Looking at the Media Looking at Us

Doing the Media Log this semester has made me look at advertising and mass communication in a different way. I don’t really read the newspaper very much, but I’ve watched a lot of television and movies in my life and I definitely use the Internet. Advertising in the media is everywhere, so much so that we are hardly even aware when ads are bombarding us. It’s like even product placement in movies is advertising and we’re so used to seeing it that we don’t even stop to think about it.

Mostly after doing these logs I feel like we shouldn’t waste our time on very much of the media. But, in a way, I’m kind of interested in looking at ads now to see who the ads are focused on and what techniques and appeals they are using to win us over.  These logs have definitely made me think more about what media I’m consuming, especially with ads that are directed at people like me.

I hope this will make me a better consumer. I hope that I will look at ads now and wonder if I really need these products. I feel smarter about the ways of media after this and I noticed this as the semester progressed. On my first couple of entries I really had to think hard about the ads, but it got easier as I did more, and I started seeing the techniques more quickly. 

What would be good, I think, is for more people to learn about advertising so that they aren’t such easy marks. It seems like ads directed at kids, for example, are really powerful because young kids actually believe the things the ads say about the products.

One of the areas we discussed that really stuck with me was about ethical decision-making and the test cases we studied. I hope in the future that I will think about some of those when I am considering buying something or I am drawn to a particular ad. I like the Role Exchange Test, for example, because I think it’s a good idea to put yourself in someone else’s shoes if you’re trying to figure out what decision should be made.

Overall, media literacy is really important and we should probably start learning about it much earlier in school.