Reflection...

In these last couple of months during this grueling semester of media literacy, what have we learned? Well, we know ofcourse what we've always known, which is that media is EVERYWHERE!!! and there is no doubt that it affects many aspects of our lives. But besides the big apparant picture, we have learned a lot. I was particularly fascinated with the way that men and women are portrayed in the media. Though we as a society have come a long way in regards to the approach at equality between men and women, we often times allow the media to leak into our every fiber of thinking and get into the way of that progress. For example, in my psychology class we did an activity where we were given a list of ten personality characteristics and from that we were to accumulate a list of five charachteristics that pertain to men and five that pertain to women. The stereotypically "manly" characterisitcs were picked out by the class, and likewise with the women characteristics. We picked out the same characteristics as picked when this study was done in the 70's. So while there were some disputes about one or two characteristsics, we havent really separated ourselves from those stereotypes that the media contibutes imensly to.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT IN TV SHOWS AND MOVIES...SNEAKY GENIUS? OR JUST PLAIN TEDIOUS?

Hmmm...what's the word on my mind about product placement? Well, I think it's kind of wierd. When you watch a show or movie, unless its one thats mocking certain ads and commercials, its different to see another brand obviously marketing a product to you. For me, when I watch a show or movie I'm focusing on that main product being sold to me and to have another product thrown in there is a little overload..As if commercials inbetween the show, and the advertisements before the opening credits before a movie weren't enough! I think that our generation (about 15-25...27 yr olds) are very much aware that we are being targeted and for the most part a lot of us can recognize a commercial when we see one. So, in my opinion, shoving more advertisement into our faces isn't really going to increase nor ignite a desire to purchase or use a product. It almost makes the ad a little hackneyed and annoying.

ADS!! ADS!! AND MORE ADVERTISEMENTS!! GET YOURS NOW!!!

In the last few weeks our media class has been observing many things in the media, as this is a media literacy class. We have been assessign how we as a society should be a media literate people and learn how to decifer the important things from the fluff. Everyday we see so much advertisement that has leaked into every single aspect of our lives through media.

We see commercials on TV telling us what to wear, what to listen to, what to snack on, and even how certain images can get us to the social class we've always wanted to reach. I personally have observed some commercials, magazine ads, a few billboards and other forms of advertisement. I think that advertisement companies are doing a great job at sucking us into their hype!!! We hear the catchy toons, and the familiar mascots and thats it! WE ARE SUCKED IN!! For example, look at the Axe, Tag, or Old Spice body fragrance commercials. When we see the "dirty boy" getting clean and having sexy women attack him we are classically conditioned to know that its because of that product. Also in these commercials these sexy women are used as a reward for using the product..use the product, get attractive women all over you..it makes sense...and before you know it every male is cementing our halls at school with these lethal fumes! But thats besides the point...
Back to comercials: I also observed ads in magazines that feature propaganda and weasel words such as "new and Improved", and "the best ever", also "Now 25% more for the same price." These words catch our attention and makes us look at that ad, and before you realize it your actually contemplating purchasing or trying a product that you absolutely don't need but because you think its "better, and improved" you want to use it anyway.
Going back to the whole conditioning devices used to "catch us", I have a testimonial.
I went to Subway the other day and went about ordering as usual (the chicken, bacon, ranch) and I was about to pay when I realized that instead of my foot long sandwich beign five dollars it was $6.70..outrageous right?! Well here's where it ties in, the whole way to Subway I was singing the "Five, five dollar, five dollar foot long...Any foot long.. song." I was associating the song with what I expected to get, and thats the art of advertisement, they had me sucked in. well turns out the "Any foot long" part doesnt apply anymore. I know..sad.

How do we see Men and Women in Our Society?

The media definitly affects our views of the people around us. This happens especially in the area of gender. Since we were really little there has always been these subliminal things taught to us that boys and girls are different-biologicaly- yes. But we are also taught that boys and girls do different things and there are certain ways that boys should act and certain ways that girls should act..otherwise your labeled as wierd or unsure of yourslef. As always I must include a personal experience to better reiterate my point.

I was at work just this weekend, and a lady and her child came through my lane and she had the cutest baby. The baby had a beautiful smile and the cutest deepest dimples..Anyway..I wanted to say either "she is so cute," or "he is so cute," but because the baby didnt have any "typically" gender specific colors or type of clothes on, and i didnt want to offend the woman by calling her male child a girl and her female child a boy, I simply said "your baby is so cute." As soon as they left I thought about the experience and even though I wasn't trying to distinguish people by what society has taught us, I did it anyway.

It seems as though we have ascribed certain atriutes to men and women that can never mesh or intertwine. We as a society expect women to be dainty and beautiful and like to share thier feelings--and ofcourse that is a generality of how we think subconciosly...We also as a society look at men as the strong bread winner who doesnt care about feelings and is always brave and never cries. This obviously isnt true because we each have different upbringings which influence how we think and how we live our lives.

In television, we are bombarded with so many ideas and commands as to how we should live our lives, what we should value and basically how we should live our lives. Some of these ideas seem reasonable, and others seem too outrageous to be able to live up to.
There is a show that I watch on the CW called "The Game." It stars Tia Mowry and other well known co-stars. I really enjoy watching the show, but like almost any television programs there is a lot of propoganda in this show. First of all the main character, Melany(Tia Mowry,) is an aspiring doctor, and her boyfriend is an NFL rookie trying to acheive stardom with his skills. All of thier friends are rich and well known. Automatically the show tells you that you should value success and acheivement because without a good job and money you can't get anywhere and wont be happy. Also the fact that you need material things to be happy. Melany's boyfriend Dirwin (the rookie NFL player,) becomes friends with Malik an experienced and more affluent NFL player. He constantly throws in Dirwin's face how Dirwin doesn't have a big house, nice car, and huge flat screen TV. The need for material things to be happy causes Dirwin to be in a situation where he feels that he should conform to what the other football players have and are doing. Youthfulness is another aspect of propoganda that is often seen on television. Almost every character on the show is young and the couple of people that are on the show who are only in their thrity's are given grief about "how old they are." This shows us that being young and preserving that youth and bueaty is really treasured in our society.

Media Saturation...

I watched the video on how children are marketed as consumers from the day they are born, and past the age of becoming consenting adults. Its seems really absurd but it never completely dawned on me how much we really are saturated in the media. From the time that we can recognize certain cartoon characters and thier corresponding gadgets we begin to harrass our parents to purchase them for us and because they essentially want the happiness of their children they give in. And they think'after all it's just one toy.' However, it's not just one toy, it accumulates and then becomes our consuming habit that we try to avert from as adults. They lead to the maxed out credit cards and overdue payments. I can remember when I was younger I saw these commercials on tv about the "techno dog." I thought the techno dog was the coolest thing. I kept hinting to my parents that I wanted the toy so badly. The more I saw the commercial the higher the desire was for the techno dog. The final straw was when my best friend got one and I decided that the "entire world"(one other person in the 4th grade) had one so I definitely had to get one. So ofcourse I got money for my birthday and purchased the dog. My parents and I bought into the propaganda and got sucked into the consumer hype. It's really sad how children at such young ages are targeted so much by the media and yet it doesnt even occur to us. We deem it normal to be part of the mass consuming culture. In the video some of the people interviewed made a comment about how little children are at the stage where "they form their values and adequites." I think it's really hard for a child to not be sucked into the consumer culture when at the age when they develop values and adequites, they are bombarded by media coming at them. On a lighter note with so many horrific things that children are exposed to, it's no wonder that toys companies and other media target children so much, it eases the bad in the world when children are sucked into media... Personally when something bad happens, to take my mind off that bad day, I do want to go shopping, or use the computer, or text, or listen to music, etc. But there is a point where one must draw the line...

Blog#1: Interviews: What is Media?

The interviews we conducted in media lit class had to do with one main topic..the media. I interviewed four people and asked them four different questions. One question, and the most obvious was "what is media?" My interviewee, who was and 11th grader answered that he thought it was things like the radio, tv (shows, reality, and the news,) newspapers, internet, music, friends; basically whatever we get info from whether good/bad, biased or not. Another question was "what media do you think should be banned?". Another interviewee thought it should be the newspaper because it isnt really used by people our age so therefore should be taken out entirely. In a way I do agree that a lot of people my age dont read the newspaper, but at the same time, there are a few teenagers who do and very many adults who do and it's still a way to express freedom of the press so it shouldn't be banned. Likewise this question was asked. "how do the "media" impact your life?" Another interviewee answered that "the media in a way tells us how we should live, who we should know and talk to, and that the media is biased so affects the wasy we think."
All of these interview were interesting, especially hearing the answers from different perspectives.