In chapter two of Convergence Culture, Jenkins talks about how we are being bought into reality tv such as American Idol, and this is pretty true. Most of the people I know not only watch reality tv, but get involved such as sending texts to cast a vote, or watch episodes over and over again and even buy merchandise associated with their preferred reality show. I myself only watched maybe the first two weeks of American Idol and never voted for contestants or anything, but when it comes to America’s Next Top Model, I think I’ve probably seen every episode hundreds of times. Jenkins is right in how reality tv attracts people because of things like talent, or even lack of talent (aka William Hung), humor, audience participation, and blunt critiques. Survivor was also popular because we are attracted to competition and for some reason, watching people suffer, possibly because we are thankful we are not in their position. I thought it was clever of advertisers to come up with ads based on the young male’s attention span, “You have 3 seconds. Interest me” because if you can get a young male to pay attention, then you virtually have everyone’s attention.
Jenkins Ch. 2 April 4, 2008
Obama’s speech March 25, 2008
Recently, Barack Obama gave a speech about political issues and race. This is the kind of media coverage that people need to base their decision on rather than commercials which for instance make an attempt to scare people into voting one way or the other rather than showing the candidates’ opinion and suggestions having to do with political issues. Obama clearly stated what issues this country needs to focus on and how he plans on fixing them, and how it is important to solve smaller problems such as racism and work up to bigger ones like health care; before we start solving any other problems, we really do need to become united and one way to help is solving the problem of racism. When it comes to slavery in the past, he is basically saying not to let a ruined past ruin the present. He brought up how he dealt with terrible comments from his pastor which highlighted his personality and the way he deals with issues, fairly and effectively. I think that his speech was very powerful and genuine, and he made it clear that he was not just trying to get the black vote explaining that everyone needs to play a part in solving the problem of racism that we still see today. It is everyone’s responsibility, no matter what race, to put minute differences aside to become a united country so that we can get past other, bigger problems we are facing. After his speech, I think that Obama is a very powerful public speaker and made it clear that he would actively work to make these changes happen if he were to be President.
Art and Media March 20, 2008
In class we talked about the definition and the role of art in media. It made me realize that art plays a huge part in conveying messages. One piece of art has the ability to send different, even numerous messages to different people, even maybe more powerful or different messages than what the artist intended. For example, in movies, lighting or camera angles, etc can help to make a scene more dramatic and send out a more powerful message rather than simply just monotonously stating the message. Even books have the ability to create a visual in your mind to better understand the moral or message. For example, I know a lot of people who will read a poem and say, well why couldn’t he have just said his message it in simple terms instead of including all this abstraction, but other people are actually touched by them and better understand the message. To me, commercials with more color, more art, are more eye catching, exciting, and more memorable than dull, sluggish commercials making the more artful one more effective. I think that by using art, the media reaches more people than they would if they did not use art. It is human nature to be attracted to “pretty” things, to pay more attention to those things.
3AM ad March 20, 2008
In class, we watched a commercial encouraging people to vote for Hillary Clinton. The point of the commercial was to scare people into voting for her, which I found a little ridiculous. It implied that if citizens did not vote for Hillary, their children would face the consequences. I found it funny how one of the children in the ad is now a high school student actively supporting Obama. People should not base their vote on advertisements such as this because it doesn’t represent the candidate accurately. If Hillary’s phone rings, is she personally going to pick it up? I doubt it. The ad did not base their ad on the leadership qualities or other qualities that make up a good President, and it did not even talk about her standing on political issues, but rather sent out the message, “if you do not vote for Hillary, you are harming your children,” and I do not think that trying to scare people is a very ethical way to get them to vote for her; the credibility of the ad is minimized especially because on top of trying to use fear in order to persuade, one of the children in the actual ad is a strong supporter of Obama presently.
Blogging March 17, 2008
In class we watched a video about blogging and it brought up the question of whether bloggers should be considered journalists. I think that in some ways they are since the whole goal of journalists is to get news across to their audience, and whether a blogger is writing about current events or just their own lives, they are still targeting an audience and trying to get their news known. However, they certainly do not have the same standing as a journalist who thoroughly researches his or her topics and backs up his or her standpoint, whereas I’m just jotting down my opinions for example. They work a lot harder than a simple blogger; they get their work edited, they rewrite, what they write should be considered a lot more credible than a random blogger who may not have a clue to what he or she is writing about. I don’t think bloggers should be required to abide by the same rules as journalists because I see blogging as a way for people to say what they want to say and how they want to say it- the freedom of speech.
New Technology March 13, 2008
In Chapter 6, Berger raises the question of whether or not we should continue to create more advanced technology if we have the ability to do so. I feel like in some ways it would be beneficial to society but destructive in other ways. For example it would be constructive to have advanced technology to cure diseases that, as of now, we are not able to, but as technology advances, machines may end up taking over peoples’ jobs. But even when he asked this question, in my mind, I feel like newer technology is a part of our evolution; if we can create something, we will. Controversial issues of the past are not issues in today’s society, and in fact are commonly accepted. So, although the development of new technology might seem controversial today, in the future it might be common practice to use stem cells, for example. However, newer technology could also make the world a more self sufficient place by increasing productivity in factories, and making things like cell phones and computers cheaper to buy. This could unite social classes because it would make it easier for people with meager wages to obtain things that are out of their reach presently and also allow them to have a better education because computers and lab equipment would be attainable. On the other hand, newer technology could also mean easier means of creating weapons of mass destruction, and in the wrong hands, this could mean the end of society as we know it.
Criticisms of Media February 27, 2008
One of the criticisms Berger talks about in Chapter 5 is how in today’s media, such as reality television, reality is misrepresented. For example, take The Real World. This is not really representative of the actual real world. The program is completely staged; take a bunch of young adults and liquor them up and claim that that’s the “real world?” Also I agree with how violence in the media today effects the consciousness of the audience. Because it is so prevalent, people are becoming more and more desensitized to violence, using it as an answer for problems and having no remorse about it because hey, that’s how everyone solves their problems, it’s shown all over television. Berger also tells how women are degraded through media. This is seen especially through music videos where women are seen as inferior to men, and if you listen to some of the lyrics, they are pretty degrading towards women. Defenders of the media claim that there is no concrete proof for these criticisms, but I believe we have a lot of evidence to back up these criticisms. For example, there have been studies done to show that young children exposed to media containing violence such as video games or action movies grow up using violence as an answer to their problems.
Audiences February 20, 2008
In class we talked about specialized audiences and how it is important in media. What I got out of it was that this concept is very important in marketing products because advertisers need to analyze programs to understand what type of people are more likely to view them in order to target their ads to potential or current users of their product. Using Barbie Doll as an example, advertisers are not going to broadcast their ad on channels like CNN or ESPN. They would advertise it during shows like Lizzie McGuire or during a channel that young girls would be more likely to watch. We talked about how advertisers have a problem advertising their product during commercial since things like TiVo and downloading programs online are becoming increasingly popular. When we were talking about that, it reminded me of the movie, The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. The movie is about a show where the main character, Truman, is unknowingly being taped and broadcasted 24/7 for a TV audience. Because the television show records and broadcasts his life nonstop, with no commercials, it makes money through product placement. In order to market their products, the advertisers would have the characters in the program drinking Folgers coffee for instance and describing the wonders of it through the script. Similarly, in order to solve the TiVo problem, advertisers use product placement as a way of marketing their products.
Orwell Rolls in his Grave…con’t February 11, 2008
After watching the rest of the film, I would first like to say that I find it completely appalling the way the voting incident between Gore and Bush REALLY was. It is ridiculous that one out of eight ballots were voided in the black community and only one out of every two hundred were void in the white community and the way the machines were even set differently. And after the whole incident, nothing was reported through the media, like we were all just supposed to not acknowledge or just forget it even happened. Has the media now just become some sort of brainwashing mechanism in order for the government to gain more power? Since when was it okay that the government and media intertwined? Doesn’t that completely defeat the purpose of a democracy and peoples’ freedom of speech- saying things the way they want them to be said instead of being required to censor the news and manipulate it in a way that appeals to the government?
Orwell rolls in his Grave February 8, 2008
The film we watched in class basically pointed out that now that the media is in the hands of bigger and bigger corporations, the important stories are no longer covered. Comparing Orwell’s 1984 and today’s political power, it’s a little frightening to see a resemblance. It is scary to see how much of the media’s distortions can make over half the population believe something incredibly false…why DID 51% of the nation believe that the one that should be held personally responsible for the attacks on 9/11 was Saddam Hussein? I remember someone in the film saying something along the lines of how this isn’t a democracy anymore but sketches of fascism, and the film makes a shockingly good argument in showing this and brings up interesting but legitimate questions. Why can no one answer the question of why the allegations against Governor Jeb Bush were dropped by CBS after he, himself denied that they were true??? This film kind of makes me think that as the news falls into fewer hands, we are getting more and more detached from reality because of all the media being manipulated and the important stories that are just not even being broad casted. No wonder there is a growing number of unemployed journalists; Now that the government decides what gets broadcasted, what doesn’t get broadcasted, HOW it gets broadcasted, etc, journalists pretty much only have two choices of either pleasing the chamber of commerce through manipulation and censorship or just keeping their mouths shut.
