About Me and Media!

My name is Jakob Montagu-Shaw I am studying A levels at CNS, I am currently taking Media Studies, Psychology, History and Chemistry. I have recently completed my GCSE’s, my results included: Maths B, Science B,A, English B, English Literature C, French D, ICT B, Graphics D, PE B, CBV, History A.

I have many media interests from all different types of media. I enjoy the print media and enjoy reading the sports section of the guardian or the observer because playing sports is my main hobby and I’m interested in many types of sport. I also occasionally read magazines. I prefer to read to lad mags like Nuts and Rugby world as they are about my interests. I rarely listen to the radio but when I do it is usually digital radio where I flick through the stations till I find a good song. Also I will sometimes listen to five live to hear the commentary of a football or tennis match. I don’t really have one genre of music I listen too. I enjoy a variety of music genres ranging from metal to Bassline, a few of my favourite artists at the moment are: Rusko & Caspa, TC and Jakes, The Last Shadow Puppets, Strokes and The Cribs. I think that the music industry influences the way I dress, for example at the moment I like the way bands like The Cribs dress and The Last Shadow Puppets. I don’t think that the music industry influences my attitudes and aspirations as much, although when I hear a good band playing it makes me wish I could play as well as them.

I play quite a lot of video games on a variety of consoles including: Xbox 360, Computer, PSP and Wii. I enjoy a range of video game genres, but my favourites are: Shooting, Sports, Action and Adventure and Racing. My favourite game at the moment is probably: Call of Duty 4(modern warfare game) or Football manager 2008. I think the majority of video game uses are male rather than female, I think this is because the genre of games are more intended to be for male audiences for example: Sports and Shooting. In most video games the characters are usually male although games like Tomb Raider series go against this trend, but Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) has become more viewed as an iconic sex symbol to males. Some war games and violent mindless killing games could have a negative effect on people using them because people may think it is acceptable to replicate actions they see in games. It also has a negative effect that people are playing war games were there enjoying killing people, where across the world there are hundreds of people dying everyday from wars including innocent people.

There has been lots of development and inventions in new technology over the last decade. The internet has been a big invention and is used by a huge amount of people; I use the internet a lot of time for a variety of things including: speaking to my friends on mediums such as MSN, Facebook and Myspace, I also use it to play video games online and to occasionally view the news using BBC website. I think the internet has helped increase my knowledge especially encouraging me to find out what’s going on in world news, it has also allowed me to communicate with my friends better and on a more regular basis.

I enjoy watching television and watch quite a lot. There are many channels I choose to watch, for me though it more depends what program is on. My favourite channels are E4, MTV, BBC Three and Channel U; these channels show a variety of different genres ranging from Music, comedy, drama to films. The genres I stated interest me the most this is why I watch those channels. My favourite genre out of the lot would have to be comedy, with my favourite comedy series “How not to live your life” being shown on BBC Three at the moment. To be honest I am not a big fan of TV adverts especially when you’re trying to watch a film, but there is one advert or two adverts I think are entertaining and they are both Car adverts. One is the “Vauxhall Corsa” advert with the little puppet people that shout “C’MON” and the other is another car advert where the car turns into a robot and starts skating, I think this is clever and has good special effects. My Favourite programs of all time would be: “Live and Kicking”, “Mock of the Week”, “The Mighty Boosh”, “Heroes” and “Footballers Wives”.

I watch a lot of films of a wide variety of genres but there are a few genres that appeal to me more and they are: Action/Adventure or Comedy. I am usually drawn to watching a film by whether I know the director or actor and I have enjoyed other films they have featured in also if I read a good review of a film or if it is recommended by someone. Some of my favourite directors and Actors are Johnny Depp, Danny Dyer, Quentin Taratino, John Simms, Guillermo del Toro and Liv Tyler. I usually tend to watch most films on DVD or Video because the cinema is really expensive, but on the whole if I really wanted to see a film I would go see it at the cinema. I find watching a film at the cinema is a whole different experience that I can sum up in a few words bigger, louder and altogether more atmospheric. I also think the cinema allows you to watch a film with your friends and gives you something you can do in large groups; it feels good sharing the experience.

I haven’t really ever been offended by a media text, I have read and watched something’s that have shocked and surprised me. An example of that is the film hostel, some its scenes are incredibly violent to an extreme it was quite unpleasant to watch. In contrast to that one of the most interesting media texts I have seen was the film Pan’s Labyrinth; it explored some mysterious and serious concepts. I would say that I have taken on board a lot of different visions about myself and others from media texts. For example, I have watched a variety of programs and films which show the concept of bullying and from seeing this I have seen the damage it can cause and I would not wish it upon anyone. I have chose media studies for the main reason of being interested in a vast majority of media mediums and would like to improve my knowledge more. If I was to construct a media text, I would probably choose to create a film. The genre of the film would be a Action/Adventure with lots of breathtaking SGI, with a few surprising twists in the plot of which as usually found in Thrillers.