Media Blog Reflection

My view on media is pretty different than it was at the beginning of our media unit with a few exceptions. our media unit has made me realize just how much media we are bombarded with every single day. I also now realize how much goes into marketing and what techniques advertisers use to persuade consumers to buy more of their products. I also now realize the amount of deceit and misrepresentation that media includes. Important ideas such as how our society views women are determined by their portrayal throughout media. impressive statistics were shown throughout the media unit that made society's obsession with media very evident. Many statistics were shown that stated how many pieces of media teenagers are exposed to everyday and how much time teenagers spend on media everyday. I learned all about the techniques and methods that marketers use in order to sell to media consumers. I still believe that so many of these methods cannot work for everyone at the same time. I am very vulnerable to the need to nurture in advertisements especially when i am shown a dog or a cat because I love animals. Pretty much all other kinds of techniques are ineffective when trying to sell to me because I never really feel the need to aggress or be unique or affiliate with a certain crowd. I realize that these techniques are usually used to target specific audiences only because any technique wont work with absolutely everyone. I now understand the use of generic words and weasel words in advertisement that make the product sound better than it actually is. I think this unit was very important in order to understand the importance of correct representation in the media as well as becoming more informed about how media works and how to approach it. In this unit we were exposed to the example of women in media and how inaccurately the media portrays them. Women are viewed as objects rather than intelligent potential leaders. My media habits have changed because I can now look at marketing ploys for what they actually are. I am also aware of how much media I consume everyday and I have cut back on some of the social media and useless scrolling I used to do everyday. The amount of media I consume impacts my life because usually I am constantly sucked into the world of media and I waste a lot of time looking through social media and click bait articles and advertisements. I think that society's use and especially teenagers' use of media needs to change rather than believing that we should stop consuming media altogether because some of it is helpful. We need to shift our attention away from our obsession with celebrity lives and appearances, and instead become more informed about world events that really matter. Instead of actually paying attention to the news about Donald Trump, many people simply know about his tweets, which goes back to our obsession with celebrity lives and social media. I know that I like social media like most teenagers, but I am attempting to cut back on social media and become more in touch with political and social issues throughout the world in the news. I also understand that the news uses certain weasel words just like advertisers to make the issue discussed sound different. I understand that media distorts my perception of reality. Being an educated consumer helps you make more reasonable decisions and a healthy amount of skepticism helps you look deeper into an issue rather than believing everything as it is displayed on the surface. Through keeping my media blog, I realized that no matter what kind of media, there is always different sides to stories and that society needs to change its usage of media in order to create a more equal society, as well as a more well rounded view of different kinds of people as they are displayed in the media. I still believe that media is a very helpful tool and I am grateful to have access to it, but I do believe that I am more educated and can handle my usage of media in more well rounded ways.

Blog Post About "Miss Representation" #2

One of the shocking statistics in Virgil Films' "Miss Representation" was that only 17% of congress is made up of women. The video made a point of showing how little people cared about the intelligence of a woman and how much people cared about the appearance of a woman. All anyone ever discussed during Sarah Palin's campaign was her looks. This should not be an issue that people discuss when choosing a leader. The video concludes that this is, in large part, because of how the media portrays women. Women are never really displayed in media for them to show their intellect but rather to flaunt their bodies or stunning facial features. This translates to real life because people are only ever focused on how a woman looks and when a woman decides to run for a political position, even though her intelligence and ideas should matter the most, people judge her ability to be in a position of power only based on how she looks. The video also stated that most of the opposition to women in positions of power is coming from other women. Women are constantly shown in the media that they should compete with one another and get into "cat fights" with each other. They are also never shown women in power so they believe that that is how it should be. Women are strongly effected by the presence of women in the media nd how they are presented because they are presented in superficial ways and therefore see themselves as objects that should be pretty to look at and that don't need intelligence.

Blog Post About "Miss Representation"

Virgil Films' "Miss Representation" addressed many problems regarding the lack of representation for women in the media and the issues that this creates for women in the real world. It presented an interesting statistic about the average teenager. It said that the average teenager spent 10 hours and 45 minutes on some form of media everyday. this was then used to show how harmful it the way that media portrays women is. It presented another statistic about women and girls with eating disorders. it said that about 65% of Women and girls have an eating disorder. They also said that depression rates among women and girls have almost doubled in women and girls from 2000 to 2010. This is caused by the amount of media that is consumed by women and girls everyday according to the video. Women are never shown realistic bodies in the media so they start to believe that women like themselves should have the bodies shown in the media that are regularly attained through Photoshop and are almost impossible standards to achieve. the video concluded that since teenage media usage won't decrease anytime soon, it is crucial to show more realistic bodies in the media to represent most of the population of women and girls. this way, the women and girls that consume media won't believe that they need to attain this impossible body standard that mainstream media today creates.

http://therepresentationproject.org/film/miss-representation/see-the-film/

Ketchup Advertisment

I came across this Heinz ketchup advertisment while I was looking for things to write about for my media blog. I found it witty because of the stack of fresh tomatoes used to compare to Heinz ketchup. Heinz uses the common advertising technique of wit and humor in order to convey the explicit message that no other ketchup is like Heinz and the implicit message that Heinz ketchup is better than other ketchup because it is made with fresh tomatoes. This advertisement appeals to our need to dominate and our need for autonomy. Heinz is advertising that their ketchup is better than any other ketchup which appeals to our need to dominate because the Heinz ketchup is dominating over all other brands of ketchup.

Blog Post About "Merchants of Cool"

Some of the main ideas presented in Frontline's "Merchants of Cool" were the different techniques used to advertise to teen males and teen females, and what teens find "cool." many reality assumptions that adults have about teens were revealed in the video. Companies use a "Mook" to advertise to teenage males based on the reality assumption that boys like loud obnoxious characters and a "midriff" to advertise to teenage females based on the reality assumption that girls are obsessed with appearance. This led to the question about if media influences teens or if teens influence media. It could be that the messages that media has sent have influenced teens and in turn, the behavior of teens influences the messages sent by media. Another reality assumption made by adults that was shown in this video was that teenagers like things that are undiscovered which shows the need for autonomy. At the same time, to be considered "cool," it is assumed that a teen should fit in a group and be admired which would show the need for affiliation. The dilemma that most companies face when trying to advertise to teens is that when the cool trend is used in advertising it is no longer considered  "cool." It's often too difficult or expensive to keep up with trends because they change so fast and it's also difficult to tell what the new trend is sometimes. Some companies try to fix this problem by using correspondents or culture spies. Culture spies are in charge of answering the question of what is "cool" to teens. They do this by interviewing teens according to "Merchants of Cool." Many reality assumptions made about teens were revealed in Frontline's "Merchants of Cool," as well as various advertising techniques.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

America's Media Vs. the Rest of the World's Media

America's media is very self centered. Most other countries have their own media influences but most of the time this never reaches Americans because most Americans are not interested in these things so our media does not cover them. In other countries on the other hand, American media and influence is everywhere. When I was in France over the summer, most of the time when my family turned on the radio in the car, American music was played. I find it kind of annoying when my American friends cannot appreciate foreign productions just because they are not American. It makes it seem like Americans have some sort of superiority complex even though foreign media productions can be just as good as the best media productions in America. Even foreign news does not interest many Americans. The only reason that I am now more interested in current events that occur in other countries is that I've had to do current event write-ups for my history class every week. I find it somewhat disappointing that creations that appear on foreign media are ignored because of this superiority complex. For example when Gary Johnson was interviewed and asked about Aleppo, Syria, he had no idea what Aleppo even was. This is a little bit of an extreme example, but to a large degree it portrays this narcissism that American's have, that clouds the rest of the world from their view. I also think that American media influences foreign media and vice versa. I've found that foreign music often sounds a lot like mainstream American music, which could benefit the foreign artists because America has such a big influence on popularity. It is hard to determine which influenced the other because in America, it would be so easy for an American musical artist to copy the work of a foreign artist and label it as their own, because Americans don't pay attention to foreign music at all. There are so many talented musical artists from other countries that get ignored because of the American superiority complex in media. Some examples include Stromae, who has been recognized in America for his talent but is by no means widely known, MZ, and Nekfeu. All of these artists are French because even I am guilty of only paying attention to American media sometimes and my dad, who is an immigrant from France, is the one that exposes me to foreign musical artists a lot of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cm-78-LqFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIrI_MOfxG0
       

Anyone Can Become a Publisher Now

With the help of media, anyone with a device that connects to the internet can create content, just like I am right now. I think that this can aid creativity and originality, as well as hinder it. Since there is so much content and entertainment on the internet presented through different media outlets, it is difficult to get bored. It is so easy to get lost surfing the web because there are so many people that post content everyday. The same goes for news stories and books, although it is harder to publish a book. posting on the internet is so easy, so the amount of content available there is exponentially larger than the amount of books available, which is already a lot. there is also a large amount of media that is just repetitive and covers the same thing, which adds the unoriginal aspect of the large umbrella of media. The media can also be beneficial and aid creative minds because of the fact that anyone with a device that connects to the media can publish their work. For example, when Sylvester Stallone wanted to sell his script for the movie Rocky, he went to several studios to find one that would let him play the lead role for the movie and many of them declined his offer. eventually he found one that agreed to his conditions and the movie became extremely popular. it would have been so much easier if sites such as "Youtube" were around because anyone with a device that connects to the internet can create content on these sites. This can also cause problems within the creative community because with all of this content and media, valuable productions can be swept under the rug and things like click bait and advertisments can overcome the more insightful posts that more creative people make. There is so much content to see that it is difficult to distinguish yourself as a creator of content because your work will forever be compared to the work of others. There is too much to watch out for in terms of copyright and attempts at being original in creations, that it is difficult not to submit to mainstream media and post the same kind of things as most other content creators. sometimes I wonder what kind of things get swept under the rug that could have been the next big thing or could have been admired by many people if not for the content overload that media presents people with.