Monday, October 12, 2009
Peeling back the layers of parody in news
Why is satirical, fake news more entertaining then regular old everyday news? Simple; because it’s humorous and appeals to a larger audience, myself included.
I will admit I am one of those parody news addicts; it is my secret guilty pleasure, something that I really don’t tell people in regular everyday conversation. Of course parodies are more fun to watch then the news! They make the things that are “supposed” to be true but convey it in a way that either makes a lot of people laugh, or a lot of people mad.
Most of the shows that you see on the television are parodies of something that was once “real hard hitting news,” and they are usually the ones with a bigger audience. I believe, out of everything that I have read in my Mass Communications class, author Chuck Klosterman says it best: “People get nervous when they read stories in newspapers, because they always think they are being lied to or manipulated…they always think they are not getting the whole story.” (Klosterman, pg 207) With satirical, fake news there is none of that nervousness, because you know for a fact that you are not getting the full story, just the part that has been twisted to get the most laughs.
I am not saying that this should be considered a right and true form of media, but as a consumer I really enjoy it. I don’t personally see the harm in producing some forms of this kind of “propaganda” or so it has been labeled. I mean, there are times where something is completely out of line and inappropriate, but for the most part it is really harmless fun that everyone can take part in. I have included a few favorites of mine by the hit online site: The Onion, courtesy of YouTube.
Works Cited
Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. New York: Scribner, 2004.
I am media literate, are you?
It is extremely important to be media literate as a society; as our own individual person we need to have, at the very least, a brief understanding of media literacy, the impact that it has on us, and techniques and mediums that it uses.
I like to think that I am a more media literate since choosing to work in the media field. That being said, in many ways my whole life was consumed by the media, which I gladly followed without questioning. I wanted what everyone had on the television because that’s what you were supposed to want; I thought that the people that you saw in magazines and movies were “normal.” I never bothered really to give thought to the fact that there would be anything deeper going on than what was on the page. I let what the media portrayed was right and good for me dictate what was right and good for me. It’s so easy to just get sucked into that rut where you just accept that this is the way that things are, with no semblance of deeper thought to anything.
Marshall McLuhan, a veritable expert on media and its implications stated that: “all media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment.” From this we can draw the necessity to be media literate. Every and any form of media is all an extension of ourselves and as such will leave a lasting change within us. We need to be aware of these changes and be able to question media, find out who it’s targeting, and see what it really is doing to us.
I believe that when we can step back and view media objectively, and control the amount of an impact that it has on us we can change the way that media is portrayed. Instead of being this harbinger of bad morals, sex, and eating disorders we can start to see it for what it was really designed for, a way to communicate with the masses.
I am Kaileigh Russell and I am media literate, are you?
Works Cited
“The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy Magazine. March 1960. Web. 2 Oct. 2009..
I like to think that I am a more media literate since choosing to work in the media field. That being said, in many ways my whole life was consumed by the media, which I gladly followed without questioning. I wanted what everyone had on the television because that’s what you were supposed to want; I thought that the people that you saw in magazines and movies were “normal.” I never bothered really to give thought to the fact that there would be anything deeper going on than what was on the page. I let what the media portrayed was right and good for me dictate what was right and good for me. It’s so easy to just get sucked into that rut where you just accept that this is the way that things are, with no semblance of deeper thought to anything.
Marshall McLuhan, a veritable expert on media and its implications stated that: “all media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment.” From this we can draw the necessity to be media literate. Every and any form of media is all an extension of ourselves and as such will leave a lasting change within us. We need to be aware of these changes and be able to question media, find out who it’s targeting, and see what it really is doing to us.
I believe that when we can step back and view media objectively, and control the amount of an impact that it has on us we can change the way that media is portrayed. Instead of being this harbinger of bad morals, sex, and eating disorders we can start to see it for what it was really designed for, a way to communicate with the masses.
I am Kaileigh Russell and I am media literate, are you?
Works Cited
“The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy Magazine. March 1960. Web. 2 Oct. 2009.
Crouching lady hidden chauvinism
After reading what I had to do, it was beyond easy to find a plethora of ads that pertained to this topic. However, ignoring my usual tendency to just continue looking at something else, I stopped and looked at it. At first glance there is nothing really abnormal about it; it’s the exact thing that you see in every month of Cosmo, or any other magazine out there. Without taking it like any other ad, I looked at it from a completely different point of view. This ad was a perfect of example of John Berger’s look on art that has been repeated continuously for hundreds of years.
This ad is for “Escape for men”, by Calvin Klein, with a simple black and white close up photo of presumably a topless woman and man. If I would have been just looking at this photo under any other circumstances, I would not have picked up anything different about it. However, stopping to analyze this photo allowed me to pick out the following things that Berger described to a tee.
If you just look at the position of the man compared to the woman you can start to see the things wrong with this ad. The man is standing above the woman in a dominating position that clearly exemplifies that the woman is inferior to the man. When you look at the ad, your eye immediately goes to the man’s face, and the woman is lost in the picture; her status as a human is lost and she becomes an object for the man within the ad. "A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you." (Berger, 45) It is easy to see what the man in this picture can “do” to and for you, which is why it makes it so appealing to men and women. Men who see this ad think that if they wear this they will be that powerful and appealing and women will just bend to their will, and women who see this ad are attracted to the men in it, because it shows how powerful and dominating they are. "[A] woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her." (Berger, 46) It’s simple to see in this ad that a woman in her position would bend to the every will of a man in that dominant position, because he is a “real man”.
Those two descriptions seem to fit this ad exactly, and of course many other ads that are out there today, but in fact that was Berger’s description of art in 1972, and how it has been for hundreds of years. Then, whereas the art may not be the same, the roles of men and women within it are.
Reading this, and many of the other blogs might cause a lot more feminist propaganda, but it really has merit. Look at some of the ads that are out there that you would normally glance through. Instead of thumbing past them actually break it down, you will find that what you “see” and what is actually being conveyed are morally quite different.
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin, 1990. Print.
Richardson, Tim. “Kewl Commercials/ Weird Ads.” Witiger. 27 March 2009. Web. 9 Oct. 2009.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Mass Media Stuck in a Box
“Mass media” refers to all communications that are provided for a large mass of people by any medium, mostly television, radio, internet, and newspapers. Media can be projected through words, pictures, sounds and just about any other way that is deemed communicative.
This is only as effective as the population that it’s reaching. There is this exchange, almost like a media economy, that goes hand in hand with the supply and demand portion of mass media. More and more people are relying on digital mediums, therefore digital media is booming. People know that sex sells, therefore scandalous stories that may not be that hard-hitting are always being reported.
Media can almost be described as a box with two slots. One slot is where the demanded material goes in, the other where the wanted material comes out. The majority of this “mass” doesn’t know where it came from, or how it got there, or even why it’s there in the first place, they only know that they asked for it and they got it.
Supply and demand has always changed the way that we look at media, for as long as people have produced anything that the masses have access to. Quoting John Berger: “The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 41). Mass media shapes the way we view reality, like a a pair of hypothetical rose coloured glasses. We look at women in modern advertising as an object, a beautiful porcelain object which damages the way that we look at reality on a whole. We are given pictures of unattainable beauty that we can't meet that's pushed to be the norm, and we just look, agree and move on. Mass media is influencing the way that we see what goes on around us, and the stigma of this being reality has earned it the scorn that it has gotten amongst the public.
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin, 1990. Print.
This is only as effective as the population that it’s reaching. There is this exchange, almost like a media economy, that goes hand in hand with the supply and demand portion of mass media. More and more people are relying on digital mediums, therefore digital media is booming. People know that sex sells, therefore scandalous stories that may not be that hard-hitting are always being reported.
Media can almost be described as a box with two slots. One slot is where the demanded material goes in, the other where the wanted material comes out. The majority of this “mass” doesn’t know where it came from, or how it got there, or even why it’s there in the first place, they only know that they asked for it and they got it.
Supply and demand has always changed the way that we look at media, for as long as people have produced anything that the masses have access to. Quoting John Berger: “The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” (Berger 41). Mass media shapes the way we view reality, like a a pair of hypothetical rose coloured glasses. We look at women in modern advertising as an object, a beautiful porcelain object which damages the way that we look at reality on a whole. We are given pictures of unattainable beauty that we can't meet that's pushed to be the norm, and we just look, agree and move on. Mass media is influencing the way that we see what goes on around us, and the stigma of this being reality has earned it the scorn that it has gotten amongst the public.
Works Cited
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin, 1990. Print.
The Ecology of Crackberries
Ecology is a pretty wide based term meaning the study of interaction between people in different environments. In my opinion, the largest instigator of social interaction in a number of different ways is one little miracle machine: the Blackberry.
The impact of Blackberries has been astronomical for the general public. After first being marketed out for businessmen, the focus has shifted onto a younger generation of people. With the introduction of student Blackberry plans offering all of the social perks of the internet, it’s become rare to see a student walking around without one of these phones as an extension of his/her hand. Their primary function was to provide businessmen with the means to keep in contact with their work while away from the office; their basic function now is as a networking tool for the younger generation. People don’t even have to carry around a laptop for “mobile” internet anymore - with a few clicks of the small buttons, people anywhere are able to access the internet from wherever they can get service.
It’s important to discuss Neil Postman with regards to the growing popularity of Blackberries and their functional capacity. In an address called “The Humanism of Media Ecology,” Postman writes, “A medium is a technology within which a culture grows; that is to say, it gives form to a culture’s politics, social organization, and habitual ways of thinking.” What we can take away from Postman’s ideas is the idea that the Blackberry Corporation has really appealed and grown with the publics demand for new mobile technology that never has to be held in anything bigger than your pocket. The ways of thinking have changed dramatically since these became available and affordable to the general public - people have simply stopped. You don’t need to think, really; there’s a little machine in your pocket that can do all of your thinking for you. Blackberries are a medium, containing the internet and an infinite amount of other applications that you can use to access information and news.
Why is it that people can’t really seem to put these things down? What is so mesmerizing about colored plastic coated wires with a little screen that it has made people coin the term “crackberries”? Are we so dependant on technology that we are obligated to invest in something that can keep us “plugged in” constantly, even when we’re out and about?
Works Cited
Postman, Neil. “The Humanism of Media Ecology.” Media Ecology Association. 17 June 2000. Web. 9 Oct. 2009.
The impact of Blackberries has been astronomical for the general public. After first being marketed out for businessmen, the focus has shifted onto a younger generation of people. With the introduction of student Blackberry plans offering all of the social perks of the internet, it’s become rare to see a student walking around without one of these phones as an extension of his/her hand. Their primary function was to provide businessmen with the means to keep in contact with their work while away from the office; their basic function now is as a networking tool for the younger generation. People don’t even have to carry around a laptop for “mobile” internet anymore - with a few clicks of the small buttons, people anywhere are able to access the internet from wherever they can get service.
It’s important to discuss Neil Postman with regards to the growing popularity of Blackberries and their functional capacity. In an address called “The Humanism of Media Ecology,” Postman writes, “A medium is a technology within which a culture grows; that is to say, it gives form to a culture’s politics, social organization, and habitual ways of thinking.” What we can take away from Postman’s ideas is the idea that the Blackberry Corporation has really appealed and grown with the publics demand for new mobile technology that never has to be held in anything bigger than your pocket. The ways of thinking have changed dramatically since these became available and affordable to the general public - people have simply stopped. You don’t need to think, really; there’s a little machine in your pocket that can do all of your thinking for you. Blackberries are a medium, containing the internet and an infinite amount of other applications that you can use to access information and news.
Why is it that people can’t really seem to put these things down? What is so mesmerizing about colored plastic coated wires with a little screen that it has made people coin the term “crackberries”? Are we so dependant on technology that we are obligated to invest in something that can keep us “plugged in” constantly, even when we’re out and about?
Works Cited
Postman, Neil. “The Humanism of Media Ecology.” Media Ecology Association. 17 June 2000. Web. 9 Oct. 2009.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Academic Blogging- The beginning.
So after much procrastination I, Kaileigh Russell, have finally began my contribution to the big, bad world of blogging. I will not lie to you, at first I was terrified of doing this, which may play a part in me taking so long to actually starting one of these. It’s horribly humbling knowing that so many people in so many places will have access to my words, thoughts, feelings, and ideas. So let me give you a glimpse as to what this is all shaping up to be for me.
At first I was terrified about just how much this is actually worth. How can what I think be worth half of my overall mark! So I sat down, forgot to breathe for a little while, let the butterflies do their thing, and finally got over my initial panic attack. Looking at it now, I’m excited for this. It’s exhilarating, it’s so many different feelings at the same time knowing that what I think will be able to be seen the way that I want it to. I’ve secretly always wanted to start a blog, but was never really given a good opportunity to start one, until now. My role in the public has gone from consumer, to producer in a matter of quick minutes. I may not produce material for a large amount of people, but I will produce it nonetheless.
Starting my blog was a lot easier then I originally thought. I am beyond technologically challenged, and was expecting to have to wrestle with many sites, and information forms. I found a blog that attaches to my G-mail, which is a bonus, as it is one less sticky note of users and passwords that I have to keep track of. Within minutes, I picked my rocking background, a cool name, and voila! Blogger.
I can’t promise you that you will always agree with me, or even think remotely the way I do, but I will try to remain as open to any ideas, questions and points you have, and try to be as entertaining and creative with my own ideas.
At first I was terrified about just how much this is actually worth. How can what I think be worth half of my overall mark! So I sat down, forgot to breathe for a little while, let the butterflies do their thing, and finally got over my initial panic attack. Looking at it now, I’m excited for this. It’s exhilarating, it’s so many different feelings at the same time knowing that what I think will be able to be seen the way that I want it to. I’ve secretly always wanted to start a blog, but was never really given a good opportunity to start one, until now. My role in the public has gone from consumer, to producer in a matter of quick minutes. I may not produce material for a large amount of people, but I will produce it nonetheless.
Starting my blog was a lot easier then I originally thought. I am beyond technologically challenged, and was expecting to have to wrestle with many sites, and information forms. I found a blog that attaches to my G-mail, which is a bonus, as it is one less sticky note of users and passwords that I have to keep track of. Within minutes, I picked my rocking background, a cool name, and voila! Blogger.
I can’t promise you that you will always agree with me, or even think remotely the way I do, but I will try to remain as open to any ideas, questions and points you have, and try to be as entertaining and creative with my own ideas.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
