The funny part of tourism is being called a tourist everytime you visit a new place: you’ll know the high end places that everyone hypes up. How many times do you have to visit a state or city to become familiar with it? How long should you live there to officially know all the hidden gems as a local?
My personal rule: as long as you’re making any trip an adventure and marking every step you take, you’re turning tourism into your traveling knowledge.
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For my tech-mediated communications class, we learned about mediated voyeurism from A Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy and Peering in Modern Culture by Clay Calvert. Calvert defines mediated voyeurism as “the consumption of revealing images of and information about others’ apparently real and unguarded lives, often yet not always for purposes of entertainment but frequently at the expense of privacy and disclosure, through the means of mass media and Internet (Calvert, 2000).”
We made many connections to how communication started, beginning with weaving as coding. In a way to understand modern times communication through the digital era, we did a class assignment/group exercise where we picked two 6-inch pieces of string, using specific colors to represent emotions we were currently feeling. The list of emotions connected to its color were based on psychologist Dr. Carroll Izzard’s universal emotions color chart.
As part of the assignment, below I analyze how choosing two colors to represent my emotions in-person compares to mediated voyeurism and the line of privacy versus raw emotions in display.
Read More »When entering the world of communications, what is the first thing everyone learns? The importance of creating, transcribing, receiving, and interpreting messages. It’s not just how we speak, it is how we present ourselves in different settings.
Content creation is focused on representing someone, or something such as a brand, through its image. It’s creating it’s figure by having the right products that align with what the brand is selling, and promoting that through an image. When I think of image, I think of tone, personality, and voice. It is said that tone is a subset of voice and voice is a brand personality. The platforms that brands are on and engaging with- especially in a digital era- is a crucial form of building interpersonal communication between organizations and their customers: it keeps their relationship alive.
As someone who enjoys advocacy in women studies and Hispanic culture, I put my skills and efforts into working with brands that embody those elements. From experience in creating magazine layouts and writing editorial articles, I always aim to be the voice for brands that shouts inclusivity and ethical roots while creating engaging content in different forms.
Experimenting with graphic design to make posts, videos, slideshows, animated gifs combined with learning specific social media features such as Facebook Groups, stories, highlights, and more are all part of communicating through social media and marketing.
Click on the image to view this Facebook post!
Understanding your audience is another key factor to know when properly advertising your brand. An organization cannot solemnly survive on featuring its products; it only profits when they can sell it to their customers, persuading them that that is the product they need and want. Through my experience of doing social media managing for clubs, internships, and ambassador positions, I have made sure to not just have a voice for the brand purpose, but to listen clearly to what my audience wants.
Social media managing is a mix of content creation and marketing. It’s an expansion of a brand, it’s the voice to share the organization’s mission and purpose. It goes above and beyond having an aesthetic feed, but creating engaging posts, building relationships with your followers, keeping up with trends, and communicating a message consistently.
For a Study Abroad opportunity, I got to travel to the United Arab Emirates with a group of students looking to do cultural research. For 1 week (10 days traveling), I got to experience the richness of Dubai, the distinctive culture, and observe the traditions and norms. For this trip, I focused my research on Emirati fashion has evolved-both casual and cultural wear-specifically to analyze how gender codes and roles are communicated through fashion.
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This report was originally written for a reflective paper for a Communication in Gender and Media course. All credits go to the author, Gabriella Licona with credit given to the respected references listed.
When you analyze the way a traditional woman is supposed to behave in public, what do you expect to see? Gender norms have been a controversial issue surrounding what should be normalized behavior, not among the general crowd, but specifically in the difference between men and women.
Read More »Below is a video regarding my top 3 keys to creating a functional study space wherever you might be, even a temporary location!
Video is created and distributed by Gabriella Licona. Video is also captioned.
Want to see similar content like this? Follow my vocal writing page where I have fiction-writing and additional blog posts!
Link to vocal page: -not yet inserted-
Do living spaces really matter? Down to the little decorations, how can personalizing our rooms and work spaces affect the quality of our work?
We go to coffee shops with our laptops to fit in with the ‘college-students-working-in-a-cafe’ vibe, we prefer to sit in our campus library or study room, and we pay critical attention to everyone and everything in our environment to understand the kind of vibe we’re going for.
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Opinion on Harvard University’s The Crimson Newspaper Under Attack on Request for Commentary from ICE
After the “Abolish ICE” Act on a Dream Protest in September, Harvard University’s student journalist covered the event and wrote an article for their school’s newspaper, The Crimson. In their report, journalists reached out to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson for commentary.
Excerpt:
“With people’s focus being solely on fake hype, stereotypes, and “woke” culture, the reasons behind bringing awareness to mental health are much more cynical. It’s easy for individuals to tweet about how mental health is real and no one should be ashamed of it, yet these same people are quick to criticize those who attempt to open up about it.”
Every year, Cinco de Mayo (May 5) is celebrated all around the world. With sombreros and traditional music, many individuals celebrate Mexican culture by dining in a Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, margaritas and avocado dishes are usually the only Mexican representation passed down when celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
Be The Aesthetic 