Going over chapter four made me realize many things but there were two in particular that really stood out. The first one being just how many niche audiences I am apart of and how I now have a deep interest in discovering more. The second one being that my Instagram definitely knows how to make me spend more money based off the ads it continuously gives me. While I refuse to go on about my sad bank account (but happy closet) for a couple paragraphs, I genuinely enjoyed learning all about the niche audiences I’m in. From being a college student (aka being broke) to an avid online shopper (aka being even more broke), it’s clear that I’m definitely a target to many advertisements. Everyone is apart of different niches which is how people connect. The media allows people to be connected in many ways, which is why media literacy is so important.
Media literacy is what allows people to access, evaluate, and create/manipulate media. It shows the essential skills of self expression and builds an understanding of the media’s role in society. A world with no media literacy is a world where people have no idea how to communicate and create messages in a variety of forms.
The media is an important resource for people to use, but it’s actually often the one using us. It uses the niche audiences we associate ourselves with and then uses those to point us in the direction of places that are profitable to that audience. While sometimes this is helpful, it could also be hurtful to those who are not as media literate. If we increase our media literacy, we increase the control we have over the mass media when it tries to herd us into audiences for their profitable messages.
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