Tag Archive for: course-nocourse

I never thought of attention being scarce but comparing it to information I now realize that is the case. I also never considered the existence of an attention economy, which is something I had never heard or thought of before reading this article. The article brings out “The idea of an attention economy is premised on the fact that the human capacity to produce material things outstrips the net capacity to consume the things that are produced‐such are the irrational contingencies of distribution”. This is further explained by Goldhabers six points of relevance. First, in an economically advanced society youth are ether consumed by school or by media. He feels that this has started a Cultural Revolution making people feel that getting attention is a fine thing. Second, there are two classes: stars and fans. Stars get the attention, and fans give the attention. Third, being in an attention economy requires that you know how to pay and receive attention. You must also be able to discern between real and illusionary attention. Fourth, the attention economy is creating large new markets. These are markets for technology that allows you to get more attention. Fifth, the attention economy requires a new different type of privacy. You must be “out there” privacy earns a new meaning in this sort of context. Lastly, attention is “indexical to originality” meaning you can’t simply repeat what someone else did. This implies that there is endless originality or at least that is what people are trying to create. In the article we learn that Lanham has similar views as Goldhaber. Lanham “insists that we cannot continue to apply concepts, laws, practices and the like that were developed to deal with the economic world of goods to the emerging economic world of information. Entertaining and exploring the notion of an emerging economy of attention looks like a step in the right direction”. Others in the article agree and expand on what Goldhaber and Lanham have describes as the attention economy. Along with this new attention economy comes other concepts such as contact displaying, meme-ing, scenariating, attention transacting, culture jamming, transferring, framing, and encapsulating. I loved the last sentence of the article really summing up an important point, “If we continue to believe that formal education has something to do with helping prepare (young) people for the world they will enter, it will be worth exploring further conceptions and implications of the economics of attention, and relating them to our conceptions and practices of literacy education within formal settings”. From this article I gained a new perspective on attention and how it relates to both media and our lives.

One thing that I learned for this reading is even though here in America there is a huge problem with poverty and inequality there is little media coverage on the issue. There is however a slight increase of coverage when a catastrophic event happens such as hurricane Katrina. I found it baffling to see that in a case study that ”In a handful of stories—primarily on CBS— poverty issues were discussed solely by experts, with no poor people appearing on-screen at all.” How can such a large issue be ignored? How can the people not be heard? It was also interesting that when these poor people were asked to speak they were told to tell a “generic story of suffering” right before they would transition to a specialist or rep to ask for their viewpoint or what policy was getting put in place. I found it disappointing to find out that “One thing that is clear from coverage is that if you’re poor and want to get on the nightly news, it helps to be either elderly or in the armed forces.” I find this completely bias. It’s sad to see that in this day and age that to have network news coverage of the nationwide problem of poverty be scarce unless you are elderly, military or a major disaster has happened. News coverage tend to increase on this matter around holidays which I find hurtful. It would be like telling your mother you love her, but only on Mothers Day.

While looking at the pictures from this article I couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed. I just got home from having dinner with my family out at a restaurant where we all had a great meal, that was not exactly cheap. I feel that living in America and the financial status that I live, I don’t think twice to stop and go get a Starbucks or go out to dinner. When I saw the picture of the “ Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp” I couldn’t help but feel sad. You see that they have little food for their family. Looks like mostly grains and possibly beans. I can’t imagine living on that diet. But when you look at the picture closely you see the boy on the far right still smiling. It’s probably all he has know, and he seems content with it. As much sadness that I felt, I also felt a great sense of appreciation for living in this country and having the food and resources that I have.

In reading the article about children and poverty is so saddening that they have no control and have to live in these sometimes difficult circumstances. I grew up with a single mother and we did not receive any child support from my father. I remember as a young child always being concerned about money myself. I knew that every time we went to the store it was for necessities, it is hard being a child and wanting certain things but ether being scared to ask for something or guilty for actually getting it. It was interesting to see how things such as race, ethnicity, employment, education, family structure, and region effected the percentage of children considered to be low income and poor. I was also surprised that it has slightly increased in recent years. It seems like people are really trying to make changes and help others but this has actually become more of an issue. It is also sad that there is a higher percentage for those that are younger, it is completely out of the control of a three year old. Although seeing these statistics made me feel sad and empathetic towards the people in these situations, it is important for us to learn about.

“For the most part, the poor in America’s media are invisible. And why? Because no one wants to see that or hear about it.” I have to agree in this day and age people in general on a daily bases likes to see our society in a brighter light. The media in general knows that people like to a have a warm and fuzzy feeling. When the article discussed that families can be trapped in a poverty cycle and mental illness can be a factor that contributes to poverty hit a heart string for me. My aunt’s father went through a rough time and suffered from mental illness which contributed to his homelessness. Outside factors of poverty are not always discussed. It angers me to think that people think that people feel that homeless or people living in poverty should just “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they could find a decent job, get an education, and escape poverty once and for all – as if it’s that easy.” Society needs to become more aware of what really is going on behind the scenes and the issues that go along with all of it. The media in general need to paint a clearer picture for people to understand.

Watching the videos was hard, it really pulls your emotions out putting yourself in the shoes of these other children. I thought the song that the first boy was singing throughout the video was especially powerful and beautiful. Hearing the one girl talk about her mother working four jobs and never being home sort of reminded me of my mom. Although she didn’t work four jobs the job she had did demand extremely long hours and then with all the chores of the house she was always tired in the extra time she had for me. It is hard hearing the difficult situations these people have to go through, I can’t imagine going from a size five to size zero because of not having enough food to eat. In the second video I really liked how she said that child in poverty is one of the biggest problems from the future. It really is, these children are our future generations and they need to be healthy and nourished. I also loved when she said that our biggest threat is not an external enemy but an internal failure. It is such a different real perspective making us realize that as a nation we do have failures and we need accept them and make changes to correct them.

I like how this article supported the video children’s defense. I found it interesting that since “ Poor parents have fewer financial resources and often experience more stress, and as a result their young children are less likely to be read to, spend less time talking to adults, and hear many fewer words each week than children from more affluent families.” I can see how this can lead to a family poverty cycle that just never ends. Family and financial stress can mostly definitely affective cognitive development in a child. It not only can affect there minds but research has shown that “ Children in poor families are five times as likely to be in fair or poor health as children in non-poor families.” I was happy to read that “child poverty in the United States could be substantially reduced.” I believe we can do this with wage increases for those who can work. This would help the children who have provide supplemental income for their own families to be able to redirect their energy on education instead of supplementing their parents income. This would prevent robbing children of their youth and allowing children to “reach their full potential”.

Sources:

Child Poverty: In their own Words. (n.d.). Retrieved June 13, 2016, from https://youtu.be/MLrTZ5IG_Eg

DeMause, N., & Rendall, S. (n.d.). The Poor Will Always Be With Us Just not on the TV news [Editorial].

Ending Child Poverty Now. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2016, from http://www.childrensdefense.org/library/PovertyReport/EndingChildPovertyNow.html

Fricat, A. (2008, May/June). Global Food Disparity: A Photo Diary. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/26/522670/-Global-Food-Disparity-A-Photo-Diary

Jiang, Y., Ekono, M., & Skinner, C. (2015). Basic Facts about Low-Income Children: Children under 18 Years, 2013. New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Kuper, S. (2013, March/April). Poverty’s poor show in the media – FT.com. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6e8b7882-9672-11e2-9ab2-00144feabdc0.htm

Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2001). Do we have your attention? New literacies, digital technologies and the education of adolescents. In D. Alvermann (Ed.), New Literacies and Digital Technologies: A Focus on Adolescent Learners. New York: Peter Lang (forthcoming

Marian Wright Edelman: 2015 Poverty Report. (n.d.). Retrieved June 14, 2016, from https://youtu.be/EL_hnQAzzww

Ridgway, S. (2013). 4 Problems with the Way the Media Depicts Poor People. Retrieved June 14, 2016, from http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/poor-people-in-the-media/

          The media seems to be blamed for quite an amount of societal issues. While, many writers blame the media for neglecting poverty and its existence. Sternheimer connects social problems and popular culture, and believes the media is to blame. Chapter 5, in the textbook compares media violence to real violence. Sternheimer believes there is a relationship to what kids are viewing on TV and the crime that’s being committed, and how these issues connect to poverty in our society.        Chapter  5 in the text examines how violence in the media is a distraction from the more complex  structural causes of violence. (Sternheimer, K. Pg,103) It seems that the media is a contributing factor to violence and harmful causes, more than it is protecting  and contributing to society being proactive. A theme in the majority of these readings focused on poverty being invisible and an issue that no one wants to contribute help towards. If media is a main source of information and a trend setter, why is it that they are adding to the problem when  they should be preaching to society to take action and help?

     Sternheimer links violence with a variety of societal issues, one being poverty. She reviewed several dozens of studies with a correlation to crime and poverty, and examined that a high percentage of crime was committed in those areas that were considered to be very poor. Poverty is a bigger issue that many could imagine, to Sternheimer’s point it’s contributing to the high rates of crime and violence. It is also affecting innocent lives, especially children. Children did not ask to be brought into this world and endure the pain and suffering that poverty can bring, yet they have no choice.

The video, Child Poverty: In their own Words, touched me deeply. It made me realize that at times we can take too much for granted. The things that are necessities to us may be a desire or luxury to another. Watching this video made me sad to think that children could be struggling that much. One girl who spoke said she lost so much weight, she went down 5 pant sizes because she would only eat at school. It makes me feel guilty throwing away my food when I haven’t finished it all, because someone else out there is beginning for that food.

This study, The Poor Will Always be with Us, discusses the absence of poverty in the news and other social media forms. Neil DeMause and Steve Rendell  state that poverty exist more than mentioned or recognized and that we fail to see the high percentage of people that suffer from poverty. (DeMause, N. & Rendell, S. 2007) In module 2 we agreed that the media and TV  stereotype and categorize cultures. In a Module 2 assignment,  we flipped through the TV channels and tallied different races, age groups, and disabilities or characters with no disabilities. It was evident that the majority of classmates responded with mid to late Caucasian males being the dominant and most recurring characters. We also noticed in this activity that rarely do they display characters with disabilities on movies and TV shows. In module two readings we read an article that focused on the lack of the LGBTQ community being represented. In this reading, deMause and Rendall stated that in 2006, a survey was conducted by Syracuse University and only 43% of the public commented that inequality and poverty are “somewhat of a problem.” (DeMause, N. & Rendell, S. Pg,1)  Again proving that people do not realize the serious issue of poverty and equality. They also commented that poor people don’t get any attention from the news or media. Do you agree that poverty is neglected by society? If so, is this issue because of the media?

“The last one blamed the “changing economy” for increased economic polarization, with no indication of what changes were made or who made them.” (DeMause, N. & Rendell, S. Pg,5) This quotes describes one of the issues we have been discussing this semester. That is, that the media fails to disclose all the information regarding a topic. We are informed of certain details, only bits and pieces of the story are provided.

Shannon Ridgeway believed that there were four problems with the way media depicted poor people. She believed that society dehumanized poor people and instead viewed them as statistics. She felt they were not noticed in society. She also stated that the third issue was that society would blame poor people and say it was their own poor life choices that caused them to be this way. Lastly, she stated that society viewed poverty as “luck”, that this time around they just had bad luck. In previous Module 3 readings, there is a recurrence of the idea that media neglects the poor people. Ridgeway writes about the issues with poor people being invisible and believed they should receive more attention. I thought it was very interesting that a lot of the comments and feelings Shannon Ridgeway expresses, I too expressed similar thoughts and concerns in the previous module we wrote. Shannon believed that the reason why poor people are not being given enough attention in the media is because people do not want to hear about it. In the previous module, I raised the question regarding the LGBTQ community and why they weren’t given enough attention in movies and TV shows. I then answered my own question to say that, this is because the majority of consumers do not want that. In my opinion, the majority of consumers would rather watch the “all american family” type movies instead of giving attention to why poor people are struggling and what we can do to contribute to this issue.

In a press briefing titled, Poverty in America, Marian Wright  stated that poverty is bigger than we think and solutions to end poverty already exist. It is up to us to act on this issue and solve the problem. Children are born into poverty, they did not ask for this and it isn’t fair that they would have to endure this issue. She also stated that reducing the percentage of poverty would actually benefit us in the long run on decreased taxes. (YouTube) If viewers knew they could potentially be saving themselves money on taxes, do you think we would receive a little more attention from them?

While most of Module 3 readings focused on poverty among humans, the article titled, The Attention Economy, focuses on a different type of poverty. This paper focuses on a new kind of economy that is emerging in our present day. An attention economy can be viewed as an economy where attention and information differ. Attention is provided by humans, whereas, information comes from online, computers, digital, and internet. “The idea of an attention economy is premised on the fact that the human capacity to  produce material things outstrips the net capacity to consume the things that are  produced.” (Goldhaber, 1997: n.p.) Attention can be viewed as a resource, because humans can only provide so much attention. Therefore, we could suggest that there is a scarce amount in this world.

It was asked “What significance do new literacy have for effective participation in an attention economy?” Based on this reading, I would have to say that new literacy provide new information, therefore, in an attention economy it is effective in that it expands our knowledge. When a human is provided with new information it expands our thinking and teaches us something new. This is effective so that way we won’t be dwelling on the same piece of information and technology. If that was the case, and we didn’t receive new literacy, how could we ever become innovative humans? “What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients.” (Simon 1971: 40‐41) The more information we receive, the more we can expand our attention.

After the reading and videos, I came to the conclusion that we, as a society, turn our eyes to the poverty stricken, the low income, and poor families in our country as a whole. We tend to believe as if it’s not there and when we see it, we tend to whip it from our memory banks and we tend to focus our attention to those who seek it and who put themselves out there. While reading Attention Economy by Lankshear and Knobel, I learned that there are two classes in what they call the attention economy. There are those who are known as the stars or celebrities who have large chunks of attention towards them and the other class being fans which is us, who hand over our attention to the stars. I also learned that “attention involves an exchange.”(Lankshear and Knobel 2001). Reading about the Attention Economy, made me really think about attention. I never really thought that in order to get attention you have to be doing something in exchange for it. I interpreted this as like a comedy show. For instance, at a comedy show, we, the audience, expect an enjoyable time with many laughs, but if the comedian, who desires our attention, isn’t funny or has terrible jokes, our attention will soon be redirected to something else like our phones or each other. Goldhaber stated that it is difficult to  get new attention ‘by repeating exactly what you or someone else has done before.’ That is why comedians have to come up with new set lists for each show or tour. I know I would not enjoy having to be the same comedian twice who served us the same jokes as before. It said to be the that attention economy is always changing and is based on our originality or attempt to it.

While watching the assigned video of Child Poverty and reading Basic Facts about Low-Income Children, I learned that many children are below the line. Meaning that they are either a low income family or a poor family. Most of the time, those who are under the line try to rise above it and those who are above the line try to not go below it. In the video,  I saw the hurt in the Asiae Roberts eyes when he sang, “It’s been too hard living, but I’m afraid to die because I don’t know what’s up there beyond the sky.” It is heart breaking to hear a young man sing a song that he shouldn’t have to sing or even know that feeling of hurt. This video helped me go more into depth about how children cope or react to their unchosen lifestyle. They didn’t choose to be in a poverty stricken area or in a family who is below the line. It showed me that some children are forced to go days without eating and have to wait to eat at school the next day. It hurt me to see a young lady loose five dress sizes because she couldn’t afford to eat. For a sixteen year old kid to understand that he can’t eat or call anything his home is eye opening. One even said her life was chaotic and she couldn’t feel secure about anything. I learned that the necessity of food was all these children concerns and that’s a problem. I learned that 44 percent of all children live in low-income families and approximately 22 percent live in poor families. The parents education and employment, race/ethnicity, and other factors are connected with children encountering economic uncertainty. It was reinforced to me that when parents level of education is higher then the  likelihood of a child living in a low-income or poor family is decreased.

While listening to the Press Briefing that Marian Wright Edelman provided, I learned that Dr. King knew what it took to end poverty and how America was going down the drain. We need to use our extensive resources so that all children will have the fundamental essentials of life.  I also came to the agreement that it is a shame that so many of our children in the U.S., which has the largest economy, live in poverty. I also found it moving that if we as a country expand investments and programs that work, we can lower all child poverty by 60%. Lowering the poverty line for children and their families, allows them to feel secure and able to make their dreams come true. Children are our future and when they feel insecure or as if they can’t call something their own, we, as the world, are in trouble for a dull upcoming.

Continuing my reading with Simon Kuper and Sternheimer and connecting them to the word attention, I realized that when it comes to poverty it doesn’t make the media. Since poverty isn’t on the media, it doesn’t grab our attention. I agree that media tends to leave out the poor even though poverty is the most critical problem in growing countries. It has come to my knowledge that ‘One in seven Americans now lives below the official poverty line, ever more jobless people kill themselves…’ (Kruper 2013). People are killing themselves because they are poor. They feel as if there is no other way to become better in the world or provide or them and their families. This type of news never make media. The kind of new that airs are when the poor cause disturbance or start to riot, but when it came to an actor who didn’t want to pay taxes due to the increase, he got the media’s attention.

Many say that juveniles that are poverty stricken tend to drop out of school, join gangs, and/or end up in jail due to a violent or drug related crime. While reading Chapter 5, I learned that adults are more likely to do a violent crime than juveniles are and there is no youth crime wave at the moment. This chapter confirmed that although violence is linked to a variety of issues, poverty is the most important one.

While partaking in all the assigned readings, I feel like they all were connected. The poverty of our country is viewed as invisible to us. We look the other way whenever we see someone on the street begging or we change the channel when we see a sad story of a poor neighborhood. Poverty has never had the media attention and therefore has never had our attention. I also learned that not every person is the same. I grew up in a home who always went out to the “poor areas” and helped out. My parents taught me to love everyone regardless of there social economic status, race, sexual orientation, etc. Although media refuses to promote these stories, I believe the the light will be shown soon enough.

The link that is listed below is a short video of those who live above or below the line. It also explains their troubles and what the line is.

1. Lankshear, C., and M. Knobel. “Attention Economy.” Everyday Literacies. N.p., 26 Jan. 2001. Web. 17 Apr. 2010.
2. Childrensdefense. “Child Poverty: In Their Own Words.” YouTube. YouTube, 20 July 2015. Web. 12 June 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLrTZ5IG_Eg>.
3. DeMause, Neil, and Steve Rendall. “The Poor Will Always Be With Us.” Fair Study. Fair Study, 7 Sept. 2007. Web. 12 June 2016.
4. Jiang, Yang, Mercedes Ekono, and Curtis Skinner. “Basic Facts About Low-Income Children.” New York: National Center for Children in Poverty, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University., Jan. 2015. Web. 12 June 2016.
5. Childrensdefense. “Marian Wright Edelman: 2015 Poverty Report.” YouTube. YouTube, 30 Jan. 2015. Web. 12 June 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL_hnQAzzww>.
6. Sternheimer (2013). What’s dumbing down America: Media zombies or educational disparities? In Connecting social problems and popular culture: Why media is not the answer (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press (pp. -101-133)
7. Kuper, Simon. “Poverty’s Poor Show in the Media – FT.com.” Financial Times. The Financial Times LTD, 29 Mar. 2013. Web. 12 June 2016. <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6e8b7882-9672-11e2-9ab2-00144feabdc0.html>.

https://youtu.be/RE-VlC9Ck28

Hey everyone!  This week we read a LOT.  Honestly, I am going into a little bit of information overload over here.  Anywho..

The module this week focused on the idea of attention.  It was stated that attention is a scarce resource within a reading from Lankshear and Knobel (2001).  In the same paper, it was discussed that our future economy will rely greatly on that of attention, taking the place of information.  Within the same paper, they talk about how Goldhaber makes six points of relevance which talk about how we have become overly interested in receiving attention from others.  He then goes on to split people in to ‘Stars’ and ‘Fans’, which is fairly self-explanatory but fascinated me.  I started to wonder if I were ever a star and a fan.  I think that based on his definition of each, people can switch between these classes.  For instance, I have had times where I am very popular, such as my wedding day, and everything is about me, and I’ve also had other times when I give someone else all of my attention, like my husband.  However, I don’t believe that my experiences are as shallow as the ones he described.  He goes on the talk about illusory attention which was interesting and made sense because if ‘Fans’ don’t feel appreciated, they will move on to someone who will appreciate them.  Although he talks about getting attention through an electronic jacket, this article is older and today we have things such as Instagram that provide us with instant gratification and attention.

The next few readings switched us over to talk about poverty and low-income children.  Throughout the readings, it was made clear that we don’t like to see poor people on our televisions and we don’t like to hear about how children don’t have enough to eat.  Even when stories are done on the poor, they don’t show actual photos of the people.  I for one get extremely frustrated when I see sad commercials where they are asking for money to feed children.  Of course we want to help kids but I don’t trust the person who made the commercial.  According to DeMause (2007), news coverage in relation to the poor gives off the sense that poverty is a problem to mostly be worried about on holidays, when poverty is considered to be shameful.  After all that talk about hungry children, we viewed the food diary, provided by Fricat (2008).  This showed families from all over the world with their food for the week and how much was spent.  The least expensive and best looking food included mostly fresh fruits and vegetables.  Unfortunately in the United States, we consume an abundance of processed foods which make us unhealthy and fat.  Some of the families pictured were feedings close to 10 people with the same amount of food we use to feed a family of four!

The most challenging part of this module so far is hearing about how many children are living in low-income or poor homes.  I realized that although I don’t make much, I still make more than what the qualification for being poor is.  Unfortunately, I blame the parent of these hungry and poor children for not taking care of their kids.  The YouTube video that had the kids talk about how they would only put 50 cents in the gas tank broke my heart and the young man who sang throughout the video was definitely adding to the experience.  This country offers many programs so that people can get what they need, as far as I know and I personally want them to work harder for their children and provide.  According to Jiang (2013), the likelihood that a child would live in a low-income or poor family decreased if the parents had higher levels of education.  This is important because if education can help people provide for their families then we need to help get them educated!  There were two other readings that talked about how we don’t like to see the poor in person or have reporters go to those impoverished neighborhoods.  They also talked about how those stories are usually filled with boring and depressing statistics rather than personal stories from the people living that life.

Finally, I want to discuss violence, which we learned about from Karen Sternheimer.  She talked a lot about video games and the relationship to actual violence.  In reality, there is no cause-effect relationship.  Instead, there is only a correlation, which was elaborated on by Bruce Bartholow.  It turns out that we want to blame video games so badly for people’s heinous actions that we completely ignore the research.  I was surprised to hear that the average video game player is 37!  This also corresponds with the previous chapter where we learned that cyber bullying is mostly performed by middle aged people rather than teens.  I was happy to hear that we have decline in crime rates and that our youth isn’t any more violent now than they were in the past.  In fact, people aged 24-29 were the most likely to murder someone!

Overall, I learned many different things from the readings and videos this week and I will probably re-watch a few of them.  They made me feel differently about video games in relation to violence and more specifically, school shootings and they also made me more aware of how our media definitely does not reflect our society which includes the poor and low-income!

Hi everyone! I’m Dani the newest member of group 5. I look forward to getting to know you all virtually!