Ethnic Stereotyping, Alcohol Glorification in Media

As a Native American, I was especially interested in what the class had to say about typical stereotyping in media. Alcoholic, proud, lazy, one with nature, can't master English (language is broken), behind the times. My group brought up the government stipend the Native Americans get through the casinos. Even though I am 1/4 Cherokee and other tribes, I have been unable to obtain one dime of those stipends, because the federal government refuses to accept our tribe. So...not all Native Americans fit these qualifications.

In the assigned readings, I was appauled that "33% of high school seniors reported that they had consumed 5 or more drinks on one occasion in the previous two weeks." As a mother of a soon to be high school senior, that's particularily alarming. That's one in three students. If my son is not drinking, one of his friends is....who's driving? These are the students the alcohol ads are targeting. They make their money on the binge drinkers and alcoholics. Unfortunately, their ads pay too big a chunk of our entertainment dollars for them to be "black balled". It wouldn't hurt my feelings if they were put out of business.

The last 2 articles on teaching media literacy in the schools made me reevaluate this class. There is so much in media today: hidden messages, values, stereotypes, etc. that I feel my students should know. Actually, I think everyone should know it. I didn't know most of what we learned in class before last week. I can easily see how billions of dollars are leaving the consumers hands through unknown "duping" of the public through media sources. Personally, I would rather be a more informed consumer. I'm positive everyone else would feel the same way after learning what I have learned in these last 2 weeks. Thank you, Mary, for teaching this to us.

Media Views of African Americans and Women

It was disturbing to see that African-Americans (dark skinned-vs-medium dark skinned) are considered less intelligent, more likely poorer, and also more likely to commit a crime. Bottom line...skin tone is everything. You'd think by now, we would have gotten way beyond those archaic stereotypes. African American women are portrayed as unhuman, maybe animalistic in media.

Women's views in media were also archaic. It appears that sex objects (yet innocent) or photoshopped perfection in media is most prominent. The video said it all. There is a double-standard between men and women. Stereotypes abound. Beautiful, young, thin, and white women are the only ones truly accepted in society today. This keeps women powerless...in submission. In many media spots, women are silenced by this.

Women in ads are potrayed as "asking" for sexual violence. This is sick.

Men are portayed as violent, bullies. They are almost always depicted in a dominent role. This starts when they are very young. The only time this role is reversed is if there is a white woman/girl with a black man/boy (even then, it still might not be reversed).

Perception in Art

The Youtube videos we watched concerning "Ways of Seeing" say that works of art in reproductive form (e.g. photographs of the original work) lose a lot of majesty when the painting is transformed. Even though we can now see these paintings without making "pilgrimages" to the place where these paintings hang, we lose so much of the artist's message when we don't see it in it's "hallowed halls" with its special lighting.

I fully agree with this. I cannot feel the emotion of the artist in a photograph like I can when I stand in front of the original. There's something about seeing the brushstokes of the oils the artist used. Depths of color and shading of light are lost in the photograph.

The speaker also brought up the idea that women are posed to be looked at or admired by men. Back in the day.....maybe. I'm not so sure it is as prevelant as it used to be. I still see some aspects of this in advertising, but the lines are becoming more and more blurred.

We also looked at how web surfers are starting (?) to watch our every purchase and thought on the internet (or even outside the internet...think Safeway cards). So much advertisement is geared toward what these surfers find. The reading about teen online habits was particularily interesting in that the teens who knew it was taking place said that the information they put on social networking sites isn't necessarily the most factual information. It's usually either what the surfer wanted to see or it is the very best of what their friends may want to see in them.

Food for Thought

I was appauled when I saw, both in class and today's readings, that the media uses food designers to dress up foods for advertisement. I felt it was extremely deceiving of the ad executives to allow their use of these tactics. Undercooking meats and then painting them in order to keep them "plump and juicy" looking without wilting lettuce or making the bun soggy was over the top for me. Pinning condiments in place and artistically adding mustard and katsup...what next?

The article on advertising ideology was disturbing. I feel like these ad execs fall into the same catagory as a car salesman. Their willingness to stoop as low as they have just to get someone to purchase their item is incredible. We must be the most gullible, stupid people there are. I'd be interested in knowing whether or not the people who actually do the food art and the planting of basic ideologies in the ads fall for someone else's ads like the rest of us do. It would certainly serve them right.

What Makes An Effective Advertising Jingle

It used to be that effective advertising jingles had to be short and they must rhyme. Psychologists who studied the brain believed there must be a strong emotional connection to the jingle for it to stick. Later, pop artists would add the product to a song using "earworms": melodic, easy to remember, hooks. These earworms make it hard for a jingle to "get out of your head" once it's there. They were usually short (could be the chorus of a song).

Advertising as a whole used to represent qualities of the product that the consumer would like addressed: a detergent getting the clothes clean, toothpaste whitening teeth or freshening breath, tanning products tanning the person or protecting them from sunburn. These values seem dated.

Now jingles have to represent a value or a lifestyle for anyone to even listen or watch the commercial. Detergents bring in the outdoors, toothpaste gives you sex-appeal, tanning products makes skin look healthier (or sexier), beers bring in the friends. The values represented today are more sex, youth, career, or party driven.

The Washington Post's Policies on Sources, Quotations, Attribution, & Datelines

This article gave me a higher level of respect for the reporting and editing of the Washington Post. I didn't know they didn't randomly try to hide the identities of their sources. I didn't know that they would go out of their way to figure out how to report who their sources are (to maintain the trust of their readership) and would only hide this sources identity under 2 conditions: the source was ordered not to speak with reporters "on record" by their employers, or that speaking "on record" would somehow produce "harm" for the informant. In all cases, it was best to let the readers know why the source could not be identified. Unnamed sources were only used if the article was more accurately reported through an unnamed source than a secondary named source.

Knowing the reporting rules of a type of media seems to be a good way for readers to determine whether or not they wanted to "put their trust" in what the media they listen to or read from.

Media's Responsibility to Report Accurately

Neither of these issues, medical research or green claims were issues I felt the media needed to report on at all. 

In the case of the medical research, those that need to know about the product have complete access to that information on the internet if people need to know it.  If there are multiple people dying or maimed from a product that medical research missed, that needs to be reported on by media.  I think of all these prescription medications that are advertised on TV that just a few years ago, you never saw on TV.  Is the media trying to perpetrate a whole country of drug addiction or hypochondriac(ism?)?  I think it's a case of "buyer beware" and the media needs to stay out of the business of prescribing medications over their media.

In the case of green claims going unchecked, I again feel like this is a matter of "buyer beware".  I don't think this is newsworthy.  Everyone knows it's not the job of the government to take care of "every little thing" that happens to our lives.  Those who want to know if a product is truly green need to research this themselves...otherwise we are going to be taxed to death to cover the costs of all of this coverage.

Do Commercials Sell Something Other Than the Product They Advertise?

I've seen multiple car ads draped in scantily clad women selling...cars? Hardly. Everyone knows they are selling sex or sensuality. Carl's Jr. ads sell the same thing. One would think they were selling hamburgers, but that's not necessarily so.

I've seen beer commercials selling fun, community, joining the party. Everyone knows beer is really just a hangover or an addiction in a bottle (if one "parties" too much). The ads don't tell you that. They may linger on taste, or how it affects your waistline, but not for long.

Because of all these underlying selling points, ads focus in on what consumers may find as more important than just the product they are selling. Sometimes it's family, a sense of belonging, sentiment, memories, sexyness...anything to get us in the door to buy their product. I, personally, long for the days when ads just sold a product. Advertisers are spending too much of my time trying to get my dollars. That's why brand loyalty just isn't important to me. I would rather just buy what I need or want without all of the hype.

The article about Obama suppressing war images, was something I understood.  I don't feel war images (body parts blown to bits) is newsworthy.  That's what a war is.  That's the nature of war.  Someone in class brought up the images of the holocaust and how awful it was.  Would we be as knowledgeable about the holocaust without those images.  I think the two issues are vastly different.  Germany was not at war with the Jews.  The Nazi's were committing genocide to 6 million civilians.  That's vastly different than being at war against another group of people or another country.  The Jews didn't massively fight or shoot or imprison Nazis.  This warrants a different type of coverage.  War photos?  If historians will need these photos for reporting history, then I think the newspapers can archive the pictures on the internet and the site can be mentioned on the news or at the end of the news article.  I don't think the photos need to be included in a forum where children can easily be bombarded with it.

The Big 6 Companies

I was absolutely floored to find out that everything touching my world (products I buy, TV I watch, entertainment, news, everything) was owned by 6 major companies and their main motive is to shape my mind into buying their product or endorsing their company in some form or another.

Movies are made or squelched by these 6 corporations based on whether they hinder or help their cause to control. The subconscious mind seems to be so easily swayed by these companies.

I especially hate when one of these companies squelches a news story pertinent to my personal safety on the grounds that it would make the parent company look bad, thereby reducing revenue.

Now companies are trying to place their products "strategically" (or not) within regular programming. Not sure if that is subconscious or not as it is pretty obvious in most of today's usages.

However these companies can form your opinions on things is what advertising seems to be all about. This is scarry.