Three Semester Review
I am part of the Media, Self, and Society scholar program at the University of Maryland. Media plays a big role in my everyday life. From when I wake up, to right before I go to sleep, I am consuming media. When I wake up, one of the first things I do is go on Snapchat and Instagram. Throughout the day, I find myself checking Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok periodically. Later in the day, I am either on Netflix, YouTube, or some other form of television. And, right before bed, I get back on Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok. Media consumes my life. It is everywhere. However, my time in this scholar’s program over the past three semesters has changed my perspective on how I utilize these platforms. I have found ways to not let it control me and to be smarter about what I consume and what I choose to believe/take in.
One example of how I have put these new skills to use is through critically analyzing a piece of media about how gender stereotypes were broken in the original animated version of the movie Mulan. In this assignment, I broke down different parts of the movie and discussed how the it broke many stereotypes normally seen in the film industry. For example, Mulan was one of the first “princesses” to be seen as a strong, “warrior” type instead of the “damsel in distress.” She was the hero, she saved the man, she saved the country. Normally, it would be shown as the man doing all the saving. Also, the movie’s main focus was not on a romance. While there still was one towards the end, it was more of a side act. I would say that my Media scholars experience did prepare me to engage in this critical analysis of Mulan. Throughout these three semesters, I have constantly been asked to analyze different things and how media played a role in them, like when we went to the National Museum of African American History. We went to the museum and were asked to look around and find different ways media played a role in African American history, and after we were asked to write a reflection. This practice of relating things to media and writing those ideas down has helped me get a deeper understanding of how media works, which prepared me for this assignment.
In Media Scholars, we also talked about different kinds of media and how they can harm or help us. One would be social media. Social media can be very harmful, especially for college-aged students like myself. We see all of these models with the “ideal” bodies and the big houses, and the fancy clothes and cars and think, “why can’t I have/look like/be like that. That can be very damaging to our self-esteem and can lead to harmful consequences. In one class, we discussed how it can lead to suicide. When we are on social media too much, we start believing everyone’s lives are as perfect as they are on the screen, and we start getting depressed that we are not like them and we take it to heart. This can build up until you reach your breaking point. However, what many fail to realize is that everything you see on social media is people at their best. They are always going to show themselves at their happy, not saddest. They are going to take pictures in good lighting and show their best features, not their worst. Many people forget that all of these Instagram models and celebrities edit their pictures a lot to make it look like they have a skinnier waist or no pores. In Media scholars, we really dived in to that and talked about how we are only seeing the best of someone’s life, not all of the hard times, and that we are all only human, which can really help you have a better understanding of society.
However, social media is not all bad. It can really help you communicate and stay in touch with people you won’t see or haven’t seen in a long time. It can help you keep up to date on loved one’s lives, and it can keep you informed of current events. In one class, we talked about where we get our news from and most people said Twitter. Twitter is very up-to-date when it comes to getting news alerts, from things like sports and politics. I know that during the election, many of my peers got a lot of their updates from twitter on what each candidate was proposing and how the race was going. However, we also learned that there can be a lot of fake news on their so if you are going to get your news from social media, do it right. We learned how to sift through fake news and look for the best sources to get information from, which really helped us be prepared for life outside the classroom.
To me, being a critical consumer of media means to actually think about what you are taking in and making sure to get several perspectives. Making sure you are looking into both sides of a story and not just looking at media sources you agree with. I have found myself doing this more since this class started. For example, I normally watch NBC news when my parents have it on and recently, I have also been watching some clips from FOX News, just to see what people who have opposite views to mine are consuming. By doing this, even though I didn’t agree with the points being made on that channel, I became better informed and got a better understanding of why some people think differently than I do. Once in a while, I get caught being a passive consumer, like when celebrity gossip comes up, a lot of times I go, “omg really,” without giving it much thought. That being said, since learning in class not to believe everything that gets written, I find myself stopping and thinking, “well is this the whole truth or is this being spun?” For these reasons, this class has helped me transition from more of a passive consumer to a critical one.
While I wouldn’t say that this scholar’s class has brought me into contact with people or concepts that challenge my beliefs and opinions, it has helped me be better prepared for when I do. I have learned to get both sides of a story and to get all the facts before I form an opinion on something. I have learned that many times, people will consume fake news as real and that could be a source. I have also learned that you can disagree with someone and still be respectful when responding with your opinions.
My learning was greatly improved by being able to interact with other scholars in and out of class. By living on the same floor as much of my Media scholars program, it helped me make connections and friendships with them and that really helped my learning experience. It can be hard to make friends when you transition to college and going to class with people you see every day can improve the learning environment inside and outside of class. For example, my next-door neighbors, who are also in the Media scholars program, ended up being in many of my other classes too. We ended up studying and helping each other in our different classes. It also helped that we became friends because it helped me feel more comfortable in the large scholars class.
In scholars, we also got the opportunity to have active contributions. For example, we did community service and went on many different field trips. I would not say I made much of a contribution on which field trips were offered and what activities we got to do on them, however, in second semester, we did get to choose from a list of pre-determined field trips that we could go on before COVID-19 hit. I think that a way to make it easier for students to contribute is, at the beginning of each semester, to ask students if they would like to come up with field trip ideas and the activities to go along with them. That way, students feel they have more of a say in what we do, while still letting instructors make sure it relates to the content of the course.
In conclusion, my Media scholars experience has shaped my life in unexpected ways. Before this class, I never thought about the media I consumed and was at risk of being mis-informed. Because of this class, I am more of a critical consumer and have gained useful knowledge that I can apply to many future classes and life in general. In my next two years of schooling, I will take these lessons into things like finding trustworthy sources to cite from and better analyzing media I come in contact with, and, while the profession I want to go into does not deal directly with media, this class will help me sift out the truth in all the media I consume in the years to come.