Living in a Media World

The final set of my media literacy students’ first media memories:

•  Dragon Tales – “Max and Emmy are the main characters who are able to touch a magical dragon scale and travel to a place called Dragon Land. In Dragon Land, the two children help their dragon friends fulfill certain tasks, while learning important morals.”
  
• The Snow Queen (Russian cartoon) – “I grew up in Russia, so my first media memory is Russian cartoons.  Those cartoons were pretty old, made back when it was Soviet Union. I remember they were very kind and innocent; they never showed even a sign of violence. Each cartoon either had a deep meaning or taught a life lesson. My favorite cartoon was The Snow Queen, which is based on a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen. 
  Editor’s Note: I’m not certain this is the right cartoon, but it’s what I could find.
  
• Rugrats, The Wild Thornberries, Hey Arnold– I remember my brother and I would get up early on Saturday mornings just to watch those shows while we waited for my mom to make breakfast for us.“My parents let us watch them because it opened your mind to think outside of the box and use your imagination.”
• Flintstones & Jetsons –  My mother always had them when I would come home from school and I enjoyed them because they were in the Jetsons case, so futuristic and in the Flintstones case, so amusing!
  
• Chalk Zone – I remember getting up early on the week days and sitting in the living room eating my Fruit Loops watching Rudy Tabootie and his friends Snap and Penny going on their adventures in the chalk zone. I loved the idea that there was an alternate universe, I did a lot of daydreaming as a child so Chalk Zone was my kind of show.
  
• Disney’s The Little Mermaid – One of my first media memories is watching my favorite movie, The Little Mermaid.

More first media memories from my Global Media Literacy class (updated 8/28/13):

• Social media website Bebo. “When asked, the social media website Bebo and instant messaging program MSN were the first medias that popped into my head.”“My media memory is Bebo which is a social networking site where you can have photos, friends, and items you like on your profile.”
  
• Blues Clues – “It was the first thing that was on every morning when I woke up as a child, especially during the summers!”
  
• 9/11 – “I don’t remember much of 9/11 because I was in second grade.  What I do remember was that someone had came into the room and talked to our teacher. After that we watched it in school and at home.”
  
  “The way I remember it is my second grade class and I were having a normal class day when someone rushed in and whispered something into the teacher’s ear. She had a shocked look on her face and the rest of the day just seamed off and when I got back to my house after school I just remember seeing the two huge buildings in a massive fireball and really being confused I suppose.”
• Michael Jackson’s The Man in the Mirror – Growing up my parents always listened to music especially MJ and Whitney Huston!! Ever since then I’ve always had a liking to MTV.
  

This week in my Global Media Literacy class we’ve been talking about our first media memories.  I’ve put together a list of links below based on what the students in my class (who are all freshmen or sophomores) have talked about.  It’s an interesting set of memories. Names have been omitted to protect the innocent/guilty… (Updated 8/27/13)

• The Lion King – “The best movie of all time”
  “Back then we only had a few VHS tapes and I think that was the only one we had that us kids enjoyed. We watched it multiple times a week and it never got old.” 
  
• “Teletubbies – I was interested in this show because of how ‘out there’ or imaginary the show was.”
• Scooby Doo
• Tom and Jerry cartoons – “I remember watching the cartoon show and laughing with my siblings at all the pranks that Jerry would pull on Tom.”
  
• Follow Me, by Uncle Cracker – “My first memory of the media is a song I used to hear on the radio a lot when I was little.”
  
• Dora the Explorer – “When I was about 5 or 6 years old, my parents would encourage me to watch the show because they wanted to expand my boundaries. Since Dora was bilingual, I was exposed not to just one language, but two.”