The readings and videos that were assigned for this module brought up some points that I had never heard of, or let alone, even noticed within our popular media culture.  I was embarrassed yet blown away by the YouTube videos discussing the “Smurfette Principle” and The Bechdel Test.  I have been watching various movies and television shows for quite some time now… I mean, I am a 90’s baby, how could I not?  But never have I ever noticed the obvious imbalance between males and females within the movies and TV shows I constantly grew up around.  To be honest, I never realized that there was only one female Smurf and only one female Muppet while I was growing up;  for some odd reason, this was perfectly normal for me.  But after watching and reading these module’s assignments, I am actually shocked and embarrassed by the amount of inequality that was taking place in almost every show and movie I grew up with!  Even my classic, favorite Disney princess movies fail The Bechdel Test due to that fact that even if there’s at least two or more women with names, they typically are talking about winning a man’s heart or just waiting for their prince to come.  I think that, nowadays, our culture is really trying to push against these “norms” of more male roles than females, and you can see it in a lot of the movies that are coming out recently.  For example, the newest Ghostbusters movie is a cast of four female comedians rather than the four male comedians we have been so accustomed to.  It will be interesting to see if these movies coming out with primarily female leading roles will end up focusing a lot of their conversation on men because when I think of movies like Sex and the City where females are the primary characters, they still end up talking about mostly about men, love and sex.

Aside from the Smurfette Principle and The Bechdel Test, I was very impressed with the five concepts and questions the Center for Media Literacy describes that all media literate people should keep in mind and ask themselves when viewing something within our media culture.  In order to better evaluate the messages being sent throughout the media, one should consider that: all media messages are constructive, media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules, different people experience the same media messages differently, media has embedded values and points of view (the are representations not reflections of a culture or genre of people) and most media messages are for profit and/or power.  Also, when viewing a form of media, the Center of Media Literacy suggests that one should ask themselves: who created this message?, what creative techniques are used to attract our attention?, how might different people understand this message?, what values and lifestyles/points of view from from this message?, and why is this message being said?  These core concepts and questions provided by the Center of Media Literacy were very helpful for me in that they gave me a bit of a guideline of what to look out for when viewing a medium of media.  I feel that these concepts and questions help dissect a form of media in a non-bias or judgemental way and help look at something in a more general, almost third-party way.

When completing any assignment or task, I always tend to try to make connections to my major/profession, Early Childhood Studies.  We started Module 2 out by learning the theories of Joel Baker in what create’s a child’s, and therefore adult’s, self identity.  Baker believes that family, close friends and current leaders are the main components that make up a person’s self identity over time.  We than learned how only in the United States, media is believed to be a primary factor in what create’s a child’s self identity, and this was incredibly interesting to me because it reminded me of the theory that got me into child development in the first place!  Known as the Ecological Module, a psychologist by the name of Urie Bronfenbrenner created a theory that explains how a child, and therefore adult, become who they are.  Similar to almost an onion, people are like layers, in that many factors over many periods of time affect who we become, some factors and life situations being more effective or more impactful than others.  Similar to Baker, Bronfenbrenner believes that family, peers and a child’s intimate community such as their school and playgrounds are the core concepts to who this person becomes.  This first layer is what Bronfenbrenner calls the “microsystem”, and there are two more layers that affect our life experiences and help in creating who we become as a result.  The next “layer” that Bronfenbrenner believes form a person’s overall being are the extended family, friends or neighbors, school boards and committees, community services, parent’s workplace and (here it is), mass media.  Known as the “exosystem” these are like the secondary factors in what create who we become .  Ironically, Bronfenbrenner is a Russian psychologist and not an American practitioner, and he, too, believes that the mass media is not a key factor in what our self identities become.  Sure, it does play an effect significantly in what types of communities and ideas we are exposed to, but like Baker and Bronfenbrenner, I believe that it does not need to be a key component in who we become if we don’t allow it to.  Here is an example that I found online of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Module to get a better understanding of what I’m describing and the theory that made me fall in love with the fun yet huge responsibility behind Early Childhood Studies; with the child at the middle, these are the layers that make up who we are, with the closest layer being the most effective and the outer layer creating an effect down to the child over time and through the community:

(source: Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model )

Alright so I ranted about child development there, sorry!  Continuing back to our other readings… this reminds me of what we read in our class text by Karen Sternheimer, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture.  Sternheimer specifically goes into detail about cyberbullying and just how much of an impact social media has on teen’s lives in the book’s third chapter called Does Social Networking Kill?  I was shocked by some of the results Sternheimer presented not because things were worse than I thought, but that this issue we sometimes face within our youth today can clearly be avoided by educating our youth to be aware of the social and mass media messages surrounding them.  Although cyberbullying can have horrendous and permanent effects on an individual, only six percent of teens have reported being cyberbullied (pg 57 Sternheimer, 2013).  Sternheimer continues to describe that the safety resides in the hands of us adults, but rather than keep our youth away from the media like many protectionist theorists would believe, it is important that we become aware of what is occurring online both in our own social media lives and our youth.  Instead of avoid our children from being exposed to things online, we should educate them about how they should proceed with interpreting it because internet protection and parental blocks only go so far.

The time we are living in is very unique in that our youth are dealing with issues and concerns that never existed in our human’s time here on earth.  Carlos E. Cortes discusses the idea of stereotypes in his article The Children Are Watching (2000) defining them as “evocative terms” that sent powerful messages or ideas when used carefully or selectively (pg. 2).  Although it breaks my heart to accept it, many negative biases and stereotypes have existed in our country from the minute our founding fathers landed here; and for our youth, these stereotypes get passed around so much faster via the internet rather than word-of-mouth like when my generation and previous generations were growing up.  Regardless of this, however, I think is is important that we do not protect our children against the media and educate them to be more aware, themselves, instead!

Something I realized while doing the readings this week is that we tend to accept data or statistics without really ever seeing any.  In reading Chapter 3 of our textbook, I learned that people have this idea that certain rates have increased even though there is no statistical support for those claims. The two main points or fears that were discussed in this chapter were that “cyberbullying can push people to commit suicide, and second, that online predators routinely use the Internet to lure kidnapping or sexual abuse victims or both” (Sternheimer 2013). The example given is that LGBT teens are more likely to experience cyberbullying than those who are not, however, there is no evidence that they are more bullied now than the past. The amount of bullying has not been statistically increasing even though the reports have. Another point, suicide rates are also not increasing, not according to actual data at least. In fact, many believe that teens are the most likely to commit suicide when the opposite is true. Teens are the least likely to commit suicide and forty-five to fifty-four years are the most likely (Sternheimer 2013). As far as predators go they pose a higher threat offline than they do online. The twisted view that online threats are higher is in part due to media. Some shocking incidents were posted on national headlines, news reports, news papers, and even television series. The wide spread knowledge of these events made them more real to us and made us more fearful. Hearing these national stories made us feel that the events were becoming more prevalent when really they were just becoming more public. These types of stories that made headlines included Megan Meier, “To Catch a Predator”, “Alicia’s Story: A Cautionary Tale”, and the “Craigslist Killer” (Sternheimer 2013). These points relate to media because the media gives us one perspective, we believe that things are increasing when really the data shows that the rates are mostly the same. I feel that now I won’t accept certain things as facts blindly, I will do more research to see the actual facts.

With my continued reading into Chapter 4 of our textbook I learned about new media and popular culture and again how people might not be receiving the bigger picture. You hear all the time “I am worried about the next generation”. Sternheimer explores “What’s Dumbing Down America” by comparing new media to educational disparities. She starts out with a misconception that children and teens watch the most television, when it reality television viewing increases with age. Recently the cause for concern has shifted from television to the internet. But is media the cause at all to blame for Americans becoming dumber? Are Americans even becoming dumber? Looking at the data, Flynn says “today’s children are far better solving problems on the spot without a previously learned method for doing so”. College enrollment rates are also higher more than doubling since 1970. Besides media to blame for any lower intelligence level, we must also consider the issues with schools. Schools in the United States are funded by taxes so teachers want to go to the higher tax base to receive better pay. That means those in the lower tax base are often under trained and lacking experience. Socioeconomic status must also be considered, those in low income areas receive less parent support and increased neighborhood violence (Sternheimer 2013).  It is good to know that the American people are not “getting dumber” and to realize what is causing any sort of hardship to education.

In the Cortés article I learned a different side to stereotypes. Everyone can agree that stereotypes are bad, but what I learned was that not everything making up a stereotype is bad. Not only is not bad, some of the things that create a stereotype are actually essential. Things such as generalizations, categories, and labels. Although they can create a stereotype which is something negative, they also are essential in order for humans to be able to communicate. These essential forms of communication must be used. Schools can help students to learn to use the right forms of these methods of communication. Cortés concludes that students should learn to work with evidence from the media. “This should include the determination and assessment of mass media patterns” (Cortés 2000). Students should not assume engaging the media leads to stereotyping. Issues of mass media stereotyping are too important to ignore.

I really enjoyed reading the article by Larry Gross. It gave me a new perspective of sexual minorities and mass media, mainly focusing on television. Gross describes sexual minorities as lesbian women and gay men. They are self-identified. I have heard that phrase “self-identified” hundreds of times before but I think the meaning really clicked for me this time. Babies are born and given a race and gender. Then they grow up and are treated as if they are heterosexual through socialization, but they go against this and identify themselves as being lesbian or gay. I hope I don’t sound ignorant saying that this just clicked for me. What I mean is that I had a general idea of it before but reading it in this way made me better understand the struggle and feelings behind it. Sexual minorities are unusually vulnerable to television because of “initial isolation and invisibility” (Gross 2001). Recently for the first time all classes and groups can share the same culture and perspectives because they are receiving the same viewpoint through mass media and in this case television. An interesting fact I read in this article was that between 1961-1976 thirty-two films were produced with lesbian women and gay men and out of them 13 committed suicide and 18 were murdered, meaning only one survived throughout the film. The situation for sexual minorities worsened with AIDS. Those who identify as a sexual minority are told to just ignore the media, but that is hard when it surrounds you everywhere and the things it says are hurtful. You can’t be expected to just turn your feelings off. Gross suggests the “most effective form of resistance to the hegemonic force of the dominate media is to speak for oneself”.  I really loved that because you can’t control the media but you can give the facts of your own personal situation and maybe change someone’s viewpoint.

First of all, I have to start by saying it was very cool to read something out of a book written by our teacher. I really liked the message of this chapter of the book. I thought the beginning was interesting that it started off saying Americans have a hard time believing in possibility. That was interesting to me because it is the complete opposite of the American dream, one of the foundations of our country. Interesting to see that shift. I enjoyed learning about the inversion of invisibility and that modern power is manifested in the ability to be avoid being seen. Also that accountability is controlled. I loved the idea of parents and teachers sitting down to talk about education, not just their child but education as a whole. It is profound to think that if parents and teachers did this regularly should would be forever changed and that children wouldn’t grow up to be what business had groomed them to be(Tollefson 2008). A quote I really liked was “People joining together with one another to pursue common interests do no serve the interests of the ruling class”(Tollefson 2008). I liked this because its okay not to serve the ruling interests and to challenge the one way accountability. I also liked to not completely get rid of any one part of the system but to “argue for healthier system where authority is more evenly distributed” (Tollefson 2008).

The last article I read was “Common Sense Media”, many people focus on the how or the why children are being effected by media and they completely miss the content of advertising embedded. Per year children watch an average of 25,600 television advertisements (). 40% of the ads they are watching are not directed toward children (). Embedded ads are those inside a show, like what products the character use. For example, “I want to drink Coke not Pepsi because my favorite television character drinks Coke”.  I learned that online advertisements can be interactive and immersive. I learned that the big things with mobile ads is they can be used throughout the day and give you location based ads. A lot of good articles this week I enjoyed reading all of them!

Sources:

Sternheimer, K. (2013). Does social networking kill? Cyberbullying, homophobia and suicide. In Connecting social problems and popular culture: Why media is not the answer (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press (pp. 47-70)

• 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. 71-100)

1. Cortés, C. E. (2000). Struggling with stereotypes. In The children are watching: How the media teach about diversity. New York: Teachers College Press (pp. 146-161).
   • Cortes 2000 The Children Are Watching Struggling with Stereotypes.pdf
2. Gross, L. (2001). Out of the mainstream: Sexual minorities and the mass media. In Durham, M. G. and Kellner, D. M. (Eds.) Media and cultural studies: Key Works. Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishing (pp. 405-423).
   • Gross-Ch21-Out of the mainstream.pdf
3. Tollefson, K. (2008). The inversion of visibility. In Volatile knowing: Parents, teachers and the censored story of accountability in American public schools. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press (pp. 125-134).
   • Tollefson 2008 Volatile Knowing Chapter 6(1).pdf

4. Advertising to children and teens: Current practices. (2014). Common Sense Media. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/advertising-to-children-and-teens-current-practices.

• CommonSenseMedia-advertisingresearchbrief-2014 15 pages.pdf

Drones at Hollywood’s Premiere Technology Event

Cine Gear

Cine Gear Expo is an annual technology event by and for Hollywood’s entertainment industry. The Expo returned to the historic Paramount Studios lot for its 21^st outing from June 2-5, 2016. Cine Gear primarily targets behind the scenes film and television artists and technicians who sculpt and create the images we eventually see on screens small to large. The focal point for this meeting is the wide-ranging Expo wherein hundreds of exhibitors showcase their latest offerings. Cine Gear also offers numerous exhibitions, seminars, workshops, and film screenings.

AARR clearly doesn’t belong in the motion picture industry! But our friends over at SuperProAerial suggested we check Cine Gear out given the increasing number of drone-related technologies dribbling into Hollywood productions.

I was hoping to make it to the formal dedication of our 67-mile Backbone Trail across the Santa Monica Mountains (40 years in the making) just before Cine Drone, but a host of things slowed my departing Ventura County. So on a warm Saturday morning in early June, we hopped in a car and made a beeline hour’s drive straight into LA and the Paramount Studios Lot.

Drones Few and Far Between

For pure drone enthusiasts, this event was generally a bust. By my tally <3% of the Exhibitors had anything directly to do with UAS. The drone contingent primarily consisted of omnipresent DJI plus a host of video firms specializing in aerial shots for commercials, TV, and film. I had some great talks with these videography firms, especially CineDrone. Perhaps the most interesting takeaway here was the fact while these firms each own a diverse stable of UAV, their default platforms were DJI Inspires. While each said that they select a specific platform from their UAV stable based upon environmental constraints and artistic vision dictated by the particular shot, they uniformly reported that their default platform is an Inspire with one of the newer Zenmuse (or better) lenses.

Comments like “the Inspire is what I use probably 75% of the time as a default,” “I’d say the Inspire is my most common go-to solution, that’s why we have four of them,” and “for travelling [our Inspire] is often the best tradeoff in terms of shot and ease of portability” illustrate the common theme of Inspires becoming the default, generic workhorse of the professional film business.

Steady Shots

The next most obvious takeaway was the incredible burgeoning of steady camera rigs, gimbals and associated hardware. It seemed like every third or fourth booth was anxious to have passersby try out the smooth flow or “anti-gravity” feel of their rigs. Advances here are clearly showing up in our UAV camera/sensor rigs. We all know that of late everyone from Yuneec to DJI has been coming out with rigs that act as handheld steadycam holders for your UAV’s camera, sans flying components. Hollywood is taking this to the extreme with arrays on everything from military spec jeeps to RC cars to gigantic monster booms. Their filming set-ups with often super crazy and impressive!

Virtual Reality

The 3D Revolution is coming. I must have seen at least 15 rigs of differing design architecture, default CMOS, and portability. Clearly everyone will soon be shooting at least some of their stuff in the brave new world of viewer-dictated focus/shot composition and virtual reality goggles. Each of these arrays I examined were either too large for a UAV, too power hungry, or both. The current hardware is well suited to ground based robots or car-based mounts. We seem to be at least a year or two away from anything realistically being carried onboard a sUAS for any useful amount of flight time.

Light Emitting Diodes

I think I was most surprised by the proliferation of LED-based lighting solutions. I would estimate something on the order of 15% of the exhibitors were showcasing LED solutions as either daylight illumination sources or as fully controllable multispectrum color illumination.   These are increasingly able to substitute for gigantic, power-sucking halogen spotlights or colored illumination via complex lighting gel arrays.

Hollywood is certainly pushing the development of LED innovation. LEDs comparative cheapness, power-sipping nature, and comparative cool operating temperatures compared to traditional light bulbs would in and of themselves be reason enough to drive innovation. But add to this the need for many productions to be portable and operate in remote locations and you have the makings for lots of players entering the movie lighting business. While I didn’t see direct links to the drone world here yet, all of the ancillary tech such as dimmers, fine-scale spectrum control, modular nature of the connectors, etc. make for lighting that is easier to attach to a drone.   Our lab has increasingly been calling upon LEDs for our work with our Performing Art colleagues and “drone dancing” performances.

Everything Else

There were also nice hidden gems here and there that I think our lab could benefit from. These include hard drives and file storage, portable power supplies, increasingly lightweight “Pelican” cases, and more varied daylight-capable video monitors.

All-in-all I am happy we made the trek down to Hollywood. But for the dedicated drone enthusiasts out there Drones, Data X Conference in San Francisco was probably a better bet this weekend.

So far the readings in Module 2 have discussed many of the inequalities that we as a society are facing today. It discusses many of the minority groups that are being underrepresented in our media. From those with a different gender, ethnicity, or even sexual orientation, these readings address these inequalities.

In the first reading The Inversion of Visibility, talks about parents and teachers coming together and having a real discussion about what is really wrong with education today. The focus of the reading is on accountability. The author uses the term “spotlight” to represent accountability. Tollefson writes that the spotlight is being controlled by those higher up than just the teachers and parents. The spotlight is shining so brightly on certain individuals and is being used as a distraction from those behind the “spotlight” who are avoiding any and all accountability. There was a line in the text that read, “I have suggested that the biggest problem we are facing as a society is that we have a hard time believing in possibility and imagining that things could be otherwise.” Now this was referring to the pressures teachers are under and the lack of resistance that is being shown by teachers. However it also relates to the videos we watched earlier in the module. In the extended barnyard discussion there were couples of videos that introduced us to the concept of a “troupe.” In short a troupe is a common pattern in a story, more specifically the troupe that we were introduced to was the “smurfette principle.” This is the tendency of works of fiction to have only one female character among many male characters. Even though women make up 50% of the population they are still very underrepresented. They question that followed this statement in the video was, why? Why are women still so underrepresented? Especially during a time where many would say that man and women are “equal.” I think that this is when the reading and video connect. Men and male traits are so represented in the media and throughout our society that we see them as the norm, and because these characteristics are so ingrained in our worlds we have a hard time imagining that things can be different. The media is used as a tool, it is used to “represent” what is going on in our society, and when minority groups, like women, are only being the role of being the supporting character of the man it keeps women stuck in that role in real life as well. Women should have better representation in the media, showing a more of a contribution to society.

Similar to how women are underrepresented in the media, author Larry Gross writes from the minority perspective. Gross elaborates on sexual minorities (gay men and lesbian women) and how the media has been used as a tool to establish who is powerful and who is powerless. “….certainly it is the case that non-representation maintains the powerless status of groups that do not possess significant material or political power bases” (Gross 406). He is saying that those who the media chooses to represent are those who have power, and those who the media continues not to represent are those who remain powerless. The media is the gatekeeper in regards to who is being represented, and how they are being represented. Gross says that the media is a representation of “what is” therefore we see TV shows, games, music and commercials all share specific similar values and when those values are challenged those who are challenging them (in this case sexual minorities) are seen as immoral or wrong. This article really shows the effect that the media has on not only sexual minorities, but minority groups as a whole… If these groups, whether they be ethnic or sexual minorities, continue to be under and misrepresented (i.e. using stereotypes when casting roles: the Hispanic maid) these groups will continue to be “symbolically annihilated.” Gross writes from more of constructionist point of view. He writes about the negative aspects of media and how it can be used to put/keep people down but I think that he also thinks it can be used as a tool to help spread more diversity as well.

Another author who leans more towards the constructivists’ perspective was Carlos Cortes. Cortes wrote The Children are watching. He introduces stereotypes first by what they are not rather that the traditional definition. He did this because a lot of times people can often get stereotypes and other words confused. For example, Cortes brings up three concepts that people often confuse with stereotypes. The first was generalizations. He goes on to say that generalizations are not stereotypes, therefore when people say that we need not “generalize” it doesn’t make sense, because we use general ideas/statements as a way to apply previous knowledge with a new situation. The second concept he used was labels. Cotes writes that encouraging people to stop “labeling” is the wrong idea. “…labels are inevitable. Without them, we could not communicate” (Cotes 150). This is because we use labels to communicate a general idea to another person. Cortes uses the example of “light” he is able to ask someone to “turn on the light” without having to explain what a light and light switch are, using labels as an effective means of communication. The last concept he used was depictions. A depiction is how someone or a group of people are portrayed. People often use the words stereotype and depict interchangeably, however one must recognize that depictions aren’t always stereotypes. What really separates depictions from stereotypes is the frequency of occurrences. Cortes writes, “In order for a social stereotype to exist, it must be widely held” (154). Cortes also goes on to say that it is actually the responsibility of the schools to teach all of these concepts in detail, giving students the skills necessary to analyze forms of media, and decide which, if any, concepts are being used. “In fact, one central role of schools is to help students learn what a generalization is….and how to apply them to new situations” (148), writes Cortes. It is because of the lack of awareness as to what these four terms really mean that lead to confusion among people. Instead using the words interchangeably teaches them separately show children the difference and helps them build their skills and strengthen their ability to differentiate between them.

Unlike the writings of Cortes and Gross the article on advertising to children and teens was written from more of a protectionist point of view. The reading discusses the different tools the media uses to advertise merchandise to children. The text goes into detail about the several different methods that are being used to expose children and teens to different products. From the more traditional method, using commercials to advertise products, to more progressive ways like product placement in shows and games, to avergaming. In 2007 Moore and Rideout wrote, “Advergames are games that are created by a firm for the explicit purpose of promoting one more of its brands” (10). Over the past few years TV viewing has shifted from “live programming” where individuals or families are watching shows as they air, to using either ad-free devices or recorded shows, where you can skip through the ads. In order to be able to change with the times companies are changing their methods of advertising. Since people are able to skip through or avoid ads altogether now, companies are using appealing tactics to draw children and teens in. For example, branded website have been created that include a lot of content that is appealing to the younger audience, these sites include music and fashion to branded games, all aimed at attracting kids/teens who will then invite their friends to the site, and they will get brand recognition that way. The article really shows how manipulative media can be, especially because it is aimed at children, who are often targeted. The text concludes with recommendations to how we can monitor the changing ways of advertising and ultimately the effects it may have long term for children and teens.

I thought the article readings this week were a good mixture of those who leaned more towards to protectionist point of view. I liked how at least one of the readings was being written from a minority point of view, as it shed a new light on minority groups and even referenced a group that is often overseen in the “minority world” that being sexual minorities. As I continue to read I feel that more often than not media gets a bad rap for much of the negative things that happen in our world today, however there are a lot of different contributing factors that I think are ignored a lot of the time, by just quickly blaming TV shows or commercials. These readings are continuing to show little by little the positive and negative effects media may have on not only individuals, like children and teens, but the effects it has on our society as a whole. There are people and companies out there who target individuals, especially those who aren’t media literate, using their lack of knowledge against them. For example, applying one of the 15 strategies that Hausman addresses, but there are also companies and people who are looking to expand the minds of others, exhibit equality with equal representation in the media, and who are looking to spread diversity.