Blog post 7

Do you think people today use the mass media differently compared with how people used media 10 or 20 years ago? Whatever your position is, justify it.

I do believe there is a huge difference in the way we interact with others using media nowadays and the way we did it, just a few years ago. Therefore, to go as far as ten or twenty years is comparing all the different platforms such as; Pinterest, twitter, all powerful “Facebook”, to the beginnings of Facebook and twitter and the baby steps of the internet. In the beginning we used the media for mostly close relationships and close groups but, nowadays we can see that the media is being used for a lot of things, for things that did not crossed our minds. Mass media is now, at this moment being used as advertisement from huge companies and also the small ones, from government associations, from non-profit groups, and even by terrorist groups. The way mass media is being used is changing by the day or maybe faster. I do not think we can change or oppose the flow of it but, we could change its use by participating in the media and being efficient in making it our own, the way we want it to be, to be used the way we want it to be used. If we really care for the media and if we are affected by it then, we should be really careful how we let it lead the way of our social lives.

Miss Representation

"Women grow up with the wrong idea of perfection because perfection is manipulated". This is a real problem in America's society nowadays but it has been happening for a while now, may be longer than we can admit it. Women in our time, as it was presented by this documentary, are facing a serious social problem that affects them in their self esteem. Their own social cognition is being affected by how media is manipulating their expectations. Media is creating a perfect woman that does not exist in reality but little girls attempt to achieve this perfect woman, and when one tries to achieve the unattainable it creates a terrible sense of helplessness. Young women are being pressure to look a certain way, to act a certain way, to say certain words in order to feel accepted by others, by men, and by society. Everyday there are many cases where women break down under all this pressure  and they seemed to be extremely damaged; their self esteem is damaged, their emotions are damaged,  and sometimes their health is. Media is the source of all this mischief harming our teenagers and women, and they blatantly do not care, their only care in this world is to make money. Media will never look into fixing this problems they create as long as is not affected in their pockets.

The only way to change how media is manipulating us is to try and change it ourselves, they are not going to do it for us. We, as a society, have to try and change the way we want media to be. As this "Miss Representation" documentary states, we should change the media ourselves, we should boycott the companies who present a wrong perception of women and we should participate in media at all times.

Psychoanalytic Critisism

Psychoanalytic criticism is not an easy style of criticism. This is a style that merges the Freudian studies of the mind, more specifically the conscious and the unconscious with the media analysis. If I had to explain this style to someone I would recommend to read the ideas of Freud and the psychoanalysis. According to Freud every single action is related to our childhood, and he explains how we do things as adults, based on our childhood experiences. Freud talks about the id, the ego and the superego, which are complicated concepts. This psychoanalytic criticism borrows this concepts to analyze media. With this style we are able to find in media different signs such as aggression and violence as well as sexual behaviors. This style is really interesting because it teaches the viewer to look for very specific aspects that are not exposed in other styles like semiotics and Marxism. Therefore this style attempts to explain things from the perspective of the mind, the unconscious. Thus, with this analysis, we can somehow see the inner thoughts of the author of any given text. For example; the characters created by an author could easily, even though they are most likely made up, be a reflection of his or her childhood memories and experiences. This is because, according to Freud, some of our actions and reactions are unconscious and an author could entirely created a story, a movie, a book, with patterns and fixations from his childhood. The psychoanalytic criticism takes you there, to the deep and the dark places of your mind.

Blog 4 Jose Efrain Vazquez

Blog 4

If I had to explain Marxism to anybody who had no idea what kind of approach it was, I would start by saying that is a style of analysis that digs deep in the social aspects and the manipulation of media. The Marxist style of analysis is a style that dissects any type of media and   finds its relationship with the social classes. This analysis is usually describing how the rich and powerful are successfully manipulating the media in order to control the lower class, and by doing this the rich and powerful keep the ever distance between classes. The understanding of this analysis is not necessarily easy to grasp at plain sight and the marxist approach helps anyone with this with the use of sections or themes. I would also explain to anyone who is not familiar with the Marxist approach that, is not necessary to become a socialist or a communist in order to agree with it. I would argue that this is a very important style, and that it is a necessary style of analysis, not only because it is interesting but also because, helps your mind to ask things you hardly question before. And by questioning the already set rules and ideas we, humans are able to see things that were not obvious before. I would also say that analyzing different text with the Marxist style will create a habit of questioning other things in life, not just media, nonetheless it would be very boring if we say yes to anything without questioning it. 

Vazquez, Jose Efrain_Blog3

Media

During this past few classes I have noticed that, while watching a movie or a show or even sports, my perception to media has changed in the terms analysis and as the lectures go by, the way I watched media has changed, the jargon of semiotics anyway. In this first sentence I make a clear example of this change, “Semiotics”. This word is new to me and not just the word but, the concept of analyzing scientifically. The science of semiotics is a type of analyzing that I have never applied to most media and, I said, “most media” because I love films and I find myself analyzing them all the time, and finding ideas and messages that enticed me or bothered me. I did not know that I had seen culture codes before, or how to call them, I had thought about metaphors but not as deep as now I will be in the near future. I was not aware of how to identify semiotic aspects of texts, not that I am an expert yet, but now I have an idea where to start and which direction to go. Only to set an example of how this class has changed my analysis, I was watching the news and was looking for ways that the channel was using codes, or symbols and now I know how interesting this is going to get when I analyze it with the Marxist point of view. I am now rubbing my hands because, the Marxist way to analyze media is really blunt and straightforward. Marxist looks for aspects like hegemony, Hierarchy so it will be really fun. 

Sherlock, Vazquez J. Efrain

SHERLOCK

The frist episode of Sherlock is intriguing and it keeps the viewer in full attention, one does not want to miss any detail. Sherlock is an amazing and interesting character and this series does a really good job presenting their own version of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as an incredibly intelligent person who gets bored with the everyday events and extremely excited with the idea of solving a crime. Sherlock, the series is interesting itself if you just watch the episode but there is so much to talk about if one attempts to see through the scenes, as reading a book between the lines, there is more the eye can see. Obviously, Sherlock would not be the same without Watson, his soon to be friend and shadow. I see Sherlock and Watson as, “Don Quijote and Sancho”. The big difference will be that Watson is also extremely smart and he is a complement to Sherlock, more than just a companion. Watson, himself goes through a change in the first episode, when after meeting Sherlock and seeing how intelligent Sherlock is, he obtains this confidence he seemed to have after the war and his economic troubles. The viewer could argue this once Watson lets his cane aside and goes around walking and running without it, that to me is a very interesting aspect of the episode. 

Vazquez J. Efrain

This ad was created by a famous fast food restaurant to advertise one of their items on the menu, and even though it is a franchise known as a family friendly restaurant this ad seems a little too sexually suggestive. I am not surprised by a strong sexually suggestive ad, however I was surprised to see it with the logo of the Burger King restaurant. The main concept of the ad is to emulate a woman opening her mouth during oral sex and it clearly takes your mind to visualize this situation. The ad also pretends to state that a long sandwich is what the customer desires with statements as, “Fill your desire for something long”. As I mentioned before, I was not surprised by a strong sexually suggestive ad but I would think this specific one appeared in a magazine directed to the male audience such as Play Boy, Squire, Maxim, etc. I do not remember walking up to a Burger King restaurant and see a poster of this ad on the wall. Also I think that a restaurant that has mainly been known as a family friendly environment should not attempt to have these type of advertisements. This ad seems to be about an item on a menu but is more a sexually suggestive ad, at least to me.