Monday, February 26, 2007

Diversity in the Media

The media is constantly changing as society changes, as there is a relationship between the two, since the media plays a central tole in shaping and influencing. Although I do feel that the media often has negative effects on our society and culture, such as body image and appearance, the media, such as television shows, are changing to include more diversity, which is beneficial to our culture.

Lately I have been noticing more shows that are displaying more diversity in their content. As standards are changing, media content is changing. Grey's Anatomy is a good example of a television show that portrays African Americans as successful, as opposed to mainly just Caucasians. The show was created by a Black woman and she wrote it so that the head of surgery is an African American male, and many of the other doctors are African American as well and all of them are highly respected on the show. One of the African American doctors is also a woman, which is sort of a "double plus." This can be very inspiring to younger generations, not just to those who aspire to be doctors, but to any who have a dream career. Grey's Anatomy shows that it does not matter what race you are or where you come from; a person can be successful without any of these factors making a difference. It also shows more diversity as it displays an African American doctor and an Asian doctor in a relationship, showing how interracial relationships are becoming more accepted and have evolved tremendously over time. You don't see these two races portrayed together much in the media and I think that it is good for popular television shows to popularize certain aspects of our culture that have not been made so public in the past. The sitcome, The Game, is another example of a show that depicts an interracial relationship as it shows a Cacausian female with an African American male. Desperate Housewives is another example of a show that promotes diversity. Eva Longoria is playing the role of a rich housewife and her husband is also very successful; both of them are of Hispanic or Latin descent. The show tries to rid the stereotype of the relationship between minorities and gardening since in this show, Eva Longoria's gardener is Caucasian. Here, the expectation that most people have about gardeners and the wealthy is reversed.

The media has also helped bring homosexuality out into the open. Before the mid 20th century, gay people were thought of as criminals. Since then, this has all changed and the media has played central role in making gays more accepted. Lately the media has been depicting more gays than in the past in television shows and other dramas. The documentary, Further off the Straight and Narrow, says "gays on T.V. makes them more real." Before it seemed that the only way for gays to be depicted on television was if it had relation to AIDS or HIV; however, now they are depicted in many different fashions. Gay people are depicted on many reality shows, such as Real World and Queer Eye For the Straight Guy and even sitcoms, such as Will and Grace. Even Ellen DeGeneres, a successful talk show host is openly gay and is widely accepted and very popular. Dawson's Creek was even one of the first shows to depict a gay teen coming out to his family and friends, which allowed many gay teens struggling with this issue to be able to relate to. One of the biggest obstacles in society is getting used to and accepting gays for who they are.

It is very important to have diveristy in the media because the media significantly has an impact on the way many Americans think and on their attitudes as well. This can ultimately shape our cutlure and hopefully with time, more diveristy in the media will give acceptance to more diverisity in the real world. Although I have given several exmaples of television shows that are trying to bring more diversity, this trend must continue because it is still not nearly enough. There are still numerous shows which lack any diveristy and have very few, if any, minorities written in their scripts; however, things do seem to be taking a turn for the better and hopefully this will continue. I hope that sometime in the near future, discrimination greatly decreases and women, gays, and minorities are able to be placed in successful positions.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Traditional Library Research vs. Internet Research (Paper #2)

There is a significant difference between traditional library research and research on the Internet using applications, such as Furl, Diigo, and Delicious. I'm sure that most people who have any sense of how to research on the Internet would agree that the Internet is a much easier and shorter process. Although it still does require a lot of searching through different articles to find exactly what you are looking for, it gives you the ability to do all of your research from sitting in one spot. When doing research in a library, you are forced to first find books that you are looking for, write down their locations, and then go searching for them through the aisles of the library. You must then gather them all up and read through them, trying to find relevant information. And then, to keep track of this information, you must either check the books out or make copies of the pages that interest you. When you use the Internet, it is much more convenient. You simply type in keywords or phrases and you are given numerous articles and sites that relate to your topic. When you find something that you want to save, you can use diigo, or other similar programs, to bookmark your article, in which it will save it for you so you can go back to it. You also have the ability to make comments about the article, or highlight important lines, which you can keep private or make public for other viewers. There are some programs, such as Zotero, that will even write the bibliography for you, as opposed to writing all of the information down by hand in a traditional library setting. Online programs, such as Zotero, can save a significant amount of time, especially if you hate doing bibliographies, such as myself. There is even the option of taking part in social bookmarking in which you can find articles related to your topic that others have already bookmarked and read their comments about them. You also have the convenience of having all of your information in one spot as well as being accessible, which can be very helpful when writing a research paper. As one can see, there are many advatages to searching on the internet, as opposed to in a traditional library setting.

Annotations

Cosmetic surgery's popularity growing thanks to media attention, expert says; nearly 12 million procedures performed in 2004
http://www.newstarget.com/005195.html

Cosmetic Surgery is becoming increasingly popular in the United States and some are contributing this increase to media attention on the procedures now that people have had many more opportunities to see first hand what plastic surgery is and what it can do for others, referring to shows, such as Dr. 90210. Plastic surgery is becoming more and more common as Americans underwent close to 12 million surgical or non surgical cosmetic procedure in 2004, a rise of 44 percent from the previous year, with liposuction and botox treatment leading the surge. Women seem to be the main target of media influence to want to improve appearance as the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) said 90 percent of the procedures were performed on women. ASAPS president Peter Fodor attributed the jump in cosmetic treatment to increased media attention. This further gives rise to the idea that women are more pressured in our society to look perfect, mainly due to celebrity influence. People have had many more opportunities to see, first hand, what plastic surgery is like and what it can do for others, Fodor said. That can be a strong incentive for them to seek the same benefits by having cosmetic procedures themselves. Television shows in the media also seem to downplay the risks of plastic surgery and only focus on the benefits of looking beautiful. This can further lead to people wanting cosmetic surgery because the media makes it seem so simple. Surgical procedures were up 17 percent on 2003, with liposuction leading the treatment table with more than 478,000 operations, giving more emphasis on the need to be thin in our society. On the non-surgical side, procedures were up 51 percent, with more than 2.8 million people opting for anti-wrinkling botox injections and 1.4 million going in for some laser hair removal. Even men are considering plastic surgery as an ASAPS survey of 1000 Americans found that 21 percent of men interviewed said they would consider cosmetic surgery--an increase of 50 percent from 2003.

Music, Television, and Video Games and Their Effect on Children! http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya/VideoGames/3.html

Children today are watching more T.V. than ever. It is estimated that the average child watches from three to five hours of television a day! A lot of the technology today is also filled with violence. Children are very impressionable and the media plays a significant role in shaping behaviors and attitudes. Obviously these media have a big influence on children's' behavior: we can see it in the way they attempt to emulate their favorite rock stars by dressing in a similar style and the way children play games, imitating their favorite cartoon personalities or super heroes. Studies have shown that extensive television viewing may be associated with, aggressive behavior, poor academic performance, precocious sexuality, obesity, and the use of drugs or alcohol. Television, video games, and music are very influential and if there is too much violence available for children to watch, play, or listen to, this can sway their attitudes in a negative direction. However, because the media is so influential, it can have either negative or positive impacts. If television, music, or video games have violent content, people, especially children and adolescents, can be influenced by this not because of the music or television show itself, but because of the artist that they look up to who is encouraging this behavior, making it look cool. Music can be very powerful and there have been numerous stories in the news of teenagers trying to commit suicide or committing crimes and then blaming it on song lyrics. Perhaps the music itself is not such an influential agent, but the artists are and if they are behaving in an unbecoming manner, many kids will try and be like them. There are also examples of music, television, and video games that can have positive impacts. For example, songs that empower women, inspire children and adolescents to make good decisions, and those that are educational can have positive effects on our society. The article describes how examples of music having a positive influence on kids are also prevalent. The girl rap group Salt-N-Pepa, who are often categorized according to their sexual image, also project an image of feminine strength. Cheryl James, a.k.a "Salt," said, "We get compliments from women like, 'You inspired me to get out of an abusive relationship.' It makes me feel good about what I do" (AP Nov. 5). There is also some good examples of music, which brings a more positive feeling to the group. Unfortunately, when it comes to video games, children are more inclined to like games with some sort of violent content. According to the article, the two most preferred categories were games that involved fantasy violence, preferred by almost 32% of subjects; and sports games, some of which contained violent sub themes, which were preferred by more than 29%. These types of games can give some the idea that violence is the best way to deal with problems and conflict. But again, these are only some of the many games that are out there. There are others that include educational and positivity content. For example, there is an entire business dedicated to developing more challenging and interesting software for children's use.
One can see that the media and entertainment industry do have a significant influence on the lives and behavior of children, but it is the choice of the artist, program writer, or celebrity whether or not this content will be positive or negative.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Social Bookmarks (Paper #2)

Social bookmarks can be a very convenient way to find topics of your interest as well as see what other people in the same online community find interesting. It is even helpful to be able to read some of their comments and gain insight on the articles from other perspectives. Sights such as Furl, Diigo, Delicious, and many others are making this possible by allowing you to join, posting your own bookmarks as public, as well as being able to view the bookmarks from many others. You simply type in a topic and many bookmarks come up, which you can sort through and read those which sound interesting to you or those you feel will help you in your research.

One social bookmarking program that I find quite interesting is Diigo. This site allows you to engage in social bookmarking, but also has many other features as well, such as being able to highlight and add sticky notes. You can choose to keep these private, or make them public meaning that others can also see what you highlighted and the comments that you made. This also gives you the opportunity to view the highlights and sticky notes of other bookmarks that you view. Diigo also gives you the opportunity to join groups, in which you can collaborate with others who share the same interests. For example, there have already been diverse groups created, such as those focusing on philosophy, java script, and even finance stock and project management. Diigo also gives you the opportunity to form your own groups if there has not yet been one created focusing on your interests. I have searched through many bookmarks of Diigo users and have profiled two users who I found interesting.

Social book marker, Docbadwrench, is a very consistent book marker. For example, when I searched for articles relating to culture, many results came up, a majority of them being from the same person, Docbadwrench. He has several articles with similar tags and he seems to bookmark many articles at one time, as there are at least 10 articles that it shows him bookmaking just in the last 15 or 16 minutes. He seems to dominate the articles tagged with the word, culture. This person seems to be very interested in video games as they influence culture. Examples of his saved articles include, The New Gamer, The Video Game Revolution, and Donkey Kong. He also seems to hold some interest in politics and the media, as he has saved articles about the media’s coverage of the Iraq war as well as other articles, such as The New Republic.

I also looked through the bookmarks of Kurchatovmachine. This person seems to hole a lot of interest in women, society, and eating disorders. For example, she has saved multiple articles about bulimia, anorexia, depression, menopause, and hair care tips, which are all topics that seem to be mainly targeted to women readers. I noticed that she does not use Diigo nearly as much as Docbadwrench, but she also seems to be a new user of Diigo. Her oldest bookmark was saved only about 4 weeks ago. I predict that a couple months from now because since she has discovered Diigo, she seems to be a consistent user. ave been looking through many Diigo users and have profiled two of its user.

Although social bookmarking can be very convenient, there is some searching still involved. For example, some of the articles may appear informative and interesting from the title, but then turn out to be disappointing and far from what you were expecting. I clicked on one bookmark, which was titled "Pop Culture Influence" thinking that it would be discussing the influence of celebrities and other aspects of the entertainment industry, although, it turned out to be just stories of what celebrities have done lately, such as going to Starbucks. Typing in a topic will give you endless bookmarks with similar tags, but you must be willing to sort through them, bookmarking only those that meet your expectations and interests, which will never be all of them. You must be able to be clear in your searches and use the best words and phrases possible in order to receive the bookmarks closest relating to the topic you are searching for.

Social bookmarking can be a very easy and fun way to share and find articles, however, one must know how to search for what they are looking for. Some topics will be more popular than others, and some topics will prove difficult to find bookmarks relating to them. Although, with more and more people joining in social bookmarking, searching and finding will become much easier and convenient.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Comment on "Dare to Share's 5 Teen Trends of 2007"

You discuss the teen trends that you feel will take place in 2007. For example, you explain how "there will be an increase of teen volunteers or new programs for community involvement managed entirely online." I do feel that teens are volunteering more (especially because it looks good on college applications) , and that the Internet has become a significant medium; however, I do not think that teens will begin isolating themselves in their bedrooms because of it. Teens still enjoy going out with friends and being "out on the town." The Internet and computers do make many things convenient, but I do not think that they are ready to take over the entire lives of a teen. Like you explain, teens will be involved with their community, but will also have the characteristic of staying indoors, downloading things on their iPod, etc. You explain how they exhibit strong individualism as well as communal-ism. You also mentioned how teens will increasingly individualize their beliefs. I agree, I think that many teens today are not afraid to express their beliefs just because their friends have a different view. They are even able to see celebrities express their religious beliefs freely. I think that individualism is really popular, but at the same time, teens are finding other ways to fit in with their peers, religious and other beliefs aside. You also explain how students will no longer see value in formal education as much as street education. I do not agree with this view. I do feel that teens highly value "street education," but I also feel that many see a strong value in formal education as more and more teens are choosing to attend college.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Comment on "Class Starts...While You Are at it Shotgun Your T.V."

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=112328255&blogID=217150219

Brian, I enjoyed your post about television. I agree with your idea that television is often over consuming the lives of many Americans when they could be out doing things to benefit their families and society as a whole. You mentioned how the average American spends about 3 hours a day watching television. When I think about it, that's a lot of time to be sitting and watching other people when you could be doing something more productive. I actually used to watch a lot of T.V when I was younger, but I'm so busy with school and work now, I hardly ever have time to watch television. But what I do enjoy about t.v. is that it is a good way for me to relax and take my mind off things; however, now that I don't have much time to watch t.v. I enjoy that even better because I feel much more productive. You discussed how you do not watch regular television at all in your house, except to watch an occasional movie. You have also never seen one episode of the OC, Survivor, Grey's Anatomy, or 24. Although, you explained how you did actually watch an episode of American Idol at a friend's house, which turned "normal t.v. viewing into a social occasion." I think that this is such a great idea. I think that television viewing would be so much more entertaining and enjoyable if everyone turned it into a social occasion, just watching t.v. on special occasions with friends and family. I like how you have your kids play computer games for entertainment instead of watching television. And I agree with you, even though playing computer games may not be thought of as very productive either, at least they are required to have thought and interaction to play these games. I do feel that many Americans should stop watching so much t.v., but I don't feel it necessary to give up regular t.v. viewing altogether; just enough so that it is not how a person spends all of their free time when, like you said, they could be doing something good for society and spending quality time with family instead. I look forward to read your future posts.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Critique of Visual Communication

http://www.usaweekend.com/06_issues/060521/060521teens_and_celebs.html (Article)
http://www.usaweekend.com/06_issues/060521/060521teens_and_celebs_full.html (Survey Results)

How many of us are able to learn more effectively when visuals are used? Visuals can be very helpful learning aids, but to be helpful they must also be presented effectively. The article "Teens and Celebrities" takes a survey and turns it into the form of a chart, which makes the information from the article visual in a way where it can be seen in overview. "Teens and Celebrities" is mainly about teens in relation to celebrities and discusses how teens view and respond to stars. According to the survey taken, the information shows that although teens aspire to be like stars, they don't necessarily view them as role models. The highlights from the survey results are displayed in chart form; however, although this visual that the article provides is very helpful and useful, the information could have been displayed in different ways to present the material more clearly and easily. When I say easier, I mean in a way that can be viewed almost at a glance, without having to view it carefully and slowly.

The survey results could have been made easier to view if made in the form of a bar graph, which would make it easy to distinguish the percentages of teens who voted a certain way. The way that the results are actually laid out are readable and understandable, but it requires that the viewer read through each stat to get the overall percentages of the teens' opinions. A colored bar graph, or even maybe a different layout like a pie chart, would have made the results more interesting to view, as well as easier on the eyes to see the multiple responses at one glance, rather than having to read through the percentages. Seeing multiple images, in this case responses, can sometimes be distracting; however, in this case, being able to view the responses in graph form would make the results more clearly distinguishable and easier to compare.

In this presentation, it is helpful to read the article first and then look at the survey results. If one looks at the survey before reading the article, they are likely to misinterpret the conclusion that the author has come to according to the results. For example, one might see the survey as conveying the idea that teens admire celebrities and some wish that they could be like them. A person might also come to the conclusion that talent, more so than the content of the person, is more important for celebrities to have. These are all possible conclusions to make from the survey; however, they are different from what the article concludes, which is more about how teens do enjoy celebrities and sometimes want to be one, but they do not necessarily view them as role models. The author, Lori Majewski, also points out how the survey results show that we're raising a generation of smart kids because today, children and teens are able to tell the difference between true stars and those who are just looking for good press. She also points out how teens today are volunteering more than ever, showing that the next generation is doing society good and that even one day, stars might aspire to be like them instead of vice-versa. So although the visual does help the presentation, but only after reading the article, it cannot be looked to as a summary of what the article's point is because this allows for misinterpretation. As a result, looking at only the visual without reading the entire article can actually impede what the article's main point is. This can be a good thing because the author probably wants readers to view both the article and the actual survey results, which is what the reader must do to understand the author's main points.

Although the visual of the survey results is not effective by itself and could be made even more effective with a different layout, it is helpful to the article as a whole and maintains simplicity which can often present things more clearly. If one reads the article first, and then views the survey results afterwards, then the visual is very supportive and persuasive to support the information from the article; however, the visual by itself is not helpful in supporting the article and cannot be used as a summary of the article, but only as a supplement to the article. In this way, the visual is effective in supporting the point of the article.