Media's Influences...

In class, we discussed the media and how it acts as an agent of socialization. The media, which includes TV, radio, and internet is anyway society communicates to the people. When I did the Un-TV experiment, I mainly realized that when we watch TV, we are entranced in the "TV world". This trance we are in makes it easy for the media to influence our thoughts, whether we are conscious of this or not. Before this experiment, I wasn't conscious that the media was influencing me, but now I am. This makes me sociologically mindful of the media's influence on me. This will benefit me because now, I will be able to make my own decisions more. The media has always been in my life, so I never really thought of it as a way of communication or society sending me messages, both blatant and subliminal. The TV sends us blatant messages from commercials that say, "buy this product!". A lot of commercials are now geared toward kids because they will influence their parents to buy things. It also sends subliminal messages from shows like Jersey Shore. They drink and use bad language. By watching this show, they are sending the message that it is okay to do all of that and that it's cool to do it. I think that this can be very dangerous to children. Kids are very easily influenced, and if they see a show like this, they think that's okay to do. This is one of the many ways that the media influences us. Now that I'm aware of this large influence on my life, I will be able to try to live my life more as me and not how the media wants me to live my life.