Is the fake news the real news?!

               Satirical news reporting is a somewhat prominent source of political news for me. Is it fair however to say that these forms of news are real news, or better put are mainstream forms of culture jamming? This questions needs to be approached by looking firstly at if them being mainstream degrades their being defined as culture jamming, I don’t believe it does. Culture jamming can be defined as “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 (Media and Society pp 213).” So then how can these forms of mainstream media be considered culture jamming?

This is because of counter-hegemony and the idea that “culture jamming speaks about refusing to consume, and refusing to be seduced by images that offer unattainable, unhealthy, or unethical ideals (Media and Society pp216).” These satirical news programs present a world view that goes against what is typically presented to us in western society, in doing so they act as a medium to disseminate these counter hegemonic views on the world. Although it must be noted that these programs do exist inside of mass culture and mass media, which would seem to lessen their ability to be called fully culture jamming. However, through existing inside these forms of mass media, they are better able to express their views to the masses, which much like media is a goal of culture jamming; to expose and oppose ideological messages.

So then these programs being mainstream, may lessen their ability to be named as culture jamming, but does not however degrade the effect that comes out as a result of the counter hegemonic ideas.  The goal of culture jamming is to promote a better understanding and promote a discourse around a subject, which is achieved by these satirical programs. They present these ideas and ideals to the masses and in doing so they encourage the same thing as culture jamming does.  In doing so these programs become invaluable to a society that does not place much emphasis on political discourse or counter hegemonic ideas in the traditional media (mainly tv news). By being inside of the traditional media but presenting a different and critical view of events, these satirical shows are presenting a new side to the information being given to the masses, which can only lead to discussion and a desire for understanding. Without these forms of counter hegemonic views, the public sphere would be greatly lacking, even if these views are presented in a comedic way.

These satirical programs may not be as radical as some forms of culture jamming tend towards, but this does not change the programs tendency towards approaching situations from a counter hegemonic view, even if just slightly. This promotion of alternative ways of thinking and approaching a subject is what marks these programs as being a mainstream form of culture jamming. They may use jokes and be inside a system that is counter to their presented ideals, but they offer an approachable and understandable view on counter hegemony and critical thought relating to the dominant ideology.

                Work Cited

O'Shaughnessy, M., Satdler, J. (2012). Media and Society. 5th Ed. South Melbourne, Oxford \University Press

Demonstrable demographics

To be honest I am a little dumbfounded this week in regards to my classmate’s blog posts. There seemed to be an overwhelming idea that yes adds do work and that they are properly marketed towards the demographics that my classmates are contained in. There seemed to be a great deal of similarities between how I viewed the marketing strategies of companies being based off of gender and sexualisation of  genders and gender roles. However I was not expecting everyone to say that they were properly marketed towards through these adds.

There were many blogs that talked about how these adds reflect societal norms, and through those norms the company begins to be seen as a way to be accepted. As is the case with Grace Burgoyne's blog where she said "Girls also want to portray a popular social image, Victoria Secret is hailing those girls and giving them an opportunity to dress socially acceptable and desirable. With few words the ad pulled me in and made me feel like an acceptable woman in society(http://souspression.weebly.com/blog.html)". I was not expecting such an apathetic view on socialization and sexualisation from my classmates. These representations of a socially accepted person, mainly in this case woman, is troubling and not all that accurate in representing woman. It presents the idea that we are no more than our clothes, and that is how we should treat ourselves. There was a blog by Cassandra Graham where she talked about the effectiveness of a cover girl add, in response she said  "I particularly like Cover Girl because it targets young females to use this product, however, it is a line of cosmetics that embraces natural, light beauty! (http://cassandragrahamblog.wordpress.com)". I know this blog post is not supposed to be about whether or not I buy into these adds, it is about whether or not they are effective, which is apparently yes they are. I was not expecting such a pro commercialism response, which is not the point of this blog post, but the point of this blog post is do I think these representations are real. In response to that I have to say no, these representations of a makeup product presenting the natural light beauty of a woman, so long as you have makeup on as being a real representation.

There is a great deal of idealizing a body present in all these adds, and my classmates pointed out that this is an effective advertising technique. Keenan Beaumont talks about the effect that sports advertising has on him when he says "It is when we feel as if we are missing something, that the company presents us with their product, which is supposed to improve our performance and turn us into successful athletes like the ones we idolize.(http://keenbeau80.wordpress.com)" I understand the idea that we idolize those that have succeeded in the past, that seems like a good marketing strategy to get those idols to push a product. So representing an athlete as someone who wants to get better makes sense, the representation there is accurate. There are other social implications to using a face to sell a product that had nothing to do with past success, but the demographic appears to be properly hailed.

There may be no place in this here for my opinion on whether or not these representations are good for those being represented but I have to say something. The common theme between many blogs was that of the ideal figure and attaining it to get status or acceptance. This alone is something I could handle by just being annoyed, there was something else though, a pseudo self-aware apathy involved. I think the best example of what I read was said by Lauren Sterling "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.(http://lostirling.wordpress.com)" This is saying that the representations are false, yet because I have been raised into them I should accept them and follow them. I do not believe that any representation in these advertisements was correct in its showing of gender or idealism, but this apathy towards these inaccuracies or life dumbfounds me.

What the Hail?

There was a series of advertisements launched by Axe a couple years ago. I focused on the idea that if you spray Axe on your body that you will inevitably just be forcing woman off your body. They set up the commercial as if it was some scientific trial to study Axe, and in the end the participant disappears and is presumably pleasured by the mass of woman. This add is marketed towards a young male audience who are heterosexual and desire a traditional “attractive” female.

Axe targets a very specific audience in its approach to selling its product. It assumes that all males watching the add will desire the same idea of what makes a woman, and also that because they think about a woman in a sexual way will desire these woman to be attracted to them, which is aided by the use of their product. “The audience is also positioned within the discourse of sexuality and is assumed to be not just male, but also heterosexual” (media and society p 185). Though this quote is related to another add, it is effectively the same ideology present in the axe advertisement, in that it calls out to a specific audience and forces all those who do not fit into that group to think in terms of that group during the add.

If I was to say whether or not this add is effective in attracting myself to the add itself, I would say no. It present too narrow a view on sexuality and what is desirable.  The hailing of the audience as teenage heterosexual males.It assumes that all heterosexual males will view these woman as attractive and will try to garner their attention by using Axe. This presentation causes young teenage males to internalise the idea that they should think and act in this way, which causes males to buy their product. It attempts to present their product as a sure fire way to get what every man should want, and in doing so becomes ineffective as an advertisement due to their attempts at showing what is desirable. Though I know many people would disagree and say the add was effective, however it did not properly reflect my values, beliefs, or norms in order to gain my interest in their product.

This raises the question about what is the societies view on being a male and what it means to be a male. Media and society points out the idea of subjectivity as “draws attention to our autonomy and to the fact that our actions are predetermined or subject to influences beyond our conscious control” (Fiske 1987, pp 48-61, media and society p190). So in presenting this singular way of looking at sexuality and at people, it can be argued that people are being taught that this is how we should act.

Wanted: The media that we need

This post is an appropriate extension to the question of wanting the media we get. If you change the idea of getting to needing, then even more questions can be raised; firstly, what is meant by need and the media we need. For sake of argument “need” can be said to be “inform you about social, political, cultural, and economic matters. This is due to my belief that as humans we should and need to be informed about the world around us and in which we live. Does the media we want give this to us? Media is not in the business of presenting information that promotes informed opinions and critical thought.  My previous argument was based around the media we want not being our own desires, but rather the desires of the media which have been socialized into us. So is this socialization and constant repetition of certain values the media we need? No, it simply does not function in a manner as to fulfill our needs.

The media are in and of themselves a social and cultural force in western society, the problem with this is their bias towards one way of being (that of consumerism) over other ways of being. This bias is one of them main reasons that the media fails our needs, they socialize us to see the world this one way. If the media was to truly being one that we needed than it would present multiple ideas, and have the ability to step back from itself and its own beliefs. Kelsey Spanik may have unintentionally reinforced or reflected this belief by saying “Now don’t get me wrong I can admit 100% to dying for the newest IPhone to come out so I can purchase it” (http://kelseyspanik.wordpress.com/). I am not saying that Kelsey is lesser for speaking in a culturally normal way; my point is that if media was really something that fulfilled our needs, it would not present consumerism as the only way.

This single representation of media can spread further than just consumers, It can also be perpetuated through political means. Veronica Field makes an interesting point when she talks about Syria: “Somewhere between what is happening in Syria, the reporters out on the field getting a live-action idea of what’s happening there, and the viewer watching at home, there is someone whose job it is to determine whether or not the representations of these occurrences are newsworthy and whether or not to pursue them any further” (http://veronicatmeow.blogspot.ca/). Media has a choice to represent information to us in a way that they so desire. If I was to make an example of this it would be through the conflicts in Israel, Western media often talks about Palestinian bombings of Israeli occupied territories, but rarely ever mentions the fact that Israel has been illegally occupying parts of other countries and building illegal settlements on that land for years. Due to political ties with Israel most American media sources will always reflect positively towards Israel. This is media not giving the information that we as citizens need to make decisions, the Medias intent is not to inform people of the information they need to make political or social decisions, but instead is aimed towards not informing people of the world in which they live.

This information is harder to attain because being bread in a world of consumers, we are taught that what is presented to us is all we should want and all we need to know. Alexandra Town said “A lot of the media is closely monitored and censored so as to not offend or disturb the viewers to extreme levels” (http://allietowne1613.wordpress.com/). Now this quote was about television but I think it speaks nicely of this idea about how media is presented in such a way as to avoid making a ripple. The less ripple, the less people will think about it, which is why the media we get/want is not the media we need.

The media we want?

It may be easy to say that as consumers we have the final say in all decisions in what we consume. How would it be possible that the media, a series of industries, can have any effect on what consumers do? Surely they are only there in response to consumer’s wants and desires. In essence Consumers get the media they want, but no it might not always seem this way. Media has a far greater influence in consumer decisions than can been seen at first glance. Consumers actually want the media they get.

A little clarification might be in order here; there is a subtle change in language but a profound change in meaning when you change the “get” to a “want”. If the consumer wants what they get, than that means that the consumer desires what is given to them. But how can it be that industries meant to serve the consumer don’t just give the consumer what they want? It is to do with the fact that they are consumers, they are raised to desire things; those things are given to them by the media. Though the media doesn’t just give, it also forms the ideas and the desires of the consumer. How can they give you something if you don’t want it? This idea is formed because media products do not show or present the real world; they construct and represent reality (Media and Society pp 36). Since media represents reality, they have incredible influence over what and how we see and think about what is presented to us. In Media and society it is said that “They take on an interpretive role, teaching people how to make sense of the world and other people, and of ourselves (pp35).” Since media is designed to create understanding in society, they have incredible influence over what society will want, since they themselves represent and present what society should want.

Media then in turn portrays and conveys the dominant ideology, and since the dominant ideology is on of consumerism and desiring, that is how people think.  If you relate this idea to television, a show may be successful because millions of people watch it and they want more shows like it. But the show itself is a product of media, and is reinforced by the dominant ideology as well as reinforces it. So then why do millions of people watch it? Is it because the viewers wanted the show, or because the show reinforced these media representations of life? It is because they believe that what is being presented to them is what they want.

In the end consumers want what they get, because they desire what media gives them and what media can give them. The basis of understanding the world and what is needed and desired is formed by this ideological implementation that is in the media. Since we live in such a mass mediated society, our thoughts and desires are shown to us through media representation. Consumers may get what they want, as the original argument said, but what they want is based around what the media represents as what they need. Since these representations are what they believe than it would be a logical conclusion to say that we as consumers want what we get. 

Work Cited

O'Shaughnessy, M., Satdler, J. (2012). Media and Society. 5th Ed. South Melbourne, Oxford \University Press

1f25 Blog response1: Media Impact on Others

Sifting through blog posts has left me a little weary, but in the end it has almost perfectly mirrored something that seems to be a common issue among my fellow students, the vastness and the inconsistencies of media.

It seemed to be fairly common among people to say that mass media is a significant influence on their world views, just simply due to the sheer size of the media  and its many potential outlets.  Korrina Charette (lookingformargo.wordpress.com) summed this idea up nicely when she said “In today’s world, we are bombarded with media from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep, whether it be on the internet, the television, or any other form of technology.” The idea that in our society we have constant access to various forms of media is an intriguing idea, in that people are able to get answers (whether they be accurate or false) instantaneously.

Marilyn Lopez (mlsthoughts.wordpress.com) makes the point “Mass media has made it so that every answer to any question is at your fingertips, no need to use your long term memory to store information.” These ideas lead me to believe that my view on mass media may have been too specific. Where I focused on only the seeking out of knowledge, they showed an interesting side mine lacked. Which is that mass media changes my understanding of research and information, on which I rely for my world view.

Korrina Charette also mentions that people are immediately connected to facebook, twitter, tumblr, and any other kind of social media.  The thing that I find troubling about social media is the amount of people and the amount of information that is spread through it. We have all this information at our fingertips, at all times, yet through social media we are not exposed to all of the information. We are exposed to the information shared by our peers, though it may be false or lacking in all the information about the subject, or simply biased. Alexandra Towne (allietowne1613.wordpress.com) said “We all need to make informed decisions about what we see and hear within the media because the media is not always trustworthy when it comes to the facts.” This quote is more along the line of my original argument, that it does not matter what you look up, as much as it matters how you look up and how you think about the material presented to you.

 After looking over these blogs I think it would be fair to say that our understanding of knowledge and information is based off of this access to all material and the vastness of the material. Due to this vastness there are going to be many inconsistencies in the data presented to us, but that alone should not deter critical thought and an attempt to understand the material fully. The fact that people get news and information from social media just means that people should be even more critical of the information they see, and they should go and seek the whole story.

My searching through blogs has lead me to a fuller understanding of mass media’s effect on the mind set of people, which is a rather poetic way to finish an assignment about the effects of media on my worldview.

1f25 post 1: Media Impact

Now, I am not much into T.V, and although I do enjoy film as a whole, I do not find there to be all that many films worth seeing as of late (though Django was good, also I am broke). No, for me mass media is mainly the internet, specifically being YouTube. It wouldn’t be far off to say that I have spent a ridiculous amount of time just sitting staring blankly (or occasionally with a smirk or a chuckle, just to look strange to the people around me) at my computer watching whatever has be posted on that day. When it comes down to it YouTube is the second most major influence in who I have become, and how I think and act in my everyday life (the first being a past job if you were wondering).

How is it that a site based around cat videos and people doing stupid stuff can be so influential? It is all to do with my search for understanding myself (oh so much angst), and the world in which I live. YouTube is more than just a site for browsing videos. Creators, people just like you and me; use it to show their talents, their ideas, their world views. It fosters communities of people that number in the millions, who all have things in common, and share their ideas and their vast differences with each other. Where some media intends to lump everyone together into one pile and be done with them, YouTube thrives on creator and audience interaction or audience-audience interaction.

One of the first YouTubers I started to watch and get involved with was a channel called the Vlogbrothers. These two brothers, Hank and John Green, have a passion for things that is so infectious. It was the first time in my life that I was exposed to people who loved things, and encouraged people to love things as well. Not just the same thing as them, you could like anything and as long as you had a passion for something, that was enough. It wasn’t just passion however, they encouraged critical thought and the desire for knowledge and discourse and understanding.

Through the Vlogbrothers I became exposed to a world that was far vaster than just my city. They told me of a man by the name of ZeFrank, who through his mastery of the language could find beauty and significance in even the seemingly mundane. His use of language helped me realize that things I had once believed to be mine alone are truly how everyone feels. ZeFrank uses his community to promote understanding around the world, whether it is by getting two people on opposite sides of the world to hold bread against the ground to make a world sandwich, or by getting his community to sing a song to a girl who was turned down saying words of encouragement. He makes the world seem so small yet so vast all at the same time.

There is far more I can say about YouTube than what I have said, and I hope someday I will be able to put into words just how influential the people on the site have been to me. Until that day I will have to hope that this post does those feelings justice.