The media diary

Keeping a media diary not only allows me think out of the box, it also makes me understand the media more critically and makes me realize the role that media plays in our daily lives as well. The main objective of this project is to establish the range of mass communication students’ interaction with the media. However, I feel that this is a challenging project because I have to be very aware and have to actually pay full attention to the media messages around me whenever and wherever I go.

After I get to do the media diary, I realized that advertising does impact the society. Everywhere we go, we are sure to see advertisements that mostly attempt to promote their products. Advertisements are vital for every company to promote their products. Sometimes advertisements cause people to become materialistic and they buy things that they don’t really need. Advertisements are created in a way that it catches consumers’ attention and makes them make purchases. It has an impact on the choices we make. Sometimes, advertisements are scams as they want to earn consumers’ trust. Advertising actually influences the consumers by creating good impressions of the products in order to persuade them to purchase, however those advertisements may contain false statements without the consumers actually realizing it. Companies usually find out what consumers look for before wasting money on useless advertisements.

Other than that, advertising shows consumers the latest trends and fashions, which may cause stereotypes. It often displays pictures of perfect, slim, charming looking models wearing a certain product and looking good in them. Consumers tend to observe and notice how perfectly the products match the models and therefore they purchase those products, in hope of achieving the styles and reaching perfection as well. Besides that, most individuals pay close attention to advertisements to keep up with the trend and stay updated for the fear that they will not fit in the society and feel left out. Advertisers therefore take this advantage by promoting their products. For example, advertisers know that body odor makes individuals feel embarrass and unconfident, so advertisers take the advantage to create advertisements which show models using deodorant of a particular brand and after using the deodorant they are being recognized as popular and attractive enough to stand out in a crowd. As a result, consumers will then get influenced by the advertisements and therefore make purchases. It is proven that advertisements are important and influential as they portray the ideal style and looks.

Advertisements also convince people that spending hard-earned money on items as a reward for themselves is an accepted behavior in today’s society and at the same time it enhances their lives. For instance, Nike advertisements imply that their shoes will upgrade and enhance consumers’ athletic abilities. They will show famous athletes such as Michael Jordan or Nicol David playing sports, looking cool while wearing their new Nike products. Consumers, especially teenagers, usually tend to get influenced by these advertisements. In today’s society, teenagers are known to have become the top consumers. That is why advertisers often set audience fragmentation on teenagers. This might be due to the rate of teenagers’ interaction with the media is more if they were to compare with people of other ages, therefore they tend to receive media messages more which is especially advertisements.

Along with that, teenagers are consumers in the stage where they are forming their own perceptions towards things. They like to feel great and proud about themselves, and they often produce that feeling by buying branded products advertised by the media. Teenagers are continuously purchasing new, often branded items to keep up with the trends and in the same time to avoid feeling left out. Advertisers take the advantage to create advertisements using teenagers’ point of view. They create advertisements which are flashy, colorful and funny to catch teenagers’ attention, for example they create posters or television advertisements using college age students as their model to create a cheerful and catchy image. Music is usually inserted into television advertisements too to make the advertisements more interesting and lively. Advertisers also often use celebrities as their products’ ambassadors in order to promote their new products because consumers admire and look up to the celebrities as their role models.

In conclusion, advertising is very important for both sellers and consumers. Even the government needs advertising too, especially when it comes to the time for election, they hang up posters and put up advertisements in the newspapers. However, advertising can also be harmful at times if it is being misused. When advertisements misstate qualities of their products, they misguide the public people, especially for advertisements which are not true, such as advertisements for slimming centers, slimming products and so on. Other than that, when unhealthy and harmful products like cigarettes are advertised, it will more or less affect people in the society. That is why advertisements are important and influential media messages which play a big role in forming the society.

Han En.