Mass media is a powerful cultural construct. This is where we get ideas about who we are and should be and we form impressions of people, events, issues, and cultural life.
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Description
Reflective Writing Prompts
Mass media is a powerful cultural construct. This is where we get ideas about who we are and should be and we form impressions of people, events, issues, and cultural life. TV, print and social media transmits images and stories that contribute to a sense of our own cultural identity while at the same time shaping beliefs, values and attitudes of Others. As noted in our Module this week: Culture is learned, shared, dynamic, systemic and symbolic.
DIRECTIONS: For this assignment, you are to act as a cultural anthropologist. To prepare, watch a minimum of 10 commercials on TV. If you do not have cable or a streaming service, use YouTube to view commercials for 10 products you use or scroll through your social media feeds for targeted ads to you. As you watch/scroll, take notes on the "cultural “lessons” you think are being transmitted overtly or covertly. For the commercials lacking a cultural consciousness, what stereotypes and generalizations are you observing about cultural constructs of gender, race, religion, socio-economic status, sexuality/LGBTQIA, disability and the like? What commercials are culturally conscious, rejecting stereotypes and generalizations? What do your findings suggest about specific competencies needed for leaders in cross-cultural settings in order to be cognizant of the power of mass media, their affect in identity formation of one's Self and Others, and the subsequent influence in cross-cultural settings?
Min 2 ref
