Module 4 Reflections
In the video series created by Terry Dugan, we learned that culture is a learned behavior comprising of our traditions, lifestyles, and shared experiences that contribute to the way we experience the world around us. I’m very interested in anthropology, so it was nice to see a somewhat outside approach to the idea of communication and culture. Cultural anthropologists call the learning we do from each other that helps us create our unique cultures, “storytelling.” I think this is such a great word to explain the largely ambiguous concept that is culture.
The media then, is a storyteller. Dugan explains that media rarely shows the consequences of bad actions, which I do and don’t agree with. Some interesting questions that came to my mind was the idea that teens are invincible. Now, this applies to the video series in addition to the required readings, but I’m curious about this idea of invincibility among teens (and therefore their more raccous behavior). Is this due to the media? Were teens like this before mass communication (newspaper, tv, radio, the internet, etc)?
Family values from the Cosby show etc., are being replaced by the Simpsons, and more risqué media. Isn’t that just because that’s what is popular? The change in culture happened before the shift in media (at least in my opinion.) As we grew older, we accept of reject the traditions we’ve learned, and create our own cultures (Dugar, 2010). Therefore, the media we see on TV was something that a culture somewhere accepted, brought to us, and we accepted as well (in the general sense).
It was interesting to hear Dugan talk about media’s role as the villain. I know that we covered this a little in previous modules but I think it’s always good to restate the concept that for many, media takes the role of a villain.
Attention (which we learned a little more about last module) according to Dugan, occurs when someone is displaying their culture in an inappropriate setting for that specific culture (Dugan, 2011). He gave the example of a woman in her underwear at a bus stop waiting for a bus, and the example of the Grand Theft Auto video game. I think that these examples really gave the quote “A culture of violence is OK, but a culture of sex isn’t,” that much more intensity.
Also in Dugan’s video lectures, he explains mass communication as involving 8 elements: A sender, a receiver, a process of encoding and decoding, a message, feedback, the change of noise, and a channel (Dugan, 2010).
He also explains that all culture is local, defined by language, religion, and village customs (Dugan, 2011). I think it’s interesting when connecting the ideas of how culture is learned, and then later in the second video he mentioned about how immigrants would go to the silent theaters because they wouldn’t speak English, and they learned how to be American that way. It just really brings me back to the question I asked earlier in connection to the chapter 6 and 8 readings, and the videos about the idea that teens think they’re invincible. Did the media teach them this? Or was this already in our culture and was bound to occur anyway even without the introduction of mass media?
Mass communication creates shared experiences. It helps us understand what’s going on around us, and I think this is an important thing to consider. The most interesting this from the first two videos was this idea of are we still learning from mass media. I personally would say yes. As children, we watch TV and then we try to imitate what we see on it. I don’t think it’s the only thing we learn from though, and I think that while it may be one of the first venues (especially for the past few generations) that we get our cultural values from because it’s just so pronounced. I don’t believe that we take it all at face value though. I still believe that media isn’t the only source of our cultural values, and in fact, I believe that it’s actually a very small portion if you are smart about things and educate your children. For example, I won’t deny that as a child my cartoons weren’t riddled with hidden innuendos and sometimes blatant references, but instead of shaming the child or the parents because they let them watch that TV show, it makes so much more sense to try and explain why that may be inappropriate. It’s interesting that in our textbook in chapter 6, Sternheimer cites a study done in 2012 that found that “38 percent of teens reported that their parents were the most influential when it came to making decisions about sex. Only 9 percent cited the media” (Sternheimer, 2013). More often than not, I’ve found that kids like to imitate language and words rather than actions, though, as kids turn into adults I believe that this flips as they experience more freedoms. Others may have had different experiences, and I’m not discounting anyone’s experiences, but I do have to agree with what Sternheimer says in chapter 6, since it’s so very close to my own experiences.
As explained earlier by Dugan, cultures are unique to each person, and even on a grand scale, for example we can take the dominant cultures from each country, they are all either slightly different, or very different in certain tolerances. I think that this is where the issues come in. Some people will have no problem with their children seeing a cartoon character smoke a cigarette, because they may smoke all the time at home; but if another set of more culturally conservative parents were observing what their kids were watching, they may be so offended by the act and would immediately blame the media. I think this Is a great representation of the idea that each person experiences media differently.
I think that for me, the biggest issue I see when media and the public clash, is the idea of the dominant culture silencing micro-cultures (AKA bounded cultures.) Last semester I took Intercultural Communication, and it’s very interesting to see concepts coming back from that class, and relating them to what this video series, and the topics in class in general have stated.
In finishing my reading of chapter 6 of our textbook, there was one thing on my mind If culture is learned, and all of our traditions (rules), and lifestyles are just the dominant culture trying to control the micro culture. In every generation there has always been some way of expressing a new found sexuality, and that’s just a side effect of more liberation, and more micro-cultures breaking to the surface and upsetting the dominant culture. I think this is a good thing, and should continue to happen, as I believe this is what makes our country continue to grow and become more accepting of micro-cultures or bound cultures.
In the intro to chapter 8, I immediately wanted to argue what an “expert” cited as the cause of obesity (Sternheimer, 2010). I do agree that overeating and inactivity and the cause of weight gain and obesity, but I don’t believe that TV is the cause of overeating and inactivity. Ads are lucrative, there is no doubt about it. We’ve learned all of the cunning ways that media can grab our attention, but it doesn’t make us act, not directly anyway. A child may see the ad on TV, but most of the time does not have the means to go out and purchase this food. I personally was very thing at a young age because my mother was very active, as was my father. Around the age of 6 or 7, my father became disabled, and thus we started to take numerous cross country trips to fill the vacancy that having no job left. For weeks on end, I would sit in the car, just looking out of my window. The scenery was beautiful, but the irresponsibility from my parents to allow the massive amounts of non-activity is disheartening. For years I struggled with my weight because of what I was fed (mainly fast food) and the lack of activity and socialization with other children. This is a very personal topic for me, because of my experiences with not only my weight, but my many, many eating habit changes. Sternheimer sums up my opinion on obesity very nicely with an explanation of: “obesity itself may be a causal factor for watching more television” (Sternheimer, 2010).
I think that media is much more apparent in the ideas of body image and eating disorders than it is on obesity. Unfortunately, as Sternheimer illustrates in this chapter, I’ve seen enough pro-ana (pro anorexia) images, blogs, and websites that display graphic images of severely underweight women with the intention of giving inspiration to those interested. Despite the numbers Sternheimer cited as 7 to 9 million Americans (Sternheimer, 2010), I think the number is much higher, and that this is definitely a problem that while I don’t think was created by media, was definitely exacerbated by it immensely. Even at one point in my life, I aspired to the beautifully thin celebrities before I found out that most ads are touched up in some way to create a false sense of beauty, and that really turned off the stars in my eyes as I realized what I aspired to was impossible. In that time, I had done many things that popular mediums presented as “What your favorite celeb does to keep thin,” and the like. These are often diets overseen by the guidance of doctors, strictly meant to help a celebrity prepare for a role (which in and of itself is absolutely crazy) but at the very least they have support to back them up if something goes wrong, and they lead a lot of young women into thinking that sticking to this kind of diet is the only way to stay thin and in likeness to a celebrity.
