If I am correct, being media literate means being able to look past the initial intrigue of advertising and various media entertainment and see the messages behind it. It means analyzing the hidden implications and not being subconsciously manipulated by the stimulating propaganda. And if I’m not correct, you can disregard this entire blog.
Im not going to lie, I am extremely illiterate. (And by illiterate, I mean media illiterate. Not being able to read while attending college would be extremely ludicrous- and I don’t mean the rapper.) I learned my first swear word from the movie “Blast from the Past” and got a time-out ten minutes later, after calling my dog a piece of ****. At my first school dance, I burned up the dance floor with moves that belonged in the background of a 50-cent video, because MTV taught me it was cool. At a high school party I had a cigarette, because they never showed anyone dying from it in commercials. As an illiterate individual, I get so wooed by fantasy-like commercials, that I forget to decipher what is true and what is a lie. Every single advertisement has a specific demographic to persuade with insistent propaganda. At a young age we are bombarded with slogans and promises forced on us by various companies. It is up to the audience to decipher whether or not to see the underlying issue and ask questions like “who is this message intended for?” and “why is this message being sent out?” If the question is am I media literate, then I would have to say no I am not, because of the society in which I was raised. As technology media evolves, media literacy dies.

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