Though media coverage of Hurricane Katrina focused on the damage and plight of the residents of New Orleans before and during the event, post-disaster coverage focused on the efforts of those outside the city helping rebuild. As a student at the time, my school collected money and cans to donate to the relief effort. This donation, though honorable, positioned the predominately white, middle-class families of my community as saviors to those in the south. I can clearly remember the images of black, low-income families wading through water and trash as white men came to save them. The media was clear to discuss all the warnings that the people had to leave the city before the storm struck. In no way was our effort to assist the people of New Orleans indecent, but the media positioning of the acts "benefited" the ego and image of the white, wealthy northerners (Parmar and Krnisky 2013, p.33). The "disenfranchised" population of New Orleans was represented to me as "other" as I sat at home watching the news and donating my pocket change to help out.

Living hundreds of miles from Colorado as an elementary school student, the Columbine shooting had little impact on my life until I was much older. As a child, I was relatively sheltered form the media. Not knowing the specifics of the incident, or having any news literacy, I did not view the event as pertinent to my life. Media representation gave me the impression that I should feel incredibly sad for these people, but that it wasn't a very real possibility for my life. Watching the media events surrounding school shootings draws pity from the audience. But often, the events are so far away that media representation distances the horror and reduces empathy. I knew that I should be glad it wasn't my school but the fear of such an event happening to me never became part of my "identity" shaped by the media (Parmar and Krnisky 2013, p.33).

Watching the media and engaging in popular culture taught me that I needed a cell phone from a young age. "If easily influenced or impressionable young people are inundated with media images of expensive materialistic items...the desire to own these products grows stronger and stronger to the point that young people are encouraged to believe they should own them" (Parmar and Krinsky 2013, p. 33), because of this power that the media had over my desires, I spent years of my life waiting to own the things I thought I deserved. As the intended audience of this sort of media representation, I felt privileged to and owed the identity I saw in the media.

Every month I waited for my delivery of of Seventeen Magazine. Besides mediating my understanding of the news and the events of the world, Seventeen also mediated my understanding of my own identity. As the editors of the magazine held the power to decide what was represented in the pages, they also held the power to shape my understanding of "what is considered beautiful, prescribed gender roles, and materialism as as a sense of worth and importance" (Parmar and Krinsky 2013, p. 33). The information presented to me in the magazine had some control over what I saw as valuable in American culture and in my life.

With the advent of social media, there became an intense, driving motivation to only present your best self to the world. As its own form of media, sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter only encourage the things that will be validated by others. Rather than making connections and friendships in real life, friendship is created online where only the "important information" is presented and "[meaning] is made for us" (Parmar and Krinsky 2013, p. 33). The limited, controlled information that is presented about the news, life events and a person's identity are constantly shaping perceptions on social media. Each event and identity is carefully constructed to only present that which will receive the most likes, the most pity or the most praise.

In The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Pablo Freire points out that in order for there to be a group of people "disenfranchised or at-risk" there must be someone oppressing them (Parmar and Krinsky 2013, p. 32). Even with this knowledge, my understanding of gay-rights issues are limited to what I see the government enacting. My local news does not value gay-rights rallies or events and only covers what the predominately "upper-middle class, white, heterosexual" people are doing on a government level to change laws (2013, p. 32). As a heterosexual female who is not involved in the government, I often feel that these issues, though important, are removed from my life. That the value they hold is with the government and not the identities of the people whose lives are affected. My understanding of those who fight for gay rights is completely founded in legal issues because of media representation.

Though I was only eight when 9/11 occurred, my understanding of other cultures and my own identity as an American was shaped through media representation. At first, especially with hour-by-hour coverage, I struggled only to grasp what had happened. But after a few days, I began to question why--and that was answered through the media outlets I saw in day-to-day life. As an American, I felt that I had been attacked in some way. But those with "cultural capital" began to try to place blame on certain cultures and identities and that changed my perception of the events (Parmar and Krinsky 2013, p. 33). Though the fear and pity I had as a child never went away, it was often obscured by anger and a desire for retaliation as represented by the government through the media. The "dominant cultural group" used the media to influence what even an elementary school girl felt owed by the situation (2013, p. 33).

Besides issues of feminism and abuse that are ignored in the Twilight series, the popularity of the books in the media gave me the impression that I was owed the same love that was reprinted in the story. Much like Parmar and Krinsky's assertion that the value media places on material objects affects our desire, so too can it affect what we feel owed by the world. After reading the books that were so popular, I felt like my reality must include the same kind of teenage love to be valuable. The value that media had place on these books shaped my understanding of what was "reality" and what was "important" (2013, p. 33). In a culture inundated with stories of teenage love, I felt like that had to be part of my identity in order to have the same kind of value that the media gave to the series. Though there may always be value in reading of any type, teachers need to be critical of what is valued and validated in the texts that are presented in the classroom. I only began to read the series as a result of a junior high teacher; that recommendation shaped my understanding of a valued identity until I was much older.

Watching the film "Super Size Me" in health class in the seventh grade instilled a fear of unhealthy food in me. From the mock-umentary, I developed a stigma against McDonald's and other fast-food restraints. Though there is nothing wrong with encouraging society to eat healthily, the film created a sense of guilt within me about the food that I chose to eat. When I chose to eat fast food around the time of the media attention surrounding the film, I felt like my identity had somehow been slighted by the stigma created in the media.

With Obama's campaign and his subsequent election, there was a serious disruption of what kinds of culture and race was valued in American society. Taking a government class and US history class while the election was going on really opened my eyes to the kinds of identity valued in America. Much of the media was dedicated to painting him as the typical American, perhaps despite his racial background. My understanding of the important aspects of the election were completely mediated by what the news outlets I watched. According to Parmar and Krinsky, our knowledge is limited by the sources we listen to; "We could miss out on other kinds of knowledge if we allow a few sources to construct our reality" (2013, p. 33). In light of this, I have realized that my understanding of the events leading up to the first election of a black President were mediated by the news outlets that I listened to, and therefore not the complete story.