The Media - How We Grow Up With IT and What it Does

The era in which we were born and reared by our parents influences us on how we perceive ourselves and how we integrate ourselves in society. The media is part of that development. The mere fact that I am not a North Texan by birth will have a profound influence on how I view immigrant issues since I lived on the border with Mexico all my life. I also attended a private Catholic school - all girls. The Catholic nuns aggressively influenced us to pursue non-traditonal roles in academia and the work force. That was in the 70s. At Loretto Academy in El Paso we were sent out into the world to be critical thinkers at age 17 and 18. We were taught not to automatically reinforce the status quo.

Being a critical thinker and having an analytical mind enables us to scrutinize what we want and what the media feeds us, however, when it comes to consumption we can become suckers by the media's influence. Even if family has a direct influence on how we think about the media , we still face challenges within our external social circles.

Social theorist Georg Simmel analyzed the manner in which consumption may be used to cultivated "sham individuality." He cites fashion as an example. According to Simmel, sophisticated and blase consumption allows the consumer to differentiate him or herself. In my interpretation, advertising and the media contributes to "sham individuality" every time a consumer reinforces his or her beliefs on how a beautiful body is developed, maintained and perceived by race and class in American society. In a recent article by Christine Kearney, "NY fashion runways lack black and Asian Models,", Kearney quotes fashion art director Frank de Jesus that a white girl with blond hair is still the ideal of beauty. If Clairol says blond hair is is an attribute of beauty the consumer buys the dye, changes her or his image and thus fall to the influence of advertising and reinforces the status quo.