Jessica Zarate – Blog 4

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In chapter 8, discusses child obesity and provides statistical information to support her theories on recent studies of weight gain in children and adolescents. According to Sternheimer (2013), “Between 1980 and 2000, the number of children classified as overweight doubled for those aged two through eleven and tripled for adolescents twelve to nineteen” (p. 198). One major contributor to child weight gain is high-calorie, fatty foods that children consume while watching television. “sitting and eating in front of the television for long periods of time is a good way to gain weight” (p. 199). In our household, this is a major issue. I want to know why we are leading our youth to live unhealthy lives and set them down the wrong path at such young ages. As an educated adult, I know I need to make better decisions for my children that will benefit them in the immediate future as well as the long run. Going back to Dr. Pabers’ lecture, life is all about balancing the yin and yang. Having said that, television and snacking is not a bad thing, but at some point the tv needs to be turned off and outdoor play needs to be initiated. In my family, there are a lot of changes going on. We are constantly on the move and life is all about survival. For example, I can relate with coming home late after a day of being at work and school. I am tired, have been on my feet and running around all day and hungry. My go to quick fix is popping a frozen pizza into the oven to quickly feed my family, get them ready for bed and start over again the next day.
I can definitely relate to the YouTube video “Impact of Media on Culture”. According to Dugan (2010), he states, “We learn culture from the people around us” (1:55). He then went on to say, “learned behaviors” and families. He commented on how stories are passed down from generations to generations, which creates the family values. According to the video, “Fear that the media has replaced the family as the storyteller” is a major issue. One thing I learned from the video is that we each possess different cultures which we use in different environment. For example, when we are at work, as employees we adapt to work culture. When we are at home we adapt to our family culture, and when at school we may adapt to our school culture.
The media is very much to blame for many, many, problems associated with body image. In the US popular culture tells us that beautiful women are extremely thin and have large breasts and plump bottom. In the media we are constantly exposed to this through images, videos and social networking sites, including and not limited to the fashion industry. Failure to look like these beautiful models seen on television or in the advertisements leaves many young men and women to be faced with body dissatisfaction. According to Sternheimer (2013), “Images of unrealistically thin young women reflect a very narrow version of beauty and the way in which women are routinely valued based on their appearance in popular culture, and in many cases everyday life” (207). According to Dugan (2011) in his YouTube video, “Impact of Media on Culture – Developing a Common Culture” he states, “before mass communication, all culture was local and defined by language, village customs and religion” (1:10). Mass communication creates shared experiences and defines who we are as well as our place in society. Unfortunately, this is where people struggle and develop complexes such as Anorexia and Bulimia. Ideas of right and wrong are shaped by culture which we are exposed through by mass communication (dominant culture). It is very hard to find the balance between the different types of culture which make up our identities. According to Dugan (2013), “People who reject the dominant culture and embrace and preserve their bounded culture are looked negatively on because they distinguish themselves from the dominant culture”. It is interesting to think about subcultures, which is talked about in the series of Dugan’s YouTube videos. Often times, these people reject the idea of the mainstream “American” culture. In an attempt to embrace personal/bounded culture which will cause social tension due to unfamiliarity. People need to look past this and find common ground so everyone can be accepted and loved for who they are rather than assimilate to what is acceptable.
Chapter 10 in Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture, Sternheimer discusses the connection between consumption and materialism. Adults need to set limits for their children and educate kids on the difference of wants and needs. Sternheimer states, “Children continue to be the focus of our fears of hyperconsumption, especially when it appears that children’s consumer knowledge is greater than that of their parents (247). As a mother of three children, I agree with this statement. Often times my older boys are obsessing over the latest online game, gadget, clothing, shoes, or device they want. Usually, they see these items on tv, online, or from someone at school. For example, one of the latest styles of clothes out right now is “Galaxy-wear”. My boys are insisting that we go online to Amazon or visit the mall to purchase these cool shirts and hats with the galaxy prints on them. As a mother, I know that this is something they want this week. What will they want next week? I know that I will never be able to meet all of their materialistic desires. So what can be done in this situation? This is a conversation I have had many times with family members when discussing my children’s behavior. Maybe I created the monster. Instead of making them work for the things they want I am guilty of going out and buying the item, but asking them to be good in return. Maybe I am to blame for the holidays where I go out and purchase them large amounts of gifts instead of maybe two or three. According to Sternheimer (2013), she states, “We show people we love them with material goods, reward children with gifts, and teach them that holidays means shopping, even if you must go into debt in the process. Consumption is the building block of a capitalist society and has become the hallmark of American culture” (255). This chapter discusses serious issues to address in the consumer- oriented society. Sternheimer tells us that maybe the advertisers are extremely influential on our children. In terms of advertising and consumption, Sternheimer states, “Companies also target fashion-forward young people and bloggers who they think will influence their peers” (259). They do this by giving them free stuff in hopes they will market their products and increase their sales. This is a huge social problem in today’s society. Unfortunately, the media dictates to our youth what is socially acceptable and cool. In order to achieve this coolness, one needs to go out and purchase the beauty product, wear those new clothes, buy that latest album, game, or electronic. Not only do they need these products, they need to look slim and be super fit. This class has defiantly opened my eyes to how the media uses mass communication to target our youth and instill unacceptable values in our children.

Module 4 Reflection

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Module 4 had a lot of new content for myself. I really enjoyed the lecture with Dr. Christina Pabers. I learned a lot bout how media and health relate to each other. I would have never thought about that in that way before this lecture but it does make sense. Yin and yang was another fun topic to learn about how yin is more fast paced and yang is more calming so they balance each other out. Even thinking about the palette of your mouth Pabers mentioned how you can eat salt and vinegar chips but then your thirsty so you drink a coke which balances your taste buds. If you eat something salty then you need to eat something sweet to balance it out. I will definitely look at things in a different way trying to balance the good and the bad the better my lifestyle. It also made me more aware of what commercial advertisement try to do with their strategies. Papers also mentioned how shame increases someone’s inflammation and it is sad to think how companies know this but build off of it.

Looking at the Terry Dugan videos I also learned a lot. I really enjoyed one video specifically where he talked about culture. “A person’s “culture” is unique, made up of traditions and our own life experiences” (Dugan, 2010). We all come from different backgrounds and are raised differently. We also go through different experiences which shapes us to become the person we are now. For example if someone was raised in a household where they believed that racism was okay then when they go out into the world their smaller culture of thinking that will not change until they see new ideas about it. They will think it is oaky to hate on other peoples skin colors compared to someone who was raised differently. There are so many things related with culture wether it is positive or negative, culture is a part of our identity.  Culture has changed from becoming local to national. First local culture according to Dugan was, “defined by language, village customs, and religion” (Dugan, 2011). Culture took a turn when radio was presented because then ideas and communication could be spread on a national level using the media tool of a radio. From listening to this video it made me really think about how media impacts our culture on a daily basis. Radio, computers, televisions, newspapers are all sources of where we get information from. The only thing that shocked me was the whole idea behind convergence.  Dugan stated two positives about convergence, “ More channels airing the same information make it easier to get the information and cross promotion increases the audience for a specific message” (Dugan, 2010). The problem with this comes the negatives which talked about how if more channels are airing the same information this leads to fewer sources for that information. This means the fewer the sources then the fewer ideas are presented out there. He states, “ A single set of gatekeepers now control multiple channels feeding information from fewer sources” (Dugan, 2010). Overall people who are consuming this media don’t get the 360 information. There are so many other ideas out there but because the information is limited by the number of sources the world will not be informed about it. Therefore the people will only see one viewpoint and will not be openminded. This actually reminded me of a topic we talked about in another class which is filtering. For example Facebook uses filtering. My teacher had given us an example so I will talk about the same one. Politics is a big thing that has been going on so lets say you have both republican friends on Facebook and democratic. If you click on liberal ideas and like more of your democratic friends post then Facebook will notice this and start to filter the content from your feed about other friends. One day you might wonder what is going on with one friend who is republican but haven’t seen many post and thats because they have been filtered out. This means you ideas and the things you see is starting to get closed off. Even though you might not agree with your friend’s political view it does not mean that you don’t want to see what is going on in their life. There was a video we watched on TED talk called, “ What Facebook and Google are Hiding From the World-The Filter Bubble”. If anyone is interested it is a great TED talk that explains the whole idea behind “Filter Bubble”. Here is the youtube link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6vM4dhI9I8.

  In chapter 6, Sternheimer proposes a great question, “ do representations of sexuality encourage teens to become sexually active?” (Tollefson, 2016, p. 139).This question is actually quite interesting to me because I did a research study based on this idea. I feel that the representation and images these young pop stars display, in fact, sexualizes their image. These stars are idols and have many teen fans and of course the trends that they set, many will follow. I think that the clothes they wear, such as the crop tops and tiny shorts, that we see becoming more popular in teen culture, definitely sends the wrong message. Any comments or thoughts on this question and how it can affect their health? Sternheimer also brings up a good point and comments “don’t let TV be your teenagers main source of sex education” (Tollefson, 2016, p. 140). Especially with shows that we see today that are very popular such as “Teen Mom” or “Sixteen and pregnant”, these shows are not an ideal representation, although they attempt to be. For me personally, growing up in a very cultural and strict home, sex was not a topic we ever discussed. Growing up, I didn’t find out about sex education from my parents nor did I ever want to ask. I think this is because my parents portrayed this topic as inappropriate and them being so uptight on the topic made it very uncomfortable for my sisters and I to want to ask them questions.

Chapter 6 was all about sex in our popular culture. Sternheimer mentions, “ Sex on TV, in movies, and online understandably makes many parents uncomfortable and embarrassed” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 168). In my opinion parents need to tackle having sex talks and informing their children about sex head on. It will be better if they’ve been informed about it then taking in things they see from media. If parents are embarrassed and afraid to talk about it children will veer into the direction of media for information which can lead to ad increase in sexual activity because they want to do what they see on a screen or read about. Looking t what Ashley posted I agree with her saying, “ If parents are not informing their children and providing them with the proper education it can be very harmful to their health. They might not take the proper steps to being safe or protected if they are sexually active, because they were not taught” (Farokhirad). Even with education I feel as though we have one health class in high school and one in college and that is it. I do not remember having a health class in elementary that talked about sex. I think now days it is important because media is growing so much that we might actually have to inform kids at a younger age about it. Children are curious and they will eventually stumble on topics about sex.

     Chapter 8 focused on the health problems that are connected with media and health care. I knew about the whole beauty aspect of it but it is so much more than that. Especially after watching our guest lecture as I mentioned above I learned a lot about how media relates to health from lecture and slides. According to the book there are so many ads out there that have an affect on the people. Things like being obese, eating disorders and images of what beauty is suppose to look like are just a few. The sub chapters all went into detail about the health problems that come with video games and television but one of the big problems that we need to worry about is our health care system. “ America’s health care system is in a state of emergency” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 212). In the world according to the book we are ranked at thirty seven which is pretty bad. So many other countries again are ahead for these things. I’ve mentioned how I am half french before and I think back to France. In France whenever I go visit my mother’s side of the family I never once see a mentally ill homeless person on the street. While here in america I always see them on the side of the road talking to themselves because we don’t take care of our citizens. In France health care is available for everyone and anyone who has a mental illness is properly taken care of. I’m sure there are many other countries in Europe that are the same way. Something needs to change in our country. In the end of chapter 8 Sternheimer asks questions about media and healthcare but overall states, “ In asking these questions, however we need to keep the big picture in mind, that popular culture is not the biggest threat to our health, as fewer and fewer Americans have access to any health care at all” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 215).

Module 4 Reflections

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When watching the video, What is Culture?, by Terry Dugan, he states that culture is something that is learned. I agree with his statement because everyone learns a different culture through their family, friends, school, work, etc.. Although, we all have various individual cultures, Dugan discusses the melting pot and the idea that we, as a society, are becoming a dominant culture. Further, he discussed the eight elements of communication. Personally, what I found to be interesting is that there is noise that can block a certain audience from receiving the message, this noise is something that is personal.

Then, when reading Chapter 6 of Connecting Social Problems and Popular Cultures, I learned that many believe media to be linked to sex. Specifically, many believe that media has increased sexual activity within adolescents. But, Sternheimer knocks down this idea by explaining that the rate of high school students participating in sexual intercourse has decreased by 7% since 1991, and the use of condoms has increased by 13%. From this, Sternheimer is able to clearly argue that media is not linked to an increase in sexual activity within adolescents. Due to the mere fact that we see sex within media today because sex sells, I believe that society assumes sexual activity has increased because it is advertised more often.

Furthering my reading to Chapter 8 of Connecting Social Problems and Popular Cultures, I learned about obesity, anorexia, bulimia, and health hazards. Such as many linked sexual activity within adolescents to the media, many also link obesity to the media as well. People believe that media is responsible for obesity, due to the amount of time people spend watching TV. Sternheimer also explains the link found between eating disorders and magazines. Although, I do believe the images of the models within magazines can have an effect on both men and women, I do not believe that media is the direct link to eating disorders.

Why does media ownership matter?

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Hello group members!

I wanted to hear your thoughts and opinions after reading the material in activity 4 of module 5 about the importance of media ownership.

Let me know what you think. I would love to get a discussion going.

Thanks guys!