What media means to me

Looking back at my childhood many afternoons were spent reading Readers digest with my mother.  It gave an outlook on how others lived their lives outside of Peru,  my native country.  The weekends were reserved for cassette movies, American movies, that we rented from our local movie rental place.  We looked in awe on how different other kids from other places lived their lives and compared it to ours.  My favorite movie was Gold Diggers: The secret of Bear Mountain, I was fascinated and dreamed about going through the same adventure every night.  My thought was if I ever visited the United States I would find the way to climb this mountain.  That was all I truly remember how media played a role in my life during my younger years.  Once I moved to the United States I feel like my life went on media overload.  I was exposed to magazines, commercial, tv shows, movies, etc.  I mean to go to the movie theater back in my country was a once in year experience. 

 As a teenager I was introduced to magazines such as seventeen, Cosmo, etc.  which were filled with tips and tricks.  There would be articles on how to achieve glowing skin and on the top of the page an image of  a group of friends, two girls with blonde hair and blue eyes, another young girl with dark hair and dark eyes which represented a person of African decent, in a bikini with a beautiful beach in the background.  As a young Latina, I felt like I was the least represented, but at the end of the day, I just wanted to achieve that glowing skin as well.  At some point I remember making a scrapbook out of the articles and getting rid of the images.  Now I am a Youtube junkie, I spend hours upon hours going through makeup tutorials.  Unlike magazines I feel like Youtube gives you the chance to be an active participant and really choose what you wanna see.  Most of the Youtube fashion/makeup gurus I follow are Latinas.  I think that the media can have positive and negative consequences.  Women in particular are the target of many propaganda.  I've learned that although the Latino community has been incorporated in the American household there is still this stigma that Latina women are being portrayed as overly sexy, with no career sort of comedic characters for example Sofia Vergara in Modern Family.
     
 I perceive  that much of who I am is and its not measured against media examples.  I am Latina and I do enjoy beauty/health related media but not to the extreme where I see myself wanting to portray an image that is not me.  I think that individualism is a beautiful thing.  Also I am already breaking the stereotypical Latina image of "no career goals" by working on my college degree.  Not only that but choosing a major such as Mathematics.  I think that it is best to look at media with a watchful eye, to extract the things that will benefit us as a person and be aware of the things that are represented wrongly. 

Our common experience is largely affected by mass media.  There has been stories in the news that have gone around the world simply by being shared on Facebook.  Activism has spurred and diffused because a group of people shared their thoughts on a media outlet.  For example the tragic story about Eric Garner, many Hunter students joined in the protest many of whom had never met each other.  Mass media has the power to do so and it can also have the power to destroy.  As recent stories indicate it is easier to bully someone constantly due to mass media. Video games that depict violence and destruction are a form of mass media that have affected negatively like the following story. 
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/violent-video-games-and-mass-violence-a-complex-link/

Mass media is a great part of my life because its inescapable.  We are constantly being bombarded with images and ideas that it is so hard to not psychologically be affected by it.  It is certainly a way capitalism works where the big companies want to sell you something whether its an idea or something tangible like a product.  We are all victims of these constant attacks, it makes us conform to a certain type of living where we have wants rather then needs.