Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Media reflection

                Over the course of these few weeks I have been forced to explore areas of media that would likely have not even thought to browse. Media has always served as a distraction, that is something I browsed to occupy my mind. And so media consumption for me was always fairly limited, however at certain times it will greatly increase or fall based off the amount of time I find myself wanting to "zone out." The label critical thinking made me think this class would be spent analyzing document after document to understand how to better mesh ones thought process, but I'm glad the content turned out to be the way it did. I feel now that I know a lot more about advertising than I did when the advertising began, the the obvious connection to the world around us made the material really appeal to me. Curriculum in school can get boring because it's hard to find how it is relevant to my life but with this class the relevance was clear. As clear as it could possibly be at 7:18 in the frickin morning. Advertising has long been a fascination of mine and before this class I understoof a few basic appeals that I saw repeated in ads. What this class did for me was expand my capacity to understand exactly what was being thrown at me and why advertisers thought I would relate to their content. Although I know we scratched the surface as far as advertising goes, there were a lot of knew concepts thrown at us and the projects we did both in class and research done for our blogs really  helped me make the connections between the concept and it's real world use. Media blogs were not always my favorite, but what I can say is they really did help me tie together all we were learning. Where I stand now, I have full faith in my ability to understand and disect the the ads that I am exposed to in my daily life. This means that I will better know which companies make quality products and reflect that, and which companies want to appeal to me through subliminal appeals. Media literacy is important as a consumer because having it can help you best choose a product. If a company's appeal is through vague words and false statements, a media literate consumer would be able to understand that that company says it'll give you more than it does. Similarly, if a company is straight forward and does not try to use distraction as a means of appeal, you have a better chance of buying a quality product. Although discerning which companies are quality and which lack such a measure is difficult based purely off advertising,  a consumer can pick up on which ads are a whole lot of bologna and which are worth paying attention to. It's also doesn't hurt that being able to break down an ad is an empowering feeling, as though you are one step ahead of corporate America. From keeping this log I have become more politically informed, more aware of how advertising functions, and more aware of how I interact with media. A sense for how media affects me is also something I have gained some perspective on. Media literacy doesn't necessarily sound like something important in this world, but being able to responsibly and efficiently navigate through the wide world of media is of great value. Media makes up a large part of our lives and this is only increasing. If we want to get the most out of the media and understand what is really being stated and how that message is being conveyed, we must first understand the techniques used. By doing this, we can better sort through the barrage of messages so that we do not get sucked in by the initial appeal of many advertisements.

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