supports positive social and cognitive growth for young audiences.

Dominant media disseminates as a multifaceted and fragmented body of knowledge, fabricating realities of “others,” algorithmic-prescribed consumption, and pacification through machines of inundated stimulation. The pervasive, yet ostensible, apoliticism and monetarily incentivized modes of production collaborate to produce a disciplined consumption as part of a globally expanded neoliberal and hegemonic structure whose free market forces are omnipresent yet discreet through a quotidian normalization. These power structures embedded into the fabrication for the majority of visual media, often existing in popular modes, require analysis to understand the inherent perpetuation of violence and domination extant in the subtextual linkings, semiology and various forms of visual language that encompass what has devolved into obligatory consumption under a techno-feudal civilization.

Consisting of two parts – a historical and modern analysis – my thesis will explore decisions made by journalists while reporting on a crisis and how they have evolved over time. By using scholarly sources, primary documents, and my understanding of the reporting process, I will analyze these strategies to understand their success and whether or not they should be continued to be used by journalists. In the first part of my thesis, I analyze reporting during The Great Famine (1845-1852) in Ireland and the Civil Rights Movement (1960-1968) in the U.S. I compare and contrast reporting during these two events, and then apply the strategies to modern day reporting through analysis and examples. I will also explore the consequences of modern technology on crisis reporting and how new strategies have come about or how old strategies have evolved to meet the needs on audiences during the digital age.

REM is a short horror film based on the aftermath of my freshman year. It follows a college student who goes through life by the motions, but begins having terrifying nightmares after a letter comes in the mail. As he chooses to stay awake, he is reminded of the forces out of his hand and must make a choice. The film is a cumulation within the art of directing and the steps taken to enhance a story in the visual medium. The project will also explore how the subconscious can enhance creative techniques in filmmaking.