About

Greetings, weary netizens.

I’m Tara: human, visual designer, citizen of the besieged USA, and Digital Media Literacy student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. This blog is part of my coursework, but I hope to use it as a platform for sharing what I learn about how media influences our lives and culture.

As a lifelong overthinker and occasional infodumper, I hope to channel my addiction to knowing all the things into coherent and useful posts about misinformation, digital ethics, and civic engagement.

Being a xennial, I have lived through the evolution of the internet and watched society shift from not trusting anything on the internet to… well… still not trusting most things, while also being too trusting of some things. At the same time, we have become increasingly mistrustful of traditional media. It’s overwhelming being a consumer of media, and I want to help others navigate it more effectively.

Walter Cronkite, legendary broadcast journalist and namesake of my school, was once considered “the most trusted man in America.” When I started this program at ASU, I joked that I wanted to become the most trusted woman in America. That’s probably a little optimistic—but I do hope to become a trusted source of information on how average people can become more discerning and trusting of the media they consume.