COVID changed everything. We’d been transitioning into a digital world for quite some time with people working from home, learning from home, socializing from home, and doing more or less everything else they used to do in person from their living room but the pandemic accelerated something which was already happening. Before the pandemic, many people resisted the change and even pushed back against it but after the lockdown even the most technologically resistant people learned to work from a distance and began thriving. At the same time, many people find their entire interpersonal existence is happening over a computer screen now. School has only existed through a computer for most people for quite some time now. If you’re lucky, work has happened over a computer and if you haven’t been lucky enough to be able to work from home I suspect a component of your job (staff meetings, district manager visits, etc.) has been conducted through an intermediary. If you aren’t lucky enough to have somebody you live with (family, romantic partner, etc.) then you may only speak to a computer screen.
For the final assignment, I’d like you to write a short essay in which you discuss how your life has been altered by mediated communication since the start of the pandemic. There are no specific requirements for topics to hit or vocabulary to use so long as you are using proper terminology where applicable. If you are unclear as to what the terminology from this portion of our course, I would suggest reviewing the chapter of our textbook on Mediated Communication (Mass Media) and our lecture in the corresponding Weekly Guide folder.
That said, if you need some ideas to get you started:
•How many of your classes (high school or college) have taken place online? Do you find them as effective as they used to be? Why?
•Do you feel like people are really listening to you (using the definition of listen we’ve touched on in our class when you communicate through an intermediary?
•Have there been people you’ve completely lost touch with since the start of the pandemic because of the distance? School friends? Work associates? Mentors?
