Diversity in the media

The amount of diversity that we see in today's media is a growing issue in conversations. Most televisions shows that we do are mostly dominated by the white race and when we do see an African American television show, it isn't something to be proud of. For example, on VH1 we shows like For The Love of Ray J and Flavor of Love and for those who have seen these shows, we know that they are shows with a good influence. It is very interesting to me that the African American shows that we see serve as a bad example for the way people should live their life. Throughout time African Americans have never really had too many television shows and now that we do they still aren't something we can appreciate.
Also in the past the shows that African Americans were in depicted them as happpy to be in the ghetto or striving to be middle class or already being middle class. The have never really depicted blacks in the right way. Also these shows made us believe that all African Americans were trying to reasch this American Dream. For example, look at The Jeffersons and The Cosby Show, they both depict rich black families that are happy with life and there is nothing to worry about. They do not really talk about the struggle blacks had to go through to achieve these benefits. These shows serve as a way of hiding racial oppression of blacks.

My experience with blogging

Personally I never thought that I tould be somebody that would ever blog because I never really saw the point. Now that I have been blogging I see it as a good way to get a chance to express your opinion on something you probably would have never talked about. A blog is also a great way to say whatever you want without people really arguing your point. Even though blogging did allow me to let my views on issues out I'm not sure if I would actually keep going with my blog. It just isn't something for me because I like to express myself more out loud rather than just in writing, but it was kind of cool to do it while it lasted.

Women in the media

Nowadays when we turn on the television we see women depicted as sex symbols and very dependent on men, rather than independent, strong human beings. Why is this? The society we live in has a strong belief that men are superior and this is a man's world so the media would do whatever it can to keep that ideology. Although, this is a strong ideology in our society we know see that women are just as powerful as men. For example, we see Oprah, Michelle Obama, and Condoleezza Rice as very powerful women that have done a lot for the world that we live in and for some reason it is not recognized that women can have great power.

Women athletes are also misrepresnted. We often see them as sex symbols instead of athletes. Also the women athletes that we mostly see in the media aren't the ones that actually win titles and championships, but are the ones that society sees as beautiful. For example, Anna Kournikova has never won a championship, but she is often on the cover of magazines and on the news being interviewed. Also when a women athlete decides to get a little angry because she disagrees with a call that was made it is unacceptable. For instance, Serena Williams yelled at an official that made a bad call and the media talked about this for weeks, but if a man was to get this worked up about a call it would have been a problem.

Women are expected to act a certain way and to follow certain rules and when they do not our society does not know how to handle it. We as a society have not grown to accept a powerful women.

Balloon Boy

Over the past month all we saw on television was this story on the Balloon Boy, but why did it get so much attention not being a major issue in our society. This is a perfect example of something being newsworthy. This story was all over every news channel because the news industry knew it would catch a lot of viewers attention. Many viewers were probably so interested in this story at first because they were so curious to find out if the boy was actually in the balloon and after they found out he wasn’t I believe they became curious to find out if it was a hoax or not. In addition, viewers were so interested in this story because they might have kids so they related with the family because they know how they would react and feel if it was their kid. I think this is the reason why people ignored how strange this family actually was.

Being in college it is hard to keep up with what is going on in society, but even I heard of this balloon boy story. When I saw the interview that took place with the family I saw that something was up because the way the mother was talking to the missing child. I think I was able to see that something was weird immediately because I wasn’t able to consume myself with the story being in college. This is the reason why people weren’t able to see how strange the Heene family was. People were just too deep into the story to see that story could have been a hoax. Furthermore, this is a big issue that goes on in our society. The news industry knows what will catch the viewers attention so they put it on and the viewer gets confused and tricked because the story is so appealing. As a result, the viewer is blind to the real issue that is going on in the story and are just able to see what the news chooses to focus on. This also shows how easily society is influenced by the news it sees on television.

Joining groups on Facebook

Why do people join groups on Facebook. Monica Hesse’s article, Click Through Activism, in the Washington Post focuses on why people join groups on Facebook knowing they won’t do anything more to support the cause. So why do people join these groups.
Users of Facebook join groups mostly because their friends do it so they want to do it to. People may also join groups because they feel it is the right thing to do. For example, if someone is invited to group about supporting cancer they will most likely join because they know cancer is a serious issue in today’s society. They also feel that joining the group is enough support in itself so they don’t need to do anything else after joining the group. In addition, people may join a group with a funny name because it was something that caught their attention. In class we talked about people joining a group where a guy said if he gets one million members to join his group his wife would let him turn their house into a pirate ship. Of course people would join a group like this because they are curious to see if his wife would really allow him to turn their house into a pirate ship.
Ultimately, people will continue to join groups on Facebook without really knowing what they are about. Personally I do not join groups on Facebook unless it is a group a friend made because I know I wouldn’t do anything after to support the group so why join it in the first place.

What Kind of Tech User Are You?

After taking the What Kind of Tech User Are You quiz, I received the results that I was a mobile newbie. I agree that I am a mobile newbie because I do depend on my cell phone to keep in touch with people and without it I wouldn’t really be able to find friends. I also agree that I wouldn’t be the same without my cell phone and depend on it to do a lot of things in my life. I don’t really use the internet or my computer unless I really need to. I mostly just use the news now to go on face book and check my BC email other than that I don’t really need it.

Flaws of the music industry

Why is it that when we turn on the radio or put on MTV, we hear the same type of music from the same group of artist? Today the music industries are very limited and are solely focused on making money. As a result, all society hears is the same music over and over again. Last week in our class discussion we talked about different flaws that are going on in the music industries today. For example, artist going bankrupt because of the label they are with, a limited amount of music we hear, and a limited amount of top artist.
Music labels only hire artist now that they know will make them money and don’t see the point of having a bunch of artist when they can make more money from just one artist. Even though the companies and labels are making all this money the artist who actually earn the money are going bankrupt. The reason being the artist has to pay for their own videos, concerts and airtime and receive about 1% of their album sales. This just shows how corrupt the music industry is. If the artist puts so much time and energy into their work why don’t they get to reap the benefits? It isn’t fair to the artist that the labels just sit back and do nothing and receive all the profit. I believe something needs to be done to change this. Artist need to start making their own independent labels to show these major labels, they need the artist, not that the artist needs them. In class we watched a video and it showed that some independent labels earned as much as the major labels did without ripping off their artist.
In addition, I think this issue is affecting us as a consumer. Today people don’t really go out and buy CDs anymore they just go on the internet and download music, but who can really blame the consumer. People don’t want to hear a whole album of the same type of song; they want to hear something different. So instead of getting the whole album they download the one song they like. I believe the artist and consumer can work together to get a change in the music industry. For example, the artist can make music the consumer wants to hear while on an independent label and the consumer can continue to support the artist even though it s no longer on this major record label. This is easier said than done. An artist can leave a label, but more than likely the label will go right out the next day and find a replacement. So this is another place the consumer comes in. The consumer can boycott these labels and maybe there will finally be a change in the music industries.