September 2011 Archives

I have to say I this article really painted a new picture of the tv series for me. I was an avid watcher and truly did love show. This article really opened a new door for me though. Mostly, the show was entertaining but I didn't realize the underlying issues in the series. I have to admit that I wasn't really always that thrilled to have constant issues of the patriarchal standpoint and was always hoping to have an "uhah" moment when issues were so stereotypical of women (that's why Miranda was my favorite - although she obsessed over men, she realized she was doing it and tried to be more independent). But, honestly as Natalie said in another post I was happy with the diversity of race, gender issues thinking that it was broadening the tv spectrum - when really it was still advertising stereotypical thinking. It's refreshing to see these laid out in the article and realize what I was watching really was just a bunch of boxed-in ideas. Although, I will probably still love the show for its entertainment value, I now think if I ever watched it again I could pin-point the stereotypical views of the show.

Laura

My friend and I were into Sex and the City for awhile and we watched pretty much every episode. While this is somewhat embarrassing, knowing what scenes the article was talking about really helped to paint the picture for me that there were a lot of stereotypes throughout the show and helped me to think of some that were not mentioned. What I found most interesting in the article was that all four of these women claim they are pro the rights of gays and there are homosexuals throughout the series, with a couple of fairly prominent characters, yet these homosexuals and transgendered people were typecast in a very distinct way that went along with the stereotypes that many people believe already. I just found it interesting that while I watched the show I loved that the there were gay characters yet after reading this article I now see that there wasn't really any barriers broken by having openly gay characters. In fact, most of the boundaries and myths were just reinforced. I was wondering if anyone else who has watched Sex and the City had an experience like this.

Natalie

I had a hard time getting through Mulvey without being extremely skeptical. Basing an argument off of a Freudian theory seems like a bad move. Freud grew up in the Victorian era where sex was extremely repressed, which contributed to his ideas on the unconscious having everything to do with some burning sexual desire. There are a lot of things wrong with Freud's theory to use it as fact and analyze cinema with it. Though I see where Mulvey was going anyway, I just think that I would've been more convinced had Freud's ideas been cast aside.

I also had an interesting thought while reading. Mulvey seems to be talking about the way the female is depicted in film. Are there any films out there that completely reverse this? Where the male is the object to be looked at? Wouldn't that be kind of interesting to see these sorts of things in complete reverse? Where the female character is depicted in a traditional way for the audience to look through her eyes and view the male as an object of voyeuristic and sexual desire?

Within the context of higher-class-middle-aged-white-women, I believe the 4 main characters are fairly diverse in their opinions and personalities, without getting too extreme. How do you think the critique would differ if the women held their exact same views/actions, but were portrayed in differing demographics from each other? If one of the women were black, would it matter that Adeena was shown with an attitute any more? If Carrie was portrayed as a "normal girl" who also happened to be bisexual, would it outweigh the stereotypes promoted by how the Power-Lesbians treated Charolette?

Hi all,

Here's a link to the Jersey Shore article I mentioned in class: http://flowtv.org/2010/02/coming-to-a-beach-near-you-examinations-of-ethnic-and-state-identity-in-jersey-shore-jon-kraszewski-seton-hall-university/

When it was aired, I watched Flavor of Love religiously. No shame. I found the show terribly entertaining, but when I think back on reasons why- it is not the best show, and it is nothing like anything i had ever experienced in real life. I went to a high school in Minnetonka where there were literally less than 20 black students. so when i was watching this show, i just saw a bunch of black women fighting, or clawing, or just shouting, over a horribly unattractive joke of a man. Since I didn't have anything to compare it to from my real life experiences, it passed through my filters as educational almost, even though i knew that all of these women must have had something extremely wrong with them in order to be attracted to Flava Flave........ Yikes. as the article said, they portrayed the women as very ghetto-- and when the definition of ''Ghetto'' can be deployed as a label for
allegedly dysfunctional behavior (hypersexual, uncouth, criminal, violent, loud) and
values (nontraditional family values, materialism) was used- it fit like a glove with all of the shouting and weave pulling that went down.

taking into consideration that there are many other people like me in the world who are not very cultured who are watching this could be dangerous, and it could easily spread stereotypes and racism if the shows continue to show black women behaving in such an animalistic way to get the attention of a man.

To be honest I'm a big reality TV fan but more so to examine the level of actual "reality" used in all of the many reality shows produced. These days the reality element tends to take a backseat and the shock factor plays the biggest role. I had actually never thought about the comparison between The Bachelor and Flavor of Love before reading this article and I attribute that to it being because, as mentioned, Flavor of Love racially sensationalizes.

I guess what I'm wondering is what makes viewers turn into both or either The Bachelor and Flavor of Love? The two are in the date category of reality television but they are both vastly different.

-Celia

I am not one for reality television, but I found the comparisons between these shows really interesting. The part that stuck out most to me was this quote from it:

"The Bachelor tells its story of love with earnest sincerity, devoid of irony or self-consciousness, mirroring the way it portrays its subjects as unselfconsciously and undoubtedly White and middle-class. Flavor of Love, on the other hand, is self-consciously humorous, with over-the-top antics, poking fun at participants through funny graphics, fanciful music, and outrageous action."

Seeing this made me think of the clip we watched in class on Monday, the clip where Blacks are mostly seen as essentially being the joker with their over the top antics and attempts at humor, etc... These shows are supposedly so similar in their regard to their ultimate goal: 'finding love'.

How does everyone feel that on shows like The Bachelor and Rock of Love give their contestants a rose to stay on the show, where on Flavor of Love, Flav gives his contestants one of his comical over-sized clocks around their neck? Sure, Flava Flav isn't really the best example to take seriously... But in general, why are the shows targeted more for white audiences taken more seriously than those targeted more for black audiences?

Peter

One of the points in the article I found most interesting was the concept that participants on reality TV shows "perform not-performing." on page 378. Instead of being obviously acting or being truly as they would be without cameras around, they act a certain way to make it seem as though their 'character' is how they really act. They also gave an example of how it doesn't always work out well, such as with Gladys on the show Road Rules being eliminated because she played the role she was cast to play too well. While I think it's pretty readily accepted that very little about reality TV is actually a display of "reality", it's even stranger to consider that cast members can be "too good" at playing the role they were cast for.

-Maggie Wheeler

I definitely find the comparisons of these shows interesting. There are without question different audiences for white and black centered shows, but one thing they have in common are their intentions under the surface. Shows like the Flavor of Love and The Bachelor aim to be entertaining, and draw in a weekly audience. The audiences or each are different as are the genres (The Bachelor being a drama and Flavor of Love a ccomedy), but in the end they still bring in ratings and cult-like followings.

When reading this article I came across how the word "Ghetto" can be viewed. This section goes on to say the negative connotations behind the word and then also another stance. Which reads as follows:

"Ghetto can articulate pride in struggle, creativity, and the ability to survive amidst economic and criminal dysfunction".

I guess whenever i think of the world ghetto i never associate it wit the struggles that a person has to go through, but rather as a negative almost sort of like personality trait. Do any of you guys view the word "Ghetto" in this way stated above? or something different?

After reading the article, I found it very interesting when Projansky and Ono discussed strategic whiteness and pointed out how white centered shows were always on major networks with the most money. Before reading this part, I thought it was unfair to compare The Bachelor and Flavor of Love to begin with because of the fact that the shows were on different networks and the goal of The Bachelor is to find love vs the goal of The Flavor of Love being to find a "wifey". And then I realized that The Flavor of Love is the only version of love about black people so it makes the racism easier to pin down.
However, I feel that we should compare a show like Flavor of Love to that with similar context and simply just change the race of the subject, such as the show Rock of Love. The article talks about how aggressive and angry many of the black women are on Flavor of Love but if you have ever watched the show Rock of Love, you can see that same aggression from the white women, but without the consistent racial comments about being not being "ghetto enough". The Rock of Love shows how not all white people are well-off middle-class like The Bachelor presumes. Many of the women seem to either be struggling musicians or strippers.
That being said, what really needs to change in the media is not trying to assume the background of someone based on what race they are and there is also a need to stop focusing on a person's claim to their identity through the racial stereotypes that are set forth.

Rachel E. Dubrofsky and Antoine Hardy mention on page 378 of their article "Performing Race in Flavor of Love and the Bachelor" that people now are "comfortable with surveillance and welcome it into their lives as a way of affirming who they are." Is this true? I want to gauge every ones reaction to this as I completely disagree. Maybe I am a more private person as I won't even create a Facebook page, but I don't believe that everyone as a majority is OK with being recorded or televised for others to see. I would never do a Realty T.V. show as there is no need for others to be that into my life and business. Am I alone thinking this? Are most of you comfortable with being recorded or even want to be a part of any type of "RTV"?
-Tracy Bowen

This article focuses a lot of attention on the overt racial identification of the various cast members on the show 'Flavor of Love' which is set in direct comparison to the non-identification of race in 'The Bachelor'. Though there does seem to be a huge discrepancy between how each of these shows deal with identity construction do you think that this has more to do with the producers' wants/needs and therefore the editors' choices or a fundamental difference in response to the unique situation of being on a reality TV show between the casts? In other words do you think that the racial composition of the shows actually produced different identity responses or did post-production decisions intentionally make The Bachelor more bland and Flavor of love more over-the-top (or both)? In either instance do you think that the racial differences in fan bases of the shows and the audience of the respective channels they were presented on also were a factor in how the contestants ultimately related (either intentionally or not) to the audience?

I think that the argument could be made the this was an unfair comparison at some level because even a reality dating show with a 'white-default' identity produced for VH1 would have more 'drama' than one produced for CBS (IE Rock of Love). Though it would be interesting if CBS created a more ethnically diverse reality dating show just to see how they would deal with this type of identity construction.

After reading the flavor of love article I though it was very interesting when one girl "Buckwild" pretends to have a ghetto accent. Her accents appears and disappears and finally she quits the show after being questioned about her identity. I realize she wasn't being truthful and that made everyone upset but what do you think her motives might have been? Fit the stereotype? Why? Casting directors made her put on the act? What does everyone else think?

One part of the Dubrofsky & Hardy really made me think was the notion of black people on shows such s Flavor of Love having to represent their races and "keep it real".

After reading about this, it made me think about other aspects of popular culture, particularly hip-hop culture. In hip-hop you will constantly see artists fighting and arguing back and forth over "keeping it real" a large amount of these "beefs" are for show, but there have been times when rappers have gotten called out for lying about their past and have been found out to not be as "ghetto" as they claim to in their raps.

A perfect example of this is rapper Rick Ross, who claimed in and out of his songs to be a former cocaine trafficker and criminal. It was later revealed that Ross was most certainly not keeping it real, as he was actually a prison guard before starting to rap, and had a virtually spotless criminal record.

This really makes me wonder, why is it that the stereotypes of "ghetto" culture MUST be perpetuated by popular hip-hop artists, why is it that if you are not "ghetto" (even if it is an act) you cannot be successful in hip-hop?

-Cameron Willis

I was thinking about this during class yesterday, but we ran out of time. I wanted to get some people's thoughts about something that may or may not be racist in film.
One of my favorite movies as a kid was "Short Circuit 2". The film was a robot who comes to life and (somehow) acquires human emotions. I won't bore you with the details...except for this one: one of Johnny #5's (that's the robot's name) friends is an Indian American named Ben Jahrvi. Ben is played by Fisher Stevens . Here is a picture of Fisher Stevens as Ben.Finally, for your consideration: here is a youtube clip of Stevens playing Ben (Go to the 2 minute mark, unless you're a fan of the movie): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyWDs9_f--o&feature=related

-Mike Ricci

So, I ask you, is this inappropriate?

The article states that "The Help" is an inaccurate portrayal of civil rights in the United States. Do you think the film would have been as successful if it had been more accurate/ "real" portrayal of this time in history? Is a film only successful when viewers are able to connect with the emotional soundtrack in the background?

-Ali

I have not seen the movie "The Help," so I could be wrong, but it seems as though it contains many examples of "Inferential racism" that Hall talks about. The other article wrote about how characters in the movie spoke in an "over-exaggerated black dialect." Many who watched this movie probably did not associate this type of dialouge as being racist, because they have heard it so many times they think these representations are natural. The racist portrayl of how black people spoke was made, likely without the full audience even realizing that it was racist.

For those of you who DID see the movie before reading this article: Did you even notice that they way certain characters spoke may be seen as racist, or have you been conditioned to think nothing of it?

-Krissy

While reading Hall's "The Whites of Their Eyes" I was intrigued by his comments at the end of the article when he says, "These particular versions may have faded. But their traces are still to be observed, reworked in many of the modern and up-dated images." While I agree that in our media we definitely still have these deeply rooted back meanings when it comes to race and how it is shown. But what worries me is that the new generations are growing up with only the knowledge they are gaining from current TV and media.

My question is, do they understand where these constructs are coming from since they are not as blatantly obvious as in the past? If they don't, does this help or hinder trying to move beyond those past characters that "represented" various races?

-Hallie

Both articles relate to what we're talking about in another one of my classes right now, so this issue has really come to my attention. I am reading a book about an enslaved African American woman right now and I'm getting more of an insight to what it was really like for her to be living like at that time. I have not seen 'The Help' yet, but I am now really curious to watch it and see how they down-play the struggles these men and women went through. Although I understand that Hollywood movies are produced to make profit and that depressing movies usually don't do as well, I agree with the the author of the Help article that it would be nice to see African American women playing bigger roles that are not "white-tethered".

-Jen

I've watched the movie "The Help" and I thought it was a pretty good movie, it had its funny parts and some sad parts. Now after reading the internet article about the movie, I have a different view. The movie doesn't show the struggle that domestic workers really had, and it does sugarcoat a lot of the stuff going on. What really got my attention is when right at the beginning of the article, Shepherd says a tweet by Melissa Harris Perry saying that; "I just timed it. Miss Skeeter's date got same amount of screen time as Medgar Evers assassination." After reading that, I realized that the movie didn't give a lot of screen time to the assassination, and that after showing the little bit in the movie about the assassination, it was all over with and never spoke of again. I guess when I watch movies I don't think about anything except what is going on in the movie. Does anyone else do this?

Stephanie

Hey all,

I just got an email with some updates on bills that went through the Senate this week regarding public media. I'll paste the update below, just as an FYI:

"Two Steps Forward:
The Senate Appropriations Committee proposed funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Ready to Learn (which funds public television programming for kids) at current levels. These are important steps forward in a very challenging funding environment. We couldn't have made it over this important hurdle without your help - thank you!

One Step Back:
Even after hundreds of calls from their constituents, the Senate Appropriations Committee did not restore funding for the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), which was the only source of ongoing infrastructure assistance for public broadcasting stations, particularly in rural areas. Thanks to all of you that reached out to your senators on that committee prior to this funding decision."

I thought one of the most interesting points in Hall's article was when he said that "we have to speak through the ideologies which are active in our society and which provide us with the means of making sense of social relations and our place in them"

I found it interesting because it makes me wonder how many times throughout my day am I thinking within an ideology or see others think within an ideology.

-Caitlin

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=batman.htm

I thought this was interesting, it even states the related products of the film

-Laura

The term that comes to mind for me is also "brain-washing" when i look at how big media has infiltrated almost every aspect of my life. It is nothing that is noticeable all the time unless you really look. Especially after taking a few media classes, I have begun to notice and pick them out a lot more than before. Good Post.

The ideas presented in Eileen Meehan's article are very similar to a documentary that I have seen countless times in communications classes called "The Merchants of Cool." I am sure a lot of you have seen this film, and I must say that it does a fantastic job explaining the effects and marketing strategies of major media conglomerations. The merger of Time and WCI was definitely a power move on the part of these two companies, as their combined holdings and power allow them to promote their products through numerous outlets that reach a vast audience. Time Warner, along with other major conglomerations like Viacom, Disney, etc., control just about every aspect of the media. Meehan's article explains how these large scale companies cross-promote their products, which transform cinema and television into commodities. Time Warner not only promotes one of their movies, but they subsequently brand it. The large amount of influence that these companies hold allow them to reach not just one target audience, but many, and in a variety of forms. In my opinion, the presence of these media giants takes away the tradition of cinema and television; Although we may believe that we freely choose the movies and shows that we view, it must not be mistaken that the marketing efforts of these companies to promote their products do not sway us a certain way. As seen from our discussions of ideology, it is important that we understand we are constantly subjects to influence.

- Emily Wohlford

I thought that the Meehan article was a very interesting look at how unbelievably (and kind of scarily) integrated Media conglomerates have become. I have learned about this type of integration in previous classes but this article gave a much more thorough examination of the extreme level this has reached. The main part of this phenomenon that concerns me is that nearly all content is decided on due to whether the media companies believe that they will profit off of it or not, rather than creative merit. The popularity of these movies and the range of products they inspire is undeniable however, the availability of outside options (IE Independent and local films) requires individual initiative and the knowledge that they exist. I was wondering if everyone thought of the general public as aware and knowledgeable consumers who understand that this is happening and take it with a grain of salt or are actually fully immersed in this intense consumerism?

While I definitely notice how many products (toys, posters, shirts, soundtracks, dvds, etc) are sold relating to specific movies or television shows, I don't usually remember to think about the fact that so many of them are made by companies that are all owned by the same conglomeration. It's strange to consider how connected so many companies are, both across the different types of media companies and the seemingly unrelated companies. The concept of the "internal market" is an interesting one.

-Maggie

I thought the concept that what we expect from Oprah is also something we as a society has created for Oprah was very interesting. While people try to shoot holes in her "facade", they do it only after she doesn't fufill what we believe to be an "adaquate" job of filling the role that media and veiwers have created for her. I also liked the discussion about whether or not we'd expect the same amount of charity form a fortunate person who didn't come from a prosition of poverty or hardship. I found it very interesting to see how we as a society would ulitmately expect more from someone who has had a more difficult time rising to the top.

I think the last paragraph in the Meehan article is really compelling as she summarizes nicely by saying, "In our fascination with the highly visible show, let us not overlook the less visible business that ultimately shapes, constructs, recycles, breaks out, and distributes the show for a profit." The fact that studios get to decide through advertisements and media what film is going to be pushed the most as an upcoming release, is annoying. Often the best movies are those that got little attention beforehand and spread by word of mouth (which Meehan also discusses for a bit). These however do not make as much money for the studios since they often expand outside of the normal cookie-cutter genres.

It seems wrong that not every film gets the same sort of press coverage just because they don't fit into the business (money) plan that the studio has set up for that year.

When I first read the Ideology article, I did not realize how the Ideological State Apparatus affected us so much in our daily lives. The way the author organized the paper, it was able to make more sense to me. After reading about the ways we interpret things, I had not realized what those were until i read those. Although, with his theses stated, I though they were too vague and he just seemed to ramble into random thoughts with quotations surrounding every word. If it was meant to be "not real" then why can't they just be "real"? The examples he mentioned about ideologies, I thought they were too old-fashioned and status quoa-based. Of course everything has to have a reason, but there can be many reasons instead of an expected reason.

For Oprah, I think that it was written quite well for its purpose. We all know that Oprah is one of the most influential woman of all time, by creating an empire. The debatable thought I have is that people salute to her for addressing important issues in the world, like mentioned child abuse, but the press and outside figures are nagging to her about her weight and her non-married way of life. She has definitely been a better role model than most talk show hosts; she tries to get the best out of everybody's stories who happen to be a guest on her show. In tokenism, in her situation, she sets a good example by saying that race, gender, class, and other segments should not affect a person even though it is apparent that it has affected our culture and society.

I was not surprised at all by one of the author's opening comments stating that many biographers use only Oprah's first name as a way of describing a persona as opposed to describing Oprah as a person. Often times when I hear Oprah's name the thought crosses my mind that she is one of the few who is recognized and called upon by her first name only, and how exactly did this come to be? The author states that Oprah herself played her part in "constructing" her first name basis recognition and perhaps this is true. But then there's the side of Oprah where she wants her viewers to feel as though she is letting her guard down and connecting to her audience and goes on to divulge personal details about her childhood and all of the struggles she went through to get to where she is today.

I think it is very contradicting for Oprah to enlist herself as a title and a brand and then also as a person whom audience members can relate to. It's almost as if she's become known as simply an icon and attempting to relate to Oprah is next to impossible for many Amercans. When the author talked about Oprah's family member denying claims to Oprah's troubled past it made me think about if this was factual or not. Was Oprah's sister simply trying to gain some recognition as well? Or did Oprah perhaps embellish her childhood history to get more of a reaction from the viewers? Whatever the case, Oprah's entire life rests upon "Oprah" as a name, a lifestyle, and now an entire television network and that in itself is more pressure than I can even fathom.

This all made me wonder...what, if any, are the other celebrities are there working under the "Oprah" way of life?

In a capitalist society, the ideology of the American Dream is at the forefront. The ruling class maintains this predominant ideology by manipulating the societal culture, and establishing norms. The idea of tokenism discussed in the Oprah article is a very interesting one. A major part of the capitalist culture is that of liberty and success, and society has been framed to exclude the subordinate classes from obtaining these ideals. This idea of tokens being upgraded to the ruling class by "beating the odds" or "overcoming the struggles" of their previously oppressed lives is an interesting technique that is used to make the ruling class and its capitalistic values even stronger. With the mobility that these "tokens" experienced, it propels the idea of liberty in the American society. Oprah is a great example of this as her hard work and self made success has in recent times been interpellated into a persona of sorts, and is a subject of the ideology of the ruling capitalistic society. Oprah has become a model for the idea of rags to riches, one in which her mobility to the upper class from the oppression of a minority racial group in a sense makes the ruling class look good; they welcomed her with open arms, and she was able to overcome the odds. This model reiterates the idea of liberty, as it shows that anyone can do anything, and that all members of society are equal and free. Under the surface of Oprah's rise to wealth is a hegemonic process in which her story has been capitalized on to empower the ruling class.

Even if some of what is said in Oprah's biographies is enhanced, it is still a fact that the story of where she came from and where she is today is pretty crazy. I also think that her story is a good example of how it is on the individual to determine their successes and failures. it shows that you cant make excuses for what happens in you life on anything but you and your actions.

I grew up watching the Oprah Winfrey show every afternoon with my mother. Each day she left us with a very inspirational message. This article was particularly interesting to me because it questioned whether the American Dream was actually possible for all Americans. Oprah's rags to riches story is obviously very inspiring to most of the population, but is it really a lifestyle that we could all lead? I found it interesting that they referred to Oprah just by her first name. Is it really easier for black Americans to relate to her without her full name?

I was extremely surprised to read that Oprah's sister denied Oprah's comments about the hardships they had to deal with as children. Patricia stated that they had a "difficult but not a desperately poor life." It is sad to think that stars would exaggerate circumstances in their life in order to make their successes, today, seem even greater. It makes me wonder how many other stars do this, too? Whoopi Goldberg's stated that, "if we didn't have Oprah Winfrey, we'd have to invent one." Do you think this is true?

It was interesting reading Dana Cloud's critique of media's creation of the "Oprah" persona. Reading through the piece made me realize that "Oprah" is not the Oprah Winfrey as a person but a product of how media pushes her success. With images and stories showing her abilities to overcome the obstacles so many of us face, the media is fueling the dream that anyone can become someone important. It is easy to get lost in all of the talk about "Oprah" the most powerful black woman but after reading Cloud's critique I've began to see her more as a symbol, perhaps more like Lady Gaga where the name and image is what sells - not the person.

This was a very interesting article to read. What especially stuck out to me was the constant repetition of "Oprah's" persona and how it how it has a cultural life of its own. I thought it was interesting how Oprah had transformed her name and what she stood for into such a phenomenon, that represented race and gender - oppression and how in a way she has changed our society.
What I also found interesting was Oprah as our rags to riches hero, who seems to be telling the world racism is no longer apart of our culture, "I am the proof." Yet, at the very end of the article we are still in a bind with our culture and its injustice for different races and its ability to only represent a small group for equality with the example of King who was beaten by our law enforcement.

Antonio Gramsci's piece on Hegemony was very interesting to me. One of Antonio's early points on hegemony really made me stop and think. Under point c of Hegemony he discusses hegemony in terms of how the ruling class exercises their power over the majority by almost creating an illusion that the majority has power. That way, the majority is satisfied by thinking that they have equal, if not more, say on what is going on with their lives when in fact it's the smaller group within the ruling class that are dictating almost what is going on.

This idea of an illusion just really made me think about our media runs things today on an illusion that we have all these news outlets, all these channels to watch, but really it's all owned by six (I think?) different companies. This small handful of companies are dictating what we see and in turn what we think.

When I was reading this article, there was something that was mentioned a couple times that really stood out to me. There were at least two examples of how "Oprah" contradicted her messages. For example, she says, "You're responsible for their own life. People watch our show and realize they're not alone." I thought this was very interesting of Cloud to point out. I think we get that a lot these days, like a promotion from a gym may say it's up to you to live a healthy lifestyle, but join our gym to do that. I can see this as being a tool that the media uses to, like we talked about last week, send a message to us as consumers.

When reading the article "Hegemony or Concordance? The Rhetoric of Tokenism in "Oprah" Winfrey's Rags-to-Riches Biography" I found the (partial) sentence of "in autobiography, "the narrative 'I' becomes a fictive persona." The section prior to this sentence and this sentence made me start to think about autobiographies in a different light. I have two older brothers who grew up in the exact same household as me with the exact same parents, yet all of us had very different experiences and beliefs about what are childhood was like. Our perceptions of the same years are all very different from each other and even more different than our parents perceptions of that year. While I may be completely off point here, I just can't get this idea out of my head. What I find interesting is that all this time I knew this about my own family and, while I dislike autobiographies in general, I never thought that autobiographies are all based on the perception of the writer and not necessarily based on hard facts. I'm wondering if anyone else had a similar realization or experience while reading this section or if it was just me.

At the bottom of page 169 and onto page 170 talk a little bit about messages and codes within language that appear to be ingrained since birth (the "near universality" of a sign). I thought about this for a bit (and to be honest, probably a bit too long).
So, I'm wondering if I understand this correctly. Believe me, some of this reading went over my head but what I'm thinking (if I'm on the right track), is that a picture on a TV of a monster would be scarier to a child raised in an average environment than if would be to one raised in a controlled environment?
OK, before I lose everyone entirely...something like the Cloverfield monster is only scary because, in most cultures, these types of images are constructed to us as "scary" from an early age?

Again, I'm sorry if I'm way off here, but I got stuck on this point.

This article was a tough read, but I did find the parts about Connotation and denotation very interesting, is there any type of things that you guys can think of that has certain connotations to them? for ex giving someone the finger...

The reading for decoding/encoding had the potential to be very interesting to me as I enjoy breaking down communications and looking at it as a system however the reading's abundant technical terms and overuse of quotations made it a lot harder to get all the way through than I expected. That aside, I did enjoy the breakdown of the sign and how when placed in different settings or used in different ways the sign begins to take on new dimensions. The article discusses how different a sweater can be viewed when looking at it from different points like the fashion culture, a fall setting etc. It's the ability to change the way our messages are received by adding dimensions to our signs that makes me enjoy media and advertising in particular so much. Just by changing the background, the targeted audience, or even your tone of voice or color of a picture you can completely affect the way a product or in the case of this reading, a sign, is perceived.

I thought that this article was very interesting, it was nice to learn about a communication model that did not over-simplify the process. I enjoyed that all of the individual processes or stages of communication could be thought of independently and as elements of the process as a whole. I thought the concept of everything being a non-natural code was really enlightening as well, it made me think about all of the seemingly natural decoding we are doing all the time and how much more of the intended content of messages is lost in translation than we are aware of. The discussion of media consumers being able to both understand the 'dominant' or intended reading of a message as well as a more individualized or contrary reading also made me think about how hard it can be to see those alternate viewpoints. This is especially true when you are the creator, or particularly 'close' to the media as it is difficult to shift perspectives, potentially leading to a lot of miss-communication.

Although, like many others who already posted, I found the article a bit of a challenge to get through, one of the points that stood out to me most was on page 169 that "Reality exists outside language but it is constantly mediated by and through language". While it's not something I've really thought about much before, it's interesting to consider how much our experiences and thoughts are determined by the languages we know and the words within those languages that we have to describe our experiences.

Overall, I did think this was a somewhat confusing article to read, but I found a few things interesting. One thing that stuck out to me was an idea about how TV is believed to be represented.

In 'Encoding/Decoding' it is stated 'that representations of violence on the TV screen are not violence but messages about violence'. Do you agree or disagree with this concept? What are some examples of TV shows that back up your belief?

I found this article to be slightly confusing and possibly I was not within the "dominant or preferred code" (page 44) of the author. But what I found most interesting about the article was particularly the section on the newscasters and how they try to rely the proper message to their audience. It seemed as if often their viewers were not understanding what they were saying entirely. I feel like the easiest way to fix this issue is by expanding what they are believing to be the proper code for the situation. What I mean by this is earlier in the article Hall explained how certain codes could be exclusive to a culture or group, so if the newscaster expanded what they originally thought fit the code, it may allow more of their audience to fully connect with their message.

In the article "Encoding/Decoding" towards the end of page two and the beginning of page three, Phillip Elliot states that as an audience we are the "source" and the "receivers" of the television message. What are some examples of this process/circulation?

The New Mexico Literacy Project was a great breakdown of how we interpret consciously or unconsciously in deciphering media messages. Before being exposed to articles and taking media literate classes I know I didn't try and break down an ad or a tv commercial - but subconsciously I know I did react to it emotionally. Now, because of my media literacy I can understand what these messages are trying to tell me or get me to think and I can make my own judgement calls on whether these sort of messages are in a way "right" or "wrong."

The first article talked about having more media literacy classes in the high school system, which interested me mainly because my high school had very few classes that pertained to media education. I was just curious as to what types of classes they would offer for high school media education or what types of media classes you guys have taken before college?

Hello! Welcome to Media Literacy! I look forward to having a great semester of engaging conversation about pressing media issues. One way to ensure our conversations are intellectually stimulating and rigorous is to utilize this blog.

The blog will have three main components:

1) You will post one discussion question OR comment on the class blog for every scheduled class - you can miss up to three without consequences to your grade. We will use these questions/comments in class to begin conversation. These can be clarification questions or more in-depth analysis prompts.
2) You will respond to at least one blog discussion question or blog post a week. If you are responding to a question, this doesn't mean you have to "answer" the question. You may just to add on a related question, or ask for clarification, etc.
3) In addition, please feel free to use the blog to post relevant articles, media clips, or events that you think are worth sharing with the group. Blogs in classes can be hit or miss, but when they "hit," they add A LOT, and I hope this will be the case with our class!

Make sure to have your questions posted by 10pm the night before the class session (so 10pm on Sunday and 10pm on Tuesday).

NOTE: In order to access the blog as a contributor, you first must sign into: blog.lib.umn.edu. Login and it should take you to a page that shows the blogs to which you have access. Click on our blog and you'll see a bar at the top. Click on the "Create" menu, and drop down to "post."