ATS1280 Chap.7 Writing the Media Reflection
Writing the Media Reflection
The first graded task is fifteen per cent and 750 words, and it is the one students under read because it looks easy. Monash asks you to look back at one occasion in your own life when you were using media, chosen so that a single form is in view and so that whatever passed between you and other people around it is available to be examined.
You set the occasion down in as much detail as you can, answer three set questions on what the carrier did to how time felt, to seeing and hearing, and to what passed between you and other people and what it showed you about yourself, then close by working out what the occasion did to the way you deal with media at large.
The task states that nothing needs reading up and nothing needs citing, and that ideas are not to be taken from anywhere else. That is a harder instruction than it sounds, because it removes what students normally use to fill space and leaves only the quality of the noticing. The task description also hands you the method: imagine the same experience with a different medium, or none.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The specification: 750 words, done alone, fifteen per cent, nothing read up and nothing cited
- 02
The three required themes, and what a thin answer does with each
- 03
Why reflection rather than research is the harder instruction
- 04
The substitution technique the task description supplies
- 05
Running the swap across time, the senses, other people and what you saw of yourself
- 06
Choosing an experience the first rubric criterion can reward
- 07
Three published criteria across five bands, and the direction of travel between them
Convert narration into reflection
- 1Find what the medium made necessary. One screen, one channel at a time and a broadcast schedule meant the two of you had to negotiate a single choice at a fixed moment, which is a condition the medium imposed rather than a fact about siblings.
- 1Substitute. With two devices and on demand access the negotiation disappears entirely, so the argument was produced by scarcity of the carrier rather than by disagreement about cartoons.
- 1Say what follows for the relationship. Shared viewing under a schedule made watching a joint activity with a cost attached, and the cost was what made it a shared occasion rather than two parallel ones.
Key terms
- Substitution technique
- Picturing the same occasion running through some other carrier, or through none, and noticing which of your answers move. The task description names it as the way to make the three themes easier to answer.
- Self awareness
- The part of the third theme that is easiest to miss. The question covers what passed between you and other people and what the occasion showed you about yourself, so a carrier that made you visible to yourself belongs in the answer.
- Assessment criterion
- One row of a marking rubric, described across five bands from fail to high distinction. This task publishes three, covering the choice of experience, the three themes, and the reflection on personal impact.
Writing the Media Reflection FAQ
How much of the 750 words should describe what happened?
About a fifth is a workable budget. The description exists so the reflection has something to work on, and the published criterion for the themes treats covering all three as a bare pass, with everything above it decided by depth. A draft that spends most of its words narrating has usually spent them on the criterion that rewards them least.
Can I really write this with no references?
Yes, and the task asks you to. The whole answer is meant to come out of your own looking back, with nothing read up and nothing cited, and with no ideas taken from a language model or from anywhere else. Adding sources does not improve the mark, and it substitutes other people's noticing for the thing being assessed.
Which experience should I choose?
One where you can remember friction, because the first criterion grades the choice and rewards care in selecting an experience that supports meaningful reflection. A first time, a device you no longer use, an occasion when it failed, or a moment when the medium was shared with someone in the room all make the carrier visible; an experience so ordinary that the medium disappears gives you nothing to say.
Assessment move
Do the choosing deliberately, because the choice is graded before you write. Spend twenty minutes listing candidate experiences and keep only those where you can already name something the medium made necessary or impossible. Then run the substitution on each of the three themes before you draft, writing one line per theme, and check that each line says what changed rather than what happened.
Budget the words on paper: roughly 150 describing, roughly 450 across the three themes, roughly 150 concluding on your wider relationship with media, since the failing description on the third criterion is defined by that discussion being absent. Draft, then reread only for sentences that report rather than argue, and convert each of them into evidence for a theme.
Finally, check the instruction about sources one more time before submitting, because it is the least intuitive rule in the unit and the easiest to break out of habit.
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