Media Blog

A silent crisis in men's mental health has been determined by a variety of researchers. Psychology today writes " In the current economy, many men are finding it difficult to fulfill a breadwinner role, leaving them without a powerful sense of pride, purpose and meaning in life" (Whitley).  This connects back to the messages discussed in "MissRepresentation".  Men are raised with the expectation that they need to fill the role as head of the family, and provide for everyone.  High rates in suicide have been observed in groups that are perceived as rejected by mainstream society.  This leads to feelings of alienation and isolation.  Men are also found to have a high substance abuse rate in comparison to females.  The article states " Research indicates that many men engage in substance abuse in response to stressful life transitions including unemployment and divorce" (Whitley).  50 percent of marriages end in divorce, and only about 1 in 6 men have...

The documentary titled "MissRepresentation" was written and directed by  Jennifer Siebel Newsom.  " The film draws back a curtain to reveal a glaring reality we live with every day but fail to see – how the media’s limited and often disparaging portrayals of women and girls makes it difficult for women to feel powerful and achieve leadership positions" The Film brought attention to the high standards women hold for other women.  Looking back at it I can see different situations where this happened.  The whole 2016 Presidential campaign was an example.  The documentary talks about how if women stuck together to back rather than bash Hillary and other women in positions of power, we would see more women in power.  The article gave the example of battles in congress.  One of the politicians talked about how the women agreed that if it was just them they could have solved the issue within minutes.  The whole idea of the media pu...

In the “Merchants of Cool” documentary we watched in class this week they people discussed the advertising market for teens.  Robert McChesney is a media critic, and in the documentary he gave his opinion on the effect the media has on our emotions. He states “ Well, it really promotes the sort of world in which you don't think anything matters, unless it serves your material gain. Why be honest? Why have integrity? Why care about other people? That's for chumps. It's all about taking care of number one. The dominant institutions in society, the values they send out is, ‘We're just here to make money off of you. We're just here to take advantage of you.’ The message that goes out to everyone in that system is, ‘Yeah, everyone should be everyone for themself. Just take care of number one. Why should I care about that other person, you know? What's in it for me?’” (McChesney).  As a teenager I feel like our society has been changing to this materialistic worl...

In class this week we watched a Frontline documentary titled “Merchants of Cool”.  This is a documentary on the market of teenagers, a growing industry worth billions of dollars.  In the documentary they talked about female influencers that are the most popular amongst teens. In the video Britney Spears was named as the most popular, but because the documentary was made several years ago there have been several changes to who is in with the teens. Here are some influencers that I think influence our generation now: Kylie Jenner At twenty years old Kylie Jenner has over 100 million Instagram followers, a baby, and a net worth of over 50 million.  She started off on her families reality television show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and has been in the spotlight ever since.  Her wealth comes mostly from her cosmetics line which was worth 386 million in 2017. The whole Kardashian family has had a large effect on pop culture.  It seems that everything...

Growing up when I went to the movies I always looked up on the big screen to see predominantly caucasian actors.  Especially with superhero movies, I never witnessed a black superhero. When Black Panther came out it was a game changer.  For the first time in my life I saw a whole cast of people who looked like me.  Not only that they were portrayed as heroes. Wakanda was shown as a technologically advanced society.  They possessed a power that could save lives, and was sought after by western powers. For the first time I was able to relate to characters, giving me a sense of pride.  Along with the black characters being high in power, women in the society were very important figures. The scientist behind the superhero’s suit was a women, and although her brother was in power, she still had lots of influence. Black Panther was a step in the right direction, but Hollywood has a long way to go before I consider it inclusive.  When I watched Bl...

After reviewing the variety of different advertising techniques I went back to reflect to see if I could remember these applied in real life.  The one that stuck out the most is the 2016 Election. Donald Trump is a master of social media. I read an article from the Harvard Business Review talking about how Donald Trump uses big seed marketing techniques.  This technique aims to seed a message through masses of people. Before Election Day Donald Trump already had a mass following on Twitter, instagram, etc. With over millions of followers there was a large audience for Trump to reach out to. Because Trump is limited to 140 characters I believe he makes his messages as provocative as he can.  His tweets spark media outlets to report on whatever crazy statement he has for his audience. The article states that his tweets “strike raw nerves, speaking boldly to themes that people struggle to work through: race, nationalism versus globalism, financial insecurity, st...

Our lessons in Critical Thinking have made me reflect on my own digital footprint.  I find myself on my phone often whether its with my friends, or while I'm bored at home.  Often when I go on my phone I go on to social media platforms right away without even thinking.  I go on my phone to search something for a homework assignment, then get lost in the millions of posts available on my screen.  After realizing how often I do this I decided to make a change by putting those apps in folders.  Doing this will make them harder to find so that I don't go on them immediately when I open my phone.  I hope that this is able to change the way I interact with the media.     Link to photo: http://www.familyandmedia.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/social-network-scelta-900x444.jpg   

An article published in the Wall Street Journal written by Alexandra Bruell reveals that NBCUniversal is working with iSpot.tv to show brands the result from their television ads.  They prove this by showing increases in web visits and sales. This is used as an incentive to pay for advertisements on television.  iSpot works with a company called Inscape to get anonymous viewing data from millions of opted-in TV sets in the U.S. When the advertisement goes live iSpot is able to “detect ad exposures from Vizio TV sets within households and match those households to people who visited the automotive website” (Bruell). My Response: It does make sense that NBCUniversal is reaching out to do this.  Our generation seems more inclined to watch Netflix than live television.  On Netflix you can binge watch any show available without waiting for commercials to end.   Because of this I wonder if this tactic will actually be able to save television advertisem...