New Year, New Media Literate Me!

I know it's been a while since I've posted on my blog (or even social media). With the new year upon us, I wanted to take a moment to wish you a happy and healthy New Year and give you an update on where I've been these past few months!

After some end-of-year reflections, I came to realize that a combination of things have been keeping me away from the blogosphere, including what ~basically~ amounts to an identity crisis. Although this is something I've always struggled with, a significant change in my life has only made it 100x worse.

College. And a new perspective.

Let me explain.

I'm finally back in university finishing my bachelor's degree in Mass Communication and Media Studies. A big component of my studies include the concept and practice of media literacy, which is defined as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication."

Essentially, media literacy empowers people to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators, and active citizens by analyzing mediated messages.

Too cool, right?! 🤓

Inspired by my studies, the past two semesters I did something I've never done before: I began looking critically at messages coming from the online sustainability community through the lens of media literacy.

After dedicating months of my time to this, I realized a lot of information circulating in our community is coming from misguided and misinformed individuals who I believe have good intentions...but bad sources.

I hate to say it, but misinformation, pseudoscience and fear-based marketing runs rampant in the susty community, and it takes a lot of time and energy (of which mine is limited at the moment) to sift through it all to find the facts.

Looking back at some of my previous posts, I can see the ways I was bamboozled into believing outlandish ideas like "natural is better" and "all plastic is evil."

Yeah, I fell for it too 😔

So for now, I'm working on reorganizing my priorities when it comes to content. In the coming year I will continue to focus on eco-mindfulness, ecospirituality and green care; and I'll be even more careful when it comes to sharing information about ways individuals can be more sustainable.

As a media and communications professional, sharing true and accurate information is very important to me. Thus, I'm going to actively start "spilling the tea" on sustainability by sharing what people are getting wrong. Because, Earth Momma, you just can't believe everything you read on the internet!

And you know what? Myth busting is actually a lot of fun 🥰

If you're interested in some of the writing that my critical review of sustainability communications produced, please consider checking out the following blog posts on my website:

• What is the True Meaning of Plastic Free July?
• Is This Greenwashing? Keep America Beautiful "The Crying Indian" Commercial 1971
• The Tea on ByBlocks and Eco Bricks
• Marketing and the Appeal to Nature Fallacy

And if you're coming here from the same online sustainability community as me, please know that this is not an attack on you or your beliefs. These are realizations I came to after being exposed to a new perspective, and I hope you are able to take in this information with an open mind 💚

If you are subscribed to my blog (free or paid), you can leave a comment on any of these blog posts and let me know if you have any questions! Just remember you must be logged in before you are able to do so; and all subscribers have the ability to log in!

Happy media consuming! You'll hear more from me again soon 🤗

♥ Adriana