My Letter to the President

Dear President Donald Trump,

Hello, my name is Julie McClellan and I am a student at Brigham Young University. I have been enrolled in a Family and Media class this past semester and several concerns have been brought to my attention. I appreciate all that you do to keep our Country running efficiently and have a proposal that will heighten the efficiency and raise up a generation that will succeed greater than ever.

Media has a great impact on our world today. Many viewers are struggling with addiction, body image, violence, disrespect of traditional values, and deviating from their life goals as a result. Although media also has positive domains, I believe that there are specific changes that should be implemented to enhance the nature of media. 

The Motion Picture Association of America has developed a voluntary system of ratings for viewers and parents to decide what is appropriate. This system is helpful to audiences but would be more beneficial if it was a system mandated by law with strict criteria to determine ratings. With the susceptibility of the human mind, it is important that viewers are not subject to detrimental material without prior knowledge of the damage that could potentially ensure due to pre-mature exposure.

Just as medication, foods, and rides at your local amusement park post a safety message to address health concerns, I believe that along with stricter rating criteria, television and movie producers should be mandated to include a message that addresses the emotional health concerns that viewers could potentially be subject to. Of course, experiencing physical and emotional effects of media is generally associated with a great amount of exposure, with rising rates it is important that we take precautions today.

Media is becoming increasingly more important and prevalent, the world of technology is expanding at a massive rate, and science is revealing more about human development than ever before. It is vital that we take the precautions necessary to protect our rising generation to the detrimental effects of media. I propose that we create stricter laws around media and strive to inform audiences of how our media is affecting them both mentally and physically. After all, knowledge is power, and the rising generation is in need of all the power and protection the world has to offer. Thank you for your time and consideration― together, “let’s make America great again”!

Best Regards,

Julie McClellan

My Favorite Type of Media

Pretty much every single type of media I can think of has its pros and cons but there is only one type of media that is all positive... THE SCRIPTURES! As I have been preparing for the last few weeks of the semester and Christmas I have really been trying to focus on making scripture study a priority. I have noticed that when I make this a priority everything else in my life seems to get done as well. This week while I was studying the scriptures I came across a verse in Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." This scripture is such a great reminder to me, especially during this next month. Although it may seem like I have way too much on my plate it will be attainable with the Lord on my side. I am SO thankful for this perfect media source. It is so amazing to me that the Lord has provided the scriptures to be a guide in these days. The scriptures are EASILY my very favorite form of media!!!!

Family Time

Every Thanksgiving my family has the tradition of going to see a family friendly movie in the theaters after finishing Thanksgiving dinner. As funny as it sounds, this is one of my families very favorite traditions! This year on Thanksgiving my family went to see Frozen 2 (for the grand-kids sake). All of my brothers were complaining about how big of a waste of time this would be and trying to convince my parents to get different tickets but we stuck with it and I am so glad that we did! It is so cool to me how close watching a movie with people can bring you! It provides great conversation for hours, and for my family seeing this movie came with a bunch of new inside jokes! We have all been quoting the movie since that day haha! This particular movie had an interesting plot that left my whole family with a great sense of how important each and every member of my family is. I love media for this reason and a so glad my parents pushed to see this particular movie! It was great!

Midnight Traveler

THIS MOVIE!!!

I have not watched many international films in my life time, but after watching this movie for our class assignment I am definitely going to change that. MEDIA IS SO COOL! This movie is made up of footage captured on three different mobile phones of a families journey across several different countries to reach safety. It was so interesting for me to see real life footage of refuge camps and the different obstacles this family had to overcome to reach safety.

This movie helped me to gain a better prospective of how different cultures and ethnicities are from one another. While this family traveled they were bullied and rejected in nearly every single country. It was also interesting for me to note the different living situations across the world.

I am so thankful for media and the messages it can convey from all the way across the country. This film helped me to see how blessed I am to live where I do.

The Bar Code

I'm not sure why this post was not publicly published last week so I am submitting it again.

Reading has not always been a passion of mine. In fact, this is probably the type of media I use the very least (as sad as that is). Throughout grade school I always told myself that I needed to find a series I was interested in so that I could make reading a passion. While in high school I came across a book called "The Bar Code Tattoo". I think this is one of the very first books that really got my attention. I have read this book several times and decided to re-read it this weekend just for fun! The book is about how a future society uses a bar code tattooed on their wrist as their identification. This bar code held every member of societies confidential information.

This book was so interesting to read this last time because so many aspects of how the author predicted the future to be based on fantasy are ACTUALLY coming true today!!

It is so interesting to me how ideas written in a book can actually come true. Does anyone have any futuristic novels that they love?? I would love to find a novel similar to this one!

Children's Programs

I currently work as a nanny and it is one of my very favorite things in the world. I feel like I have watched every single baby and child program made up to this point haha! I find it so interesting to see what programs are interesting to the kids and love to watch them for myself....I'm not going to lie, some of them are pretty captivating! The little 2 year old girl has been watching the show "Jungle Junction" and it has quickly become one of my very favorites. I have noticed that a lot of television programs made for kids are extra whiney and have more scenes of the characters bickering than anything else! I don't know why this bothers me so much but I feel like there is no way it doesn't rub off at least a little bit on the viewers. Jungle Junction has become one of my favorites because I feel like it has much less of this content than other shows. There is nothing better than a child program full of prosocial content! What are your favorite little kid shows??? 

Music and Media

The music I listen to has never been consistent. I feel like through the different stages and phases of my life the genre I choose to listen to on the radio is completely different. I had my early high school days where Justin Bieber was my man, my late high school days where I thought it was cool to listen to rap and dirty music, my come-to-Jesus days when I chose to listen to David Archuleta church hymns, and have recently fallen into a country music obsession. I have always had a bias towards country music for no reason other than my friends and family did not listen to it. As I have gotten married this last year and started to not have a care in the world about what anyone thinks of me, I have found my self drawn towards country music. As lame as it sounds, country music is the most relaxing thing in the world to me (depending on the artist of course). There is something about a good country love song that really gets me in my feels...

I find it so interesting how different types of music genres resonate with different people. Music is such a powerful media that has the ability to send messages across society. It is so cool to me that every one has their own musical preferences. The way one song speaks to me and relaxes me will not have the exact effect on the next person. I have recently started to really enjoy music and the benefits it has on my life!