Hi everyone. My name is Kelli Coughlan and am a junior attending Towson University. I am a Pre-mass communications major, focusing on advertising. I recently joined the AAF, American Advertising Federation and am part of the sorority Alpha Xi Delta. I’m currently taking a Media Criticism course and am using this blog to help me get my thoughts out there. Media Criticism is an important topic but many people over look how important it really is.
Media Criticism is a systematic process used to understand media texts as meaningful socio-cultural symbolic forms and forces. It helps us to critically think about our own media consumption as well as others, how media shapes our world and how it is popular culture. Overall, to understand the importance of media on cultural, social, political, and economic aspects, you must be media literate.
Mass media has tremendous power over all of our everyday lives. Media is used to get news and information, for communicating with others and for entertainment. Take a second to think about all the media you encountered today. Did you watch television or a movie, listen to the radio, walk by print advertisements, see someone wearing a brand logo or read a magazine? If I were to guess, I would assume you came across almost all, if not every one of these Medias.
You may ask, “What is so important about Media Criticism?” Well, the media literally has the power to shape not only our individual lives but our society and culture. Take a second to think about how we constantly try to emulate media; magazines, television shows, movies. We women want to look like those beautiful, skinny women in advertisements and believe this is the ideal women. 
Men want to be as tall and masculine as possible because that it the ideal man. Media has shaped this message to us throughout our lifetime.
The television show, South Park, popped into my mind first when thinking of a television show that does influence our perceptions and shape our values and culture. Though this is an example that may not shape our culture in the best way, not all media texts are negative by any means.
South Park for those of you who are not familiar with one of Comedy Central’s animated sitcom, is a show featuring four younger children, Stan, Kyle, Cartmen and Kenny. Stan is portrayed as a normal average kid. Kyle is Jewish. Cartmen is racist, obese and pretty much as ignorant as someone could be and Kenny is a kid with not very much money and mumbles as he speaks. Qualities about these characters help the comedic act of the sitcom. Though it is a comedy and much of the show is exaggerated to make humor, it reflects on how our culture is formed when analyzing the show.
This show breaks boundaries and brings up any controversial issue you can think of such as gay marriage or racism.
This show also redubs media, also known as reenacting another show or real life event.
South Park however, redubs this media most of the time in the most disturbing, comedic way possible. This causes controversy about the show but after all, it is just entertainment right?I recently watched one of South Park’s episodes called Passion of the Jew. For a quick summary, it is an episode strictly about the movie most of us are farmilar with, Passion of the Christ. Cartmen, the racist, however looks at this movie as an eye opener that all Jewish people are horrible and starts to think like Adolf Hitler. Kyle, the Jewish kid, finally gets convinced to watch this movie and leaves thinking that his people are horrible as well. Kyle was greatly affected and influenced from what Cartmen had told him about the movie. The one movie, Passion of the Christ, affected these kids in such dramatic ways. The funny thing about this episode though is their redubbing of the actual affects of this movie had on our society. Even the fiction characters in media are affected by media in their world.
South Park is only one of billions of example of how media shapes us. Again, I want to reiterate that not all media are bad and some do have good consequences on society. Learning about the decoding of media is a way we can start to look at media as just entertainment. Once we realize how it is automatically influencing us is how we become media literate.
I want to achieve the goal of media literacy by the time this class is over. I want to learn about more strategies used and messages sent through media that I am not yet aware of. Studying this field and learning more on the topic will help me through my future career. Everybody should learn about this field of study because of the major impact it has on our society.
Media Criticism 