Media Blog Reflection

Over the past few months, I have been able to observe my own media use and how media impacts others more closely than I used to. This has been due, in a large part, to this blog that I have been keeping. I have realized that I consume a lot of media. I mostly consume media from YouTube or Instagram because they are my favorite social media sites and they are the most time consuming. This causes me to procrastinate on work a lot. I would rather watch YouTube videos or scroll through my Instagram than do my homework because I find it more fun and more engaging. Being aware of my media consumption does not change it in a very large way. When I see a commercial, I am usually able to pick out some advertising techniques when I see an advertisement or a commercial, but nothing really more than that. They already weren’t very effective, so it doesn’t really change how likely I am to respond to them. Even after learning so much about how media works and the various advertising techniques that they use to get people to engage with media, I have not changed the way I interact with media. This is because I didn’t find any of it so unethical or shocking to get me to change it. It’s nothing I did not already know or could have guessed. At the end of the day, even if some of the techniques seem a little unethical to me, I am fine with them being used. I am not overly shocked, and without a drastic change in how I view the media, I will not go out of my way to change my media habits.

Over this semester, I have learned about media literacy and how to be media literate. According to http://medialiteracyproject.org/learn/media-literacy/ "media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media." Having media literacy in today’s society is extremely important. It makes us educated consumers. It allows us to see the messages hidden in various types of media and allows us to see how advertisers are using us in order to make money. It is very important to many people that they know how their information is being used for privacy purposes. People do not want to be taken advantage of and many people are very uncomfortable with their private information being known by a total stranger. Being media literate allows us to be more aware and to take more control of our own lives and be resistant to forces that we would otherwise be resistant to. I also think that it is very important that people know how they are being used by the media because once you know your role in the way advertisers create ads and market their products, you can control it. You can become less susceptible to various advertising techniques if you wish or you could potentially give advertisers a much more real idea of what you (and perhaps others) would want as consumers.

By keeping this log, I was able to more closely observe the various advertising techniques and message present in some of my favorite pieces of media. I was able to truly understand WHY I like them and what makes them so appealing to others as well. This blog helped me to further my own media literacy beyond what I have learned in the classroom.

Nostalgia

     This weekend, I finally got around to seeing Solo: A Star Wars Story. I was slightly anxious beforehand because I had heard that it was just okay. I walked out of the theater really liking it though. The LUKEwarm (ha ha) reception of Solo and the polarizing reception of The Last Jedi (which is one of my favorite Star Wars movies) really got me thinking about a quote I heard somewhere. "Nobody hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans." I think that there is a certain element of truth to this. When I see negative reviews of these movies, a good portion of them are from people who hold the franchise in a very special place in their heart. They appear to idealize the Original Trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi), but have varying amounts of distaste for any of the newer movies. Some of their criticisms are indeed quite valid, but others seem to stem from the fact that they are new and different from (but not even contradicting) what was established with the original three movies. It seems to me that these are, in general, people who grew up watching the Original Trilogy and who likely were children when these movies came out. I think that it is extremely likely they are letting nostalgia close their minds off from accepting new developments in the saga. They appear to hold Star Wars in a sort of mythical regard and to a higher standard than other movies. They remember how amazing it was to see the original movies as a kid for the first time and expect a similar sense of awe from the new ones. But as they become older, they begin to scrutinize things more. The older ones are immune, or at least mostly immune to this scrutinization because they are protected by nostalgia, but the new ones do not have this protection. They notice a plot hole or something that is new and they immediately hate the movie for it, which is unfair. Maybe this is not the whole story. Maybe my excitement for having new Star Wars films released in my time is clouding MY judgement. I don't think I'd be able to tell if it was. But that doesn't mean that I am completely wrong. I still believe nostalgia plays quite a large role in the reception of the Star Wars franchise. This is not an issue that only occurs with Star Wars though. The influence of nostalgia can be seen in many places in the media.

Are Animals Effective in Advertising?

     Recently, I was reading an article about how pets are going to become the next big social media influencer. But will this work? Are people willing to switch their loyalties from people like the Kardashians to cute and fuzzy animals?
     Well, I can't speak for everyone, but for me the answer is yes. I am a huge animal person, especially dogs. I love dogs. There is nothing that puts me in a better mood than seeing a dog. In fact, I follow two separate dog accounts on Instagram, which is a big deal for me. Usually, I only follow accounts that I think are funny or if I know the person behind the account. But the dogs are just so cute that I can't help myself. I think that this cuteness could be easily used to manipulate consumers into buying products. At least, I know that I am more likely to register or respond positively to an advertisement if there is a cute animal, especially a dog, in it as a focus. But I don't just think it's me. I think that a lot of people would enjoy it more if more cute animals had a larger social media presence.
      But is this exploitation of the consumer ethical? Well, no not really. However, I don't feel that it is very unethical, just slightly unethical. Other forms of advertising are far more manipulative, so I guess it's fine. I am also much more okay with this manipulation because it means I get to look at more animals. I realize that I should probably be a lot less okay with this than I am, but the animals are REALLY cute.
Here is a link to the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/03/loni-edwards-agent-for-pet-stars-on-social-media.html

What Is Real - Me or the Commercialization of Me?

     After watching the documentary Miss Representation, in class, one of our discussion questions was "What is real - you or the commercialization of you?" This question really stuck out to me because it is something I have never really thought about before. The thought of there being another version of me that wasn't quite me is completely crazy to me. And the fact that this other me -- the one that advertisers see -- could be more predominant than how I see me just doesn't sit right with me. Luckily, I didn't have to look too far for my answer. I realized that while the me I think I am may not necessarily be the most accurate depiction of me, it is far closer than the one that advertisers have of me. I am much more than a walking wallet that is willing to spend its money on anything and everything it sees. I have already determined that most advertisements have little to no effect on me anyways. The common advertising techniques just don't work on me. I don't buy that many things, so I don't feel that advertisers can really have a more accurate and real idea of who I am than I do. I am certainly more real than my commercialization.

How Does the Media Influence Women and Men?

      In class, we watched a documentary called Miss Representation, which focuses on how women are represented in the media and its effects on them. It says that the media teaches girls and women that the most important thing about them is the way they look. Everything revolves around the way they look. The media sets unrealistic expectations of how they should look by photoshopping and digitally altering pictures of women on magazines and on social media. They do this to promote the idea that women should be tall and skinny to be considered beautiful. This teaches girls that if they do not look this way, they are not beautiful. As a result, they become self-conscious about how they look and become vulnerable to objectification, both from others and themselves. People begin to believe that a woman's sole purpose is to just stand around and look pretty, and this expectation has damaged women's representation in positions of power and in prominence in places like Hollywood or other media outlets. The documentary didn't focus a whole lot on the media's effect on men, but it did touch on it. It said that boys are taught from a very young age to be very masculine and to suppress their emotions. They said that men suppressing their emotions combined with the objectification of women leads to violence against women. Overall, the message of the video was that the media heavily influences the way people see themselves and they way they act, usually for the negative. It is our job to ignore and see past these forced messages and just exist as we want to, without anybody telling us how to do so.

Stealth Marketing

 

           While watching Making Cents Out of Teens: Merchants of Cool, a documentary about the various techniques used by advertisers to sell their products and how this must change over time, I came across the term “stealth marketing.” According to marketing-schools.org stealth marketing is any type of marketing technique in which the advertisers are trying to sell something to consumers without the consumers knowing they are being sold something. A very common example of this would be product placement in a movie or TV show, or placing actors out in cities to talk to normal people about whatever product they are trying to push. The goal of this type of advertisement is to create a buzz around a certain product, so that people will be more receptive to direct advertisement later on. I am interested in the ethicality of stealth marketing. When looking at the definition, I feel very strongly that it is not ethical and I feel like I have been purposefully deceived and taken advantage of. I feel offended that people may have, or at least have tried to appeal to use my subconscious to control me. But when I look at actual examples of this technique, I feel better about it. It seems a bit more obvious than I had originally imagined. Like with product placement, it’s either so subtle that I didn’t recognize it, or so blatantly obvious that I laugh at it. If I ever make a decision based solely on product placement, it will most likely be to not buy a product because it was so annoying. At that point, I’d probably go with the competition just to spite the company. But very rarely do I think it would ever come down to just that. That being said, I would absolutely promote a product in person or on social media for money, but it would probably have to be for a considerable amount of money. It would also depend on the product, how I feel about it, and its reputation. Although almost every product has a price that I would do it for. I think my only condition would be that people know I’m getting paid for it. I’m not too sure why, but the transparency would make me feel much better. I would like to be a non-deceptive as possible. However, I don’t think I would be too hard for people to figure out that I am getting paid for it, just like how it is fairly easy for me to spot this marketing.

For more information of stealth marketing, go to: http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/stealth-marketing.html

Advertising and Coolness

 

          Recently in class, we watched Making Cents Out of Teens: Merchants of Cool, which is a documentary about how advertisers try to keep up with the times and how they market their products. Something that I thought was very interesting about their tactics is that advertisers send people around to find out what is considered “cool.” These people are called cool hunters. They talk to people and look at the trends they see and common threads and interest between them. The cool hunters then report back to the advertisers about what is cool. The advertisers use this information to craft their ads to appeal to young people. Specifically, they are targeting teenagers because they have a lot of excess money to spend. But the most interesting part of this is that the advertisers doing this essentially destroys the coolness of whatever cool thing they put in the ad. This is because when something is brought to the mainstream, everybody tries to do that cool thing. This makes it lose its specialness and its coolness. Then the “cool kids” move on to something else and advertisers have to figure out what that is so they can put it into their ads and ultimately inadvertently destroy them. And it continues on in a cycle forever until the cool kids find something that is completely indigestible by advertisers. This is usually something that is highly vulgar or inappropriate in some other way for the mainstream population. I think that this plays a large role in the rebellious teen stereotype. While this problem may not cause the stereotype, it definitely would exacerbate it. In their effort to find something that is cool, they stray further and further from the media and everything else that is seen as “safe” or “mainstream.” While this stereotype used to be very common and still is to an extent, it is slowly decreasing. Some of this void has been taken up by hipsters, whose whole thing is liking something before it was considered cool. They like smaller, lesser known things, like indie movies or very small bands. This is a more peaceful escape from mainstream media and culture than the rebellious teen movement was. But I find it quite ironic that in their search for cool, advertisers end up destroying cool, or taking the coolness of a thing away. Advertisers are aware that this is happening, but they do not know how to combat it. All they can do for now is keep on looking for and destroying coolness until they can find another way to do things.