Blog Post #7 Question 3

This is for question number 3 - "Do you think people today use the mass media differently compared with how people used media 10 or 20 years ago? Whatever your position, justify it."  

Yes I do believe people today use the mass media differently compared to how it was used 10 or even 20 years ago.  Ten years ago in 2005 YouTube had just been created which launched careers for many young inspiring celebrities today such as Justin Bieber. It is also a site where people can post videos of whatever they like, music, television, and even movies, which allowed many people to start viewing from the comfort of their homes. The social media known as myspace was created in 2003 which allowed people to post photos of whatever they liked for their friends to see, and later Facebook was created which is now the largest social media site in the world.  In 1995 media was used to get information, scheduling, advertising, and educational purposes. In the past ten to twenty years it has gradually changed to an invasion of privacy.  You can not do anything without it being posted online, discussed on the internet, or tweeted about.  For example in the past few years many videos have surfaced of police officers breaking up riots or acting out of character creating controversy between race and the law.  This is especially significant in the younger generation because they have grown up with this type of mass media where they think of it as the norm.  News stations now have to compete with media sites such as twitter and Facebook because the news gets out much faster and conveniently than waiting for the six o’clock news. Misrepresentation of how women and men are shown through the mass media creating stereotypes of each group of people has a negative impact on the next generation of children.  

Blog post 6

The documentary shown in class “Miss Representation” depicts multiple examples of how women are portrayed in modern media such as pop culture, politics, and even television shows.  The documentary explained how many young adults learn so much from the media and what they see. Our society today uses multiple formats of media including television, Facebook, video games.  Most images of women in media are showing them as sex appeal, not being smart enough, or if smart not sexy and thats bad to be.  The documentary discussed how media in the United States is mainly shown from a male perspective.  Making an ideal image of what the perfect woman should be, and in doing that creating many psychological problems for young adult woman throughout the country.  Sixty-five percent of women and girls have an eating disorder.  It also explained how woman are seen in status of power, such as politics.  The average stereotype of a person in the government is male, married, has a college degree, ect.  so woman right from the beginning have a disadvantage. Another thing I found interesting was the difference between female actors and male actors.  In many movie roles woman typically get a main role in a film featuring a drama or the sort to speak “chick flick”.  Where as men get a role thats usually action packed, with fighting, and death, and saving the helpless woman character.  And films that feature a female lead in an action film usually still have the stereotypes of helplessness.  The media wants us to believe what they show on tv, the internet or any other format to be true.  When the reality is everyone is different in their own unique way, traits that would be seen in a woman may be seen in a man and vice versa.  The blend of gender roles have been intertwined for many years now and it will only continue to become more equal.  

Psychoanalytical Theory Blog Post #5

Psychoanalytical theory is a form of applied psychoanalysis using the interaction between conscious and unconscious to identify a subject or media.  Personality traits and behaviors are analyzed in a particular person or media to understand the meaning behind actions or thought processes. Sigmund Frued developed the concept most thoroughly. One keystone in psychoanalytic theory is the concept of the unconscious, the part of our minds we are not in control of and for the most part unaware of.  This means we are not in complete control of ourselves all the time.  People are affected by events and circumstances in ways they cannot fathom.  They make decisions based on logic and intelligence but also are vulnerable to emotions and other non-rational or irrational appeals. There is an endless conflict going on in our minds. Frued explains three entities; the ID, Ego, and Superego as being extremely complicated.  The ID is the part that has sexual desires, passion, lust, and impulses. The Superego corresponds to the ID by wanting to conform to societies normal behaviors, rules, and principles.  In between these two is the Ego trying to mediate, operating always with the aim of self-preservation.  The ego stores up experience in its memory avoiding strong stimuli and brining about changes through activity.  

A television show that can be analyzed using the psychoanalytical theory is Star Trek.  Spoc is seen as the ego figure, Captain Kirk is the superego, and McCoy is an id figure.  Because Spoc is emotionless he represents pure rationality, aka the ego.  Kirk is the captain commander of the spaceship and determines what is to be done, so he represents the superego.  McCoy being very emotional operates on his feelings, representing the id. 

Blog Post #4

Marxism is described as exposing how popular culture texts reinforce status quo and other power structures as normal and common sense.  Marxism has many different aspects including materialism, false consciousness, ideology, class conflict, alienation, and the consumer society.  In media Marxism focuses on the social structures, popular beliefs, and how people become sectioned into groups based on their beliefs and actions. The ruling class uses popular culture and mass media to force its ideologies onto the viewers.  To critique media through a marxist lens one must be aware of these factors.  An example comes from the hit television show Modern Family, where a family is followed through its good and bad times.  The family consists of multiple stereotypes and pushes the boundaries of what is normal to society.  The gay couple Mitchell and Cam depict two people in love and married trying to start a family.  The traditional husband and wife Claire and Phil have three children and deal with daily chaos as they try to keep their family in check.  And the father Jay who is an older man and his wife Gloria who is a younger woman.  All of these types of families display how the ideology of modern society has changed over time and come to accept them as the new "normal".  As opposed to shows from the 70's or 80's such as the television show All in the Family where the father is seen as racist and has very old traditional values. We use marxism to analyze media and popular culture to identify what the common norm is in society.  

Blog post # 3

Since the start of this semester and class I have noticed myself being more perceptive of what I watch and how I watch it.  I have always been one to notice certain things in media such as movies or television shows.  After the first month of taking this course I now relate parts of movies or tv shows together.  I have also found myself watching the news lately and noticing the extreme exagguration they take when giving the news, in order to seem more interesting and gain more viewers.  For example this week I watched part of the political debate and notice many news channels over exaggerating or emphasizing on one specific detail in order to persuade the audiences mind.  I find most of this type of media to be displeasing.  For one they try and tell the viewer what they want them to believe.  It also does no good criticizing or disrespecting other ideas being said.  Other media I have examined this week I saw how editing greatly disoriented reality.  In one show I was watching the previews where shown in a way to make the audience think something bad was going to happen to the character.  But in actuality the two scenes were completely different scenes.  I now know this is to keep the viewer in suspense and watch the episode to find out what actually happens.  It is just another way to gain the audiences attraction.  In a cartoon I also watched I noticed how the developers stilled images to lengthen the time of the episode or dilemma.  In order to keep the story or season going.

Blog Post #2 Sherlock

The first episode of Sherlock was very interesting to me. It brought the elements of the old sherlock Holmes novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle while keeping a modern truth.  The characters introduced where well developed, the scenery of London captured suspense, and the camera angels providing multiple view points.  Going off the chart in the book a few signifiers and signified elements would be the handgun shown in the first sense of Mr. Watson’s night drawer signifying he had experienced with weaponry.  Another would be the music, in sense of suspense or thrill the music tempo would change drastically.  The Syntagmtic analysis of the episode correlated with one another, each scene had some element that brought the show together in the end.  It was an opener episode to introduce characters and relationships, while starting a series of events to be solved.  One synecdoche used in the episode was Watson’s cane, which he used because he had a limp. Although it all in his mind the cane represented the crutch between what Watson was actually craving and the reality of his dull life.  Until he meets Sherlock and discovers that he enjoys the thrill of adventure and mystery, the “war” so to speak.  One metaphor I found interesting was the relationship between sherlock and his room. It was very messy and full of clutter, but it was like organized clutter.  Just like how Sherlocks mind must work, full of thoughts everywhere but someone like him knows how everything works. A few icons listed in the episode was mobile phones and taxis. Also Sherlock uses nicotine patches which refers to smoking and in the books the old Sherlock Holmes smokes out of a pipe.  And the reference of the two pills to that of The Matrix where there was the red pill and the blue pill. 

Blog Post #1 Semiotics

  In this advertisement the product is designed to look appealing to the eye. The Heinz ketchup company has cleverly disguised tomato slices to look like the original ketchup bottle.  Keeping the logo right in the middle of the page while providing clear cut images of fresh sliced tomatoes.  The wording at the bottom tells the consumer Heinz grows their tomatoes like “no one” else, therefore they have the best or most unique ketchup.  The red background is pleasing to the eye making the advertisement look smooth and fresh.  The color is also bold and stands out when flipping through a magazine or on the wall of a building.  And the white text pops out against the darkness of the red.  The tomatoes are in the center of the page making them the vocal point.  This advertisement is most likely communicating to a wide spread of audiences who enjoy the taste of ketchup with certain meals.  From fast food chains to restaurants, to everyday consumers and families.  One symbol the red tomatoes represents is something of organic or freshly made, instead of just a harsh ketchup bottle that may seem dull or manufactured.  With just a few words this advertisement has made its point and done it in a manner that even a small child could understand.  The shape in which the tomatoes are stacked outlines that of a bottle it can be as simple as that.  But they chose to go with the original glass bottle shape instead of the modern plastic ketchup bottles.