Personal Media Reflection 
Assignment Overview
In crafting your response, please make sure to incorporate as many course concepts as possible, when appropriate. Demonstrate that you understand some of the theories and content of the course thus far. Since this is a longer essay, make sure to write this paper using the Writing Process of drafting and utilizing the Writing Center for feedback on your drafts. 
Self-Assessment: Personal Media Reflection 
For this assignment, you will reflect upon your personal media use. When formulating your essay, questions to consider are:
How much time do you spend in a day, or a week, immersed in popular culture such as sports, news, music, movies, television, etc.?
Which elements of popular culture do you engage with the most? Who/what company owns the companies that produce and distribute the pop culture that you enjoy the most? What else does this company own? What do the corporate CEOs or corporate executives of this company look like (gender, race, age, etc.)?
What websites/channels/sources do you use to get your news? Where on this chart (Links to an external site.) does your media consumption fall? Then, look up what company owns the sources that you use and see what else they own.
How does the slant (or lack of) of the media sites and companies that you use reflect your values? Your American values? 
Think of a political or social issue that is important to you. Then read/watch how your issue is being presented from three different sources (one from the extreme left, one from the extreme right, and one from a neutral source) from the above media chart. Note the differences in language and rhetoric that each site uses, note if there is a slant and HOW that slant is being conveyed, and note if you feel as if the whole story is being accurately conveyed and which site does the best job in providing accuracy. You can check the accuracy of these sites from this list of Fact Checking siteLinks to an external site..

Once you have analyzed the media portrayal of this issue, consider WHY the issue is being presented by this particular media group. Who owns each site or media conglomerate that you checked? Why would they present the information in the manner that they do? 
For example, let’s pretend I want to look at how Critical Race Theory is being presented by the media. I go to FOX and examine the language that they use in describing and shaping CRT to their viewers. Then I go to the Huffington Post to see how they do the same. Next, I go to a more neutral place such as the AP or NPR to see how they communicate issues about CRT. After reading a few articles and examining the language used and coverage of the issue, I will then go to fact checking sites to understand what is CRT (simply the idea that 100s of years of racism in the United States has affected civil institutions such as justice, housing, and banking in an unequal way). I then research each media site/company to find out what the motivations for presenting CRT accurately or inaccurately are. I am looking at the HOW and WHY. 
Before composing this essay, make sure to do a little research with a simple Google search to investigate the sources of your media use or pop culture intake. For example, if you are obsessed with Kendrick Lamar, then look into which corporations distribute his music, who his sponsors are, etc. Then look into what else those corporations own. Then, investigate who are in charge of those corporations, the CEOS and executives, and what they look like.  Then, connect what you found or what you discovered about your own personal media use with the course content.