News, Trust, "Truthiness"

Having looked over some of the comments made by my peers on the topic of just how legit culture jammers are as sources of news, I have to say that I agree with their conclusions.  On a whole most of the blogs I read concluded that culture jammers were an acceptable source of news and contributed to the public sphere.  However what this tells me is that our generation, pays more attention to the more humorous "news" outlets, because they simply just grab our interest more.

Joan Amanambu made a good point about how and why most viewers would tend to look to these satirical news shows over more mainstream ones; "They offer the same thing other shows have to offer but it comes with laughs, which is very entertaining to viewers which is why they stick to it.  They try to hit the point that viewers don't get to see everyday, which makes it more addicting to watch like the Rick Mercer Report."  I find this an excellent point, to which I completely agree, mostly due to the fact that myself, like many others, like a good laugh.  If I'm going to sit back and take in the news, I prefer to have some humour to spice it up a bit.  Like the famous Mary Poppins quote, I like a spoonful of humour to help the news go down.  It also helps that with this humour, people can see a new side to the events reported, just like Joan said.  However, Joan did point out that this more fun way of delivering the news did tend to appeal more to teenagers, which is what I still am at this point and time, and I assume a majority of my peers as well.

Allison Sparham made a comment that confirmed this point about the age grouping, but built off it, describing how Saturday Night Live is plenty informative because of the "Weekend Updates" they do. "Global News is famous for airing at the same times every day, and raising national awareness about events occurring globally. The ‘Weekend Update’ section of Saturday Night live is famous for turning those events into comedy. Although SNL is watched mainly for the humor, the political and societal sections such as ‘Weekend Update’ affect its viewers more than they realize."  This syncs up with the point Joan made about how these satirical news shows just grab our attention with humour, and yet still keeps informative with news of current happenings in the world.  

The last comment that really proves my thesis came from Brandon Kennedy's blog, "For me, personally, I see these shows as a reliable and more entertaining way of acquiring important information that I would not otherwise find out about due to the news’ aforementioned dull and depressing nature." This essentially proves my point that our generation pays more attention to more humorous news outlets.  

In conclusion, regardless of the fact that these satirical shows are culture jammers, they still manage to inform us of the goings on.  To add to that many people, find these much more interesting and entertaining to watch.  What this says for the public sphere, is that humour may start to appear more in mainstream news outlets, and not just in minor moments.  Seeing as the kind of humour brought by these culture jammers is in such high demand, I can only imagine that the rest of news shows will change to fulfill this demand.  

Joan Amanambu: http://amanambujoan.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/blog-entry-4/

Allison Sparham: http://allisonsparham.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/

Brandon Kennedy: http://bkennedy94.blogspot.ca/2013/11/is-fake-news-real-news.html

Fake News or Real News?

On the topic of satirical news shows, I personally find them to be a mainstream form of cultural jamming but in varying degrees.  Of all the satirical news shows, the ones I will look at primarily are The Rick Mercer Report, and The Daily Show with John Stewart.  

As far as some of these satirical shows go, I find there to be a spectrum as to how serious these get and as a result, this shows how much they really contribute to the public sphere.  The Rick Mercer Report is  by far, in my opinion one of the more serious satirical news shows, as it seems to deal the most with informing people to actual happenings in the world and interesting facts.  The humour put in is very minor with the intent to just help the news sink in better.  The goals of the Rick Mercer Report tend to fall in sync with the following quote "The objectives of culture jamming often include consciousness raising (raising awareness of social and political issues) as well as using the media to criticize the media and dominant culture." (Media & Society, O'Shaughnessy, Stadler.  P.g. 214).  The way Rick delivers his content is more to inform.  On the spectrum, The Rick Mercer Report is on the far right, closest to actual news shows.

In regards to The Daily Show with John Stewart, I would place it more on the middle of the spectrum.  I can't say that I've seen a whole lot of the show, but from what I have seen John tends to rant on public issues and make fun of them.  More than once I've seen him make fun of Fox news.  In terms of how much he contributes to the public spectrum, he still manages to inform people of issues in society and with other serious media outlets.  His show very much falls in line with the definition of social activism, "Activities involving individuals or lobby groups that attempt to change the way in which the media works, or that use the media to make a social or political statement." (P.g. 214) John Stewart's show is very much about making a social comment.

In conclusion, I feel it really depends on the show itself as to how much these cultural jammers contribute to the public sphere, but I can definitely say that these shows definitely fall under the definition of cultural jammers.

Allen

Response to "What the Hail?!?!"

Looking upon what my fellow classmates had to say about ads they looked at my first thought was "My, my, lots of makeup/hygiene product ads were looked at." With my last blog having been about a hygiene product ad as well, I started thinking about how aware everyone seems to be about the whole body image thing, and using these company made products to look like the "ideal male", or the "ideal female".  While it's no secret that we as human beings can be quite vain at heart, and constantly desire means to attract a significant other, you'd think with all of this self awareness about how shallow and unfair these ideals of beauty forced upon us by these companies can be, they would not be making as much money off of these products as they do, and their commercials would not be as successful.

Adam Tusim's blog talked about the popular Old spice ad from 3 years ago where the male model essentially targets women and tells them that their man is not good enough.  Subversively, it tells male viewers that they simply aren't attractive enough.  Adam talks about how it would make an "average joe" want to use the product just to have something in common with the model, or as he puts it : "the male model 'identity' represents what the average joe would want to feel like after using the product."

There was a similar effect in the ad I looked at in my previous blog, which was about the average looking guy at a bar attracting some female attention and then drawing them in with slick dance moves.  Both mine and Adam's ads basically said how their product would allow average looking men to attract above average looking females.  This doesn't look good for the male demographic as it portrays anyone who commonly appears below average as desperate to the point of spending money that could be used on more essential things just to make them attractive.  I feel these representations are inaccurate.  Think of Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler.  He's a pretty freaky looking fellow, yet he's attracted a whole host of women.  What most average joes may lack in appearance, they more than make up for it with personality.

Madison Bygrave looked at a revlon ad and talked about the ad's view on how women can't be fabulous unless they wear revlon made mascara.  In the same way Old spice and Axe pressured men into using their product to appear "ideal", revlon does the same thing, following the unwritten social laws of society and telling women they aren't beautiful, or as Madison so nicely phrased: "We are not considered beautiful women, unless we apply makeup and look appealing to the opposite sex."

Now being a man, I can't really speak from experience to how effective the ad is on the female demographic.  One thing I can say from experience however, and this ties in with the ad I looked at, and the one Adam looked at is how shallow ads like the revlon ad makes out our age demographic as a whole.  I can say for a fact that this is quite inaccurate because there's the whole concept of inner beauty or the "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" line that is so famous today.  The fact that many of the blog posts I read ripped on makeup/hygiene ads and their narrow views of beauty tells me I'm right.  At the same time however, people still buy these products.  We are vain to varying degrees, but most are definitely not as shallow as these ads would make us out to be.

The last blog I want to bring up is Christine Merril's blog.  She looked at another revlon ad featuring Jessica Alba.  She essentially described how the ad looked quite comical due to how unrealistic it looked.  She brought up photoshop and how it was used to improve the image.  Another excellent point she makes is: "girls will often form an ideology of expectation to look the same way as girls are that are advertised in the pictures."  This brings up the the whole issue with images of women that are photoshopped to look real but in reality the proportions are unreal, and yet girls seeing these strive to look the same way.

Overall it looks as though ads like the aforementioned just generally portray young adults as shallow and egotistical, concerned only about their looks.  While looking good can be an important factor in many ways and is a good thing to strive for, the extent to which these ads go too far and make people think worse of themselves if they don't look good when compared to the model examples used in said ads.  As for why companies have made so much money off of their products, it's because there are so many people in the world and as such there will always be a large number of people who get pulled in either by personal desire, mindless consumerism or because the ads actually managed to cause them insecurities.  My honest opinion, if you want to look good, look in the mirror and instead of seeing everything you don't like, see the things you do like, and remember that true beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Adam's blog: http://at12nk.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-the-hail/

Madison's blog: http://mb12qe.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/what-the-hail/

Christine's blog: http://christinemerrill2.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-in-the-hail/

What the Hail?!?!

So I was just browsing around looking at different ads that could be aimed at someone like myself and I came upon this old axe deoderant ad on youtube.  The link to this is below.

The ad opens up to some guy sitting at a bar when suddenly some music comes on.  He suddenly stands and starts dancing.  Two girls notice him doing so and start to follow along with his dancing.  After some dancing he ends up with an arm on each girl, he nods to the camera and walks off.  The screen goes dark and words fade in saying "We can help you with the girls, but the dancing? That's up to you."

Right from the get go, one can tell that it hails to young men in their early twenties, and not just men, but heterosexual men as well.  The ad does this by essentially saying that with their product men can easily grab the attention of women.  This correlates with a line from the textbook (see below, quote #1) that says how gender socialization is one of the earliest forms of interpolation.

This was mostly unsuccessful at representing my norms and values (the dancing is the exception as I'm a theatre student and prone to breaking out into song and dance at random).  As a result my identity was not that good a fit for the ad's target.   However one thing the ad does well is tell me that that particular brand exists.  This tells other people too, and seeing other people using it as I go about my daily life does make me recognize it when I see the commercial.  In other words, this has affected my subjectivity.  This connects with another quote from the text, the textbook definition of subjectivity (see below, quote #2) that describes how things we are subjected to change how we view the world.

Link to ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3icGdPG0uw

Quote #1: "Gender is central to identity, and gender socialism is one of the earliest processes of interpolation." (Media and Society, 5th ed.  Michael O'Shaughnessy, Jane Stadler.  P.g. 185)

Quote #2: "Subjectivity pertains to an individual's personal thoughts and experiences, their own - subjective - way of seeing the world as distinct from general or universal experience, and objectivity." (Media and Society, 5th ed.  Michael O'Shaughnessy, Jane Stadler.  P.g. 189)

The Media We Want, or We Think We Want?

When it comes to the media we get, we don't necessarily get what we want, but because of the consistency with what we actually get we want what we get because it is we are used to.  In short, we typically don't get the media we really want.  

What this all comes down to is the fact that the media is controlled and manipulated by government and other manipulative companies for the sake of advertising various products.  This is supported by the following quote by Robert Fink; "advertising is emphatic and repetitively insistent, it promotes regression and irrationality," (Fink, Getting Ready: The Media and Media Studies Pg. 18).  This describes essentially how the media feeds us commercial garbage that essentially tells us what we want.  These commercials range from products to advertisements for shows and movies.  These commercials essentially tell us that we want these things.  

Another point that Fink made was how we essentially feel like we lack something if we don't fulfill the wants instilled.  In his words "it idealizes 'the good life', it creates perpetual dissatisfaction and feelings of lack." (Fink, Getting Ready: The Media and Media Studies Pg. 19).  This line actually brought to mind a line from Tyler Durden in "Fight Club".  "We work jobs we hate, to buy shit we don't need, to impress people we don't like."  This basically speaks to how the media makes us want things that we may not necessarily need.  Media like this is definitely the sort that we do not want, but because of the way it operates according to Fink, it instills in us the "want", the desire for more.  

In conclusion, because it is all we get and due to its persuasive methods we think we want what we get when in reality, what we should want is media that doesn't try to impose its opinions on us and tell us how to think.  

Media Impacts Response

Looking back on my to what I said previously, and comparing it to what my fellow classmates had to say, I can honestly say that media has definitely not had an impact upon me at all when compared to them.  They all admit to have had varying amounts of impact from the media for them, whereas for myself, not so much.  

One major media output that comes up again and again in the other blogs is the news stations on tv, radio and newspapers.  There was one comment that hit home for me in Cassie's blog about how media often confuses more than informs; "Media can cause much confusion on people as the news reports are not checked over to see if the information is a fact or if it is nearly a made up story."  She does go on to explain how the cons of the media are outweighed by the pros, and I agree with her that people should definitely be informed, but my preference is to just avoid it when convenient.  It's very frustrating to hear about some terrible things that go on in the world and then discover how much you want to just change it, make it better, but you can't because for all your anger, you can do nothing.  I personally hate that feeling, which is why I try to avoid it all.  

Another blog that stood out was Adelina's blog.  She spoke a fair bit about her experiences with fleeing Kosovo to Canada in 1999 to escape the war between Kosovo and Serbia, and how she was treated by her peers after the events of 9/11.  "I was raised and am a Muslim and after the 9/11 attack, students that knew I was a Muslim were afraid to talk to me and even criticised me.  It’s not fair that the media can target a certain group of people just to keep their rates up. "  It's injustices like these that really frustrate me.  While the media doesn't do this as much as it used to, this kind of racism is the worst.  That somebody would have the gall to single out an entire group just because a couple of cracked eggs couldn't keep from being scrambled is just wrong, and it makes sense that it would have had a huge impact on Adelina.  This is yet another reason I avoid the mainstream media like the news.  I realize that by avoiding all media because of a couple of horrible people is essentially doing the same thing, but  I at least do not impose this choice of mine upon anyone else.  Also as said before, I hate feeling angry at something without being able to do anything about it.  

The last point I made somewhat coincides with Brandon Kennedy's views he talked about in his blog, and how he surrounds himself in pro-social media to better his views on the world.  "I would like to say that as a child, for the most part, I used the television I watched to better my worldviews and give me a positive outlook on life. "  I can honestly say that this makes total sense to me, and I would certainly have done the same, if I wasn't so vulnerable to that funny trait found in many humans that just subconsciously loves being miserable.  

In conclusion, I reccommend don't watch stuff that makes you angry.  Watch the news if you want to know what's going on in the world or be a hermit like me.  Just be wary of those odd ones out that mislead and point fingers at large groups of people.  If you're like me and can't stand pure positivity and need to hear about or see terrible people do terrible things, I suggest some good fiction to vent it all out. 

Links:

Cassie: http://adelina23.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/1f25-post-1-media-impact/

Adelina: http://cassiemajor.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/1f25-post-1-media-impact/#comments

Brandon: http://bkennedy94.blogspot.ca/2013/09/how-signicant-do-i-think-impact-of-mass.html

Media Impacts

Media has not particularly impacted my own world views considering I don't really pay much attention to the news, and I never really gave a crap about the bible or religion.  Believe in what you want, because thats all I ever will.

To be blunt, I have issues with authority and people with power.  I hate being told what to think or what to believe.  I guess that makes me an anarchist.  Stepping back to what I said about the bible and religion I just don't particularly care for it.  Going a bit deeper, it really has to do with the fact that I don't like the concept of some great being who might have control over my life.

Back to media, while it doesn't impact my views, it does often justify them in my own eyes.  Particularly my dislike for people in positions of authority or power.  I'm a strong believer in the concept of the corruptive temptations of power.  Media that has justified this concept for me was the Lord of the Rings book series.  The whole theme of that series was about how power corrupts even the best of people.