April Media Log

Television:
Scandal
Vampire Diaries
The Originals
Project Runway All-stars
Modern Family
Quantico
GAME OF THRONES
Nashville
The 100



Music:
Spotify
The Views-Drake
Lemonade-Beyonce



Movies:
The Loft
Dope

Others:
Relevant Magazine

Unscreen Relationships

Sitting down and staring at a blank screen for 25 minutes didn't seem like a good idea. With projects and essays being due and finals right around the corner, doing nothing for a period of time just felt like adding to my stress and anxiety for the comings weeks. Last semester when I did the Student Reflection Paper for SOCI 1101 it was a strange new experience. We live in a world where we feel like something or someone constantly has to have our attention. Actually sitting and staring at a blank screen, first made me feel anxious but then when I started to settle into the quiet room with the blank screen in front of my (my living room with my TV) I started to feel calm and relaxed. While the extent of my experience with meditation and clearing of the mind was doing Gaiam yoga classes, it made me think of the meditation Buddhist monks do and why they think clearing the mind of strenuous racing thoughts and notions is very important in their religion. I felt a (short lived) sense of calm that helped me approach the rest of my day with a refreshed mind.
This time I decided to stare at my powered down iPhone 6s. I realized, especially this past semester, I have been checking social media a lot more than I usually do.  I don't know if it's because we are currently in the throes of a Presidential election or my new love for snapchat, I am always checking my phone. So I definitely needed time to reflect on my obsession with this tiny device. When I had to stare at my TV last semester it took awhile for me to settle and stop worrying about all the work I had to do, but this time I was ready and calm very early into staring at my phone. Having my phone turned off and not buzzing with notifications is oddly calming like you have less worries. It's like when you go on a cruise and you have to turn off your phone because there is no cell service on open waters or when you have to turn your phone on airplanes mode on an airplane because it could disrupt the planes instrumentation (not really). Not having a phone forces you to find a new way to connect to the people in your immediate vicinity and have conversations, or go to sleep on the plane so no one talks to you. Staring at the blank screen of my phone made me think about how much I rely on it to maintain my relationships and friendships. When I have to talk to someone I send a text, Facebook message, or SnapChat. Or sometimes when I am with a group of friends and we use our phones to show each other funny memes or talk about a certain topic. If my phone was permanently removed from my life, would I talk as often as I do with my friends now? Would I even know how to get in contact with them? I started to remember the times in middle school (before cell phones) when we would just see our friends at school every day and then when summer break started and we no longer had to see each other every day so we would stop talking. Then school would start up again and if you didn't have the same class with those people you would lose touch and not talk anymore. Our phones have given us this new ability to stay constantly connected with the people close and far from us. Without the phones would we still be able to maintain the relationships we have or are some of them phone dependent?

Bulletin Boards (BBS)

In Gergen's The Saturated Self, he talks about electronic mail and bulletin boards and how you were only able to talk and communicate with people from the same city or organization. Honestly, when he began explaining bulletin boards I thought he was talking about the bulletin boards all over campus that get overloaded with fliers. But the more I began to read about the concept of bulletin board systems (BBS) it reminded me of the old chat rooms me and my friends would talk on in middle school. Gergen goes on to explain that these "boards" created different cultures and subcultures where people could talk about different shared interests and hobbies, but only within a certain circumference of the user. If you wanted to talk and connect with people outside of your area you were charged by your phone company. (Dial-up...remember all those noises?) This article  talks about how the limited access of BBS's led to hacking, so users could access other BBS's in different areas. Which back then probably seemed like a foreign concept, but we now know is commonly practiced not just on sites but also personal information from personal computers. It also talks about BBS's still being used in places around the world where the internet is still underdeveloped and new. BBS's have now evolved into chat rooms that is now a world wide way of connecting people, some of my cousins in the Philippines actually use them to talk about anime and online games with other users. I remember using AOL Instant Messaging (IM) to talk to individual users or TinyChat to not just chat but also also video chat with multiple people at a time, and different users could request to join the video chat, so instead of talking to a simple username you can now talk to an actual person on a screen. It also evolved into entire virtual worlds, like club penguin and IMVU, where you can create an avatar, and chat with other users from all over the world. Although, some of these boards are still up and running today, I think more users prefer the new forums because these new sites are more visually engaging and organized, so instead of being bombarded with an unknown number of users talking over each other you can now pick and choose who you want to converse with. What do you think? With the slow extinction of BBSs do you think we will need chat rooms or IMs in the future?

March Media Log

Television:

Nikita
Gossip Girl
The Vampire Diaries Season 6
The Originals Season 3
The Fosters Season 3
The Bachelor Season 20
Jane the Virgin Season 3
Modern Family Season 6
Scandal Season 6
How to Get Away with Murder Season 2
Project Runway All-Stars Season 4
Nashville Season 3
New Girl Season 4

Music:

130 Mood: TRBL by Dean
Team by Iggy Azalea
Be Alright by Ariana Grande
low kii savage by Kiiara
Lights by Jessame
Unbreakable Smile by Tori Kelly

Books, Magazines, Articles, etc.:

Relevant Magazine
Buzzfeed Videos

Wait. Who Does He Remind Me Of?

Hollis Doyle played by Gregg Henry

Scandal has always been a fantastical show about the United States capital's most political elite and all the dirty secrets and lies that Olivia Pope (D.C.'s most wanted fixer) has to cover up in order to allow those elite to keep their pristine image that is "for the people". This show has always told fictional stories, putting forth the "All Persons Disclaimer" but lately this season they have been drawing some very strong, close parallels. The current 2016 Presidential race has seen a variety of people and characters and the writers of Scandal have taken those characters and essentially serialized them onto the show itself. Mille Grant (the President's ex-wife) the former First-lady, now a Senator of Virginia, her husband, the current President, has had an affair, granted not with an intern, but the parallels are way too obvious. But the Hillary Clinton double is not the most striking character on the show. Hollis Doyle is a billionaire oil tycoon whose abrasive and offensive vernacular gets the right-wing crowd cheering and everyone else cringe in disdain. Yep, not only can we not get away from Donald Trump in the news, but now we can't even get away from his offensive behavior on TGIT (thank god its thursday). Check out a few of his quotes. Just like how we talked about in class about the news media giving Donald Trump pretty much most of the media coverage so far this Presidential race, the show seems to be capitalizing on the "donald trump" appeal as well. So not only do we get to Donald Trump in real life we also get him in the fictional world. There is no escaping this guy! Maybe the show will induce media-reader interaction and help us humanize Donald Trump or maybe we will just get more of the same. All of us who are big fans of this show, what do you think of this "new" DT character?

Social Contexts of Media Viewing

I am answering question number 2: 

Social context plays a major role in how we consume and interpret different types of media. For instance, the social context that we are currently immersed in and the social context of say the main character of a movie or show can influence what we get out of the media we view. For example, when I watch "Beyond the Lights" a movie about a girl who rises to pop-star infamy, and how all the fame and "flashing lights" begins to rapidly affect her mental health and sanity, to the point that she almost commits suicide. Then a handsome young police officer saves her from falling and from the destructive world around her. While I have no idea what its like to rise to fame with my beautiful pop-like voice (yet ;)) it opened my eyes to the possible pressure and social anxiety that celebrities are under. And I could also relate it to the social pressure I feel to succeed in school, career, and life. Constantly having to be "on" can affect any human being and make anyone feel like they can't be themselves or make mistakes. Comparing this movie to say "Allegiant" which takes place in a completely different post-apocalyptic social context, where a girl fights against a apathetic and tyrannical group of people to her city and the people she loves. None of us know what its like to live in a post-apocalyptic Chicago but it can teach us to speak up against oppression and not just blindly follow leaders because they say you should. Our social contexts and realities compared to the ones in movies can influence how we view and relate to that media.

Social context of where we view movies also influences our experience of that media. Using the two movies I mentioned previously, I watched "Beyond the Lights" on Netflix and I watched "Allegiant" in theaters. With "Beyond the Lights" I was at home on my laptop. I'm a multitasker, so usually when I view media at home I am doing others things like, looking up things on the internet, scrolling through social media, etc. I'm not "fully" immersed in what I am watching and that influences what and how much I experience from that media. I still know what the movie is about and what is going on, I just do not commit my full attention to it. But with "Allegiant" theaters are specifically designed to completely immerse your senses and attention in the atmosphere and setting of the movie. This article talks about how temporarily impairing sight and peripheral senses can change the focus of audiences senses which can ultimately give them a whole new experience compared to just watching a movie on a TV. The dark room with dim lights, the film playing out on a giant screen along with the bass and clear crisp surround sound of all the blasts and explosive action really changes the entire sensory experience of a movie compared to watching it on a laptop with speakers. That's probably why you get those intense feelings of power and strength after walking out of an action movie. You weren't just watching a movie you were dipped and engulfed into a different world which can be  a very visceral experience.

Sniping into America's Hearts and Minds

Chris Kyle played by Bradley Cooper in The American Sniper

American Sniper is an all-American red, white, and blue tale of a brave hero, Chris Kyle, who leaves his home, and family to join the United States military as a Navy SEAL, then travels overseas to fight the good fight to help defeat the evil Middle East, and defend our freedom and liberty. This movie received various acclaims and nominations, while capturing and uplifting the great American spirit that so many love to see and hear about.This film, directed by Clint Eastwood, depicts and brings light to the harsh reality most veterans face in war and at home, audiences have taken the film as propaganda as a way to further American based ideologies and hegemony. Eastwood in an interview with Loyola Marymount University School of Film & TV in Los Angeles, stated that because he directs the film in a way that illustrates the drama and stresses of what war is like for military personnel and their families, he believes his film, if it has a message, to have an anti-war message. His interpretation was not a black and white painting of good-versus-evil, but he depicted a very real story of a veteran who, named a hero, had his struggles. An "anti-hero" if you will.  For me, his depiction of war helped bring awareness to the stressors such as, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and the extreme anxieties that follow and plague military veterans who have come back from war, which I believe was Eastwood's one intention of the film. But many pro-war and pro-gun right-wing advocates have deemed the film and Chris Kyle as a "National Treasure". (No joke, there is a corn maze in the shape of his face in Loganville, Georgia) So instead of using the film to bring awareness to the harsh reality of war, it was used as an avenue or "hypodermic needle" to inject American exceptional-ism back into the minds of the audience. To remind viewers who the real "good guys" always are in war, the United States of America. (I don't know about you, but I am imagining a Captain America-like character holding and aiming a sniper rifle wearing red-white-and-blue with a American flag cape) Viewers clung to this message so tightly that when critics began to post quotes from Chis Kyle's memoir book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, that bring Chris Kyle's morality under question, they were demonized and called anti-American and were even sent death threats and wishes. The hypodermic model of media effects, although it has been proven not applicable, still effects audiences on some ways due to the fact that people with agendas will always find a way to use different types of media to further that agenda. But now with social media and full access to the internet we can now search and get the full truth and reality of different situations, even if they are "based on a true story".

Double Minority

Representation of social diversities within all forms of media plays an important role in our social world views. Being able to see yourself reflected and connect with that fictional character on screen can help people as they change and mold through life. The LGBT community over the past 20th century, have been portrayed in film in cruel and demeaning ways that dehumanize them making them unrelateable. For example, The Celluloid Closet, showed films like, Manslaughter, Algie the Miner, Cruising, Silence of the Lambs, etc. depict LGBT people as flamboyant comical relief, depressed and suicidal, or psychopathic killers who deserve to die. This left very many LGBT people with no one to represent them and no identity to aspire to. Now, in the 21st century, with the Supreme Court ruling and interpreting that the Constitution ensures the LGBT community the right to marry; much has progressed in the representation of lesbians and gays. Even more and more openly gay, lesbian, transgender, and transsexual actors are playing these iconic roles. On television gay actors are now often cast as gay characters and portrayed as human beings who have real lives such as, Chris Colfer in Glee, Guillermo Diaz in Mercy, Jesse Tyler Ferguson in Modern Family, Wilson Cruz in Red Band Society, and many more. This shows that there are plenty of LGBT actors to play roles and characters in not just TV shows, but in film and music as well.

Urban dictionary defines a "double minority" as someone who has a combination of two different social identifiers, such as someone who racially identifies as black, and also identifies their sexuality as gay. While media has made great strides in being inclusive of  LGBT peoples, there still lacks a representation of the real ethnic diversity within the community. Gay and lesbian actors within film and shows are majority white American, and while this gives LGBT people someone to look up to, LGBT ethnic minorities may have completely different social and cultural experiences compared white American LGBTs, that can make "double (or more) minorities" feel alone and isolated. In an article written by a influential Vietnamese LGBT author, he talks about how there needs to be a push for more inter-sectional representation of race and ethnicity within not just media forms, but all parts of our social spheres. Because its not just Hollywood that is predominately white it's all other areas of our social world; politics, businesses, even non-profit LGBT foundations. This may be due to the absence of fictional or non-fictional role models that racial minorities have to look up to. Film, TV, books, music can help to change the trend and show minority children that they can aspire and do great things in their community and other areas. An amazing example of this is Laverne Cox. She is the first transgender woman to star as a major role on an American TV show, first transgender woman to be nominated for an Emmy, and also a very prominent spokesperson within and for the LGBT community. Representations such as these really allow all generations from all backgrounds encourage them to aspire to great opportunities.

February Media Log

The Walking Dead Season 6
Deadpool Movie
Scandal Season 7
How to Get Away with Murder Season 2
Jane the Virgin Season 3
The Baby by Abigail Barnette
Younger Season 2
American Crime Season 2
Reel Injun
Hicksploitation
The Vampire Diaries Season 7
The Originals Season 3
The Road Within
American Crime Season 2
The Celluloid Closet
Rihanna-Work Music Video
Zayn-PillowTalk Music Video
Suits Season 7
Modern Family Season 6
Marriage Boot Camp Season 4
The Bachelor Season 20
Spotify Playlists

The Fosters

The Fosters Characters from Left: AJ, Mike, Mariana, Lena, Brandon, Stef, Callie, Jude

The Fosters is a show about foster children who have been adopted by two women who are in a domestic partnership, and who later get married to coincidentally become "the Fosters". The show portrays a fictional story and plot which reveals the decaying underbelly of our nation's foster system as well as other broken aspects of our society. The characters include an array of multiracial and multicultural people from all different social backgrounds and classes. Some characters that are introduced into the plot exhibit the many stereotypes we see in media all the time (black male as a drug dealer, "the angry black woman", the spicy latina, etc.) but these characters are used in the plot of each episode to divulge the audience in how these stereotypes hurt minorities and overall society.

One particular episode (Season 3 Episode 5) the show unearths and tackles the topic of police racial profiling and discrimination. Mike a San Diego police officer, and also the ex-husband of one the Foster women, is with his newly adopted foster kid AJ who is African-American with an athletic build. AJ and Mike, who is in uniform, are leaving from visiting AJ's grandmother at a nursing home, when Mike gets a police call about a situation near their area. Mike calls in saying he is on his way and that he has a ride-along with him, AJ. They arrive at the house where the other police officers are already combing through the house and the area around it for a suspect/suspects. Mike tells AJ to stay in the car while he goes and assesses the situation. Mike disappears into the house for a while, so AJ becomes curious and walks out of the front seat of the police cruiser, within seconds he is roughly tackled to the ground and handcuffed by a white police officer. Mike quickly runs out of the house to diffuse the situation and let the officer know that AJ is his ride-along, but the white officer still refuses to un-cuff and release AJ, until Mike tells the officer that AJ is his adopted son, which the officer then only apologizes to Mike. This situation also reminds me of a similar story in the news about James Blake, a retired professional tennis player who was tackled and cuffed by several undercover white officers because he was the same race as the suspect they were looking to apprehend. He wasn't running, he wasn't "fleeing the scene" he was simply standing outside his hotel waiting for a car to take him to the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament. Just like AJ who stepped out of the front seat of police cruiser and who was labeled as a ride-along was profiled and forcibly tackled to the ground, many people of different ethnicities have been brutally handled by police in similar ways. This article, talks about the reasons why this type of warrior-like policing came into existence within society. The merging of "kill or be killed" police education and training along with individual prejudices and racial biases creates this dangerous concoction of police brutality towards certain races. Hence, why people like James Blake and AJ are handled in a very violent manner instead of being questioned and treated like a human being.

Shows like The Fosters that use their media platform to bring light and awareness to racial biases and stereotypes within our society really opens up the dialogue for people to discuss why these types of situations happen. I would love for you to comment any other shows, movies, or books that use stereotypes within the plot as a way to bring awareness.

Who is the "Good guy"?

Action shows and movies, especially ones containing superheroes and villains, carry a classic theme of "good" vs "evil". Good guys vs bad buys. Bully vs the bullied. Robbers vs cops. Light vs Dark. Dora vs Swiper the fox. We are led and encouraged to root for the "good guy" or "superhero" to win, even though we know the "good guy" always wins no matter what "villain" or adversity they face. These shows and movies also teach us across all generations the hegemonic lesson of always being the "good guy" and to reflect his good deeds and character, so that we too can beat the "bad guy", cause 'the bad guy" should never win. While this lesson is encouraging and uplifting our social reality isn't so black and white.

From a political foreign policy standpoint these movies remind us of all the good the United States government has done and is still doing to protect the homeland. Movies and shows like Saving Private Ryan, 24, Homeland, Taken, and the more starkly stated Captain America all have the "good guys" (United States; America; Americans) versus "bad guys" (any foreign political terroristic threat). This theme of the civilized, lawful society warring against the uncivilized power hungry foreign force that hates and wants to destroy "American Freedom" is strategically placed in some of the American media we consume to instill political ideologies that guide us to vote for certain military and foreign policies. Whether these movies and shows play to the fear of the "outside world" or our willingness to defend the freedoms of others as well as our own, they reflect and shape our social and political world. In my last blog post about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I talked about how the movie was breaking social and racial conventions of protagonists in movies. But the movie also speaks to our government's current foreign relational climate. In this article by Chris Burnett, he begins breaking down the parallels of how our government and military is often portrayed as the patriotic hero always defending our freedom against those who want to take it away, and how the rebels reflect the ideals of U.S., as the small force fighting against the tyrannical superpower "The First Order". He goes on to say that this use of good vs. evil enforces people's fears and justifies the government's violation of the fourth amendment as well as it's massive defense budget. Movies with ideologies such as these can play into people's' fears and lead to war mongering and the push for more and more military power. And as "The First Order" was portrayed as the colossal imposing militia with advanced weaponry and America having the most advanced aircraft and naval force that rules the skies and seas, as well as the largest collective army...who are the real "good guys" or  "bad guys"?

Star Wars: Breaking Social Convention Using the Force

Action movies have a way of getting our heart rates up with non-stop thrills and adventure that keeps us on the edge of our seats. But in many action movies over the past decade the main protagonists have been written and cast as a white males of anglo-saxon descent . Superman, Batman, Spiderman (twice), Iron Man, Captain America. The list goes on for miles. Which has been the norm within Hollywood in many movie genres, not just action. Hollywood has found a niche in writing cinematic films and casting them in a way that does not reflect our great American melting pot. When Star Wars: The Force Awakens, built their cast, and many saw a black guy as one of the main characters people were up in arms and all kinds of upset. Why? When other people found out a woman would also be a main character people felt they weren't sure how that "was gonna work". Why? Do we not think that a black man and a woman as main characters have the ability to carry the plot of one of the most memorable franchises of many generations? Some of us are so used to seeing the conventional standard heroic mold, that it completely surprises us when that mold isn't followed. J.J Abrams has been trying to do just that by pushing for more diversity within Hollywood. He said this in an interview about a show he directed called Hart to Hart:

"We wrote these characters but when we went to cast it, one of the things I had felt, having been to the Emmys a couple times — you look around that room and you see the whitest f*cking room in the history of time. Its just unbelievably white. And I just thought, we’re casting this show and we have an opportunity to do anything we want, why not cast the show with actors of color? Like not for sure, and if we can’t find the actors who are great, we shouldn’t, but why don’t we make that effort because it wasn’t written that way and isn't that the cooler version of doing this as opposed to saying ‘this is an urban show’. It f*cking kills me when they call something ‘an urban movie’ like its a separate thing, like ‘its that thing over there."

So when he was given the opportunity to direct a completely original movie within the Star Wars franchise he ran with it. He believes representation within the media we view, as Americans in our everyday life is important, and so he did that in Star Trek, now in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He did this by not writing the characters into a certain skin appearance, he kept the casting open to people of any color and ethnicity. Making the roles more available to anyone allows for diversity within all media, which can help influence change in certain conventions and social norms we see all around us. 

Ratings on Music Videos?

PillowTalk Music Video-by Zayn Malik

We discussed the movie rating system in class on Thursday, and the ambiguous ways it rates or grades the movies that are released in Hollywood. For example, violence and blood can make your rating a PG or PG-13, but sexual innuendos and depictions can quickly change your rating from R to NC-17 making it difficult to get advertisements and brands to help with your budget or release showings in theaters. This rating system is supposed to be run by a group of "average every day American parents" who have children from early childhood to adolescents. We put trust in this group of people to let us know what is okay to show to children and what should be "viewed with discretion". A campaign to apply this same type of rating system to music videos released by artists and bands was proposed by the same "average" every day parents. MTV and VH1 used to rule the airwaves as the place for artists to promote themselves and their music videos. The rise of youtube, vevo, and other video streaming sites allows people to view them over and over again all they want (maybe with a few advertisements here and there). While youtube has a few ways to regulate what they deem explicit content (nudity, sexual content, etc.) to help keep people from viewing offensive and inappropriate videos the group wants the government to put stricter policies on music video producers and artists to reduce the amount of explicit content that could be viewed by young underage teens. In the article by Tracy Veigh, she talks about how while some parents approve of the government stepping in, others are opposed to it arguing that the more bans and rules you enforce on this type of content the more teenagers are going to want to pursue it and view it. She goes on to say that its becoming more impossible to put effective bans on content within the internet due to availability and access teenagers have to anything on the web. I can agree that while explicit ratings like R on movies have the ability to prevent a teenager under 17 to view that movie in the theaters, the internet now makes the possibility of watching that movie online easier. Teenagers and children, if told no, makes that thing more enticing and they will find a way to access that thing. What do you think? Should the government step in and put bans on explicit music videos on the internet? 

#FreeCreativity

Devon Aoki-by Minjae Lee

Art used to be free. Art whether, that was music, books, sculpting, painting, drawing, etc. art media was freely exchanged and shared so that it could inspire others to create and build upon the art world. Now fast forward to present day, capitalism, where its all about the " bottom line" and profits. You now have a multitude of copyrights and laws that claim to "protect" the artists work and integrity from being "stolen" but in reality those laws are just used to increase the profits of the corporations and labels that feel they are the only ones who should benefit from said artist. In a world where ideas and inspiration can flow freely, art can progress and grow, but in this world where it costs you to be inspired by others, the creative culture has lost steam. These restrictions have not been placed everywhere in the art media world. In the world of fashion, fashion designers develop their original voice and style by the interchanging of clothes styles, silhouettes, and fabrics which are all used to inspire other designers. Examples of this are in the very clothing trends we follow everyday. The very first blue jeans were developed and created by Levi Strauss, but now we have all types of designs; boot-cut, straight, bell bottom, colored jeans,  etc. This variation and diversity was from years of freedom within innovation and design. A modern day small scale example freedom within 2D media was in Long Beach Museum of art, where street artists were given free reign to create whatever they wanted on the walls of the gallery. You can view the most of art here. Creativity within the music industry has really been curbed by copyright. In music there are only so many notes and even fewer combinations of those notes that create melodies and riffs within songs. So if you were to be inspired by a certain genre of music and want to write a song with a similar feel you now need to make sure that what you have written or created isn't similar to another artists music within that genre. In this Rolling Stones article the author, Will Sheff, talks about how artists creativity is being killed by copyrights and the artistic process isn't able to flow as freely as it is supposed to. The exchange of ideas and inspiration is something that just happens naturally within the world of art but the need for profits and sales has made parts of it a courtroom for "I did it first!"

"I realized that this is what artists are supposed to do – communicate back and forth with each other over the generations, take old ideas and make them new (since it's impossible to really "imitate" somebody without adding anything of your own), create a rich, shared cultural language that was available to everybody. Once I saw it in folk art, I saw it everywhere – in hip-hop, in street art, in dada. I became convinced that the soul of culture lay in this kind of weird, irreverent-but-reverant back-and-forth. And I concluded that copyright law was completely opposed to this natural artistic process in a way that was strangling and depleting our culture, taking away something rich and beautiful that belonged to everyone in order to put more money into the hands of the hands of a small, lawyered few." 

-Will Sheff

January Media Log

Books:

A Shade of a Vampire by Bella Forrest

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Shows:

Keeping Up with the Kardashians Season 11 episode 7

Keeping Up with the Kardashians Season 11 episode 8

Keeping Up with the Kardashians Season 11 episode 9

Jane the Virgin Season 2 episode 9

American Crime Season 2 episode 3 

The Originals on NetFlix

Why Do We Sleep? Video Huff Post

Movies:

Hot Girls Wanted Documentary

Emperors New Groove

Mulan

Home

Beyond the Lights

Social Media:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Vine

Articles:

Relevant Magazine

MISC.

Intro to Neuroscience online Lectures

Why Do We Sleep? Video Huff Post

Real or not Real?

The Truman show delusion is a type of grandiose delusion in which patients believe their lives are staged plays or reality television shows.

Do we create and choose our own reality or is it shaped for us? In Mark Deuze's paper Media Life: Media, Culture, & Society he explains and discusses the truman show delusion. With the rise of social media and cell phones a new reality has been created that has embedded itself within our perceptions of the way our life is or is going. Likes, favorites, reposts, reblogs, retweets have become a way for us to validate our self-worth and reputation. A way keep track of how well we are doing in the "game of life". The best part is that we are not only able to share how well we are doing with all our friends and family we can see how well (or bad) everyone else is doing around us. We can compare and contrast and adjust our behavior for the best results. There is pressure to share a reality that always appears positive and on the up-and-up.  But is the life we share on the internet actual reality or just a mere outer layer that we construct? Are we merely influenced by the constant positive reality of others around us, so we create an alter reality? In a study, researches found a correlation between Facebook and depression symptoms, caused by "social comparison". The article highlighting this correlation also states that comparing ourselves to say someone more attractive lowers our self-esteem while someone less attractive than us raises our self-esteem. Being surrounded by social media has created a "Truman reality show" in each our lives that makes us feel like we are being watched by the people around us, and we are also influenced by the "quality" lives of those people to post more and do more with our lives.

Generation Ignorance

Our generation has been shaped by social media. Likes, follows, favorites, and shares allow us to keep up with our favorite brands and people, and also let other people know what we like. I often assume that this world of social media is all happens-stance, and the world we know just changed and adapted. Although, after watching Generation Like businesses and companies have found a way to track, analyze, and use our likes and favorites to boost their marketing and increase their sales. And we are completely ignorant to it. I know I find myself liking and favoriting so many brands on a weekly basis that I personally want to follow or know more about, but in the background companies are using those social media actions to promote and advertise in a more personalized if not more effective way. Businesses have found a way digitize our simple interests into data they can use to study our habits and advertise their products back to us.  And its not just to us, its also used on everyone who follows us or friends us. We are working for businesses with no compensation, and most of us are not even aware that it is happening. Being aware of this I can now be more conscious of what I do online and how these interactions affect me outside of social media, such as spending habit off and online, sharing, liking, and tagging people on something on Instagram just to win a giveaway, and many other ways. With businesses adapting their marketing on social media, social consciousness has not only become important in daily life but online as well.

Cultural Shapers of the Next Generation

In my Media and Society sociology class we watched a short video that took us all on the journey of the people of Bhutan receiving television channels for the very first time. Bhutan was considered a culturally "untouched" country where people lived simple lives away from capitalism and consumerism that for many of us Americans has become a normal part of our every day lives. Religion, family, friends, and "old" media, such as books and newspapers have been the main influences within this society. Many cultures around the world have acquired or been slowly influenced by other countries cultures and ways of life. Whether that be from years of colonization or simply opening it's borders and doors to new media like television and internet. Each change in cultural values and rituals has had positive and negative affects on each generation. In the video they show the people of Bhutan becoming more consumerist when before they were self-sufficient. The children begin to play fight more because the World Wrestling Entertainment company began showing wrestling matches on television. Subtle changes in our behavior as humans can happen over night, but larger changes can take decades to develop and be noticed within a society. Now that Bhutan has opened its doors television as well as internet it will begin to be influenced by not only American culture, but cultures around the world that the old generation never had access to. Will this negatively or positively influence the new generation and future social structure of Bhutan?