This assignment began by filling out the unit 5 review sheet. After this, I had to continue working on my term project, by continuing journaling on previous units. Next, I had to write 200 words describing which project I chose, which presentation media I chose, and what work I’ve done on my term project during this unit. Finally, I had to upload the completed review sheet and my term project update through an assignment link.
As a reminder, the review sheets are cumulative, so I had to answer the questions from units 1, 2, 3, and 4 before answering the questions from unit 5. In previous blog posts, I have typed out what every unit asks and every answer I put, but I have decided that it is not very helpful to post all those answers on the blog post, because it clutters it up. On the contrary, I will just discuss what this unit’s questions were, along with my answers.
The unit 5 portion of the review sheet asked to list four instances when mass communication campaigns were intended (and hoped) to go viral. It then asked to list four instances when interpersonal communication was not intended to go viral, but did go viral because of the Internet.
For the intended viral instances, I listed United Breaks Guitars, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Reading Rainbow, and Teach Me How To Bucky.
The story of United Breaks Guitars was that a musical duo’s $3500 guitar was broken on a United airlines flight, they would not reimburse the duo. The duo created a song on YouTube called “United Breaks Guitars”, it went viral, and eventually United airlines reimbursed them.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge involved recording yourself pouring a bucket of ice water on your head, and challenge 3 other people to do the same thing within the next 24 hours. If they don’t do it, they are supposed to make a donation to the ALS association. Eventually it spreads and everyone sees the videos, raising awareness and amount of donations.
Reading Rainbow was a kids TV show, wanted to make an app for it and stream the show into classrooms.It is an example of crowd funding, ended up raising over 5 million dollars from over 100,000 contributors.
Teach Me How to Bucky happened when UW Madison students wanted to bring glory to their school. They created a music video based on the song “Teach Me How to Dougie”, talking about the university. It has over 2 million views.
For the unintended viral instances, I listed Charlie Bit My Finger, Cool Wand, Texts From My Ex, and Fair Trade Organic Bananas.
Charlie Bit My Finger happened when a British mom wanted to upload video of her kids for other family who didn’t live in the area to see. But it was very cute and currently is the most frequently viewed non-commercial YouTube video of all time.
Cool Wand was when a college student asked his boss for a couple days off because something came up at home. He ended up going to a Halloween party wearing a tinkerbell costume, and a picture of him in the costume spread around Facebook. His boss ended up seeing it and acknowledged it in an email.
Texts From My Ex is where texts from ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends can be sent to an Instagram account and posted. Ellen DeGeneres read aloud some of these on her show, leading tons of people to hear these texts.
Fair Trade Organic Bananas was when Scottish Labour Party Candidate tweeted “God this fair trade, organic banana is expletive. Can I have a slave-grown, chemically enhanced, genetically modified one?”.The tweet spread and he was removed from political office.
For my term project, I wrote about how I decided that I am set on the whole course option, completing a daily journal in which I itemize content along with detailed reflections, and I am creating these journal entries through the medium of an online blog, on the Word Press website. I wrote about how in the past week, I had made blog posts for every assignment of units 1 and 2, and started unit 3. I closed by talking about how I had spent much more than the recommended 2 hours per week on this project.
Reflecting on this assignment, it was a typical assignment 6, but this brought some advantages, as always. For example, since the review sheet is cumulative, it requires me to fill out the pages for all of the previous units. This allows me to continue to master the material, so that by the end of the course, I will know everything very well.
Additionally, it was helpful to write about my progress on the term project. This was a week in which I worked a ton on it, so it was great to look back and reflect upon how far I had come. Writing about it also made me passionate about continuing to work hard on the project. Since I do the daily blogs, but we started many units in, it has taken a ton of work to try to catch up, and I am not quite caught up yet.
I look forward to future review sheets and reflections on the term project, because they represent progress. Time has been flying this semester, and it is crazy to see how far I have come in this course. I have learned so much so far, and yet I still have so much ahead of me, which is exciting!
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