Media Critique

Media Critique

We live in a world saturated by media, and most people spend a large portion of their day staring at a screen, myself included. Although this fact is not necessarily positive or negative, we should be critical of how the media we consume affects us. Thus, consider what you watch, listen to, and read. How does this media affect your view of yourself and others around you?

Guidelines

• Find two different pieces of screen-based media to analyze. For example, you could analyze a social media post from an Instagram influencer, and then analyze a popular show on Netflix. Any media is fair game: social media posts, YouTube videos, streaming shows, print and video advertisements, feature films, documentaries, and/or webpages.

• Write 300-500 words for each piece of media (600-1000 words total) deconstructing and analyzing the images, thoughts, ideas, and lifestyles represented or implied. Relate your discussion back to class concepts of identity, power, and control.
• Upload word file to Canvas with the media pasted in the document, or provide a link to the video/media that you used.

Potential topics to discuss:

• Class
• Gender
• Race/ethnicity
• Sexual orientation
• Age
• Disability
• Any other class topics

Consider the following critical questions:

• How closely does the media represent real lived experience?
• Who is producing the media? What is its goal? Make $$? Change beliefs? Attract followers? Get you to buy a product? Brag? Educate? Convince?
• What are the implicit and explicit messages? How does the media make you feel about yourself and others?
• Why are you seeing this media? Was it recommended to you by someone or something (like a Netflix algorithm)?
• What does the media say about its surrounding culture? Why was it produced when it was? What is its social, economic, and/or political context?
• Media is funny, sad, or scary only because the viewer can identify with the context of the media. For example, a show like The Office is funny to 21st century Americans because they implicitly understand the awkward drudgery of a real-life office environment. So, what do the emotions elicited from the media say about ourselves and our culture?