Tag Archive for: course-nocourse

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.

Module 4 has made me focus on values and how values are represented and co-constructed throughout society.  Module 4’s readings and videos have helped facilitate more awareness of values placed on me and society and how my own beliefs either contradict or coincide with societal values.  Sternheimer (2013), argues that while media and pop-culture values tend to promote violence and teen promiscuity, that those values do not accurately depict trends in violence or sexuality in teens. We often take media representation as fact and choose not to look deeper and to me, it makes a lot of sense. Media create mediated realities, as learned in Module 3, so therefore, the realities we interact with everyday in the form of TV, news, movies, and online media are depicting a world that people are taking at face value. Furthermore, those with low media literacy skills are co-constructing their realities based off what media is portraying. These ideas are a bases of learning for me in this module and will connect to culture, values, and health while relating to media and pop culture.

While popular culture and media may be portraying teens and young adults as being more sexual as ever, the statistics for underage pregnancy’s and STD’s just do not match that fear (Sternheimer, 2013). However, I argue that there is still a cause for concern. Tomi-Ann Roberts (2011), proves that idealized femininity and sexualization standards are being passed on to younger and younger girls. With clothing lines target at young children that match what some 20 year olds are wearing it is easy to see how these values are being placed on children as young as age three. The cause for concern here is, how is this impacting the mental and physical health of the youth in America? In my student facilitated media critique I presented the class with ads targeting women that reveal values society has placed on femininity.  Since culture is a combination of learned behaviors, values, beliefs, norms, and lifestyles created and maintained through shared experiences (Dugan, 2010), what do our beauty standards and expectations of women say about how society values women? To be a valued member of society must women look, act, and be a certain way? What happens to the women who chose to go against the grain and not live up to those standards? How does media depict those women? I believe that these questions, if thought about when experiencing media, can help facilitate media education and literacy.

Much like the changing perceptions of beauty over decades, ideas of premarital sex has also changed. It is not that teen sex never occurred before, it was kept secret and hushed, now media and society talks about it more freely and has more access to information and birth-control (Sternheimer, 2013). Much like the topic of media influenced violence, media influenced sex is not as powerful as people think it is. Teenagers have not gotten more sexually active however, something that has changed is our acknowledgements and media coverage of premarital sexual behavior (Sternheimer, 2013).

When talking about standards, and thinking about those questions, it is obvious how culture effects our answers. Culture has the power to liberate and limit us, divide, define, and unite us (Dugan, 2010), and I argue that with stronger media literacy skills one can cross divides easier and more effectivly. What I mean by that is I believe that media education has the power to break down barriers that not only culture puts up but that media and society has created.  Watching the video series “The Story of Stuff”, by Anne Leonard, reminded me that with education and awareness, reform can take place.  I’d like my classmates to respond by telling me how much more they have thought about the products that they used daily, be it cosmetics or electronics, since watching those videos.  This video helps teach media education by taking down the limits and divides put up by media. Media literacy is a tool that can be learned and used to create healthier environments and lifestyles. Christina’s lecture opened my eyes to how societal values effect my own physical and mental health. It is an important topic because it can allow for healthier decision making and less unnecessary consumption. Anne Leonard talked about the life cycle of products and the consumption economy that has been created to control consumptive patterns. This connects largely with what Christina spoke about when explaining the need to create balance. Products are cheap and easy to buy and create a short-term instant balance and therefore keep us in a never ending loop of extremes and consumption.

Media has a huge influence on culture and life-styles in America, and I believe that cannot be denied. However, it cannot be blamed for every bad instance such as violence and teen promiscuity. The attributes it does have negative impacts on though, is personal health. While we can finally blame media for something the focus is still in the wrong area. Researchers and studies tend to focus on how much time children spend watching TV or participating in leisurely activities and not on actual nutrition (Sternheimer, 2013). To me this should be a no-brainer. Media and advertisers constantly market low-nutrient foods packed with sugar and artificial ingredients that contribute to weight gain (Sternheimer, 2013).  Once again the focus is shifted from the tangible causes for problems in society. Instead of shaming the makers of terrible food, parents and care givers get guilted by poorly done studies that attribute poor health to home life activities and not the makers of bad food.  I could not help but to connect these media issues to Christina’s lecture on health and balance. There are so many forces in the world pushing and pulling us to consume as much as possible. This is why I argue that media literacy is so important. Power must be taken back from media on an individual level to lead healthier more fulfilling lives.

When watching the Terry Dugan videos, I actually learned some new things and there were things that I remember learning in previous classes. This past Spring semester in my Organizational Communication class, we actually went over the 8 elements of the communication process.  One thing that I am glad that was covered in these videos was the question of what is culture. I always thought that culture is what we were brought up in and passed through generations, so that was interesting to learn.  There were a couple of questions that he asked within his videos: Is common culture now based on advertising? Are we still learning from mass media?

Now, I can probably write an essay answering those questions. But to answer those questions in short; yes, I believe that common culture is now based on advertising and no, we are not still learning from mass media. An example that he used for this is in the 20th century, immigrants went to silent movies to learn how Americans acted so they can fit in. I don’t think that we are relying on media that way much anymore. Regarding to common culture and the ads. If we weren’t relying on ads or constantly looking at ads, would it be that necessary to learn how to deconstruct an ad? I do want to say that ads compromise a lot of our pop culture. What I liked from these videos is that he went over the different types of cultures: local, dominant, personal or bounded, and then subcultures. I never realized that we personally have so many different kinds of culture.

Now, lets get to the books. Can I just say that this is by far the most interesting textbook that I have ever read. Both chapter 6 and 8 really shocked me. All the numbers and information that was provided, I was like “woah”. What I liked about chapter six was how in the second paragraph it says “…today’s entire generation of kids is sexually active before high school” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 139). No offense to those people, but that is kind of sad and kind of scares me since I have a little sister who just finished middle school (I feel like I act like her mother sometimes). But going into the next page, it talks about how its really not as bad as it seems. It is assumed that the media plays a role in early sexual activity, which is why Will Hays in 1934 created “the Code.” This censored media in strict ways, no sexual stuff or interracial relationships because it was deemed un-American. This lasted until 1966. On page 154 there is a sentence saying “our tendency to underestimate social structure and overstate the power of popular culture.” I agree with this completely. Yeah, there is a lot of sexual stuff on TV but according to Freud and Benjamin Spock, “sexual curiosity was natural.” Plus like a lot of things, we do things because of the environment we are surrounded in.

Chapter 8 got really personal to me, I have had many issues with my own body where it has lead to starving myself and eating very little.  What I liked about this chapter is that it didn’t really focus on the obesity aspect because we all know that. It focused on the possible role of media and eating disorders. According to Sternheimer, she mentioned that there were studies that show media does not cause eating disorders and there is a very little link, focus on the environment the person is in. On page 209, there is a sentence that hit me. It says that if you have parents who are very into  their diet and exercise, their child will get praised for having a thin appearance. Throughout high school, my dad told me that I was fat at least once a week and then there was my mom saying I was too skinny. I think you know where that story goes. But it comes down to the environment that you are in, I will admit that media has played a role for me as well, but mostly environment. One thing in this chapter that really shocked me was how “online communities of people with anorexia and bulimia sometimes encourage and support each other in their quest to get even thinner” (Sternheimer, 2013, p198). Even though there may only be a small link with media and eating disorders, I think we need to overcome that “you need to be skinny” standard as set by society.

n the serious of videos watched by Dugan, what I thought was worth remembering was in general at the very beginning was about culture. As a sociology student, culture is something that we covered in every class in one way or another; culture is a huge aspect of sociology. I thought it was interesting how he stated that culture is not something we are born with, and it is true because I never really thought about it in that sense at all. I actually thought about it in the opposite way, thought culture was something we are born with and get from our parents, and then we just learn it across our lifetime. We make it unique because of the many different cultures that there is, we all have something to show, something to experience and allow others to experience our culture as well as they allow us to understand their cultures.

Another interesting point that he made that relates to our class and what we have been learning about is, when he mentioned, “men and women learned how to act from films, radio, and mass media advertisements.” This is very interesting and relatable because today we look at media to see what the right way is to act, what is in and what is out, so that we can fit in and in a way not looked down on because we aren’t following what may be in today.

Also with the process of the message, a lot of the things that we were doing in the class was looking at ads and finding the connotations and denotations, which is basically the same as the message and the process of encoding that he describes, complex communications can have many messages, and simple messages have one message. We all see articles different depending what we see, we can identify different messages or one simple message, a way of communication.

In chapter six, Sternheimer mentions that, “Societal shifts spurred by economic changes have altered American life, which has made it more difficult to monitor teens, popular culture did not create these changes…” (166). And in chapter eight in regards to beauty image, obesity, and eating disorders, he asked “Can popular culture make people both obese and anorexic? This seems like a contradiction…” (197). These were interesting, very interesting points to me because, a lot of the things that happen such as obesity, anorexia, teen pregnancy’s, is due to pop culture and what the media is displaying. When media is throwing all these things at us, we want it, we want to be living in what is in, what is interesting to us, and therefor, we eat the latest foods because we saw it on a commercial and it looked too delicious to resist, we want to be skinny because we want to look like all these famous peoples, and sex is everywhere, so how do we keep it away from children and teens, we can’t keep them locked in a room without living just to prevent them from all this.