Gay Marriage

After reading the articles on gay marriage, i discovered that the media can influence peoples views on gay marriage. The media can choose to report a certain view point on the issue at hand. Although it states  that people tend to choose media that agree with or reinforce viewpoints that they already hold. My question is, how do people get a view point on an issue? They must be persuaded by someone or something. So this statement is a load of crap.

Does the Media Need to Bridge the Gap?

Does the media have an ethical responsibility to attempt to bridge the gap that is depicted in this image? I don't believe they have an ethical responsibility to do anything to help this problem. The media is owned by the rich, and employed with the common folk. They can care less if the people on the bottom are working hard for little pay. Sure they can help by bringing the issue more into the spotlight, but what for? It will not benefit them in anyway. The common folk are finally trying to do something about this gap. The Occupy movement is sadly not going to do anything, people already perceive it to be another pointless protest put on by people without jobs. Does the media have the power to help bridge the house, i say yes. They could ethically start showing more anti rich propaganda in order to build support for corporate greed campaigns.

Who Owns the Media

After reading the different articles about who owns the media, i found it interesting. Six large companies own the majority of all news stations in the united States. These companies are able to command so much media space, that they can change people's opinions on certain issues. With all this power, they can clearly have some political power. In the case of General Electric. The CEO of General Electric is one of Obama's first persons of contact on creating jobs in the United States. This to me is not very smart. The CEO has outsourced tons of American jobs to other countries. Because i am a business major and a manager, i know that he is a good CEO. You want to make the most profit as possible. In order to do so you need to be able to cut costs. He cuts costs by outsourcing the jobs, to countries that work for less. In my opinion, the reign of the United States is over, we had our run, but every giant must fall. China and India well get their turn for the next 40 years. Going back to who owns the media, these companies are going to be able to influence who they elect for president and other public officers. Once they have the people in place, they can easily get away with creating laws that benefit themselves. This is who General Electric has been able to avoid taxes for two years.

Veterans Day

I celebrated veterans day with my roommate. He recently ended his contract with the Navy. We celebrate Veterans Day because we need to honor all those who fought while serving our country in the military. We celebrate Veterans day because we honor the valuable people who did their part in helping to make the USA a better and safer place for us to live. We celebrate veterans day because, the date November 11, originally celebrated the anniversary of the official end of World War I on that date in 1918 (commemoration of the armistice that ended World War I). In 1954 it was renamed from Armistice Day to Veteran's Day, honoring both fallen and living military servicemen and servicewomen. 

Will Evolving Forms of Journalism Be an Improvement?

After researching, reading, and thinking about it I decided that evolving forms of journalism will not be an improvement and it will actually cause more of a mess. For example, now-a-days twitter, blogs, and facebook are all new forms of journalism, but these all are very common ways of misleading and untrue sources of news. Participatory journalism is an kind of network at the hands of a professionals and amateurs, or journalists and citizens, and users and producers benchmarked is called commons based peer production. A lot of the time people will post things on their websites without actually knowing or having information to back the truth. When this happens people then read or see the false information and will believe it, then pass it on causing problems for the real truth to be discovered or reported by actual news reporters. Also issue 10 asks us to talk about how journalism can be improved.  Journalism has so many different forms that they never seem to have the same story. I feel that when I turn on the TV to watch the evening news each station has a different view and opinion about the story they're covering, which makes it very difficult for the viewer, me, to follow what is really going on in the world. Whenever i open up my yahoo homepage, the top news will be about random stories and sometimes top important events. In some ways evolving forms of journalism has made an improvement, for example, the speed at which we get our information can be amazingly fast. Instead of waiting till we get home to turn on the news or waiting the next day to read it in the newspaper we can get mobile updates straight to our phones and computers. Even though these evolving forms of technology have made our information easier and faster to obtain I would still prefer to wait and get the real story about what is really going on and make sure the journalist and reporters are positive about what they are relaying to the public. Hopefully, journalism will return to its roots and start reporting stories with more precision and accuracy, but with so many different forms of journalism I can only see this problem getting worse. Fake news = real news.

Is Advertising good for Society?

Advertising is good for society because I believe that advertisements are informative for consumers on what they should know about stuff. After reading both John Calfee and Dinyar Godrej’s opinion and answer to the question, is advertising good for society, They made a few interesting points. Calfee’s main focus was how consumers benefit from ads and how they can learn about certain important issues. Godrej’s main point was that advertisements basically cause anxiety towards consumers because they stress on the idea that if they don’t buy the products shown in ads, they are making a huge mistake. Something that stood out after reading this issue is that Calfee had many more facts, information, and examples in why advertising is good for society and Godrej had only three main points. One of Calfee’s main ideas that I agree with is that individuals can learn about important issues in the world through ads and the example that he used repeatedly is the issue of health. Calfee stated that “advertising is a tool for communicating information,” and what better way to inform the public on a health issue then through advertisements. The example that Calfee used is how the Kellogg Corporation, a cereal brand did a campaign with the National Cancer Institute that focused on the idea that by eating Kellogg bran cereal people can prevent cancer because according to the NCI, fiber prevents cancer, and Kellogg’s cereal only has nine grams of fiber per serving. I thought this was very interesting because one, this ad was done over twenty years ago and Kellogg cereal still mentions how they have less fiber then other cereal brands, and secondly, the ad showed that cancer is a serious issue in the world, and by doing so (eating fiber) people can prevent cancer. The only main point that I found interesting from Godrej’s research is the idea of how advertisements make us question our choices when buying a certain product or before making certain decisions in our lives. Overall, Godjej made a good point by saying that advertisements can make consumers indecisive when buying a product, but on the other end, advertisements could also point us in the right direction in buying the right product for ourselves.

Hate Speech Video

Hate Speech Video

This is for entertainment purposes only. The views expressed are not the views of the speaker.

Music, Politics and Society.

Music, and politics in today's society are connected. After listening to a couple of the songs on the class website list, I noticed that most of the songs were made during times of unrest. People right music about stuff that is happening in their daily lives. Some of the songs were from the civil rights era. The songs talked about standing up for what is right. Black people we being treated like second-class citizens and the music reflected this. Other songs talked about wars. The sight of anti-war protesters being arbitrarily arrested disturbed Marvin Gaye. So him and a guy named Benson coined some lyrics. This song gained much popularity during the time. I do believe music is a strong medium to spread a message. When people feel strongly about a topic, they will spread the message. This can be seen by the occupy Wall Street campaign. It has gained so traction because the message is being spread. Pretty soon people will begin to write songs about it. 

Hate Speech/Fighting Words/Chaplinsky, Mak, and Reyonlds.

Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic. The Court defined fighting words as those words that "by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Fighting words are excluded, the Court reasoned, because any benefit derived from their utterance is outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. I find it interesting that the Jevaoh Witness didn’t get introuble for passing out his literature and denouncing religion, but he got introuble for personally saying fighting words to a cop.

The Obama article focused on the idea of how in the United States of America there is a big controversy having Barack Obama as our President. Although it was a short article, there were many opinions stated about Obama that make this country seem very racist and cold. The beginning of the article started off by relating Obama’s healthcare reform proposals to a reason of why people do not like him and is being compared to Adolf Hitler because of his actions of taking over the country with proposals like this. Majority of this article were filled with quotes and opinions of citizens in the U.S. and what they think of Obama, mainly criticizing him. I found most of these quotes very disturbing to read, especially the racist opinions. The first strong “anti-Obama” quote I found was by Glenn Beck when he said on radio that “Obama is a racist with a deep-seated hatred for White people.” Tom Eisenhower compared Obama to Hitler and he said, “I’d take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.” Pastor Steven Anderson from a church in Arizona even criticized Obama by saying, “Why I hate Obama, I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.” All of these opinions were very disturbing to read but at the same time these people have the freedom of speech, but in my opinion the first two quotes were said by racist who don’t approve of Obama because of his skin color. When I read the quote from the pastor it made me second guesses if Obama is unsuitable for being President. The New York Times wrote in an article that “Some people just can’t believe a black man in president and will never accept it.” I thought this was a very strong quote because there are many extremist groups in the United States and also racist uninformed citizens who may not understand that having an African-American president will be different in many ways, so they choose to dislike Obama, instead of giving him a chance. Another idea that came up in this article was the idea of the South’s attitude towards having Obama as President. The African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country is the mentality of these Southern American citizens. In conclusion, I believe that all of these negative opinions are being said because of ones upbringing and that is how they judge whether or not Obama is right for the position of President of the United States. Therefore, I believe that everyone despite their personal opinion and beliefs should leave Obama alone.

The “Time to Kill the Wealthy article focused on  several New York Lawmakers receiving freighting emails that tell them to tax the rich. The Email reads the following, “How hard is it for us to stake out one of the obvious access roads to some tech company, tail an employee home and toss a liquor bottle full of flaming gasoline through their nice picture window into their cute house,” The angry message demanded that Albany politicians “stop shoveling wealth from the lower 99 percent into the top 1 percent” and “set aside your ‘no new taxes on anybody’ pledge.” So basically they must pass the bill, or they will die. It is an easy choice to do because only 3 percent of the state population would be affected by the decision. In my opinion this is not hate speech, this is just a warning o inform people what they should do.

Is Hate Speech in the Media Directly Affecting Our Culture?

I believe that just because freedom of speech is protected under the First Amendment, does not justify if one’s cultural, religious, and personal beliefs are mocked and judged through the media. Being familiar with hate speech, I thought that after reading issue twelve it would be easy to agree with Henry Giroux, who argued that hate speech in the media is directly affecting our culture, but I found it difficult to understand him. In contrast, I found it easier to read Georgie Weatherby and Brian Scoggins research and examples focusing on the idea of how hate speech in the media is not affecting our culture. I believe that Giroux focused his research on the idea of culture cruelty and how entertainment media and information are creating violent behavior in our culture. The example that Giroux used was the beating of homeless people and how the National Coalition for the Homeless claimed that people on Youtube are posting videos with titles like “bum fight” and showing actual footage of individuals beating and mocking the homeless. I thought this was an excellent example of why hate speech (hate videos) in the media are affecting our culture in a negative way because people are judging and assuming that this is how Americans are to the homeless. The reason I found it easier to read Weatherby and Scoggins research was because they explained specifically what hate speech is in our society by using examples like hate sites of four extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, the National Alliance, the Neo-Nazi, and the Aryan Nations. One of the main points that I thought was interesting that Weatherby and Scoggins brought up was the idea that these groups are trying more to inform the public about their beliefs versus recruiting them into their group. Another main point that they brought up was how the media, such as the Internet allows the group to reach a wide range of people that may believe in what they do, and hopefully recruit them. Weatherby and Scoggins also mention that hate sites are not showing exactly what they want on their site because they want to appear “friendly” so individuals will join their group. In conclusion, all though Weatherby and Scoggins brought up excellent points, I personally believe that hate speech in the media is affecting our culture, having individuals think its ok to beat a homeless person and discriminate against Jewish or Arabs. People are already facing the reality that hate speech is leading to Stereotypes and that is becoming part of our culture. 

Are People Better Informed in the Information Society?

After reading both sides of the Arguement, both sides have valid points. I would have to say that people are much better informed in the information society. The reason I sided for the information society is because when you look at how far we have come in the past 20-15 years it is amazing.  People can find out the latest news around the world with a click of a mouse, and colleges are receiving record amounts of applicants. As we read in the article, Linda Jackson does a test with students from the ages of 10 to 18 seeing how there test scores are affected when they use the Internet more often. The results showed that kids who used the Internet more had higher scores on standardized test of reading achievement and higher GPA's. From these test results how can you argue that the Internet and media have a negative effect on people? However I do agree that Internet usage should be limited to a certain amount of hours each week because kids do tend to abuse the privilege of the Internet. Also another reason people are more informed in the information society is because instead of people sitting around asking themselves questions and wondering about the answer, people can get on their computers and research anything they want. With the way technology is constantly growing and expanding I think that the Internet will be essential in the future for our youth and no matter how much you may argue that were better off without the Internet, the Internet will still grow and over power any objections you have towards it. The future will be a very technology savvy era and I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest and most important times that the world has ever seen. Although we have all of this technology to help us on our journey to information. We still live in a world filled with a majority of uneducated people. 

Link To My Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19RfzZ-wLjg

Do Media Represent Realistic images of Arabs?

The media has the tendency to over exaggerate stereotypes and the views of other cultures. One culture in particular that the media tends to stereotype is the Arab race. In my opinion the media does not even come close to providing a balanced view of Arabs, especially since 9/11.  TV shows, show negative images of Arabs, but also news coverages of Muslims center mainly on events, groups and individuals from the Middle East, in response to crises, war and conflict, making it seem that there is nothing good from these people. In the chapter issue we read that Beckerman argues the point that through blogs many Arabs show that there are good arabs in the world. The only problem with his argument is that blogs have a limited reach compared to the easy access of the evening news or the headlines from online accounts. Also the media always tend to look and focus on the negative issues that are going on in the Middle East.  That is another issue with the media. They are so uninformed about the Middle East that they usually will fail to differentiate and just assume that everyone is the same and is a potential terrorist. Being an American it is already branded into our minds that any one looking like they are from the Middle East is considered a terrorist. For example, we will walk on a plane and see a man wearing a turban we will automatically think that he could be a potential terrorist. It is wrong to do this, but with the media continuing to spew out negative images and headlines about the Middle East it is hard for us to think otherwise because of the trust we put in our news reporters. Hopefully, one day we can see past the media and really see that Arabs are no different then anyone else and that just because they look like the terrorists we see on TV doesn't mean they are one.

Do media cause individuals to develop negative body images?

After reading the section i would have to say that my personal opinion is yes regarding the question, does media cause individuals to develop negative body images. I say this because the media is always pushing image. They use so many advertisements, images, videos, etc that effects ones body image. Both Shari Dworkin and Faye Wachs believe that different types of media, such as magazines, advertisements, commercials, etc are giving consumers a negative idea of themselves and their body because they show how a healthy body should look like. This doesn't reflect the way real americans are.Dworkin and Wachs mentioned that because the “fat body” is a sign of a “lazy, undisciplined, and poor member of the social body,” the ideal body becomes a fit and healthy image that is a sign of success and a good citizen. In contrast, Michael Levine and Sarah Murnen argue that the media does not cause individuals to develop negative body images because other cultural, social, and psychological issues play a much larger role in giving citizens a negative impact on their own body image. Already having strong support for the examples and research brought up by Dworkin and Wachs, I found that in the end Levine and Murnen didn’t really have evidence that showed that the “Media” doesn’t cause individuals to develop negative body images. All Levine and Murnen did through their research was state examples and facts of how things like eating disorders are caused by psychiatric issues, not an issue in the media, or how peers and people in general who have a “thin-ideal” body image influence others to diet in order to fit in with them. Overall, Levine and Murnen basically used other examples such as psychological and social issues as an influence towards the public to want to change their body image, ignoring the fact that the media is just another one of those influences. 

Does Fake News Mislead the Public?

After reading the article with two opposing viewpoints, I believe that Julia Fox has a less valid point. Younger people are not mislead by the fake news. People watch politics on the Daily Show and take it as a joke. Even though the Daily Show is full of humor and laughter, these shows aren't transmitting the full coverage of information; they are simply presenting the information in a funnier way. This brings the attention of the audience to an important issue to listen, even on late night shows. This tends to keep the audiences attention more then the boring news; which makes you fall asleep. The comedy in late night shows informed more younger viewers, and impacted them with more information then if a young viewer was to watch a regular news channel. Even though these shows aren't serious about the topic, it's something to listen to and have fun at the same time. Viewers can not be easily influenced by what the host says. If the host wants to make a candidate look better, he can. If he wants to make someone look bad, he can, but people take it as a joke.

Unit 1: The Mind Managers

From my old blog:

Manipulation of human minds, according to Paulo Freire, "is an instrument of conquest." This is the goal of marketing, This is what shapes why people are always trying to buy the coolest and newest product on the market. If the media portrays that the president as an awful leader, people we form the opinion that he is a bad leader.  It is interesting that manipulation requires a false reality that is continuous denial of its existence. Human nature wants us to change the world around us.The media is also used to provoke social conflict. Are American Values shaped by the Mass Media? James Carey says no, but i disagree. Americans are stupid people and we will believe anything someone says. We are easy to manipulate.

Intro Post