Keirsey Temperament Sorter

     The Keirsey Temperament Sorter is a test designed to categorize the personalities of individuals in an attempt to discover how they would interact with others in the work place. The results of my test were shockingly accurate to how I have assessed my own personality. It seemed to describe me, my working habits and interpersonal skills very well.

     For my results, I scored as the "Idealist Counselor".  The Idealist Counselor is a very personal individual who is in touch with the emotions of others, as well as the emotions of themselves.  They strive to help others as much as they can. The amount of information on the temperaments available on the Keirsey website is quite intricate.  To quote a small portion from their information on the "Idealist":

     "Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials."

     The descriptions provided for both the "Idealist" temperament as well as the "Counselor" temperament, combine to create a very accurate description of myself and my working habits. An employer using this test is likely to find accurate results if I was able to find such great results for myself.

http://www.keirsey.com/default.aspx

Genre

Genre is French word meaning “type” or “kind”.  The way in which we use genre is everywhere from a simple set of types to an intense and in-depth hierarchy of categorization.  The amounts of things and concepts placed into genre are endless, ranging from music, films and television to subcultures, art and literature. 
    Genre can be as simple or intricate as is necessary.  The factors of genre are as expansive as the concept of genre itself.  Depending on the factors considered for whatever particular thing is being categorized would determine the intricacy of that items’ genre.
    The question posed to me was “What is your favorite genre film?”.  To this question, I will absolutely, always answer Wayne’s World. This film, in its most basic genre is a comedy.  More specifically in the hierarchy, it is a “buddy comedy”, in other words, a comedy in which the story focuses on a main character who has a crucial supporting role. Or, it can be a story that revolves around two main characters and their trials. 
    The simplest reasons for this movie being my favorite are that it is just hilarious and keeps me interested with multiple (a term used loosely) views. Every time I view this film, I still laugh at the jokes, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.  I also inadvertently quote lines from this movie in everyday speech and situations.
    Wayne’s World, in certain ways, set a nearly unreachable bar for the “buddy comedy”.  In no other buddy comedy that I’ve view have I felt a relationship as genuine and close as that shared with Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar. As well as setting a high bar within its specific genre, in my opinion, Wayne’s World set a high bar in comedy as well.
    Genre is important in understanding the necessity to categorize things. Genre creates a map and hierarchy for everything that can be organized, making it easy to specify groups and providing a simple way to find certain information.

Semiotics in Advertising: My Future Career

I aspire to eventually work in the world of advertising.  And without a firm grasp of semiotics, I will have a tough time doing so.

    Semiotics, the study of signs, is pretty closely related to advertising. Actually it is precisely related to advertising.  To an advertiser, semiotics is everything.  The way a potential consumer views a product or service, the world around them, anything and everything, is vital and crucial to the process an advertiser will use in order to create ads and sell products or services.  To understand advertisements and advertising, an advertiser much fully understand the thought processes of their potential consumers.

    This can be a daunting task, but it is an essential one. From what I have learned about semiotics, I will have a much greater understanding, not only of what a consumer may see, but the potentiality of what I see as well.  After taking a course in advertisement and receiving a more in depth lesson on semiotics in my media studies course, I am able to analyze the world around me more easily.

    It is one thing to be able to view a sign in one singular vision; the way in which you originally decipher it.  It is another to view a sign in every way imaginable, and more importantly for advertising, the most popular way.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is the science and/or philosophy of interpretation.  In the world of communication, an understanding of interpretation is vital, in any facet or medium, to convey and understand the messages that are sent to an audience.

Unlike with semiotics, of which I have a firmer grasp, hermeneutics is a brand new area for me to learn about.  Both of these sciences/philosophies share similar aspects as they both pertain to communication and interpretation.

Hermeneutics is broken done into five theories.  The First theory of Hermeneutics is the theory of Natural Hermeneutics. Natural Hermeneutics deals with “the spontaneous, everyday, usually unreflective interpreting we do when inter- subjective understanding breaks down”.  This is a very basic level of interpretation that requires less mental response from an audience.  It is how we understand and interpret the basis of our life and our everyday surroundings.

The second theory of Hermeneutics is the Normative theory. The Normative theory is “the art of text interpretation as a deliberate discipline by a specialist caste”. This is how we understand and define titles and roles, such as “Priests, judges or lawyers.”

The third theory is the Scientific theory of Hermeneutics. The Scientific theory is “the foundational discipline of the human or historical sciences”.  This is our interpretations of the scientific world and the past.  With each step in the levels of hermeneutics, the mental processing and thinking required to interpret increases.

Theory four is the theory of Philosophical Hermeneutics.  The Philosophical theory is “a general philosophy of existence. Interpreting is less what we do and more what we are-- interpreters” . The best way to explain this is the way we sometimes question our roles or our own existence.  This is how we understand the roles of our lives of ourselves.

The final theory is the Depth theory of hermeneutics. The Depth theory is the “hermeneutics of suspicion enlightenment project of emancipation and liberation from social dogma and oppression”.  This is where our minds work to there fullest extent.  It is our inherent nature to question the interpretation of things around us. This theory is called the Depth theory because it goes beyond our level of consciousness. This can tie into other areas of study such as Freud’s studies and investigations into the unconscious and subconscious mind.

Understanding these theories helps to increase out levels of interpretation throughout the world of communication.  Hermeneutics helps to increase our mental capacities to understand and interpret the things that others understand and interpret. Therefore, it improves our ability to better convey messages and make efficient deliveries.

What I Expect From Media Studies

Many of my reasons for taking this course would have to be from the suggestions I have received from my friends.  A lot of the subjects and topics that are shown in the syllabus to be discussed in this class (such as semiotics and feminism for example) are subjects that I have either never learned about anywhere else or have always wanted to learn about.  I feel that I have done a great deal of critical thinking and analysis on my own, and being an artist of sorts, it’s a necessity.

The chance to expand on these analyses is a crucial step for me. I intend to use that to my advantage especially in the realm of imagery.  Since I plan to get involved with Advertising, concepts explained throughout the syllabus such as Semiotics, Critical thinking, and Blogging, to name a few, all stand out as important steps for me to continue to expand my knowledge and understanding of imagery and the advertising world. Though I have already had experience with some of these concepts and forms of media, such as blogging, I am eager to gain more experience with media such as Pod casting, something I've never worked with before. Both will provide me with practice in crucial skills like writing and speech

The way this class was explained to me, we write a great deal of papers and analyze a lot as well. I love the chance to do both of these tasks either separately or together in order to expand my abilities in either area or simply to practice. Chapters 5 and of the syllabus help to convince me that I’ll have ample opportunity, in this class and throughout my Communications career, to grow more adept in my skill set with media literacy, technologies, critical thinking and creative assignments.