Children and the Media

The psy-function is a shifting field of knowledge and power. It makes dual claims, that it can both describe and manage the mind, in this article it seems like a dangerous thing. I believe that there is a way to describe and manage the mind and it had been done. If it was not possible I would argue that advertisers would need to find new means of advertising.

"Juvenation" is the way John Hartley describes the version aimed at younger people similar to the effects model which offers analysis and critique of education and civic order. In this analysis they found that children could be affected by certain images and messages they see in media. Media has power to do things and I believe this it is not a secret; we underestimate the power of media.

I know children and even some adults today would not believe that the art of sexting has been around for a long time. People labeled books, with no pictures, offensive and "Evil Reading." These people are only reading about sex and it is frowned upon... how is that any different then today when we claim that there is too much sex in the media? The more and more they view sex as a problem is seems as though less and less clothing is being worn to push the envelope.

This article touches upon suicide which is an all too real reality. Over winter break a friend of mine fell victum to suicide. It is a weird feeling because one emerses onself in a pool of questions and dries off with a towel of guilt because the questions can no longer be answered.

Since the break there has been two more known suicides in the Amherst area.

Propaganda is as Sut Jhally would say 'the man in the bushes' the problem is always out "there" never present in your world. Many people think of Hitler and death when they hear propaganda but have we done that on purpose? We seem to even brand our history, wrap it up with emotion and sell it to people as the truth.

An interesting fact the article touched upon was the fact that the newer generations are the least Religious, which seems to actually help us out because they do not conform as easily; they have become more skeptical.

The article states that the youth's grand paradox is to be simultaneously " the most silenced population in society" and "the noisiest"... since these younger generations are less involved in religion it seems to me they are able to use more common sense. Common sense says to be skeptical about things you do not understand; atleast in my dictionary. Maybe it is not the religion but rather the shear complexity of what we don't understand.

A little objectification

"Why do most ads not look strange to us?" said Goffman . I find this statement to be extremely true, I find that most ads appear very normal until one really takes a good look at them. Why should a pack of shirtless guys holding a football represent a pair of jeans? Especially mens jeans... what does that really say?

"Advertising doesn't always mirror how people are acting, but how they're dreaming...in a sense, what we're doing is wrapping up your emotions and selling them back to you" (Nelson).

I couldn't agree more with this statement, selling a product is becoming more and more like selling an emotion because of how they package their product. Along with the product comes branding which is what is trying to provoke a certain image/emotion. An example would be smoking cigarettes along with smoking comes a sense of being cool and a little rebellious why?...because that is how it was presented to us. Sut Jhally comes out and says in the article that they design commercials that create pleasurable emotions that will be triggered when the product is viewed in the marketplace. I feel like the corporations are just toying with us.

Within advertising the article states that there are four basic representations of women in media and goes on to list:

symbols for an object, thus, as exchangeable with it

as a fragmented object made up of seperate component parts that are not bound together in any coherrent way to create a personality.

as an object to be viewed

as an object to be used

All four of these representations could easily be argued for male representations as well and that is where I find it hard to stop at the misrepresentations of women. There is a larger photograph that we are not seeing. Yes I believe the list is correct, but its universal.

The article makes a fundamental point, that we all objectify men and women in some way at sometime, that it can fufill a socially positive function.

Objectification is present in most compliments when speaking to another person. It usually makes that person feel quite pleasant about themselves. I would be shocked to recieve a bad reaction from one of these compliments...if I were to tell a girl that she had beautiful eyes I wouldnt expect her complain about her smile..I hope she would think...damn i do have beautiful eyes.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with a little of objectification because I believe it is only natural to seek out what we like. It is only natural that we have to make babies..and it is usually a plus to have it be with someone you find atleast a little attractive. I think one could even argue that what people consider to be good qualities can be objectification when found in an individual. So where do we draw the line?

Social Network Sites

I read the article titled "Critical Persepectives on Social Network sites" by Alla Zollers and she mentions Web 2.0 at the beggining of her article. Web 2.0 sounds like some new sort of software product but it actually is not. It is actually a revolution which Grossman points out. Web 2.0 includes myspace, facebook, and youtube and to you and I these are the norm...but it wasn't always this way. These new age sites require us to participate and for that very reason i have the most outdated info on my sites.

Myspace and acebook have their own claims. Myspace calls itself "a place for friends" and facebook calls itself "a social utility that connects you with the people around you" I believe they are both correct. In my experience this is exactly my purpose for them. I use Myspace for keeping in touch with life long friends who I most likely went to grade school with and I can always refer back to them on that site. When I think of my use of facebook it usually involves people around me at that time in my life.

example:

Spring semester of my sophmore year of college I chose to do an internship with Disney and while I was down there my facebook was thriving. My facebook constantly had new friends being added and it just became full of people that I didn't really know yet, but they were people i could not aviod..There was no getting away from these people. Now I rarely recieve anything from those same people who had my facebook working overtime. My myspace has always been there. I actually never created it, a girl created one for me and I just took it over. No matter where I am in the world I can reach my closest friends through myspace. Also another big deal I believe is that facebook began as a college site...none of my immediate friends from home went to college so they never really got interested in facebook.

Now a days I come off as werid to many people because I am not so dependent on technology as some of my friends. I do honeslty notice a difference in how people interact and I tend to break the mold. Now a days when I am walking I seem to be followed by an imaginary friend because people always look up...see me.. and then immediatley focus on something just past me and that is only the brave. The other peolple I see are the ones that immediatley refer to their cell phone as a safety blanket that will protect them from my gaze or even they look to their ipods (mp3 players) maybe to change their song to one more fitting for my imaginary friend.

My 21st birthday just recently passed on April 30th and I have never recieved less Happy Birthday wishes in my life on Social networks...It honestly bothered me... until I began to read the messages... people were apologizing to me that they couldn't find my wall to post and for that reason some people didn't even bother to leave me a message..haha.. I was amazed. Zollers makes a point of saying that people are most likely to post on your wall. I wonder what this means. I make sense of it by imagining facebook is another world and the tabs and buttons are like public transportation that take you to people houses where they can drop by, but can't get in because they cannot find the door (wall) and they are not willing to go around back (leave a message) to see if you are working in the yard... haha it is a little selfish but now they are pissed off because they just had to pay the bus fair (time) to find you are not around so they decide to call a cab and get out of there quick(on to another house).

Quick funny story... people who I have accepted as friends and decide to stalk me always get the wrong impression... as far as they can tell I only hang out with white people when the reality is that my white friends are the only ones with digital cameras therefore a majority of my photos are with them...