The feedback received from the initial intervention altered the direction of my research questions. I believe that setting aside time for oneself every day, whether by practising mindfulness, meditation, affirmations or visualisations, in order to disconnect from the external environment, particularly the media environment, and listen to one’s inner voice, would be a vital steering force in today’s digital environment and the space of digital liminality.
In this intervention, I intended to comprehend how respondents establish mental images by obtaining feedback on their senses, emotions, and memories, involving the means by which they create and the essential factors that affect them. As a result, the participants were able to test my hypothesis that the materials of our mental images are influenced by our environment, especially the media, so we should be more proactive in analysing the audio-visual content we watch and are exposed to and be aware of its intent and purpose. It’s about selecting appropriate content to fulfil our purposes and live our own lives without letting random algorithms take up too much of our time and attention.
We had a total of 20 participants, half of them working in the creative industry in South Korea and knowledgeable about the influence of visuals, while the other half comprised a control group. Those who decided to try the now-popular affirmations and visualisation meditation were given questionnaires in advance. The intervention package contained a simple invitation, an instructional sheet of paper, and a sheet of paper for writing down their thoughts. To avoid potential participant bias, the feedback paper was placed in a sealed envelope, and participants were asked to complete it and return it after seven days of practice.
Issues: I reached out to a few participants to find out what had gone wrong and why they hadn’t responded. Valid reasons for not continuing with the intervention were: it’s awkward to think about something with my eyes closed, I tried to concentrate for 5 minutes but got frustrated because I couldn’t do it for more than 1 minute, so I disappointed myself. I didn’t know what I was thinking, and negative thoughts arose, so I didn’t want to do it.
On analysing this, I discovered that not only was my design of intervention imperfect, but I also observed that people’s attention span was declining, and they were becoming disinterested in non-stimulating things due to excessive dopamine activity. Furthermore, I noted that people were feeling uncomfortable from conscious visual blocking because of their habitual visual overexposure.
Given these revelations, a decision was made to refine the intervention design. The intervention was then digitalized, integrating participant feedback. A streamlined video was developed to facilitate visualization, accompanied by auditory questions, enabling immediate written responses.
The problems seemed obvious, but then I realised that this is the current reality we must adjust to for a better future. On the last Dragon’s Den, I suggested that media literacy education starts at an early age. I hold this opinion because I believe it is a preventative measure that can reduce many individual scales of the problems of modern society. Although learning commences at a very basic level – the home – and recognising and correcting behavioural addictions such as digital device addiction can only be effective with family-based interventions, I received feedback from a parenting expert who said that children are influenced by their peers and the culture of “you can do whatever you want” makes it impossible for parents to limit internet use and devices.
There was a feeling of powerlessness because there was little that an individual could do about the situation as a whole in society. Limited research time to collect sufficiently measurable and meaningful data, and criticism of my educational background, led me to broaden my focus to look for meaningful change.
The issue lies not with the technology itself but rather with the multi-level challenges that individuals face, resulting in behavioural addictions, mental health difficulties, depression and physical health issues, and these individual problems are becoming a societal problem. As an advertising producer, I feel that the impact of advertising and the problems with the use of influencers on social media platforms are having a particularly negative impact on young people.
The most apparent issue is distorted body image. This is due to the marketing strategy of easily consumable products such as cosmetics and accessories that target the vulnerability of young people. (Note that this is not a comprehensive analysis of all the data) Young people recognise that individual vendors, commonly known as influencers, promote information through advertising, and the prevalent reaction is that it is entertaining. I think this is because of the absence of content that interests them.
Technology presents an opportunity. Smartphones have replaced the once scarce video equipment, and while the AI image generation tools such as Midjourney and Elevenlabs (Voice Generation) and D-ID (Video Generation) have not passed my personal demonstration to be shown on a big screen, it certainly outperforms the low-quality videos presently being advertised recklessly on YouTube. This technology is likely to be further improved. Even teenagers can create quality content. Through content creation, they will acquire basic skills in media literacy and develop critical thinking and self-expression as creative producers.
I believe that young children possess immense potential for literacy. Being of the MTV generation, we were captivated by the potential of video. However, analysis of the film industry indicates that remakes, adaptations of existing novels, and Marvel movies with extreme visual effects (which are themselves adapted from comic books) are the only popular films being made now instead of creating new stories. I believe that both image and text-literate students will be empowered to take ownership of the world around them.
I hope that the current generation of digital natives will not remain consumers of the cultural market created by previous generations but will become producers of their own culture and enjoy their new environment, which could be the beginning of a new, evolved humanity.
In line with this, the planned intervention – expert discussions on creating audio-visual content that stimulate positive emotions – will be postponed. The next intervention will involve experts and stakeholders(parents and educators) to propose solutions to this research question. How can we improve children’s multimodal literacy skills and empower them to be active creators in today’s media environment?
How can we enhance children’s multimodal literacy and enable them to become proactive creators in the current media landscape?
Salvador Dali by Midjourney