Reflection
6/5/18
To begin, taking the critical thinking class in general and doing the media blogs helped me obtain a broader understanding of how media is enveloped in our everyday lives. For one, I spent an average of around 20 minutes on social media usually before or after school while in the car. Since I'm tired at those times, I'm usually oblivious to the number of advertisements I view. As a result, the messages from advertisements seep in and sometimes I will be able to associate a certain product to its respective brand. However, now I try to be more careful when I'm on social media. Furthermore, I try not to be lured into deceptive advertisements and eventually fall victim. Therefore, I try to limit my time on social media.
Another thing that's really important is the messages media is trying to convey. I realize that was incredibly vague, however, I will be focusing on commercials. I think a good example are satirical testimonial commercials. Whereas every time a famous person would say a keyword in the script, then the commercial would show that person getting paid. Ideally, it's funny for people that aren't so naive when watching commercials. However, because of the satire, it remains funny and you'll eventually remember the commercial, which is a win for the advertisers. It's this type of technique and among many others that I start to become more aware of. As a result, I realize when advertisers are trying to draw their viewers into buying their product.
Going off of my previous point, I fell victim to many advertisements in the past. For example, McDonald's commercials were my bane. Every time I see a golden arch I associate it with McDonalds's. Or every time I think of McDonalds's I associate that with a happy meal, which I previously thought that made people happy. For the record, this was my mindset when I was more naive. Whereas nowadays I'm able to see the fine line between expectation vs. reality. There is no possible way a happy meal can make someone happy. There is no link between wearing Nike's and being physically fit. As well as there is no way that wearing Hot Topic makes you automatically cool. It's these messages that companies try to instill that I learning to be more aware of. Furthermore, I'm getting better at analyzing commercials so I'm less naive or able to fall, the victim.
Overall, I think doing these media blogs were very beneficial. For one, they keep us up to date and give us the opportunity to analyze our topics. For one I did a media blog a song by Melanie Martinez. At base value, I just took it as a song that emo kids will just listen to. However, when looking deeper into it I realized it was commenting more towards social issues. As a result, it's this revelation that's important. Therefore, I believe that media blogs are very important and make us question the point of our topics or the meaning behind out topics.
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