Tag Archive for: instructor-none-2

In the process of this module we have learned how media influences us, and what knowledge the media has on us that we as a whole might not know; how the brain works. Apparently emotions is what triggers our full potential of knowledge. Well media is aware of how much influence emotions play in our everyday lives and they decide to incorporate this everywhere they can. When participating in the activity of watching the news and keeping count of topics and who is speaking made me realized how fear plays a key role into grasping our attention. “The media profit from fear mongering through sensationalized headlines. Nothing gets viewers to tune in to a news program like fear: fear of war, fear of deceases, fear of death, fear of harm coming to love ones” (Radford, 2003, p.66). The news really knows how to manipulate their information through their point of view of importance and present it with frightening headlines. Even though some of us are aware that it is a trick being used we still seemed to be influenced by it, why is that? Is it because the title struck a cord of fear?

Another observation during the activity of watching news and keeping track of who is talking made me more aware of how women are underrepresented. However, the women representation did not come close to the underrepresented African American males and females, especially females. According to “Who Gets to Speak on Cable News?” by Peter Hart my findings stay true. Hart states, “Hannity had only four women of color on his show. This pattern is related to the phenomenon of the Fox News blonde. The young attractive female guests who are regulars on both shows” (2014). I don’t understand how African American males seem to be of great value in sport news but why not in everyday local, state, world news?

“The patrons become what William Evans calls normative reference organizations, whose requirements and demands the media must accommodate if they are to succeed” (Herman & Chomsky, 2002, p.34). This quote caught my attention because it made me thankful to have many ways of accessing news. “The commercial press system became less competitive and ever more clearly the domain of wealthy individuals, who usually had the political views associated with their class” (McChesney, 2002, p. 365). If we had to rely on the richest white male in our own city to provide our news, our perception of the world would be dreadful. It seems to be in history we were dependent on the little news we received from the few hands that had the money to provide it, and now those who have the money and power to provide it have to grab our attention in order to succeed. It is in our hands to choose what news we receive and whether we can make someone more powerful and richer.

Being able to detect biased news is important because such placement influences peoples sense of what is important. One question I found to be very important when learning about how to detect bias in news media was, from whose point of view is the news reported? I think it is important for media news to represent all sides to a story and have the appropriate candidates who pertain to the topic to input their thoughts and knowledge. I believe by incorporating true factors that belong to the topic at hand will make the information more valuable.

When reading “A new generation of greed?” by Karen Sternheimer I couldn’t help but relate child and parent consumerism to the brain system lecture. “In a study of pre-schooled children, researcher Ellen setter found that children use consumption to create both group and individual identity (much like their parents). the children wore T-shirts with recognizable logos and carried lunch boxes with Disney characters to create a shared culture and let their peers know that they were in on kid culture” (2013, p.242). It seems that parents want to be accepted and not be the “weird” outcast parent who didn’t provide their child with the right accessories to relate to the other kids. If the parents feel this way, how can we blame their children reflecting these same values? In the brain systems hierarchy of needs esteem was second and love and belonging was third. These two needs seem to be influenced on consuming the right technologies, clothes, cars, and houses in order to be respected by others and create the right friendships (be popular). Why have we portrayed esteem and belonging to having such materialistic things? Have we let media influence us in believing that?

The limbic system is the seat of emotions, and fear as we have learn is a good media seller. However according to Sternheimer implying to much fear can lead into denial and ignore frightening information (2013, p.268). “This is why the things that we need to be concerned about, the problems without easy solutions, are not as compelling as news stories. They scare us too much” (2013, p.268). Inequality is misrepresented in the media, and apparently is not news worthy to broadcast. Discrimination and inequality still exists, we might take a step forward but we tend to take two steps back. We have had a black president for the past 8 years a huge accomplishment in America, however now we have Donald Trump initiating false accusations and stereotypes of people creating discrimination amongst each other once again. I don’t understand how such ignorance from ones man mouth can intrigue us to hear more and support it, but hearing the ugly truths of inequality/discrimination scare us to the point we turn away?

The article readings this week did a good job in clarifying the role of the news and those who are actually contributing to the news. I feel that all the articles and slides that we were assigned this week were all very closely connected as they all were talking about various news outlets and their roles in the news that we are consuming on a daily basis. The article that discussed the different issues and the stance that the liberals and conservatives took was really interesting to me. I am not “big on politics” I try and get as many different perspectives on an issues as I can and then make up my own mind, so I am not too keen on what party stands where on certain issues. So this article went into detail on different issues ranging from the death penalty to abortion. The article was quick and easy to define the issue and then address the liberal and conservative stance of it. I enjoyed reading through all the issues and seeing what side stood where. The one article that really stuck out to me this week however, was The News Bias, written by Radford. This article was really interesting to me because you see just how “hyped” the news is. I, like many other people, assumed that if it was on the news then it must be important. While reading this article, it soon became clear that a lot of times the story that is on the news is there simply, because it will bring in ratings. Reading this article showed just how unaware a lot of people are, we see something on the news and say, “Well it’s on the news so it must be true” but reading this article showed me that this isn’t the case. If anything, I think that these articles encouraged me to be even more media literate, as I want to know the truth about what is actually going on in our world today. I don’t want “lazy” journalism, rather I am looking for educated discussions on politics, economics, and the countless issues we are facing today. The media continues to play on our fears and uses it as a way to keep us tuning in to their outlets.

Chapter 10 in the class reading this week was really interesting. It starts the chapter out by discussing advertising on oneself, where corporations pay individuals to wear their logos as a form of advertisement. This chapter in particularly, was discussing how college students were doing this as way to help pay their tuition. Sternheimer discusses how the stories of individuals doing this led to media coverage, the media ran with the story that branding was now in every aspect of our lives, including education. When I read this, my immediate reaction was, their doing it to help pay for school. We’re focusing on the fact that this method is being used, but not on why people are turning to this. Sternheimer writes, “…the rise in costs of higher educations and the massive debt many students and their families take on in the process, self branding may be less of an onerous form of debt servitude than the traditional route of heft student-loan payments” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 245). I thought this was important because it’s addressing the fact that students are being put in debt one way or another, maybe they are turning to advertising as a way to help themselves out. This is another example of the media pointing the finger at advertising and corporations, while ignoring the structural problems we are facing as a society. The chapter goes on to discuss the fact that children are seen as more concerned with materialistic things than in generations past. With shows coming out like MTV’s My Super Sweet Sixteen, that flaunts the outrageously expensive lifestyles of fifteen, soon-to-be sixteen year olds. The idea is that when shows like these are coming out and influencing other kids to want and therefore expect these lavish lifestyles as well. The book gives an example of preschoolers knowing, and being able to tell people, what brand of clothing they are wearing. For me, the book made a big deal about his, however I’ve worked with several children, and I’ve never noticed children having a lot of brand awareness. The biggest problem I have with the idea that children are being more materialistic is the fact that these children aren’t the ones buying the clothes are the other items, as clearly as preschoolers and pre-teens they do not have the income to do so. The question is then, who is? It is the parents of the children that are buying the items, and thus the materialistic attitude/values are coming from the parents. I think that children reflect their parents behaviors and attitudes, and if the parents didn’t make it a point to talk about the brands or the price of things then the children wouldn’t even know how to either. Sternheimer introduces us to a new word this chapter as well, “kidfluence” which is the power children have to influence their parents’ purchasing decisions. This was interesting first because I know that children can often influence their parents, but I didn’t know that someone had actually coined a term for it. Secondly, I thought it was interesting that the “blame” isn’t being placed on the parents, but rather on the children. Sternheimer acknowledges this as well, she writes, “Yet the problem here is cast as the child’s, not the adults’” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 247). This is a common issue that we have addressed throughout the book, a problem (that to me) is so clearly an issue that adults need to work on is being blamed on children. I don’t believe children can make their parents purchase something. The book describes children as vulnerable to the advertisements, however it seems as though the parents are the ones who are vulnerable, as they aren’t able to say no to their children. Sternheimer writes, “ In fact, children are seen as a challenge, some companies…have hired specialized agencies to handle their children’s campaign. It seems it may be easier to influence their parents” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 261).

I don’t see the parents of the victims of this “new materialistic society” as studies have shown that they are also active participants in the consumer economy. Another pattern that has been woven throughout the book, parents/adults are shown to be active participants in the behavior (i.e-  sexual promiscuity, TV watching, consumerism, etc) when studies show that adults can and will be affected more than children, but the focus of the problem is still on children. This is a tactic used to create fear. People don’t want their children to be at risk, so blaming the media (even though there is little concrete evidence) is easy. They ignore the fact that issues are more impacted than children and go from there. Sternheimer writes, “The truth is that our highly consumerist society has been created and sustained by a large shift in the American economy following World War II” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 250). She addresses the social change that we faced and the fact that, that fact does in fact play a role in the change in our culture, not just blaming media. What this book has really showed me is it is a lot easier to blame media, be it TV, music, commercials, etc. than it is to actually look at the structure of our society and addressing the more complex issues that we are being distracted from. We, as a society, need someone to blame and the media is the easiest target. I think that in order to start addressing the problems that we are facing we really need to put our fingers down and stop playing the blame games, and take a real look at where we’re coming up short and the real reasons why.
Chapter 11 really wrapped but the book, for me anyways. It talks about the real problem, or the real problem how Sternheimer sees it. She talks about the fact that yes, there are media outlets and countless examples of media portraying less than ideal behavior. However, she doesn’t see media, in all its different forms, as the sole problem. Although it seems like a no brainer to assume that the problems we are facing are due to media, she doesn’t think that media is the center of the issues. She does acknowledge that media does play a role in the way our society perceives things but their are far more contributing factors from outside that we need to pay attention to. One of the issues we are facing is poverty. Sternheimer has addressed childhood poverty throughout the book and many of the issues that stem from poverty as well. We often attribute violence to the video games that have shootings, while ignoring the fact that many children who live in poverty are living in less than desirable neighborhoods often filled with violence. These neighborhoods also might not have the best schools, who in turn don’t have the funds to hire the best teachers, all contributing to a vicious cycle that can lead many children to do things that maybe given the right circumstances they wouldn’t have done. The fact of the matter is, not all children have equal access to resources. Sternheimer writes, “Yes, they might spends more time watching television or using other forms of media, but his is an effect of social structure” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 276). She brings this issue back to the fact that we aren’t addressing the social issues but only acknowledging the role of the media. Chapter 11 really summed up the whole book, it addressed all the issues that we have discussed throughout the chapters and the author reiterates the fact that although media does play a small role in the issue, we allow the media (i.e. – different new outlets) to distract us and draw our attention away from the real issues. We continue to look at TV and video games, allow scary news statistics to mold our beliefs, allow people to determine our fears when really all we need to do is look deeper into our society. She talks about how building our critical analysis skills and directing them towards the media can only help as it gives us the ability to really interpret what the messages we are being given are truly saying. Sternheimer ends the book writing, “In order to address them directly, we can’t be distracted by the lure of popular culture, which is ultimately not the key problem, nor is its control the solution” (Sternheimer, 2013, p. 287). I think that this final paragraph summed up the book well, we need to focus on what people are actually trying to distract us from, and although blaming media may be easy, it doesn’t help us fix the issues that we are facing. In order to help ourselves we need to dig deep and address the issues that we have been blindly ignoring. Ignorance is not bliss.

When hearing about current news and world events in the world online, on the radio, or on television, always consider the source. News advertisers will go to great lengths to persuade the audience into believing their perception. According to Radford (2003), “News messages may do more than inform viewers about events; they
may also change the meaning and significance of events. How a particular story is reported, and how the facts are filtered by the journalist, can greatly influence the audience. Time and space constraints strip away valuable information needed to really understand a news event” (pg. 67). He goes on to discuss how news can distort events and create fear in many people who do not second guess the news and believe it to be true. He goes on to discuss the idea of “What is newsworthy” and how to detect it. Directors and editors are in charge of the news which gets produced. Things to be aware of are the different types and numbers of similar stories, stories that compete with it, the amount of time available, and the coverage area. The number of events the media actually covers are small and select.
According to McChesney, R. (2002) article titled, “The Rise and Fall of Professional Journalism” there are two functions of journalism in a self-governing society. The functions include, “watchdog roles” and “informative roles”.. McChesney, R. (2002) states, “Journalism should be neutral and unbiased” (slide 6).Readers should be able to trust what they read and make educated decisions with judgement based on true unbiased information.Journalism should be neutral and free from racism, stereotypes, environmental degradation, inspire political movement while staying neutral when presenting controversial issues. I found the video “Who Makes The News” to be very interesting. Before taking this class, it had never crossed by mind that women in media are significantly underrepresented.According to Global Media Marketing Project. (2015). “Who makes the news”, a group of individuals did a study to figure out the ratios of men to women in the news. The findings were mind blowing. In one study, when analyzing the amount of women read about in print, radio and television were 24%, whereas men were covered in the other 76% of coverage. In other news findings, only 37% of newscasters delivering and covering the news on television are women, which means men cover the other 63% of news being delivered around the world. This is a perfect example of the inequalities around the world pertaining to women. I am curious to see other similar studies pertaining to women in the media.
In Sternheimer, K. (2013), according to chapter 10, “For many Americans across the age spectrum, what you have and what brand of stuff you buy contribute to the production of an individual’s status”(p. 246). This is all to true for a majority of our youth. These days, children being to take notice of what things they have, what things others have, and what they need in order to obtain the status they desire. These types of items include cell phones, ipods, name brand shoes, clothes, and purses. I sat down and had a conversation with my brother Anthony; a secondary educator for the the Los Angeles Unified School District, Anthony Zarate says (Personal Communication June 26, 2016), “materialistic items such as clothes, shoes, phones, and other tangible material items become a way for students to differentiate between the “cool kids” and the “not so cool, poor kids. Student’s begin to notice class differences and use these differences to taunt and tease one another when they see a fellow student does not have the adequate materialistic items”. Children are growing up in a world of a hyper consumerist society. One of the questions I often ask myself, where does all of this start? People want to blame parents, but honestly I feel the blame needs to be thrown back on the media makers and the notions they create that tell children and adults that the items they want are necessity.

As I was going through the different readings for the week I realized that many of them had something in common. Many of them talk about how different people have power over what is shown in the media and what is going to advertised. These are companies such as corporate companies that have the money to show what every day people see. Robert McChesney pointed out to us that when the corporate companies are closer to the story that is being shown, it probably means that the story is unreliable (p. 375). This is a sad truth because as we watch news programs or anything on television, we should not have to think to ourselves if the story is true or not. I feel as though for it to be on television it should have to be true or have a reliable source behind it. Normal people do not know this as being a problem, so they just figure that what they are hearing is true. If a person only gets their information from the media, then we can see how this is a problem, since much of it could be false.

These news companies put a lot of different factors into what is going to make a good story and what stories are going to take the least amount of time and effort to cover. As Radford showed us in his article, news companies only show stories based on competing stories, the amount of time it will take and where it is taking place (p. 67). This makes me mad because I feel as though the news is there to show us all the important things happening in the world. Knowing that these companies are just showing us things because they are easy to cover and the other stations are also showing it, is irritating. For many people, this is the only way that they see any news and what is going on around them. If they knew that they may not be getting the most important news stories, I would think that they would be mad and have other ways of finding the news. Many people do not realize that these news stations are still companies that are out to make a profit.

Just like the people that are creating the media and news stories we should also look at the people that are watching it. In the article on fair.org, we see the people who are viewing the news outlets the most. We saw from this article that mostly whites watched these programs, and among them, they were mostly male compared to females (Hart, web).  It was not by a little bit that men outnumbered women in watching these programs either, they were way over 60% every time. Thinking of these statistics in this article I was pretty surprised with it. As I thought of my own family and friends I would have thought that there would have been more of a similarity between men and women watching these news outlets. Such as my family, my mother and I watch the news way more than my father and brother. If I had to think from my sociology background though, I would think this is true because men are still more likely to have higher paying jobs. These jobs need these men to stay in tuned with what is happening around the world.

Turning to our text, Sternheimer starts to look at consumption and materialism as a problem in our society. We see how materialism is the new craze among the younger generation. Anytime something brand new comes out, they must have it or else they are going to be uncool. We have started to look at material needs as a necessity and not a luxury. The younger generation has become more obsessed with money than happiness, as the majority of them say they would be happier if they had more money to be able to buy themselves more things (Sternheimer, p. 246). This is extremely sad because this means that they will never truly be happy with what they have because newer and better things are always being made. This is especially sad for the parents of these children because they are unable to always buy the latest and greatest for their kids. In the long run this causes people to work more often to be able to buy all of these things and so then give the children “guilt money” since they are never around (p. 250). There are so many things that we can blame this on, such as the media and advertisements. They are always the ones showing these children that they must have the best new thing. Advertisements many times target the younger generation because they know these children can talk their parents into almost buying them anything. This is a big loop that can only be stopped by parents telling their children no.

One thing that the media often hides from us as Americans is just how many children here in our own country are living in poverty. We always see the commercials for the starving children in other counties (which is great) but we never see any for the children actually living here (Sternheimer, p.275). Most of the people living in poverty in the United States are children, more specifically about 15 million. It is a ridiculous amount in which the media never sheds light on. If we have such a big problem of children living in poverty, why are news outlets or the media in general letting other Americans know about the problem? I feel as though if more people saw this as a problem, then we would be able to as a society, fix it together. Many people probably do not see this as a problem though, because they simply never hear anything about it. This takes us back to the stories in which the media actually tells us about. A better question is though, why do we not see these children that are living in poverty in our own country as a problem? Why do the news outlets not think that this is a problem that they should share with us? Sternheimer bring us a good point however, when we look at poverty, instead of blaming other people, the only people that we blame are the poor themselves (p.282). This may just be the main reason as to why we never see these stories in the news. Although, I do feel as though if we as a society stepped in we could help these people get out of poverty and be able to provide for their families. The United States is always so quick to blame others for our problems, when in fact I think we should stop blaming people and just help to fix the problems.

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