Media Blog #12

            This media blog will be discussing my outlook on the media and how I will approach media going forwards in my life.

            At the start of the semester, I mindlessly consumed media, indulging on my Netflix and late night comedy TV shows. I wasn’t particularly open minded and did not possess many of the H/C of a critical thinker.

I somewhat lived in a bubble where all my reality assumptions were reinforced by the media I consumed. I loved my time watching Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyers at the start of the semester, whereas now I just feel like I am in an echo chamber when I listen to them. That isn’t to say that I don’t still think that they are clever, witty people that contribute to society, but because of how I approach media and think in general, I find myself a bit nauseous after watching too much of them. It seems as if since Trump, their shows have become a showcase for the Tu Quoque fallacy, ranting on how hypocritical Trump and Fox News are. Before this semester, I was under the impression that those were legitimate points they were making. Before this semester, I never really broadened my horizons and never gave much thoughts to people with different viewpoints. The one thing that hasn’t changed since the start of the semester is my love for John Oliver because he does emphasize open-mindedness and takes into account multiple viewpoints, seeing things from all angles, allowing him to make points that wouldn’t normally resonate with, for example, a conservative when he discusses topics like healthcare.

Now that I have taken critical thinking, I try as best as I can to make sure that I see everything from multiple viewpoints. To ensure that I understand what people across the country are thinking and to have a more comprehensive view of the issues facing the country today, I will at least once a week, travel into the deep cold dark depths of Fox News and read at least one comprehensive article not senselessly bashing democrats in order to try and see things from a conservative point of view. This I consider to be of upmost importance because I live in a very liberal neighborhood where I know people who would and have cut ties with close family for supporting Trump. I live in a liberal household as well. In order to try and counteract the political polarization we see today, this is something I would recommend everyone do, no matter how bad it hurts to read Fox News.  

            I also now view advertising from a different perspective which is important because before this class, I was completely unaware of the techniques advertisers used to try and appeal to my basic needs. Before, I was susceptible to diversion and transfer association which slipped by me and embedded in my subconscious. Now, I filter out all of these techniques which cloud what the actual product does. I now view things from a more objective point of view with respect to advertising and marketing. The one thing that I still find hard to spot is Maddison and Vine. I think part of the reason for this is because I personally find it hard to believe that every corporation displayed in TV in any way, even if only for a second, paid to get there. At that point, the waters are muddied even more because then it becomes a question of which ads are meant to be there and which ones were just chance, making it difficult to try and block out the transfer association happening with the products shown in TV because I can’t differentiate between what to block and what not to block because it all looks the same to me.

            In all, Critical Thinking was a class that has in many ways changed the way in which I see the media around me and will change the way I act, talk, and think. It has provided me with life skills I don’t think I would have gotten anywhere else in the world and I cannot thank you enough Starace for providing me with them.

Media Blog #11

In this media blog, I want to talk about TV and my thoughts on that form of media.

TV is probably the largest form of media today and it has the largest impact on the American population. 99% of the American population has at least one TV. There are 2.24 television sets on average in an American household. Two thirds of Americans watch TV as a family and eat dinner together at the same time. I could go on but I think I have made my point by now. American culture nowadays is centered around TV and the consumption of that form of media. 

I personally can say that it is not uncommon for a TV to be turned on and playing something on Netflix in our household. I can freely admit that the amount of TV (or some other media) playing loudly in our house is large to the point where I feel a bit awkward when there isn't some ambient noise as I study for my tests and do homework. I watch a bit too much Netflix and looking back on the shows I like to watch and why I continue to watch them, I can kind of understand why so many people watch TV. Netflix for me is a distraction and it takes me out of my immediate surroundings, giving me other things to think about than my problems and my actual life. Furthermore, TV series often hook you and you begin to feel a vested interest in the characters, making you want to keep watching. Because of how good TV is at distracting you, time flies by until you realize that you have been sitting for a couple hours and it is now dark outside. 

Going back to the point about distraction, when we look at the statistics on stress rates in the American public, it makes sense that the amount of TV consumption is up. According to TIME magazine, 6% more Americans in 2015 said they were highly stressed than in 2014. 61% of adults said they were subject to unfair discrimination on a day to day basis. The American Psychiatric Association found that from 2014 to 2015, stress levels rose from a 4.9 to a 5.1 on a 10 point scale. The general public is becoming more stressed and likely dissatisfied with their lives and TV is providing a temporary escape, like sleep is to teenagers in school. 

Personally, I think that all of this TV is bad. In providing us with an escape, they show us things that aren't and can't possibly be real, filling us with negative messages and values that shouldn't actually have a place in real life. Humans are like sponges and will subconsciously absorb all that we see around us and with all this consumption of TV, humans are slowly taking in the values on TV. If people are watching TV for things like news, that is fine, but people do need to watch how and what they watch on TV and use traits of a critical thinker like metacognition to consciously assess how TV has changed us and how we can reclaim our old selves. 

In summation, it is my personal belief that TV can be a force for positive change on society, but people need to be careful about what and how they consume TV, especially how much as our lives slowly waste away. 

Source for Statistics:

http://www.statisticbrain.com/television-watching-statistics/

http://time.com/4253107/americans-are-getting-more-stressed-out-study-finds/

Media Blog #10

In this blog, in no particular order and with no real plan in place, I want to talk about the importance and the role that the radio has played throughout its existence, and the role it plays today.

It was invented in 1894 by an Italian named Guglielmo Marconi. In its glory days, a radio could be found in most households, providing entertainment and news for the world. The news cycle was significantly shortened from a weekly cycle to a daily or even hourly news cycle as radio stations could pass on news shortly after it broke.  Up until the rise of MTV, it was and still even is one of the primary sources for music today. It has led to the rising of many famous radio personalities like the infamous Howard Stern. In short, the radio has led to a more informed population, shortened the news cycles, led to a more entertained population, and is still a driving media force today.

In my own life, the radio has played an important role. As a little kid, I would love to tool around with the radio and listen to music with my friends in our garage. Whether it was on an old analogue radio of my dad's or on a more modern digital radio, it exposed me to new musical genres and increased my understanding of the world. My parents always play the radio even today in the car, something I think everyone does for entertainment, to make time in the car pass faster. Today, whenever I am in the car or I am driving, I listen to NPR because it is a great analytical news source and I don't always have time to look at the news during the day.

The use of the radio has declined since the 1900s, but it is still a dominant force today in entertainment media. Everyone still has a radio in their car and frequently uses it, almost as much as we use our cars themselves. The radio plays the newest hits for people, also allowing people to tune into stations that play what they are interested in, playing the hits of today. In that way, the radio is good and bad in my personal opinion. On one hand, it gives consumers freedom of choice, but on the other hand, it overplays good songs, making them hard to enjoy, and this freedom of choice in terms  of radio stations keeps me from branching out and exploring new genres. I also want to point out that the quality of the radio is dependent on the people that broadcast. The radio is merely a way that people consume other people's content and if other people make bad content, then the radio as a whole will suffer.

In all, I think the radio is really important and one of the primary sources for entertainment media today with the capacity to give or take a lot from us. It has played an important role in my life and overall, I think it has changed the world for the better.

Media Blog #9

In this blog, I want to talk about the underrepresentation of women in the news and in the media and why it is important that we have more women in the news.

Every night, millions of people tune into the news to see what's going in the world that they live in. The news is perhaps one of the most important and fundamental things in this country, keeping our citizens alert and our government in check. The freedom of the press is one of the things that makes America so special and so amazing, separating it from many countries. Because of the powerful position the news networks are in, it is of upmost importance that they actually give you all the complexities of a story and show all the different sides to it, something that is impossible to do if you have only men in a newsroom.

There is absolutely something to be said for women in the news and what value they bring to the table. Because 51% of the US population is female, looking at a news story through the lens of a women is important to making sure that the news story truly can resonate with all people. Furthermore, not including women in the media alienates the female population, disconnecting them from the news. People tend to gravitate towards people that are like them in gender, ethnicity, etc, so in order to make sure that the female population stays connected to the all important media, there needs to be more female hosts and icons.

It should also be noted that an unequal representation of women on TV has effects on us as a society. As we see more and more men on TV, you are implicitly saying that men are better than women, a message that is sent to children around the country. If you go telling todays children that women cannot achieve as much and be as good as men, you are preventing them from reaching their goals and gaining positions in government and other important institutions. From that generation, more of these implicit messages are sent and the cycle continues. It is a cycle of positive feedback that never ends unless we put a stop to it now.

In all, seeing news through the eyes of women is important to reaching the female audience and an unequal representation of women in the media, news included, leads to more men in power and reinforces the idea that men are superior to women.

Media Blog #8



This media Blog addresses the idea of "pop" and the idea that movie makers and other entertainment sources use blood and guts to attract audiences. I spend a good amount of time on YouTube, a site used by younger people where content creators can get paid with revenue generated from ads that play at the start of videos. YouTube has skips after about five seconds or so so the advertiser has to hook their audience fast. Again, because the audience is young, advertisers on YouTube often try and use pop to hold their audience which does not generally want to wait until the ad is done. This is exemplified in the case of Alien the Covenant, a movie that has had incessant ads on YouTube for the last month or so.

In the first 5 seconds of this trailer, there are people being possessed or taken over, convulsing and making grotesque noises. If you are unable to resist the first 5 seconds of pop, then you get to witness  more and more of people getting attacked by aliens and getting taken over in addition to some jumpscares. This is extremely stereotypical pop in that in the beginning, they hook you with blood and guts so that we are riveted and the thought of hitting the skip button doesn't even cross our minds. Pop uses blood and guts almost exclusively to hook us fast, something that is shown here. Furthermore, there is pop in the form of sex towards the end when a couple is in the shower, of course ending in true alien style with one being torn inside out by the alien. Because of the pop being shown, we can also clearly see that these people are marketing to teens who would easily fall for the blood and sex shown.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the pop in this case. I'm a huge sci-fi fan and love anything interplanetary as it really does capture my imagination, but the excessive blood really puts out that child-like wonder that makes sci-fi so appealing to me. Part of why I love sci-fi so much is that it seems almost real to me. Its basis in science makes it seem like a world just beyond our horizons, something that is actually achievable in my lifetime, and the idea of the fantastical creature Alien makes sci-fi seem less real to me.

In general, I'm not particularly interested in excessive blood being shown or the unnatural marriage between blood and sex. Those kinds of pop just don't appeal to me. Never have been a fan of horror or super sexualized movies or TV shows. Humor is where it is at for me and pop in the form of humor will get me hook line and sinker. If someone can get me to laugh, they have my attention and I might give up a bit of my time to see what they have to say or sell me. Any other kind of pop though, I'm out.

Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VW6sg50Pk

Media Blog #7

I found this article a while back and I thought I would share because the contents and what it talks about is pretty interesting stuff. The article talks about two Syrian brothers and their families that immigrated from the Middle East to New York, families that every week creates a comic strip based off of their experiences living in America and seeing firsthand the racism and intolerance that runs rampant in the country. It found this medium of education (the comic strip) very cool and I think in general, this allows for people to step into the shoes of a migrant and better understand the world that they see.

The comic strip started a while back when one of the brothers received an anonymous message from someone saying that unless he left the country, the brother would have his head chopped off and his family killed. The anonymous caller for good measure made it clear to the brother that he knew where he lived, stating his address. This spurred the families to start writing about their experiences in the new world. As a family, they talk about their experiences as a family and translate them into a comic strip for the paper.

I find this idea intriguing because as stated before, this form of media allows the reader to see what a refugee sees. The fact that it is a cartoon form makes it more digestible and allows the reader to get out of their own shoes and step into the shoes of someone else. I think it is important that media like this exists because if our perception of the world goes unchanged, we will never expand to solve the problems of others because we won't be able to see past ourselves.

There are a lot of messed up people in the world, people that often go unnoticed, and this medium of information allows us to better perceive all that goes on behind the scenes in America, background noise we readily tune out in our heads. I never would have thought to use something so childish like a comic strip to convey important messages about the minority groups in America and the challenges they face. It has certainly made me change how I actively see the world and still challenges my past perceptions of reality.

Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/insider/times-journalists-use-words-photos-graphics-and-video-and-now-a-comic-strip.html?action=click&contentCollection=insider&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article&version=section&rref=collection%2Fsection%2Finsider

Media Blog #6

I recently found this article on the New York Times' website and I found it really cool so I thought I'd post about it.

This article was talking about the creation of a special section in the NY Times Sunday paper by kids that talked about issues they feel are important to the people of America and their views on them. The group of kids is a 4th grade class from Queens where the students are primarily Latino and from low income households. The focus of the section was making the voices of the children heard, the main thing I loved about this and the thing I want to discuss.

I think in the world we live in, we forget some of the most important people surrounding us that can see things in ways nobody else can, the kids. In their innocence and youth, they can see things in a way that older people with calcified beliefs and ideologies cannot. In their innocence, their views can often times be wiser than those of adults. While many people would argue for the benefits in a large military, one of the kids in the NY Times special edition wants there to be more doctors and nurses. Kids also can and will be judgmental and aren't afraid to speak their minds unlike an adult who will filter what comes out of his or her mouth. To see through the eyes of a child is to see the world without bias and obstruction, and that is something we all too often forget. Kids are also observant as well. They pick up on a lot of things that goes over the heads of adults.

The idea that kids are observant made me think of something else as well. In the highly partisan times we live in where everything is politicized and tensions are high between people of differing ideologies, we have to remember that kids are watching. In the Anderson Cooper panel discussions between half a billion angry democrats and republicans, in Fox News segments where the end of the world is near, we need to bear in mind that the children are watching and picking up on all of this. The media needs to lead by example if the next generation is to be levelheaded and be able to compromise.

In closing, I just want to say that I love the idea of giving voice to those that watch but go unheard too often, the children. The idea of it really puts the chaos and political tension around us into perspective, to think that a large portion of the US population isn't thinking about war, but about how were going to combat animal extinction by eating more fruits and vegetables. The media today should take a moment to see things from a child's perspective because it better allows us to see things without bias and makes us think about how we can all change the world to make it a better place.



NY Times Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/insider/kids-take-over-the-times-opinion-special-section.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FMedia&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection