Well here we are. The final media blog. The grand finale. I feel like I've changed a lot in these last two months. For starters, I've become a good bit more media aware. I've started to pick out the subliminals and recognize the fakes in commercials and media posts even when I'm not looking for it specifically. I feel like that makes me a good deal more cynical when I'm just watching TV or browsing Instagram, but that also means I'm even less gullible and more aware than I was when I first started posting. Overall, my media interactions have gone down (or at least I feel like they have). I find that I often go a day or two with little usage of Instagram (aside from my morning music posts) and that overall I feel less drawn to open the app in my free time. As far as music goes, I still spend way too much time listening to music on Spotify, but I have found that I am more aware of the messages and subtle marketing hidden within the lyrics of my music (read my DJ Khaled product placement post). I also now recognize that I was wasting a good portion of my day on apps and interacting with media that I didn't really care about. Will that make me drastically change my usage habits? Probably not... but awareness is a start. As far as final thoughts go for my changes in media interaction and awareness, I think that becoming more aware of the impact of media on me and the world around me just made me realize the importance of the tangible parts of life: friends, family, sports, etc. Hold those parts close to you as often as you can.
Ultimately, I have found that it is important to have media literacy because it helps you avoid the terrible feeling of getting taken advantage. When you are media literate and an educated consumer, simple appeals, rationalizations, and fallacies are easy to discern from the clutter of media that bombards us. This allows us to make better purchasing and usage decisions, avoiding wasting our time on useless things. It keeps bad companies from pushing their agendas on the world and works to keep credible, qualified politicians in positions of power instead of lying scam artists (this obviously doesn't always work very well). Media literacy is a superpower once you properly harness it, allowing you to dissect the world at a moment's glance and pick out the fake appeals and motives. I'm glad that I was able to develop this power throughout this semester with both this blog and other assignments that we completed in class.
In the end, the thing that I got out of this blog was simply a free place to refine my thoughts. This blog allowed me to put into words all the skeptical thoughts I had floating around my head when it came to commercials or other forms of media I would view. This felt kind of freeing and I felt happy to be able to share these thoughts with my friends and class. Ultimately, I'm glad of this opportunity to learn more about my own media literacy and the world that I live in. Thank you to everyone that experienced a Bianchi blog post.
Ultimately, I have found that it is important to have media literacy because it helps you avoid the terrible feeling of getting taken advantage. When you are media literate and an educated consumer, simple appeals, rationalizations, and fallacies are easy to discern from the clutter of media that bombards us. This allows us to make better purchasing and usage decisions, avoiding wasting our time on useless things. It keeps bad companies from pushing their agendas on the world and works to keep credible, qualified politicians in positions of power instead of lying scam artists (this obviously doesn't always work very well). Media literacy is a superpower once you properly harness it, allowing you to dissect the world at a moment's glance and pick out the fake appeals and motives. I'm glad that I was able to develop this power throughout this semester with both this blog and other assignments that we completed in class.
In the end, the thing that I got out of this blog was simply a free place to refine my thoughts. This blog allowed me to put into words all the skeptical thoughts I had floating around my head when it came to commercials or other forms of media I would view. This felt kind of freeing and I felt happy to be able to share these thoughts with my friends and class. Ultimately, I'm glad of this opportunity to learn more about my own media literacy and the world that I live in. Thank you to everyone that experienced a Bianchi blog post.
Comments
Post a Comment