Archive for year: 2016

I found this module, and specifically the focus on cultural changes within our society to be extremely interesting/intriguing. Culture has always been a fascinating topic, that I enjoy learning about because it so unique to each individual.

Culture plays a crucial role in society, and has great importance. Culture is the identity of society, and of that nation and without it the people would be lost. Culture is constantly adapting, and is changing to fit that time period. According to Terry Dugan, Culture is not something we are born with. It is a learned behavior, made up from traditions, lifestyles, and shared stories. Dugan makes the point that culture is unique to each individual and the group they’re a part of. Dugan gives credit to culture as having all the power to make us who we are individually and who we are within a group. Dugan makes the point that as a society, “Culture has the power to liberate and limit us. Culture defines us, divides us all the while having the power to unite us. Culture shapes the way we think, feel and act. It gives us the ideas of what we believe is right and wrong”. Prior to these videos I had never thought about how much power culture has within our lives, and within our society.

Dugan makes the point of how media affects our culture, and how over time media has played a crucial role in culture. Dugan states that prior to mass media family was the “storyteller” of culture. Prior to these videos, I had never thought about what life was like before the many inventions that led to media being the main influence to culture. I began to reflect on my own life, and think about who affects my individual culture more. In Dugan’s words, who is the “storyteller” in my life? I thought it was interesting that Dugan made the point that “a true national culture needed a national form of media”. He then goes on to explain the role that the invention of the radio played in our societies culture. “The radio was a national ‘campfire’, telling us stories”. The radio was the first form of mass media that forced the shift of the role of the ‘storyteller’. Dugan makes the point that, “mass communication can create a common culture though shared experiences”. I found this statement to be interesting, and I began to reflect on my own experiences within the media. I began to notice how social media connects people from around the world and make us feel as though we have a common ground through these shared experiences.

Dugan makes the point that with media becoming the ‘storyteller’ of culture, versus family having that main role comes a lot of harsh criticism. He makes the argument that “media is a convent villain”. I found this statement to be spot on, and it also connected to Sternheimer’s point made in chapter 6. That the media is often blamed for social changes. Sternheimer’s Chapter 6: Popular Culture Promiscuity, focuses on the idea that the media is to blame/encourages teens to be sexually active. This chapter was really interesting to me, because my parents have always claimed that my generation is doomed, and that generations prior were not as promiscuous. Sternheimer makes the very accurate point that, “each generation thinks the one after them is worse than their own, because the past is viewed in the eyes of nostalgia”.  There has always been concerns about sex in the media and the the affects it may have. This is important to note, because the media has been blamed, as to why teens have become more sexually active. However, this is not the case. In fact, the way we think about sex has changed much more than the actual behavior. The only thing that is changed in society, is that what used to be a secret is now being discussed openly, and is no longer being ‘hush hushed’. In past generations, what are now considered to be teens were considered to be adults, and were getting married and having children at the same age. Sternheimer points out that, now we “socially and sexually expect teens to function partially as adults and partially as children”. Teens behavior has not changed over time, however the expectations and responsibilities places on those teens have.

Again, in Sternheimer’s Chapter 8: Media Health Hazards the media is being blamed for their role in obesity, and society’s unhealthy lifestyles. However, I do believe that the media plays a role in this, I believe it is too simplistic to blame the media altogether. This chapter hit a soft spot, and it hit close to home because I have always struggled with a having a healthy body image, and self confidence. Sternheimer makes the argument that the media is not the main reason as to why children are having issues with health and obesity, however its the lack of resources provided to them. Those that live in low income areas, have trouble with health due to lack of funds and financial ability to provide those healthy resources, as well as not having the ability to exercise and play outside safely. Although the media is not to blame for these issues, as we touch on in chapter 3, the media does not cover these issues in the media either.

As a sociology student I was pretty familiar with culture and what it was all about going into the video series of Terry Dugan. I did enjoy in his first video of the Impact of Media on Culture, when he explains how we have different cultures as an individual. We apply these different cultures around different people that we surround ourselves with. We may have one culture around our families which is a different culture than the ones we have around our friends, or in our work place (Dugan, 2010). As he says we feel uncomfortable in different cultures. I think we can all relate to this when we go on vacation or somewhere outside of our comfort zones. One time I had gone to Hawaii and felt this uncomfortable feeling when I went to a place that all of the ‘locals’ go. As being who I am, I do not look anything like a local and had many things that I was confused about, I think this is what he means when he talks about attention in uncommon places to you.

I think we have become more familiar with other cultures however than ever before. With mass communication, we can see that people are able to see other cultures through the mass media. Dugan tells us just how this became popular through the radio. I believe that we still learn about common culture through mass media. Dugan uses the example of “have we learned to be fathers through from watching Adam Sandler movies” (Dugan, 2011). When I heard that question I automatically thought to myself that people do still learn these things through the mass media. Maybe the Adam Sandler movies are a bad example but maybe people around the world watch that movie and learn a little bit about our culture.

The new channels of communication are a big target for misunderstandings. I found this to be extremely true when I was watching his video because I have seen it happen so many times through social media. When one person says something in a way that may seem rude to another person and then they end up getting in a fight about it and being mad at one another. Or we see how things can get passes along very quickly through each other on social media causing there to be many unintended viewers (Dugan, 2013). We see this happening constantly with different dance moves, or the new coolest thing to own, or even how to wear your clothes differently than everyone else. This is how we get new trends every week and the kids seem to stay cool with one another.

I really enjoyed these videos by Dugan and felt as though I had learned a lot from them. Although I have learned a lot about culture in the past I felt as though there was information in these that I had no idea about. He explains it well with his references and using big company names such as Disney and McDonalds to explain these theories, which helps a lot when trying to understand a concept.

Moving onto chapter 6 of our assigned reading in our book, Sternheimer talks about some major points with popular culture. I had taken a popular culture class this past semester which made me really interested in this reading of promiscuity in popular culture. One thing that I find to be very true is that there are a lot of sexual innuendoes and sexual scenes in movies, shows and even on live television. Every where we look today in popular culture is about something sexual and I think this does have a big effect on teens. They find sex to be just another thing to say they have done, and to look at it as it is no big deal since they see it on television all the time. Miley Cyrus is a prime example of this as Sternheimer brings up. First seen as a disney television star, she quickly became the girl to be posing half naked and dancing sexually on stage at award shows (Sternheimer, 2013, p.139). Teens at this time were looking to her as a role model so when they saw her doing these sexual acts they felt as though they needed to do them as well to stay cool. I feel as though this happens all the time, not just with Miley, but every young star who becomes to get older and more comfortable with their bodies. Teens always look to their favorite stars to see how they should act in our society so when they see these girls acting this way they find it to be normal.

Just like stars can make girls feel as though they need to be over sexualized, the mass media can also make people feel as though they are not skinny or pretty enough. We see this many times when we see different advertisements or different stars who look absolutely perfect. People see these things and think to themselves that they are perfect. That girl on the billboard that is selling you a product is just so pretty and so skinny that we want to be just like them. I think this hurts a lot of people and their health. We look at these people and think that we need to lose weight in order to be perfect just like them so they go on crazy diets or just stop eating in general. In reality the girl on that billboard has been overly photoshopped and actually looks like a completely different person in general. I think this is a big problem in our society today because it makes us have false hope that one day we can all look that pretty, when it is an unobtainable goal. We need to start using real people and stop photoshopping them to look skinnier and prettier. I think this will help people feel better with themselves and actually view themselves as beautiful just the way that they are.

The reading for this week’s module instructed us to think about content we experienced in previous modules. I could not help but think about the idea of power being a repeating factor throughout our class. In Sternheimer’s “Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture,” she mentioned “controlling information about sex has historically been used in order to maintain dominance over others” (2013, p. 162). In my mind, this can be connected to the way media communicates many things to us. Poverty as an example; In the last module, we discussed they way the low income population is talked about in terms of raw data, but not the back story of what really matters. In Terry Dugan’s “Developing a Common Culture: The Role Mass Communication Plays in Forming a Common Culture” he discusses that before mass communication, culture was local. It sparked my curiosity about how individuals of different cultures were treated and talked about then.

In Dugan’s video “The Functions and Effects of Culture,” he mentioned four types of culture; individual, family, bounded, and dominant. The dominant culture is our public one. Sternheimer discussed that “there is nothing wrong with feeling good and looking good, yet it is often characterized as an imperative rather than an option” in “Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture” (2013, p. 208). The connection for me between these two individuals works in this regard is that our dominant/public culture is leading us to believe in a necessity of not being ourselves. It is creating a world of people trying to fit in to avoid being different or bullied and we are losing ourselves in the process.

I enjoyed learning the eight elements of communication and their functions. A lot of what Dugan taught was common sense and things that I think we know and want to perhaps change but don’t. For example, when he said “we see, hear, and believe what we want,” in “Impact of Media on Culture: The Communications Process,” I was definitely nodding along. Also, his points about how mass media can lead to misunderstanding and unclear messaging were so true. I’m curious which of his points stuck out most to my classmates!

For me this section was slightly more difficult. The part that was most difficult was trying to understand the concepts Terry Dugan was trying to explain.  So here I go diving into the subject of culture and health in the media.

The first thing that stuck out to me was the video on the “Impact of Media on Culture”. What really made sense to me was the explanation that culture has been learned by a variety of ways. Dugan explained that culture can be learned from behavior, by individuals, and by a group or groups of people. We are learning culture by all the people around us and a large influence is our parents and family. Our culture often relies on our family to help shape values that we either will accept or reject along with adding our own personal life experiences to the mixing pot. Dugan brought up an important point, as time has gone on the decline of family values has been at stake. This refers that culture hasn’t been passing down from generation to generation as successful as it has before. Media seems to be a factor as to why bad actions and the decrease of family values have been diminishing. Media lacks to reveal consequences and may encourage bad behavior. This leads to a connection I found in Sternheimer’s text that the sexual revolution needs to be blamed on social structure not so much media or pop culture. Chapter 6 describes that media isn’t all to blame for issues such as teen pregnancy or being sexually promiscuous. This chapter reveals that it is often mistaken that people’s sexual interactions are encouraged by media. This book encourages us the readers to look outside of what everyone thinks and believes and replace it with other knowledge. The proof it gives us is we need to” understand the social context of sex in the twenty first century”. Sex isn’t as influenced by the media rather than it is influenced by the ones we know. For example young teenagers that might be experimenting with sexual things aren’t looking to media for encouragement but rather their friends and other people they surround themselves with. It leads into the statement that if my friends are having sex then it is okay for me. Our minds are often tricked that media encourages more than it actually does. Media is easier to blame than our social structure, why is that? A question I challenge to the group. I found this connection to be eye opening for me that we are quick to blame the media without looking at other resources. Sternheimer’s text also does a great job of explaining that research may be one sided, or fail or recognize other aspects that can take account. Such as this example of the sexual revolution, researchers aren’t looking at other facts of how teen pregnancy is decreasing it only see’s that pregnancy is still a major issue.

The other video that stood out to me as well was Dugan’s video “Functions and Effects of Culture”. Dugan starts out explaining that culture defines, divides, and unites us as part of the society. Culture is what really helps us shape the way we feel, think, and act in our everyday life. The behavior we have learned from our culture helps us distinguish the difference between right and wrong. Although our opinions of right and wrong may be different from other cultures what we decide as acceptable is part of our own personal culture. Another major part that grabbed my attention was how Dugan described the different forms of culture we have. We have a personal culture, a family culture, a bounded culture (our friends), and lastly a dominate culture (how we reveal ourselves in public). The dominate culture is one that seems acceptable to use in public, my translation is a culture we use to show our manners and not talk about or bring up uncomfortable material in a public setting. This is the way society used to be which was respectable to society. But as we know things tend to change over time and now personal culture is revealed in society much more than before. Personal things such as sex are more commonly brought up than before. But that doesn’t mean sex is becoming an issue for young teens.  We live now in a personal society that we post our lives on social media and lots of people know about our lives. That can lead to a misconception about sex becoming a bigger part of our culture, which is not the case. We are becoming more accepting overall as a culture.

After reading chapter 6 it hit me. Since we are becoming a society that seems to share more personal things about ourselves we have also learned to be cautious. That is where my connection from the paragraph before and chapter 6 from the text made more sense to me. Since the media mostly reveals sexual advertisements and the promotion of sex is supposedly an issue then why are teen pregnancy rates decreasing, condom using going up, and abortion rates lowering… that’s a good question. My answer is that sex is the biggest issue in media. Since sex is overly flaunted my realization is teens are realizing the consequences unsafe sex can lead too such as diseases and pregnancy that teens seem to be more responsible. Media sends out the cliché that all teens are irresponsible and can’t control their behaviors which seems legit but based to the statistics the media is wrong.  An important stat Sternheimer mentioned was “condom use went from 46% in 1991, to 60% in 2011” which is most recent.  Another fact to look at was “56% of males and 70% of females report to have first sexual experiences within a steady relationship”. That last fact made me have hope for our teenage society. Sex I feel is often looked to as a competition or lust. The last stat made me appreciate that the majority of people having sex are keeping it between their partners and are being more responsible. This is an example of how media blows issues out of proportion which seems to be a common trend we’ve been realizing in this class.

Now we are going to shift gears a little bit. The next topic I want to largely touch upon is from Chapter 8 is Sternheimer’s text “Media Health Hazards: beauty image, obesity, and eating disorders”. I am going to start out with obesity. In the previous modules we saw that exposure to too much television and playing too much video games leads to unhealthy lifestyles. Which I have to partly agree that media does, but to only some extent. Society likes to blame media watching TV and eating junk food is making our children obese. But what society fails to see is that is more to the story. The text describes that TV isn’t the only reason children are being obese but the lack of heathy resources available to them. The book encourages us to take a look as to where most children that are obese seem to be, the answer in low income areas. As we learned from module 3 poverty and low income doesn’t seem to be resembled too much in the news. Children who are from African American descent and from Latino descent seem to suffer the most from obesity.  Those children who live in low income neighborhoods live in unsafe neighborhoods where children are forced to stay indoors and the area has fewer funds for safe playgrounds for the children to exercise. The neighborhoods also don’t have access to healthy grocery food chains and aren’t able to get their hands on as much fresh produce. Instead these areas have more “low-cost fast-food restaurants” that are not as healthy for children. As we can see TV isn’t the only reason children seem to battle with obesity, but again media doesn’t address these issues.

The next very important topic the text touches upon is body image in the media and anorexia and bulimia. I must say what this book had to say on the topics I wasn’t too thrilled about, but there were others I am glad I was informed about. This section explained that only a minority of people are impacted by the body images seen over media and strive to be that way. But since it is a small number “4 to 7 million American’s living with either anorexia or bulimia” I can try to understand the message the book is trying to reveal to me as a reader. However, when I think of myself I compare my body image to those in media more often than I would like to admit. When I am surf Instagram I see all these beautiful people and models and wish to aspire to have a body image like theirs. Even though I am not going the length the not allow myself to eat as much or anything drastic like that I feel shameful for who I am, which is wrong. That first section did slightly upset me and that is why. I have a question though for my group 3 bloggers. Did you agree with what Sternheimer had to say about body images in the media don’t reflect upon people that suffer from bulimia or Anorexia? I know it is okay to disagree so I’d love to hear any thoughts. I believe understanding the other part of the story will help me expand my knowledge.

Another part of this section about bulimia and anorexia I did find informative was the part about weight regulations for models. I never knew that before so I was glad to hear this issue was taken in account. “Spain declared all runway models needs to have a body index of at least 18” this equals a 5”10 model to weigh at least 126 pounds. I thought it was great what modeling agencies are doing to make sure their models stay on a healthy track, but I hope this regulation continues to be enforced down the road.

Concluding the last section of chapter 8 brought another important topic to the table, health hazards. I did not know that one of the biggest health hazards to our society is the amount of people especially children that don’t have health insurance coverage. I always knew it was expensive to have but I never was informed the amount of people that have to live without getting proper medical care from a doctor. It isn’t only just people that have low income do not have health insurance but those in the middle class as well. Our society is at harm since they aren’t able to receive proper care when needed. Another problem that less employers offer health care insurance benefits than ever before, and if they do it may be that it is too expensive to add to many people’s budget. Life expectancy will decrease if better means of affordable health insurance is not provided to society. As we saw in this section, there is more to health hazards than we originally thought. Sternheimer closes chapter 8 by saying yes watching too much TV can be unhealthy and yes models are deemed as unhealthy but there is a “bigger picture” in mind that may hazard our health. Having less access to proper nutrition and health care will lead to the poorest health in society. This book did it once again, takes you to the big picture of media and what we are failed to be shown. Like I said earlier there’s always more to the story than media wants us to believe the number one reason I have enjoyed reading this book and learned from the examples Sternheimer provides.

 

As I watched all of Terry Dugan’s videos, I felt as though I got a breakdown of media and its messages. I really enjoyed learning about the 8 elements of communication and how much they affect media and us as the viewers. A few things worth remembering from his lectures for me were the types of cultures. I had never really learned about the types of cultures before and I was really intrigued by learning the 4 he went into depth about.

The first culture he mentioned was the personal culture. Dugan explains this culture as basically how you act or what you do when you’re alone. For me, I am mostly doing schoolwork while I am alone. The personal culture allows me to build confidence in myself while also testing my values and self worth. The second culture was the familial culture. I related to this as well because my family has several traditions and values that have been passed on for generations and some are even traditions that I can eventually pass down. Some may be recipes but the most important one that I want to pass down is not giving my children a middle name. No one on my mother’s side has one and I think that’s something that makes our familial culture unique and traditional. The third was the bounded culture, which he explains as the “friend” culture. When I am with my friends I have fun but there seems to be a more restrained side of me while with my friends or in public. This is because society places such limitations on the way we are “supposed” to act in public but I think my friends and I don’t always as restrained, as we “should”. This really provoked a question of who and how these cultures were created? Why are there such specific guidelines on how to act in public (behavior wise)? If I laugh too laugh, I get stared at like I am a crazy person. This brings me to the dominant culture. This culture is how to act in public basically. This culture is for everyone. They should act properly in public. My question is, how do you act properly in public? Why are there right or wrong ways to act? And who decides if I am acting right or wrong?

This questions stems nicely into Sternheimer’s chapter 6. We tell children they should not have sex until they’re adults or until they’re married but as Sternheimer argues, “We wouldn’t dare make the same sweeping generalizations about equally appalling adult behavior” (Sternheimer 141). I could not agree with her in the sense that we always tell others, especially adolescents, how to behave, but do adults really behave “correctly”? I would argue that we do not. I think she wants to make a point that we cant tell children or young adults not to have sexual relations when we clearly do as adults.

I also found a lot of her statistics about the actual amount of children who do experience intercourse fascinating. She claims a very low number of adolescents do have sexual intercourse and not all of them consent to it. Children are exposed to a lot of sexualizations of women and men at a young age, which may be some reason behind the low number of children who have experience sex or sexual relations. This is where parents often come into play. Dugan and Sternheimer both mention parents, and others; often blame media when statistics have shown media isn’t much to blame for this. Sternheimer claims, “during the 1920’s adults were horrified by the short dresses young women wore and the “petting parties” young people attended…” (Sternheimer 144). This shows that provocative behavior and even fashion, has been challenged for almost a century. Media cannot be fully blamed for daring behavior considering it has been questioned for decades. Dugan also argues this and says something along the lines of, “The media is a convenient villain- when children reject values of family; people want to blame media for their child rejection” which I completely agree with as well. Pointing blame at media is not always the answer.

In chapter 6, she talks a lot about sex. This chapter was so interesting to me and it made it even more interesting that she showed such a hypocritical side to adults and their views on adolescents. She states, “Meanwhile, we ignore the majority of teens who are responsible or do not engage in sex, and we don’t stereotype promiscuous adults as hormone-crazed animals” (Sternheimer 149). This line was so impactful for me and really stuck out to me because I feel as though teens and adolescents are looked down upon and this bothers me. I feel as though adults think they are superior to children when in my opinion they are not. Yes, I was disciplined by my parents but they did not treat me as a lesser being or talk down to me like I was unable to understand them. I know adults are commonly seen as wiser and since they have been alive longer than kids that they know more and know how to behave, but is this really true? Does every adult really know how to behave or act? I sure as heck don’t! But why are we taught to act certain ways in certain places (like work or school)? Does this limit our creativity and our ability to be ourselves? Could this be why so many people are afraid to act themselves in front of others?

On the topic of lowered self-esteem, Sternheimer’s chapter 8 was super interesting. Again, people want to blame media for obesity and eating disorders, but Sternheimer shows that media may not be the one to blame for these issues. She mentions that a lot of children who are obese are Latino or African American. She states, “African Americans and Latino’s are also more significantly likely to be poor than whites” (Sternheimer 202). One of the biggest reason children, and adults, are obese is because in impoverished areas, produce is too expensive so the next best thing is fast-food chains. She also states, “Low self-esteem and social rejection which many overweight children experience, may keep them inside and perpetuate the weight gain cycle” (Sternheimer 203). This is a really sad yet true claim. Children are often bullied with their weight and it really shows that beautify or even social acceptance is connected with skinniness.

It also relates to last week’s module when poverty we discussed poverty. Media may even blame impoverished towns for not eating healthy, but when healthy food costs double the amount of junk food, how are people with less money supposed to afford healthier food? It really reminded me of the quote, “eating to live” and “living to eat” from the Global Food Diaries. I will always remember this quote because it is so impactful. It reminds me how lucky I am everyday to live such a healthy and blessed life.

This also is reminded me of Christina’s lecture when she taught us about balance. We are very lucky to be able to have balance in our lives compared to others who may not even have the option of a balanced life or diet. Sternheimer shared a statistic about poor people who work a lot which made me think how hard is must be for them to balance there work life with their family or friends.

After reading about the obesity, Sternheimer begins to talk about anorexia and bulimia. Again, she mentions that people want to blame magazines, television or social media, but she says that it may not be at blame. Many girls who have eating disorders often suffered from abuse, whether it is was sexual, verbal or physical. My best friend growing up was anorexic and this was because of stress and abuse she endured from her parents. Her mother was often drunk and would yell at her constantly. My friend had to cook for herself from a very young and I think she eventually just stopped eating after not wanting to cook at the age of 13. When we were in high school I noticed truly how skinny she was when I saw her next to other friends. When I would ask her about it, she didn’t want to say a word. As we got older, she started to get help from her aunt and grandma, who paid for therapy. I was really glad that Sternheimer mentioned abuse as a result of bulimia or anorexia because she mentions people have eating disorders as coping mechanisms for abuse or other tragedies that they endure/ed. I had no idea that so many other men and women had endured such pains that caused them to have eating disorders. I would have definitely thought media was a huge part of self-hatred or low self esteem.

 

Quick note: I thought Sternheimer’s comment about the rise of electricity being a reason for more mergence of nightlife was really interesting. I had never thought about the fact that electricity really is a key factor in everything media related.

Overall, I really enjoyed this module. I felt there was SO much I could relate to but I learned even more about things that I had known a little bit about. This module hit a few personal experiences which allowed me to connect with a lot which was really interesting to me.