Project Part 1 Reflection

I choose to reflect on my assignment from the midterm project part 1 on message and me-

dia. In our previous assignments, we were required to analyze scholarly journals and articles. For

this assignment, however, we had to analyze videos. This challenged me to understand political

commercials and advertisements. I had to evaluate all aspects of the ads such as background mu-

sic and what message the producers were conveying. This assignment helped me develop the

skill of understanding an auditory piece as oppose to a writing piece. This assignment challenged

me to think about how the commercial relates to political parties and policies the candidate sup-

ports. I had to think of the hidden meaning behind the short one minute advertisements. I also de-

veloped the skill of connecting what I learned and watched back to the material we learned in

class. Many candidates listed their policies and I was able to compare this information to topics

we learned in class such as law making, foreign policies, and basic rights.

I believe this assignment has helped me study for other classes. After this assignment, I

was able to evaluate videos much easier. For my other classes, I am requiring to watch videos

and reflect on it. I now take my time with watching videos. I pay attention to small details such

as captions, music, and pictures. I pause the videos multiple times to review what I have already

watched. I also think of questions I have and try to answer them throughout the rest of the video.

Many times I playback parts of the video to completely understand what I am watching. These

skills I acquired from the midterm project help me produce better assignments based on videos. I

am able to produce a better reflection as I evaluated each part of the video. This assignment also

helped me to not be afraid of using videos as sources in other classes. Because videos can be fast

pace and confusing, I would not use them as sources in my essays and projects. However, after
this assignment, I used a video in one of my essays in my psychology class. Overall, this assign-

ment helped me get comfortable and familiar with understanding educational videos.