Excerpt coming from Research Pitch:
Would your look at of multimedia literacy alter over the course of your class? How will your consumption of media be affected?
Due to taking this course, I think I’ve become a more critical buyer of the mass media. When I visit a commercial, I actually am hyper-aware of how the item is being found in the market, and what types of narratives are being used to experience upon the goals and aspirations from the target audience, including being a ‘good mom, ‘ or ‘hip and sexy’ or even to live pain-free in one’s old age. Although I had been always conscious of advertising, i am better able to see how marketing works after the psyche of the buyer. I likewise notice just how certain ads are featured during certain sorts of television applications, or in certain Internet sites, to specifically reach a demographic.
I think I might also be slightly more ‘paranoid, ‘ because I have also begun to take note of the frequency which brands will be popping up around me and the lives of other folks. I used to prefer to think that I used to be immune to advertising, nevertheless we as being a society are extremely affected by corporate culture, coming from not just the clothing and foodstuff we acquire, but likewise in terms of the computers we use, the shows we all watch, and the stores we shop, it is hard not to have advertising and branding for least a number of the time. Is definitely an ipod touch really the best MP3 player? Why does my mom swear by Hellmann’s mayonnaise with no other manufacturer will do? After a certain level, some brands become and so ubiquitous they turn to be a synonym for the products themselves – they actually come to symbolize the consumer whom uses all of them. Companies possess picked up upon this identification of brands with the self, as evidenced in Apple’s recent ‘Macintosh user’ compared to ‘PC user’ ads which usually show a hip, ‘with it’ young person to personify the MC, versus a geeky PERSONAL COMPUTER user designed to personify the slow and out-of-date COMPUTER. Some people possibly buy products with their favorite brands on them, from Macintosh to Pepsi.
Advertising also appears to be more ubiquitous because it is everywhere over the media we all use, which include our computers and mobile phone. The individuals, particularly Barak Obama, had been very knowledgeable about this in the past election. Not merely did Obama use the mass media to transfer his message to the general public in the form of a highly-anticipated television set campaign advertisements, but he also utilized people’s cell phones by building a mailing list of individuals who desired to hear whom his jogging mate can be, before it was announced to the press. All the candidates try to ‘control’ the media, because in terms of which the mass media chooses to target upon, the media will certainly not be neutral. Based on what prospect it fixates its history on, what headlines, and what history, the multimedia can immediate public opinion. But the multimedia is not really all-powerful – dispersion with the media in blogs and cable television spots mean that fewer people utilize same causes of media. Likewise, the multimedia does not have unlimited capacity to set the agenda with regards to news stories – it may not disregard the recent economic crisis because it influenced so many people, for instance , even if the real issues are not very telegenic. On the other hand, yet , if selected important problems like authorities regulation of the banks as well as the science of global warming had been more telegenic, perhaps even more people will care about these people and they can be given more media exposure before the issues reached turmoil proportions.
On a very basic level, being press literate means asking the question of how and why am I the subject of this message, and thinking two times before acting. The more challenging part of staying media well written, however , is definitely wondering what stories aren’t being reported at all regardless if they are crucial to know. This is actually the new level of media scrutiny that all Us citizens must provide for bear after the popular media and also whatever ideologically oriented portions of the politics media that they chose to take in.
