Blog response #4 So how important is satirical news to the public sphere? Where does this put us?

Being human is a very personal experience. Although most individuals are statisticized and pigeonholed somehow, somewhere along their life (within cagegories of consumers, students, employees, citizens for example) we interpret messages according to the ideologies we personally identify with. In the case of satirical news programmes this is no exception. By definition these shows can be considered culture jamming, this seems to be the general consensus among this student body. Abbey confirms in her blog that they can “definitely be defined as mainstream culture jamming” but later in her blog she also states that “this kind of reporting is not a useful addition for the public sphere not relevant at all for people who want real news. This shows that people watch these types of shows to get a good laugh, not to get real news.” (http://abbeyunyi.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/). This is a legitimate opinion of someone who does not necessarily analyze information for its connoted meanings. My question is, what is real news? And is there somewhere I can honestly receive news which is not influenced by motives of profit, power and control?

As we have learned in this course, there is often more to media messages than the surface meaning/function. In the case of mass media and thanks to the powers that be which control it, it is increasingly difficult to air critical discourse without disguising it as entertainment. On a brighter note at least most of us agree with Abbey in that we can all get a chuckle out of the material, whether we appreciate the criticism or not. As I discussed in my own blog, I side with Matt who tells us he “view[s] this as a legitimate source for keeping up to date with the happenings of our world and do so with a smile on my face.” (http://mv10jx.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/).

I still try to read the paper and listen to CBC news on the radio when I get the chance, but especially as audiences for these semi believable media dwindle, there is much need for alternative discourse in the public sphere about news content as well as the mass media that deliver it. At the very least, this type of pop culture culture jam “gives its audience a different method of highlighting ordinary news.” (http://melissaaichele.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/is-the-fake-news-the-real-news/)

I feel like the importance of recognizing and learning from what shows like this are telling us should not be ignored. Unfortunately in western cultures people are trained from a young age, through media and other popular culture artifacts to consume unquestioningly. This is a reciprocal trust which is built up between those which control the media and those which consume it. My issue is that I do not believe my values or those of a large portion of the population as a matter of fact are represented by mass media. This extends to the fact that the biggest from of communication we possess in the public sphere is owned and controlled by corporations which do not have a wholesome, sustainable, positive and honest business model. When there is more public discourse about making money than making change. We find ourselves in a time when the only people that don’t want change are those with money because they depend on those without it to work hard all day and/or night to buy the products and services (including entertainment) which put them in said positions. It is unfortunate that one of the few mass media interaction with the legitimacy of media is one that many will not take seriously. Closing on that mote, this examination of mass media only reiterates the need for more publicly funded and influenced mass media exposure in the world of news and entertainment but also in general programming of all media channels.

News as entertainment, entertainment as news. Blog 4

In a time where university professors question, or in fact scorn the legitimacy of conventional news such as FOX or CNN, you can be fairly certain that it’s for good reason. Since these channels don’t report whats important in the news, every major media outlet, for several weeks covering the story of some poor individual whose been kidnapped rather than something that actually affects the population (e.g discussing a major legislation that is being passed behind closed doors or the horrendous environmental and corporate crimes that occur on a daily basis locally and across the globe.)

The news we see seems to be more for entertainment and distraction, even fear mongering. Where’s all the good news gone? Paradoxically, it is in satire that we may find a bit of a cure, comedy news programmes such as The Daily Show use parodies of current news headlines and political statements to expose underlying messages and the irony of how artificial and ignorant these people are that run and/or report to the major population. In retrospect (I’m sure the originators of this genre of programming didn’t necessarily identify with the term,) one can describe these shows as a form of mainstream culture jamming. “A mode of resistance to the norms and conventions of mass culture that exposes and opposes the media’s underlying power structures and ideological messages.” (213) In this case using a “more playful, spontaneous form of improvising and engaging with the media” (213) to effectively comment on and provoke some sort of thinking about the issues at hand. While we may not get the most accurate news out of these productions either, they definitely create a much needed discourse about current topics but also concerning the sad state of conventional news. To watch these shows is a great way to get a second opinion of what is being reported and even a more truthful depiction of political characters. Is this useful to the public sphere? I’m curious to see from other classmates blogs whether anyone can argue that is isn’t! If anything, we need more people in the public sphere with the cajones to go against the grain and generally accepted public figures.

Maybe the reason that we can have a form of media in the mainstream which can make fun of and attack these public and political figures which dictate our world is that it isn’t in fact the status quo that gives these clowns their position. Since it is only about 20% of the population that votes for politicians who in effect control the media to some extent, but more than that number watch television (in North America anyhow), it is understandable that shows like The Rick Mercer Report would be commercially successful for going against this unrealistic demographic. On that note, maybe producers should get on the hunt for further truthful representations of the powers that be, maybe it would inspire people to do something about it. Lets face it, even when referencing satire in today’s day and age, if it was on national television you will still be deemed more credible than when quoting a Youtube documentary about these same entities. Of course the majority of viewers are most likely not watching these shows for an honest window into politics, humorous entertainment is what brings them into the public sphere so it’s a bit of a back door for a solid culture jam. Either way, upon these musings I feel like I should watch more late night satire…

 

Works Cited:

Michael O’Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print

Hail Arth Guinness!

 

Spending a good chunk of my childhood in Ireland, one widely accepted notion that I would never forget is that Guinness makes you “strong.” I always had trouble believing this to be a fact but it could be argued both ways I suppose. In a country where a child under six years old is served a half pint of fresh stout when visiting the St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin where Guinness is brewed, we can assume there are other reasons this beverage is so popular. A remarkably strong brand, Guinness has been developing their image since 1759 when a 9000 year lease was signed in anticipation of a extremely successful venture.

Now that I have been living in Canada for over ten years, one thing which always brings up a sort of nostalgia in me is the rare occasion when I can go out for a pint of Guinness stout. Last time I had this opportunity, as I was sipping away at the black gold I noticed the advertisement on the shirt of the bartender. It read “Friends don’t let friends drink green beer.” It stuck with me and in thinking about it I realized how clever this phrase was in this context. Analyzing an ad for a product which I am already a relatively loyal consumer of may be bias but at the same time it gives me a more subjective view on how I relate to the ad and the product itself.

The shirt, apart from the slogan is a regular black t-shirt with Guinness logos on it which connect the witty remark with the company. From what I gather, the largest demographic of Guinness consumers are those of Irish decent. Most people, Irish or not, will relate this beer to Ireland. The advertising rarely even makes this distinction but fact is that it is brewed exclusively in Ireland and is considered a staple of the popular culture there. Every year on St. Patrick’s day people flock to pubs in Dublin and all over the world. Many a Guinness is consumed but especially in North America, probably the most popular order is green dyed beer. When I moved to Canada was the first time I heard of this, I thought it was a joke but sure enough people love it. This is where this advertisement hits home. When pondering the question if I’d “be a different person if … (I) were of a different nationality” (184). I conclude I would most likely be a different person but I’m 100% sure that had I not grown up with certain national myths and ideologies, I would have received this message quite differently, if at all. Like Michael from the example in Media and Society, I was hailed an “Irishman” (185). Drawing on the notions about St. Patrick’s day and beer that I picked up in my childhood, I noticed, understood and appreciated the advertisement. What is so remarkable about this type of advertising is that it extends beyond gender, race, age and even a range of lifestyles focusing largely on the notion of nationality. In this case I was interpellated by the message this advertisement embodied and rather than creating a new consumer in me, it reinforced my appreciation of the brand’s identity.

Works Cited:

Michael O’Shaughnessy and Jane Stadler. Media and Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print

 

Response #3 They’re after Us!

It is interesting to see the popularity of alcohol related advertisement which reaches the students in this class. Having written a blog about Guinness myself, I liked reading about how other companies marketed their alcohol. It seems that (for obvious reasons) alcoholic beverages are heavily marketed towards a younger demographic. They interpellate us in ways which attempt to cross boundaries related to gender, culture and otherwise. Since drinking alcohol is a pastime for many social groups, especially of our age group, this is usually quite effective. As Rob says in his blog, “most beer commercials are targeted at the young adult..” (http://robsblogforclass17.blogspot.ca/2013/11/what-hail.html) Of course a generalized audience is not always the primary target. In cases such as the Skinny Girl Cocktail ad, as the name bluntly states, they target girls which are hoping to feel skinny by drinking this beverage. One blog I read addressed this: “We are forced to do things as girls that represent who we are and should act, and the same holds true for guys. This is where companies find great success if they are looking to target a specific gender because they will tailor their advertisements exactly to the stereotypes and ‘norms’ of each respective gender.” ( http://lostirling.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-the-hail/ ) While this is true in many cases, gender roles and their representation in the media are often also rejected such as is the case with a class member who wrote about a fried chicken ad. She exclaims “this advertisement does not work on me, and in today’s Canadian society, women are being interpellated as bread winners as well as house workers, so the ad is likely to stimulate anger rather than the need to go get some KFC.” (http://za10mz.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/blog-entry-3-what-the-hail/). Or even in the case of a chip ad featuring Katy Perry’s chest: “This ad steps away from targeting genders because it specifically touches on the individual human being” (http://melissaaichele.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-the-hail/).

Having given these blogs some thought I come to the conclusion that the trend seems to be advertising to broad audiences, interpellating people that by default fall into a demographic and reenforcing the ideologies that are common to them. The closer the ad is to ones personal outlook, the more one can identify with it making it more effective in some cases than others. Unfortunately the truth is that in this culture, we are bred to soak up adverting and look past connotations to welcome the intended message. A Mountain Dew commercial for example had that effect on Even who wrote about it: “This commercial is AMAZING.” (http://evanwallacecpcf.blogspot.ca/2013/11/what-hail-manycompanies-go-about.html). Personally, I wish not that advertising stopped trying to get in our heads all together but that we would just be marketed more wholesome, sustainable products which we can actually feel good about. To leave you with one more quote which hit home with me about the state of our consumerist society, thank you Lo Stirling…

 “Ultimately since I have been brought up within a world that operates this way, I feel that these advertisements and ways of hailing me to a specific message are successful most of the time. No matter how hard I try I will always find myself identifying with every message attempting to target the female population through the social norms. It is ingrained in my mind and unless I decide to erase these norms with my own children one day, I feel that this is a cycle that will continue as long as it continues to work the way in which people plan them to.”

(http://lostirling.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/what-the-hail/)

Blog Entry #2: Do we want the media we get? why settle?

Growing up, my parent always made sure to mute the television during commercial breaks. I never understood this until a few years later when I began to realize how superficial most advertised products and their brands really are. I feel that my parents intervention definitely sheltered my exposure to much capitalist influence. I’m sure this in turn saved my parents some headaches as I rarely knew about the new popular toys, games and even other television shows etc which other kids felt like they needed to indulge in. In this day and age, does the media decide what we want? Or are we actually in control of our media exposure? I would argue that it depends on the consumer, how conscious he or she is in their reception of media and how willing one is to give up certain entertainment, tools and services to keep themselves isolated from intrusive media.

We are always submitting information which adds to our taste profile that dictates our individual data bubble. Although we do have control over some of our media influences i.e we can look for and attempt to refine our media exposure to our personal tastes but this does not come without a tradeoff. Following the wise words of Anthony Kiedis in the Red Hot Chili Peppers song Throw Away Your Television “Throw away your television, take the noose off your ambition.” A reinforcing hint at the lack of trust even popular culture has with mainstream media. One of the reasons why we can see television programming as restrictive to our ambition is the amount of time we waste sucking it in but also the connotations of the content. This is in part because, as explained in Media and Society “Hollywood and mainstream media do not offer a fair or just view of the world in terms of its representation” (O’Shaughness and Stadler 80). While we could get rid of our television and abstain from social networking, read only specific publications that cater to our personal tastes and shop mindfully and for necessity, we trim the potential positive influence we may gain from mainstream media. Even if that merely means missing the latest episode of Survivorman. This raises the question of how central the mainstream media’s role is to social construction? This ties in with the fact that “media practitioners often see themselves as political watchdogs, and in this respect are referred to as the ‘fourth estate’…” (O’Shaughness and Stadler 16) It seems that the media channels have taken it upon themselves to determine what is or isn’t acceptable or true in our society, what should or shouldn’t we know.

The relationship we have with media is obviously unfair in some regards. The resources available to the organizations and corporations which control media channels are vast and sophisticated. The audience on the other hand really only have control by choosing between limited options to indicate tastes or by contributing to data pools which are analyzed to determine what the public will consume more of. Unfortunately the principal drive behind mainstream media is profit. In their terms this might translate more along the lines of ratings, success of ad-campaigns, trending on social media or successful broadcast of trivial news as leading stories on major news networks. As our only real influence on what we get is through what we choose, it may be wise for people to say no to some of the mindless brain food we constantly consume and make clear their yearning for true, realistic and wholesome media instead. This leads me to my final questions to you as a contemporary media consumer, is this even what people want? Are the majority of our population actually more content believing the charades which dominate our media landscape today? Is everybody scared? Is ignorance bliss? One must remember that it is us as consumers that pay for our programming so if more people took a stand and stopped buying into what is offered, the representation of the status quo might snowball towards a more wholesome, realistic and truthful one.

Works cited:

M. O’Shaughness, J. Stadler. Media And Society. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.

1f25 blog response 1: Media Impact on Others

After reviewing several classmates’ views about today’s state of the media and its influence on us, I have come to realize that many common fears and suspicions about the media are evident in the opinions that were voiced. Whether or not we just all belong to the same group of educated, critical viewers, or if our views reflect the larger general public is open to speculation. It is refreshing to see that some of my scepticism of today’s mass media is articulated by most of the class. Namely the issue of representation in the media, how particular information can be publicized in uncountable ways to influence opinions and attitudes towards a product or situation. The word propaganda comes to mind, and while most of us are of the same belief as the blogger Lifeofloe when proclaiming: “I am not of a generation that allows for the wool to be pulled over my eyes,” (http://lifeoflowe.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/1f25-post-1-media-impact ) it is impossible to filter every piece of data we encounter in our day to day lives. On that note, I also consider myself better armed than your average media consumer in the battle against continuous bombardment of insignificant, superficial advertising and other media influence. One problem is that the scope of the media has infiltrated our peers to the point where information we gain through face to face conversation also often originated from some secondary media source. Keenbeau80 makes a great point in commenting that “Even if you don’t own any of these devices, there will always be someone eager to tell you what they saw, or heard, or read” ( http://keenbeau80.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/blog-entry-1/). I’ll admit that even the counter culture references relating to things such as internet privacy and protection of information or other critical knowledge regarding contemporary propaganda and fear mongering via media channels sounds suspicious to me as they are just as bias as those under corporate or government control. I am also reluctant to confess that even the trust I put in my closest friends regarding many of these issues usually end at the source from which it was mediated. This brings me to my final response, an eye opener to me personally.

Contrary to my initial opinion that one positive factor of the media is its potential to empower individual creativity and broadcasting of original ideas, the accumulative effect of social media and what has been described by Eli Pariser as the “filter bubble” (http://www.thefilterbubble.com )may actually have the opposite effect. So while people may be putting new information out, what actually reaches the masses is often either recycled or only pertaining to the individual consumer’s past (digitally) expressed interests. David O’Connor gives his blunt summary of this current state of media when he observes that “anything unique or creative that could have existed is now gone.” (http://oconnormedia.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/mass-media-and-personal-worldview/ ) Unfortunately unless we have a good idea of what we want to hear (in which case are we just looking for views that back up what we already know anyways?), we will undoubtedly be subject to what mass media and their databases project in our direction. Following this trend, I can safely say that my views on the media have not changed much compared to before this response, however I have drawn from what I have read to expand the notions already present within me. To reiterate what may be obvious of my stance on mass media, I end this response with another quote from Keenbeau80’s blog which is rather in line with my own opinion. “The key point here is to really question everything you hear, and form your own unbiased opinions without the influence of others.” (http://keenbeau80.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/blog-entry-1/)

 

Media Impact: 1f25 Post#1

Just like most of us that live and grew up in the western world, I am surrounded by mass media and they have come to play a large role in my day to day life. From the background music (and advertisement) that comes out of my car radio to my regular online activity, mass media reaches my senses in some form or other for most of my waking day.

My world view has been extended far beyond what it may have been without the influence of mass media. Whether or not my principles and motives would be the same is open to speculation but I can safely confirm that my exposure to mass media has helped me be a more informed and opinionated thinker. This does not go to say that I consume media without scruple, fortunately the media has also sparked an awareness in me that is always calling me to reconsider what messages I am receiving.

Thanks to freedom of speech, although this part of the world is one of the most saturated with mass media, this also allows the broadcast of alternative perspectives. While popular culture is the biggest victim of advertising and promotion of a consumer based ideology, there is a large counterculture which still reaches mass audiences through these media. One example of this is the grassroots movement against corporate food monopoly and genetically modified foods. Specifically the mega corporation Monsanto, responsible for products such as Agent Orange, and Aspartame as well as lobbying against organic farming while filing patents on genetically modified seeds. In May, 2012, thanks to the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto I was one of over 2,000,000 demonstrators that took part in a global peaceful protest to cause awareness about the dangers of corporate control of agriculture. It doesn’t end there, the reach of this corporation goes beyond borders, operating in over 50 countries and working closely with governments and media outlets. Ironically the massive movement was largely ignored by mainstream media, this only making those who were aware of the facts more suspicious.

On the flip side, I enjoy a lot of mass media thoroughly, be it film, music, or print; I even enjoy the odd bit of advertising. When creativity is involved, I appreciate the influence of the mass media on my worldview. It allows me to experience a huge variety of human expression, this often provides a more honest window into the current state of the world, or at least from my perspective. At the same time, hearing or seeing new material of artists I enjoy is especially enjoyable if it happens when I least expect it.

All in all, if you own a TV, computer, smartfone, or shop in box stores and malls, it is inevitable that you will be subject to some form of media bombardment. If you do not already, it may be interesting to stay informed about effects and mechanics of the mass media, develop an awareness, and chose what you decide to believe, like or follow. Further more, utilize the media to improve your knowledge in anything or everything, learn to be a conscious consumer and you may be surprised how much you get to know yourself.