"What is my relationship with media?" When I first hear this question, I feel that my relationship is pretty limited. I mean, I dance for hours everyday, so the amount of free time I have to be exposed to media is pretty nominal, right? But then I really thought about it and realized that I unintentionally absorbed media like a sponge, and the scary part is that I didn't even realize what I was taking in; I was doing it unconsciously. When I walk down the halls at school, people have brand names and icons plastered to their shirts and sweatshirts. When I ride in the car, the radio advertises to me to buy a certain type of car. The songs on the radio also tell me how I should act in response to certain situations. When I pick up and read a book at night, it is telling me information and subconsciously influencing my perspectives. When I think about it, I am surrounded by media that I don't even intend to be surrounded by. "What is my relationship with media?" I would have to say that it is a big part of my life, even though I haven't even try to incorporate it.
Now, some people may wonder what the big deal is. Why should it matter that media is around us? They might think that they can just tune it out or ignore it. But I believe that media does influence people: it dictates what our standards of beauty are, it tells us what to buy, it shows us what our lives would supposedly look like if we followed the advertisements, it tells us opinions that we will at times mistake for our own.
Take almost every Disney movie ever made. They usually have an old, ugly, or fat woman being the cause of some unjust crime toward the princess. This can cause children to have unreasonable fears toward less-than-beutiful women. I know that when I was young, I was a little bit uncomfortable sitting next to people that matched the above description.
I hope that my blog gets you to think about what messages media is telling you so you can be armed with the tools to decipher if it is true or not.
-Liv
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