Popular Culture Ruined Blockbuster?

From going through this week’s readings about Popular Culture I started to wonder if the focus on the future of technology would really be a good idea. In the Baran and Davis section, "Research on Popular Culture in the United States," McLuhan says, "Unlike British critical theorists, most have no links to social movements. They focus much of their attention on television and, now the internet as the premier media of the electronic era." (217)

This article looks into the purpose that Blockbuster served and now the fact that they are going out of business.
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/hollywood/blockbuster-going-out-of-business-091510

After reading about what Popular Culture has done to America it got me thinking about how when I was growing up the place that everyone wanted to go was Blockbuster to get the newest videos out. There was a time when I'm sure everyone in this class can recall going to Blockbuster with their parents and friends so they could be the first ones to get their hands on the new movies.

Basically because of the internet and new popular culture, there are so many websites like Netflix that really impacted this once profound and very useful industry. You can go on Google nowadays and type in free movies and I guarantee you that you will find sites that you can download and watch for free. Cultural imperialism as defined by Tomlinson is the practice of promoting a more powerful culture over a least known or desirable culture. It is usually the case that the former belongs to a large, economically or militarily powerful nation and the latter belongs to a smaller, less powerful one. (McQuail, 223)

The way I looked at this was the in the society that we live in today, the internet is by far the most powerful tool to accessing anything in this World at any time you want. The way I looked at cultural imperialism in this way was that Blockbuster is now a third world country and the internet and Netflix. It’s sad to think that there was once a time where Blockbuster was the place to go to get your movies. So while new popular culture seems like it would be a really good idea, there is also some flaws to the system.

Take a look at this to check out the old Blockbuster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JWP1mTItD4

My questions to you are, do you think that because of the new popular culture in terms of the internet, will this ruin older businesses like Blockbuster? Do you think because of the way our society is today (lazy, sheltered) that this is part of the reason people don’t go to these businesses anymore? If you were Blockbuster what would you have done to keep the company going?

Shopping more because of social media?

Is Twitter, Foursquare, or Facebook influencing your shopping this holiday season? The following video discusses how some retailers are using social media to get shoppers through their doors: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=7766664

Baran and Davis cite McLuhan for explaining that, “The medium is the message (and the massage). In other words, new forms of media transform (massage) our experience of ourselves and our society, and this influence is ultimately more important than the content that is transmitted in its specific messages-technology determines experience” (220). Do you agree? When we look at the problems of cyberbullying and sexting, I think this is very true. And now retailors are using social media to come into your home and entice you out of it instead of encouraging you to shop online. Has the Internet and now social media changed the way you see yourself or society? Did you ever realize that Facebook, Twitter, and other apps/sites allow you to be "social" with your favorite retailors? How has that changed your shopping experience?

Erik Qualman points out that everything is different because of social media in his Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng&feature=related

Qualman and McLuhan have a point, but is there a limit to this transformation that takes place as media shifts? I think there is and so does John Tomlinson who writes that, “Though the media may be analytically separable from other aspects of culture, it is clear that they are intimately connected with these other aspects in terms of people’s ‘lived experience’. People’s experience of television, for example, is very often within the cultural context of the family and this context has a significant mediating effect (224). As someone who grew up without cable television I can attest to this.

How have your ‘lived experiences’ mediated the ways you’ve changed with or adapted to new media technologies such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, BBM, Oovoo, and/or even HD? In what ways are these technologies affecting your or your family’s consumption?

Chilean Miner Media Coverage

While I was doing the reading for this week, about media across cultures, my mind kept going back to the media coverage surrounding the Chilean miners. Why was it that it received so much media attention? It is not as if this was the first time that miners have been trapped, and the fact that it did not even occur in the United States is even more interesting. Since Aug.5 when the miners were trapped to the rescue just a few weeks ago, the media coverage was nonstop. Why?

I found this article from The Guardian, a newspaper from the UK, about the media coverage of the entrapment and rescue

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/18/chile-miners-global-media-coverage

In the article, the writer discusses how journalists flocked to Camp Hope, the temporary camp made at the San Jose mine. Over 2,000 journalists and technicians camped out there to broadcast the event all over the world. The entire world was able to live the experience with the miners through the camera that was inside the mine. The rescue of the miners was, arguably extremely emotional as all 33 emerged alive. The article commends the Chilean government for the massive media coverage. The Chilean President, Sebastian Pinera, once owned the Chilean TV network, Chilevision. The President is a media mogul, and knows how to work the industry, "Somehow the Chile authorities understood how to make it so emotional and appealing," Rosental Alves, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas, told CNN. "I think it really matters that the president is not only media literate but is a media mogul and he is surrounded by people who have that mindset."

Would other countries have even heard of the trapped miners if the Chilean government did not expose it? Do you think that it is possible that the Chilean government could have used this event to their advantage in order to gain coverage for Chile?

In the McQuail reading by Karl Erik Rosengren, he discusses how the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme spread throughout news organizations around the world, “The fact that a piece of international news can be diffused among the different populations of the globe as quickly as is sometimes the case is due, of course, to the relative efficiency of the international mass media system.” (p 232). The article goes on to say that sometimes the news travels so quickly that it can be lopsided and that “We thus get a somewhat distorted picture about what human life looks like in other parts of the world---and our own” (232). Do you think that this is true—that media coverage of events from other cultures, nations, could be lopsided and that perhaps, we are not getting the true picture of life in other parts of the world?

The Baran and Davis reading for this week discusses the commodification of culture. It lists several reasons for the repackaging and marketing of culture to peoples. One element involves dramatization of culture, which I thought was pertinent to the Chilean miner example. It says, “Such dramatization makes the final commodity attractive to as large an audience as possible” (335). Could the rescue of the miners have been over dramaticized in order to gain more media coverage?

My questions to you are do you believe that the Chilean miner incident was overexposed potentially, by the Chilean government? Do you think we received a distorted version of it? Can you think of any other examples of international events that have received intense media coverage here in the U.S.?

The Lazy Sitcom Dad and Nagging Sitcom Supermom

I’m a huge sitcom fan. I usually spend my late night evenings watching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond, Roseanne, Home Improvement and even everybody’s favorite cartoon family, The Simpsons. This selection of sitcoms constituted a good portion of my television habit when I was growing up in the nineties and I’m sure that many of you would agree. Growing up in the nineties provided us the opportunity to watch some fantastic (and hilarious) sitcoms. The best shows came out in the 80s and 90s and the newer sitcoms today tend to showcase a similar family dynamic.

But what is this shared family dynamic between sitcom families? When thinking about what I was going to blog about this week, I was hit over the head with a topic when indulging in my late-night TVLand binge of Everybody Loves Raymond. Sitcoms are just swarming with notions of gender roles—what are “feminine” traits for females and what are “masculine” traits for men. I was watching an episode where Deborah thinks Raymond isn’t spending enough time at home with the kids. When she finds out that some of the other sports writers work from home, she forces Ray to work from home, so he can hang out with the kids. Surprise surprise. Raymond stays home and takes care of the kids for one afternoon while Deborah does errands and messes everything up. The kids destroy the house; he can’t find his twin boys, etc. etc.

And this is generally the trait in many sitcom families. In this article that I read by Sarah Macarelli , she explores how much sitcoms have changed the “dad” vision over the years. We have steered away from the caring, competent dads of The Brady Bunch era and into the era of sitcom dads who “are either ‘dead-beat dads’ or the funny, clueless type.” The sitcom father generally has very few parenting skills and will often mess everything up, if he is left to care for the kids. It is then that “supermom” sweeps in and makes everything better. Sitcoms today tend to showcase a self-indulgent father, who is much more concerned with getting his beer at night than talking to his kids.

Check out this clip from Everybody Loves Raymond:

Deborah had asked Ray to accompany her and the children to Happy Zone (a play place for kids) as a family outing, but Ray makes some excuse not to go and raids the fridge instead. But even though the woman is supposed to have more power as “supermom,” it is obvious that she submitted to her husband’s wishes by allowing him stay home instead of going to the play place with their children. The father still calls the shots.

What kind of message is this sending to children who are watching the show? That their father doesn’t care about them, or that he’s just supposed to sit at home watching TV and mom is there to take care of them? Macarelli explains that a “supposedly harmless skit on tv can be internalized by a child and help shape their view of fathers and men.” In H. Leslie Steeves’ article “Feminist Theories and Media Studies,” she discusses cultivation studies done with children concerning gender roles and feminism in media. The children were remarkably perceptive and created visions of the “man” and the “woman” easily. She says, “Interviews with children indicated that even at a very early age they bring considerable knowledge of gendered behavior to the viewing situation and use this knowledge to interpret and embellish what they see” (397). The “masculine” father comes home from work, cracks a few jokes then sits down to watch the game and drink his beer. The "feminine" mother nags him, complains and takes care of the house.

In his article “A ‘new’ Paradigm,” Zoonen says, “…the definition of femininity present content: submission, availability and compliance are characteristics held up as ideals, and consumption is presented as the road to self-fulfillment” (48). Even today, these traits are still present in sitcoms. The mother does everything because the father will mess it up, but by doing that, she is preventing the father from learning how to be a caring dad. She is submitting to him instead of teaching him and she may be doing that because she wants to prove her own self-worth—she is the only one who can get the job done and women do matter. Female characters may now be able to do anything that a man can do, but they’re still being displayed as possessing original feminine traits.

Has feminine advancement really been made in how sitcoms portray women? Do you think that children really are internalizing how mothers and fathers respectively are supposed to act and what roles they play in their lives? Is a child going to approach their mother for everything they need and think of their father as a statue on the couch? What kind of negative ideas might they be forming about their mothers and fathers? Gender roles and the wide expanse between masculinity and femininity are easily seen through the mother and father characters on sitcoms. This light and entertaining television genre may be imposing lasting effects on children today.

Lady Football Coach???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030903708.html

What are your reactions to this article? A head football coach is a job that is male dominated. When most people think of a football coach, a male comes to mind. On the other hand, the female is viewed as a cheerleader. When it comes to a woman, the media portrays them as the person who stays at home, cooks, cleans, watches the kids, take care of the house etc...Women and football do not go in the same sentence; you would not expect the average woman to have more football knowledge than the average man, Also, it seems as if men simply love the game more than women.

In Mcquails article he says "it seems indisputable that many aspects of women's lives and experiences are not properly reflected by the media"(48). The media stereotype women and this is something that has been going on for a long time. The mentality of society is basically saying that women cannot have a "man's" job- such as a football coach. He is not just speaking about this job in particular but other male dominated job's as well.

In the media it never shows a women as a football coach because that is something that is rare. This is shown in the article I posted. The only movie that I can remember where a woman is the head coach of the football team is "The Wildcats" starring Goldie Hawn, which came out in 1986. (which was a great movie by the way, if you've never seen it before, you should check it out). Football is a masculine sport which we all know, "Masculinity is hegemonic when power is defined in terms of physical force and control" (Trujillo, 291). A women is not the first person who comes to mind when you think of those characteristics.

To be honest, I never thought it would come a time when a woman would be a football coach. I was sure proved wrong. What is the first thought that came to your mind when you first read the article? Do you think this is good for football? Will more women become football coaches in the near future? How would u feel if your football coach was a women? How long will it be before women football coaches are shown in movies and on television?

Lady GaGa and Feminism

Article Link:
http://feministhemes.com/lady-gaga-feminism-so-hard-to-believe/

The media is a powerful influence on the way that we perceive reality. The images and messages that we internalize from the media teach us what is normal and how we should act. In regards to gender, the media attempts to enforce gender roles by delivering stereotyped images and messages for people to imitate. The McQuail reading states that “Feminist research assumes a rather straightforward ‘sender-message-receiver’ sequence in which media are conceived as transmitting particular messages about gender (stereotypes, pornography, ideology) to the wider public.” The problem with this is that those who control the media are mostly white rich men. “There is every incentive for them to present the capitalist, patriarchal scheme of things as the most attractive system available – and to convince the less privileged that the oppression and limitations of their lives are inevitable.” However, feminism attempts to challenge the norm by stressing the importance of remodeling and reinforcement by parents, teachers, and the media in the attainment of gender role behaviors. Feminists also focus their efforts on creating and changing laws to promote women’s opportunities and equality. They also stress the liberal ideal of increasing women’s public visibility and criticize traditional stereotypes. So can anyone be considered a feminist?
A hot topic that interviewers seem interested in investigating is whether or not Lady GaGa is in fact a feminist. Although the pop star says yes she is, some people are having a hard time believing it. The article I found discusses the stereotypes linked to feminists, and tries to answer the question as to why it’s so unusual for Lady GaGa to be considered a feminist. The part in the article that stuck out to me questioned “Is it because she is a pop star, and somehow we have obscured pop music/stardom with instant sell-out status, misogyny, and manufactured faux empowerment?” The link between pop stars and gender stereotypes is very strong in most cases, and Lady GaGa definitely fits the criteria for some of the stereotypes. She is seen as a sex symbol from her choice of barley there clothing and suggestive dance moves. However, the correlation between pop stars and gender stereotypes is being challenged. In Lesley Robinson’s article, she discusses how Christina Aguilera’s video for her song Dirrty is an example of sex-positive post feminism which “embraces a feminism focused on individuality, independence and women’s choice to engage in heterosexually attractive bodily display.” Although female performers do work within patriarchal conventions, they have a lot of control over what they create and are largely marketed to a female audience. In Christina Aguilera’s video as well as Lady GaGa’s and many others, their performance implies self-assuredness and authority which undermine the objectification. They flaunt the fact that men cannot control female sexuality. “The ongoing and dialectical struggle between woman and patriarchy is constantly renegotiated in cultural productions. Rather than serving only to disseminate the ideas of male hegemony, popular music acts as a stage upon which the many nuances of an emerging female identity are played out.”
What are your thoughts on gender and pop culture? Do you think that someone like Lady GaGa can be both a stereotype in regards to being a sex object, but also be a feminist? How can we challenge or change these stereotypes?

Is Today’s Media Helping or Hurting Kids?

Kids today have grown up in an era where they can't remember a time when there were no cell phones, no internet, no DVDs, and no video games. That's all they've ever known and it has become a big part of their social (or anti-social) lives. "Advertisements are selling us something else besides consumer goods...they are selling us ourselves" (McQuail 300). Media tells children that they need to have all of these things (a cell phone, video game, etc.) because they don't want to be left out.

The media shapes the way kids today grow up. "The sheer amount of time young people spend using media - an average or nearly 6 1/2 hours a day - makes it plain that the potential of media to impact virtually every aspect of young people's lives cannot be ignored" (Baran & Davis 200). As we know, sometimes parents use the TV as a babysitter, but the kids are suffering the consequences.

I read an article about the negative effects of technology on kids [see link below] that made me wonder, is today's media helping or hurting kids?
http://www.helium.com/items/1629062-the-negative-effects-of-technology-on-kids

Many people think that because of technology, today's kids' social skills are severely lacking. If they aren't watching TV, kids are texting or checking out their friends' Facebooks (because as we know, Facebook is no longer exclusively for college students). Because they are bombarded with media and technology, kids are spending less and less time having face-to-face interactions. Parents worry that kids today are lacking activity. When we were kids we used to go outside and play, but today kids are too busy playing video games inside. And when they do go outside to play, they take their cell phones with them so they can text their friends.

Media is a powerful influence on people of all ages. But do you think that kids are especially dependent on their media consumption today? Is is affecting their social skills? What activities did you do when you were a kid compared to what kids do now? Were we the same back then or do kids today have it worse?

Media Influence and SecondLife.com

Promotional Video of Second Life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3gHCupXSMs

Brief History and Growing Possibilities with Second Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72CvvMuD6Q

A powerful point that was made in the Baran and Dennis text was “Storytelling and music cease to be important for extended families. Instead nuclear families gather in front of an enthralling electric storyteller.” (pg 200) It has been said that historically we first passed down information and stories verbally from generation to generation. It was then when mass media outlets such as newspapers, radio and later television and Internet that this tradition of verbal exchange of information has ceased. Chapter eight of the Baran and Dennis textbook discusses the cultural interference that media has on our cultural development. SecondLife.com claims that it further links our connection to one another. What are your views on that based on both the reading and your own personal opinion towards this site? Can you see this site as a cultural enhancer or destroyer in today’s age?  

For those of you that do not know SecondLife.com is an online world where individuals customize themselves and the world around them. The two video links provided above are both informational sources that will give you more in detail the workings and uses of SecondLife.com. As mentioned in Chapter 11 in the Baran and Dennis text, SecondLife has been infiltrated by corporal businesses and has expanded its online world through product placement. By adding currency and interactive features for users, it is more parallel to the real world than one would think.  What are your first impressions when hearing of such a community? Do you see the trend of cultural dispense with the use of these types of games? Do you see SecondLife as the next “must need” social network account like Facebook and LinkedIn? Looking at this SecondLife world and the possibilities that it provides would you participate in this community? 

Have Advertisements Changed Us?

Throughout our daily lives, we are constantly susceptible to a countless number of advertisements. These advertisements can play a major role in the ways that we view ourselves and others, and can even have an impact over the different items that we decide to purchase.

In Chapter 8 of the Baran and Davis reading, it stated, “media might have the power to intrude into and alter how we make sense of ourselves and our social world. Media could alter how we view ourselves, our relationship to others, even the image that we have of our own body” (199). Do you think there are advertisements are so powerful that they can actually impact how we view ourselves? If there were no advertisements in our society, do you think that it is possible that we might have an entirely different outlook on ourselves and the world around us? Other than altering our views about ourselves and others, advertisements may also impact whether or not we decide to purchase certain products.

In Chapter 27 of the McQuail reading, it stated, “instead of being identified by what they produce, people are made to identify themselves with what they consume” (300). When you go out and purchase certain products, do you purchase them based on their quality or simply because of their brand name? For example, it is hard to go an entire day without seeing an advertisement for Budweiser or Bud Light. It is also hard to walk into an American bar and not see Budweiser or Bud Light on tap. Do you think that Bud Light is such a popular beer because it tastes better than most beers, or do you think that it is so popular because we constantly see their advertisements on TV, billboards, etc.?

This CNN article discusses the power that advertisements have over their consumers. What I found so interesting about this article was the way in which the author, Monita Rajpal, ended it. The article ended with Rajpal saying, “Bottom line though, advertising is part of our existence. The good news is that we’re the ones with the power to choose.” Do you think that this is true? Do we have a choice over whether or not we are influenced by advertisements, or have we gotten so engulfed in their messages that there is no turning back?

Disney vs. A Controversial Image

When doing the reading for this week, a lot of it focused on how the messages that we are receiving from the media aren’t always the intended message. Barthes in the McQuail reader poses three questions: “How does meaning get into the image? Where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?” (290). I think these are really important questions, and when reading them it reminded me of an article I read surrounding the controversy of one of the latest Disney movies, “The Princess and the Frog.” Disney has had many movies that have had some controversies whether they be racial or historic inaccuracies, but this movie was getting a lot of attention because of some potentially racial issues--and ultimately the above three questions were what many people were questioning.
The controversy started with the fact that it took until recently for Disney to even have an African American princess. From there it escalated to the name choice and her occupation (which were initially Maddy and a maid to a white family), the setting of the story which was New Orleans, the fact that her prince wasn’t black, and that they spent the majority of the movie as frogs not people. Now whether you feel these things constitute as being racist or not, put your views aside and think about it from an audience perspective. Picture a young child who is the target audience for this type of movie, who may not have ever been exposed to a lot of cultures, or whose mind is still impressionable. “Media have become a primary means by which many of us experience or learn about many aspects of the world around us. Even when we don’t learn about these things directly from the media, we learn about them from other people who get their ideas of the world from the media.” (Baran and Davis, 200). From this, you have one option where these children might see some of the aspects of this film and deem them as how things really are. Granted, not every child is going to believe what they see, but is it any different than thinking you were going to marry you’re prince charming when you were that young? Do you think people are always able to clearly make these distinctions?
Disney adhered to some of these protests by its consumers and made some changes like to the name of the princess, which became Tiana, and her occupation which made her a chef. Do you think they did these things to just hush those protesting? Or do you think they did this because they maybe saw how this could offend members of their audience?
The movie obviously had more to it than what the controversy surround, it is a Disney movie after all. But some of the other messages get lost amongst the way certain symbols and images were portrayed in the film. Stuart Hall, in the McQuail reader, states that “The ‘Message-form’ is the necessary form of the appearance of the event in its passage from source to receiver” (304). In this case, clearly a message was sent. Do you think it was the right one? Do you think it’s important how messages dealing with issues such as race come across (even if unintentional) are received?
http://www.essence.com/entertainment/film/critics_dispute_princess_and_the_frog.php

What happens when the news tell you to “Hide Ya Kids and Hide Ya Wife”

Posted on behalf of Kailyn Corrigan:

Now I’m not sure if you’ve “met” Antoine Dodson, the brother of an attempted rape victim who spoke on WAFF48, a news channel in Alabama, about the crisis and his thoughts on the matter. Or, if you’ve met Antoine Dodson, lead singer of Bed Intruder ranking at the top of the Billboard charts. If not, watch this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civOdWxd4Kc

This Youtube phenomena, is not a home video, or webcam shot. It was a very serious emergency that happened to Antoine on July 28th of 2010. Since then, Antoine has become an internet sensation, splits the profit of being a musical star, has Facebook fan pages, his own Youtube page, and now hosts events—all because of a news broadcast.

There now begins the argument of whether, the sensationalism of Antoine Dodson’s sister’s rape, is appropriate, demeaning or down-right hilarious. Despite all values and the importance of news, I have to represent the latter. Baron and Davis highlight the difficulty television has as a medium to educate its audience, especially in the case of television news. They say: "Information is frequently presented in ways that inhibit rather than facilitate learning. Part of the problem rests with audience members. Most of us view television as primarily an entertainment medium. We have developed many information-processing skills and strategies for watching television that serve us well in making sense of entertainment content but that interfere with effective interpretation and recall of news" (Baron and Davis 254).

Therefore, we’re not necessarily watching the news to continue learning as we did all day in school. We’re watching the news and television for entertainment, and so despite the seriousness of Antoine’s situation, our entertainment shifts from the depth of the issue to how unbelievable hilarious Antoine’s voice and verbatim is. A podcast shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civOdWxd4Kc further elaborates the argument of whether we are laughing at or with Antoine, and are we supposed to be laughing in the first place? I’m interested to know your first impressions of the video and Bed Intruder song, and if you feel it’s appropriate or a result of the television medium.

None the less, this was a small newscast at a small news station in Alabama. How did this moment get auto-tuned all the way to Billboard charts? I’d like to suggest the theory of fandom. Regardless of what Antoine Dodson fan’s interests and intentions may be, there are a lot of them. We discuss fandom in terms of The Beatles and Bieber, but a spot on the 6 o’clock news? Denis McQuail states: "The absence of stable identity and connection is seen as leaving the individual open to irrational appeals. With the refinement of advertising and public relations campaigns in the early twentieth century, along with the success of wartime propaganda and the dramatic rise in popularity of film and radio, fears of the immense and inescapable powers of propaganda techniques grew" (McQuail 346).

Is it a certain type of person that’s open to the “irrational appeal” of Antoine Dodson’s outburst? Or is Youtube enabling a new sort of fandom, that counts and displays every fan that’s watched the video? I personally feel that this is a new and unique situation, that defies the expectations and dependence public relations and advertising were given credit, in terms of fandom. Are there any other examples of fandom that started from an ordinary person on a newscast, or has Antoine developed into a musical star, like Justin Bieber, where this fandom is normal. I think it’s an interesting situation to discuss especially in terms of news and fandom (do those words belong in the same sentence?).

Fandom: Perception vs. Reality

In the McQuail reader, Joli Jensen discusses fandom as we generally perceive it: the image of “an obsessed loner, suffering from a disease of isolation,” or a “frenzied or hysterical member of the crowd … the screaming, weeping teen” (McQuail 344-345). Jensen points out that very seldom do we refer to fandom as a normal, everyday part of life, as most of us manage to be fans of something without feeling the urge to get hysterical over it. Our perception of fandom ultimately overestimates the fan, just as our perception of the media tends to overestimate its power.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/teen-television-show-dexter-inspired-kill/story?id=9252620

Though this article is from one year ago, it is simply an older example of a still-current issue. This article covers the story of a teenager from Indiana who felt “inspired” to kill his brother after watching the Showtime original series, Dexter. In the show, the character of Dexter is a “good guy” serial killer who often identifies his inability to feel emotions, referring to himself as “not human” and describing a need to kill that is comparable to an itch needing to be scratched. Of course, the show deals with the psychological traits of a serial killer even from childhood, citing behaviors like isolation, inability to feel, and the desire to kill small animals as early warning signs of a psychological derangement. Though the show is fictional, the psychological behaviors given to Dexter’s character are based on what psychologists believe to be the reality of a killer’s mind.

Isn’t it possible, then, that this teen was already experiencing those symptoms and therefore felt comforted by the ideas behind Dexter? While articles would, of course, suggest crazed fandom as a viable explanation for this teen’s decision to murder his younger brother, certain social theories (along with our personal experience) would suggest that the media simply does not have the power to do this on its own.

As we discussed last week both in class and in our previous blog entries, people can generally tell you why they use the media they use. Based on the uses and gratifications theory, we can readily assume that this teen was using Dexter as a tool for self-identification and companionship, as I doubt that he ever spoke to anyone about his desire to kill. We can also infer from the McQuail’s reader that the teen’s fandom was used for “psychological compensation,” also referred to as “an attmpt to make up for all that modern life lacks” (McQuail 347).

But of course, the information-processing theory holds water as well, and is very relevant in a case like this. It is scientific fact that humans only perceive a fraction of the things going on around them, and therefore only perceive a fraction of the media. But even then, however, the media we perceive may not have an actual effect on our behavior, for we simply don’t have the means of slowing the media down, reviewing it, and truly studying its meaning when we are viewing it in real time (Baran and Davis 251).

As someone who has been watching Dexter since its very first episode in 2006, I can say that I have watched each season multiple times without ever feeling the urge to kill anyone. Of course, this isn’t the only example of “crazed fandom” that we find. Leonardo DiCaprio issued a restraining order against a crazy fan claiming to be carrying his baby, a Twilight fan killed a man and drank his blood, and we’ll forever see girls crying at Justin Timberlake concerts. Though we tend to talk about these fans as people from afar, have any of you ever found yourself exerting this kind of excessive fan behavior? What do you think you get out of it? And lastly, whatever it is you’re a fan of, is it that thing in particular that makes you lose your mind, or are you a fan of something for some greater reason?

The "Twilight" Phenomenon and Excessive Fandom

When I first thought about what I would try to find about fandom for this week, a couple things popped into my mind. First, I thought about the Harry Potter series and how big it has gotten. When you go see a new movie, half the people are dressed up as characters. Then, I thought about Avatar, because we were discussing in class how many people wish it was real, and it makes them depressed to know it’s not. Then I remembered something that was more recent than Harry Potter or even Avatar, which is the Twilight phenomenon.

I feel like this series took off so fast, and became something more than just a book or just a movie. This turned into a true phenomenon that swept the globe, and I started to wonder why this happened. Personally, I find the series too fluffy, and I enjoy Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series (what True Blood is based off of) way more than Twilight because it offers more to the reader: romance, violence, mystery, and science fiction. Why, then, did the Twilight series take off in whirlwind more so than True Blood? When I started the reading for this week, I began to get an idea of why this was. Chapter 29 of the McQuail’s Reader is centered on this notion of the “ideal romance.” Much of what was described can be linked directly to Twilight, as well as what I have heard others say they like about the series. Often the reader/viewer is female, and has gone through some event in her life that she can relate back to the series in some way. This drives the need to keep watching/reading to see where the heroine in the book ends up, which is usually in love at the end, and they begin to want to live vicariously through the character and their dramatized, but ultimately successful, love story. McQuail’s Reader goes as far to say “…the romance functions always as a utopian wish-fulfillment fantasy through which women try to imagine themselves as they often are not in day-to-day existence, that is, as happy and content (319).”

This was also discussed in chapter 32 of McQuail, which tries to explain the phenomenon of fandom. What stuck out to me was the idea that fandom was actually a “…psychological compensation, an attempt to make up for all that modern life lacks (347).” This not only plays into the idea that women are putting themselves into the romance because they have suffered heartache or are having romance trouble in their own lives, but also what was mentioned before about the movie Avatar, and that excessive fans of it wish that all of that actually existed. I then went on to read about romance novel research in Mass Communication Theory, and it was interesting to see what they had found out. In traditional romance novels, there is the patriarchal element that shows society as male-dominated, where they are strong and heroic, and it is accepted as the natural order of things. What was surprising about the research was that the women participating preferred male characters who fulfilled this traditional role but also had feminine traits, such as gentleness. Does this remind you of anything? Edward Cullen in the Twilight series is a vampire, and it is often mentioned how dangerous he is and how much damage he could do physically. However, this being a love story, he is head over heels for Bella and it is said it takes a lot of strength to be as gentle as he is. He has that strong heroic quality but when he is with Bella he is as thoughtful and gentle as can be, and that’s what I think fans love so much.

I found an article in the LA Times that was shocking but not very surprising. A 31 year old woman became so infatuated with the Twilight series that it almost destroyed her marriage. She not only became obsessed with the story, re-reading chapters all the time, but with the relationships of the actors themselves. I think that it makes the fandom worse when the real life actors are seemingly acting out the story of their characters as it makes it harder for people to separate reality and fantasy. This woman would stay up all night chatting about the book, the movies, and the juicy gossip surrounding all of it with other die-hard fans. This practically took over her life, and her husband started to not only be concerned of what it was doing to her mentally, but also that he was about to be forgotten completely. What made her realize what she was doing to her life was when her husband finally said he felt she loved Twilight more than him. She realized she was destroying her real life relationship with someone who truly loved her, she might be a fan of the serious but she did not need to live vicariously through it. Others are not so lucky and are stuck in the whirlwind fixation. What are your thoughts on the fandom portrayed in the article? When do you think fandom becomes a serious issue? Is excessive fandom always a problem, or are there beneficial social aspects?

Article:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/27/entertainment/la-ca-twilight-addiction-20100627

Could the Expectation of reward/Effort required model cause immoral actions?

Could the Expectation of reward/Effort required model cause immoral actions?

In chapter 9 of the Baran & Davis reading, it discusses the idea of why an individual may choose one mass media medium over another when seeking items such as new, entertainment, etc. In this specific section (p. 232) it brings forth the idea that “people weigh the level of reward (gratification) they expect from a given medium or message against how much effort they must make to secure that reward” when making this very decision.

Overall, I greatly agree with this idea. Personally, I prefer using the internet to find my news. This way, I don’t have to find the news channels (different channel numbers in Denver), I don’t have to bother with watching commercials, or hearing the news I’m not interested in so that I can hear the stories that follow, and most of all, I don’t have to limit my news intake location to the couch in our living room. With my computer, I am able to go directly to the sites, click on whatever story I find interesting, learn more about an topic with just the click of a button, and I can do it from any location I wish (internet capable of course). For most, I feel this is the case. It’s obvious, we do what’s easiest. However, could this idea of doing what’s easiest in order to gain the highest reward cause us, as media junkies, to face immoralities? Maybe not when it comes to finding today’s news, but how about when it comes to getting new music?

The issue of music piracy and file sharing is one of great concern amongst not only the music business but also national governments worldwide. File sharing and music piracy is ILLEGAL, does that stop you from doing it?

In this article from The Tennessean.com the problem of file sharing is discussed. It talks about the damages it has done to not only the music industry but also our economy as a whole, and the future steps that are planned to be taken by the federal government as well as the big name corporations.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20101003/BUSINESS01/10030328/2047/news01

A clip taken from the article says, “An analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation estimates that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, including lost jobs, earnings and tax revenues.” That means that by downloading music illegally, we are adding to a $12.5 billion loss directed towards the country that provides our home and our safety. Yet, I know so many who take part in actions such as these, and don’t have any sort of issue when it comes to downloading music illegally. Could it be because pirating and file sharing requires the least effort while rewarding you with 100% of what you want? I think so. It’s just so damn easy!

Another idea that struck me as interesting after doing this week’s readings, was the fact that I now see the act of watching TV as completely social, even if you’re doing it alone!

One of the topics discussed in both the Baran & Davis reading and the McQuail reading that made me most uncomfortable was the idea that people (child or adult) watch TV for social security. In the Baran and Davis reading, the idea of watching TV to provide “an endless stream of chatter to fill up spaces in our lives and create a sense of being involved with other people” is brought up (B&D 241). To me, this means that many people like to watch TV as a pseudo-social event during a time of loneliness. Similarly, discussed in the McQuail reader, is the idea that kids like to watch TV “because they are able to get inside people and events and to be a sort of friend with some of the people on the screen (McQuail 359). I’m not really sure why, but this just really rubbed me the wrong way. Now I feel like every time I find myself watching TV by myself, a huge wave of loneliness is going to come over me causing me to find immediate contact with another human being. But hey, maybe this is a good thing, because I know one thing’s for certain, It will get me up off that couch in a jiffy!

If we know it's "bad" for us, why do we still watch?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/research/20happy.html

I found this New York Times Health article, which correlates not watching a lot of television with happiness, to be very interesting. After reading it I couldn’t help but think to myself why people continue to spend countless hours glued in front of the television when there are multiple studies such as this one suggesting it can have negative impacts on you.

Celia von Feilitzen in McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory conducted a survey with children in an attempt to discover their main motives for watching television as often as they do. In reading the main categories of the responses I found it interesting how many of these motives are the same reasons that I watch TV as much as I do and I’m sure you will notice the same thing. The entertainment/emotional function was one that I found particularly true as a motive for all TV viewers; young and old. The rather basic but accurate concept of “I watch because ‘it’s a bit of relaxation’, ‘I don’t have anything else to do for the moment’, and ‘you can see things that don’t happen for real’” (McQuail 358-359). Leave it to children to, in my opinion, perfectly hit on three of the major reasons why so many millions of people around the world can’t get enough of the medium which is television.

Just out of curiosity what do you feel is the single greatest reason why you decide to watch as much television as you do? Also do you agree in any way with the Times article in feeling that watching too much television could lead to feelings of isolation, depression, and unhappiness? I can admit that when I partake in other types of activities such as going to the gym, playing a game of pick-up basketball, or even reading a good book for a few hours, I tend to feel better about myself than if I sat around and watched TV instead. In a way society has tended to view those who watch countless hours of TV a day to be being highly “unproductive” and “lazy”. But do these labels or judgments by others have any effect on whether a person is happy or not? For example when I sit in front of the TV all day and night on Sundays watching football, I can care less about what any of my friends think of me and my “TV habits”, I couldn’t be any happier. Where do you stand on this issue?

The studies and theories on the potential negative effects of television and simply consuming media in general are extremely vast nowadays. The potential consequences are focused around both a health and social level. Yet in chapter 9 Baran and Davis delve into some of the audience theories and examine some of the good and positive effects media can have on a person. They talked about how researchers in this area were “slow to develop the perspective that average people can be responsible media consumers who use media for their own worthwhile purposes- an active audience” (Baran and Davis 230). The idea that people could be well-informed on the issues of the day through consuming various media and thus be able to avoid political manipulation and propaganda. Do you feel that this theory is accurate today? Given all of the biases in today’s media as we have discussed in class, can the average media consumer avoid all of these different political slants and spins? As we have talked about a Media Studies student can try to look at different sources and sift through the biases, but how about the average man/woman?

What Are You Looking At?

This week in the class readings, we focus on the uses and gratifications of mass media. I was particularly interested in what these chapters had to say because I have taken a few classes which have assigned a media diary and record what media medium I use the most and how much media I consume in a given week. From the journal, one thing was apparent; mass media is a huge part of my life. In today’s society, the access we have to any media outlet is incredible. It has become such a part of my daily routine that any free time that I have in a day, even if it is just for a few minutes, I consume some type of media content.

In the McQuail reader, it talked about a study that was done on Swedish children and their use of the mass media- TV, radio, cinema, books, etc. The results of the study were what interested me the most. They made the argument that, “in this context it is worth noting that television, in spite of the children’s comprehensive consumption of entertainment programmes, is the mass medium that constitutes their most important source of knowledge” (McQuail, 361). Now my question for everybody is, does this apply to you? Do you use the television the most to get your information? If not, then what is your primary media content for information?

Personally, the internet has effected me the most and has become my primary media content for seeking information. The amount of access we have when we log onto the internet is great. Anything I want to know more about I can easily find it on the internet. One argument out of the Baran and Davis reading is that when choosing which offerings of mass communication an individual will choose, they will weigh the gratifications against the amount of effort it took to retrieve that reward. If this were true, for me, I think that television would be the most popular in the category of information seeking. I don’t know about anybody else, but my computer is a piece of work. It takes a good couple minutes to load up, the pop-ups are inevitable, and the loading time of some web pages can sometimes actually be a joke. But for some reason, I still pick using the computer over watching television. In this “fraction of selection” (expectation of reward/ effort required) true for anybody? Do you pick your mass media outlet based on how much effort it takes to retrieve that information? If you know your going to have to search on the internet for something as opposed to flipping on the television and listening to the story, which are you more likely to choose?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jMt6saTqq4

Take a look at the video posted above. In the Baran and Davis chapter, Phillip Palmlgreen, Lawrence Wenner, and Karl Rosengren wrote, “studies have shown that a variety of audience gratifications (again, both sought and obtained) are related to a wide spectrum of media effects, including knowledge, dependency, attitudes, perceptions of social reality, agenda-setting, discussion, and various political effects variables” (Baran, Davis, (243). Dependency is what stood out to me aside from the others. Knowledge, discussion, perception of social reality; these all seem like positive effects of the media. Dependency, on the other hand, does not. Is dependency a good thing? In the “Bing” ad it is suggesting that search engines on the internet have fried our brains, and now we actually need a website that not only gives us results to what were searching for, but they claim to have made decisions for us. It is, in effect, a decision making website. What do you think about the message this website is saying? Do you think all of our media consumption and addiction with technology is actually having this effect on us, or was the commercial being overly dramatic? Does this tie in with McQuail’s idea of the “Non-social/ escapist function about using the media to get away from reality? (Mcquail, 359).

Lastly, I would like to know your media habits. Which media outlet are you using the most? And why? In the McQuail reader, it suggests that gratifications given by the media to the individual fall under 5 categories; Entertainment/ emotional, informative/ cognitive, social, non-social, and mode of consumption (McQuail, 358-360). Can you think of any other reasons/ gratifications that meet your individual needs/ wants?

Media's Influence on Body Image

As a young woman in America, I have noticed that the influence of media on our society has advanced and changed greatly over the past decade. During my childhood years, I never noticed that media had such a great influence on people. Perhaps I never took an interest in being aware of these issues because I didn’t realize how deeply ingrained is the mass media in our society. The readings for the week bring up an important dilemma that society as a whole has been facing in recent years. The Baran and Davis readings also point out that people behave in certain ways relating to mass media because they find some sort of gratification in doing so (Baran and Davis 243). Additionally, McQuial asserts, “The needs structure of the child and the functions of the mass media are consequently a dynamic phenomena; they can be altered if other factors, for example programmes, change character” (McQuail 357). I believe that society is seeing a change in the media as time progresses. Recently over the past few years, there has been a great concern for the messages media is sending out to the youth today. Many parents have been concerned because young boys and girls are following trends that are very dangerous to their health and well-being. In the early to mid part of this decade, I remember hearing and seeing on the news reports about teens committing acts that were harmful to their health due to the influence the media has had on them. Take for example the fact that so many teens have had to enter rehabilitation programs to work on their self-esteems and body images. Can the anorexia epidemic that society has seen in recent years, be attributed to television programs such as America’s Next Top Model? America’s Next Top Model is a very good example of how women struggle with their body image and self-esteem in order to compete and make it to the top. Now more than ever before more teens are dealing with problems that affect the way they perceive their body images. I found a very interesting article by PBS where it makes us aware of the problems many young teens are facing with regards to their perception of the body image, http://www.pbs.org/perfectillusions/eatingdisorders/preventing_media.html. The article also addresses the many ways in which parents and young people can combat this trend that seems to be taking over society. I also found this youtube video that will help us understand the magnitude of body image problems many teens and young adults are having to deal with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQLqC_hTT4I. I wonder if sending the message that being thin is the only way one can find success, will contribute to a more productive society or will this contribute more issues among people. The questions I pose concerning this issue is, how much can the media influence people’s self-esteem? Are there ways we as media consumers, can find to divert the attention that is given by the media to body images? How far will this so-called fashion influence young people who consume media on a very frequent basis?