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This picture quantifies a young Elena, looking for the good that those around her look past.

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Elena, a young teenage girl, experiences feelings of insecurity for most of her adolescence. However, when she steps into the world of media her world changes in ways she previously could only dream of. She begins to gain validation from those online who see her in ways that people in real life don't. In addition to the gained validation, she also achieves representation that doesn't exist in her real world. There are other people like her using the platform, hoping for the same outcome. Elena has difficulty understanding her identity, who will accept her, who will represent her, and will she even accept herself? She grows up in a city of people who actively make her feel like the “elephant in the room”. Furthering her self pursued questions of will people address her. Will people always blindly accept her existence, but not enjoy it? These questions circulated her mind often as not even she could answer her own questions. Knowing that she is perceived in this way, she begins to see the world and herself differently. She tries to seek validation in other social areas like media to fill the validation and admiration she is so desperately seeking. She realizes the media can only validate parts of her, and the rest is up to her. She struggles to carry her online persona into her real life until she realizes it isn’t as transferable as she thought. Her media began to flip on her, and the audience that once adored her began to receive her and her posts dismissively, losing the validation she clung to. The lessons she learns from an unforgiving world change the forgiveness she offers herself.

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This image shows the youth of our children who are being turned into pawns, rather than uplifted in their own individual right. 

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Whether we like it or not, the media holds a great amount of power within several different confines of our society. Either consciously or unconsciously we grant power and idolization to the media to provide us with support and information on political, economic, and social group positions and actions. Much of our world is consumed and reliant on media, treating it with overall legitimacy. In data collected by the Pew Research Center, in 2024 it was found that 54% of Americans receive their news from social media- this is a statistic that has continued to rise over the years. Apart from that 54% are people like Elena who feed into the consumerism of the media, allowing it to dictate or influence the choices within their lives. The products of social media affected the way that Elena viewed herself and treated herself. This is the story of so many other girls who are underrepresented. When they don't see themselves, they assimilate into the things that they are seeing. The media does this to cause a divide within particular demographics within the audience. As we learn the power of the media, we must be simultaneously activating solutions within our community. If we don't, we fall vulnerable to the possibility of being mouth-fed experiences, opinions, and thoughts that are not even ours.

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This image shows social efforts done by the community for the community. Take notice to the faces of the crowd. 

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All she wanted was for her and people like her to be seen as the same caliber as everyone else, but she felt that could only exist on the stipulation for someone like her. When there is a wealth of information, there is a death in whatever that information consumes, hence why a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. (Simon, 1971). Reception within the media is so important, regardless of the way it's received. If it's given attention, notice, or interest, it has done its job and it has done it well. What the audience consumes or is receptive to will continue to empower the media to work in this way over and over again. Elena learns the difficult lesson of attention hitting a wall and being unfulfilling to the person seeking it. In doing so her reception of the glamorized perception of the media led her to learn the most un-glamorizing parts about it. The wealth of attention led to the death of internal validation. She assimilated into the cycle of people who are lost and willing to cling to anything that sparkles, even if it will rust.

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This picture signifies how broken those behind the Tv are. A reminder that things that we may put value in can be faulty. 

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The audience of the media is so important because it voices how all populations are receiving the message or claims being made. The audience is a widespread of people from different populations which is what makes the reception so difficult. It's typical for both the media and the audience to lose control of the perspective or narrative that they initially put out due to the range of people who receive their news. As a result of this trope, the news stories of influencers achieving great wealth were the glamorous parts of the job that enticed Elena. However, when she embedded herself within the situation, she realized there were more factors in it than she realized. Much like in Elena's life, the lack of attention and awareness of her issues changed on her social platforms within a matter of minutes. Everything she was feeling and experiencing in silence began to be acknowledged publicly. She saw other members of social platforms being elevated and idolized by strangers all across the world and began to think that she could surely she could achieve the same prestige. Once she began experiencing the glamorized experience she had in the media, it slowly twisted back into the negative reality that she once existed in. Understanding attention as a resource makes the effect of its scarcity more apparent. (Tufekei, 2013). Elena realizes that the value that she was placing in the attention of the media has reached its limit in her life, just as Tufekei warns. The media can only offer the audience so much before it begins to take away.

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This image represents the youth who aren't protected by the lashings of the media. Isolation at a young age. 

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Media plays a significant role in the perception the world holds over particular people within society. The technological effect that media has rendered has forever changed the way we as a society receive, review, and respond to things. You can turn on the news to find out that there was a plane crash and within the next following minutes, you will receive updates on the condition of the victims and their loved ones. There's significant time wasted in typing up and manufacturing a print, as opposed to all of this information being delivered live in real-time. By making claims like this, the media connects to a wide range of people, especially through tragic matters such as a plane crash. It's important to note that the legitimacy or validity of a claim does not have to be high for it to be made, the response of the public to the claims is what gives it value and meaning. (Best, 2024) This is exactly how the media gauges the attention of all people, despite the effect of their lies. When the public responds to the claims as truth, it infiltrates the experience and narrative of those who subscribe to that version of it, this was Best Urges.

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This image is from a Black Power-inspired shoot I participated in on campus. This image represents everything this midterm project means to me and stands for. 

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Elena represents someone like me who grew up as the only Afro-Latina in her community. Ever since I was a little girl I found myself controlled by the institutionalized expectations of society. This caused an internal battle against the color of my skin, the texture of my hair, the plumpness of my lips, the octave behind my voice, rally all things that encompass the stigmas of my culture. Someone who faced the limitless opinions of society on a day-to-day basis, all the while, trying to experience her truth and life outside of an enforced lens. All of these insecurities were curated by the hands of the media. The power that the media holds is reinforced by its audience. So why don't we lessen its power? Why don't we challenge the fallacies of the media on platforms and other social circles? What would happen if we turned performative activism into true activism that upheld greater standards over people, platforms, and society? A world like that would make people like Elena fit. The puzzle piece that the world has rejected will be redirected to the place it is meant for.

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This image shows that all activism has to be held under a lens to garner support. Without the acknowdlgement of a camera, does it really count?

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As we have learned, social media is a powerful source for gaining information and spreading it. We can quickly be compelled by a story we see on TV, earning change within ourselves and those around us. Or, it could have the opposite effect and create a frenzy of hate and maliciousness towards a group. This is consistent in our current day in age where victims can easily be turned into the perpetrator and the perpetrator becomes the victim. Social movements are created through the narrative of information that the media makes public. During the black lives matter movement there were thousands of news stories circulating about injustices done in the black community. In response, several thousand videos, comments, and shares were made in support of the movement. It became a trend to post a black square on your Instagram feed captioning it ''#blacouttuesday". However when the movement began to gain less traction, celebrities and micro-celebrities stopped making their posts, and stopped advocating when the trend became mundane. This was done in an attempt to gain new followers, and show that they “supported” the Black Lives Matter movement. (Possami, 2023). Despite the black community still facing injustices daily, they only advocated when it was of advantage to them. Tose who participated in support of the movement were also the same people who were a detriment to the movement.

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Tufeki, Zeynep. “‘Not This One’- Social Movements, the Attention Economy, and Microcelbrity Networked Activism.” Canvas , Dr. Clark, Davis, California , 2025, pp. 849–869, Accessed 2025.

Best, Joel. “Claims.” Social Problems , Dr. Clark, Davis, California , 2024 pp. 29–65, Accessed 2025.

“Social Media and News Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 17 Sept. 2024,

Hajagos, Katrina. “How Is Performative Activism Perpetuated in Social Media?” Power in Place, Power in Place, 9 Aug. 2023,