Reflection Critical thinking, the media blogs specifically, were a great way for me to improve my analysis skills and give me a better understanding of the way that media is used to manipulate me. Looking back at my first media blog, I discussed how happy I was that media is becoming more inclusive. I was excited about people of all colors, genders, sexual orientations, and body types were being included in the media we consume, but after the class I realized the true reasons these people are a part of advertisements. It is all for monetary gain. Companies do not care about inclusion, they only care about ways to make money and appeal to a broader audience in order to do so. The same companies that sold one body and one skin type, have somehow managed to sell me my own identity, commodifying people or color and other minorities as a way to get more money. Once we isolate the true drive of all advertisements and all companies, it is much easier to see through them and not as easil
Media today is always about grabbing people’s attention. No one has the time or energy to really pay attention to an ad or a news story, so everything is about advertisements that are seconds long or trendy hashtags to pass around information that is quickly forgotten. This loss of attention span makes us more easily manipulated, as media not only controls what we see but also the way that we analyze and remember it. It is hard to start a movement if everyone forgets about it after it stops being trendy, yet different advertisements pay more and more money to stay trendy. How does this affect our perception of the world around us? One where we are torn between issues of social equality and advertisements for makeup products or skinny teas. The best example of this is the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. For some reason, this was a big controversy, with many white people feeling excluded (even though that really isn’t the point). The point it, for a couple of months it got a mas