Blog 2: Newspapers

Here, we have shown the statistics and graphs of how minorities our represented in the Florida Times Union's Cover and Metro sections for a span of a week.

This graph represents the percent of what race and gender that was generally shown the most in the Times-Union in a 7 day period in the cateogory of political/government.

This graph shows the race and gender shown in the 7 day period in regards to the category of crime.

This graph shows the race and gender shown in the 7 day period in regards to the category of sports.

From the numerical data represented by these bar graphs, it is easy to see that White Males are predominately focused on in the paper, except for when focused on crime. And Asian men and women are barely represented at all in any category. The data here does not surprise me at all. These statistics are stereotypical for all races that is already well known. But are they stereotypical because that's how they really are, are because we the public have made them this way?

Blog 3: Aladdin

Aladdin

Aladdin is still one of my favorite Disney films of all time. As a little girl I must have watched it over a dozen times, possibly driving my poor mother who had to watch it with me nearly to insanity. Isn't it funny how when you're older, you can catch little things here and there that you never noticed before?


One thing that I found very interesting was the application of a stereotypical  middle eastern accent to some characters, but not to others. Every single mean, burly, nasty, or just flat out bad guy had an accent. Every good character, however interestingly enough all had American accents. Hint, hint, much?


The appearance of the characters are very stereotypical as well. The women are very sexualized in typical revealing harem outfits. They also all mostly have long flowing black hair,                                                   

tiny waists and flat stomachs. They are the exotic fantasy that can be expected.


The men are more bestial in appearance with their burley muscles and aggressive behavior. They wear turbans and other "typical" middle eastern garments as well.

So with all of these messages sent out to the younger viewers, what can we expect them to absorb from this?

Blog 5: Saw

Saw. This is one movie that I have a lot of trouble keeping my eyes open through the whole thing. It's very graphic, and very suspenseful. In a quick overview, two men wake up chained in a bathroom, a dead man laying in a pool of his own blood. Eventually, they find a tape recorder with instructions. Either Doctor Gordon kills the other man within the time limit or his family will be killed, and he and his fellow contained prisoner are left to rot.

What is interesting about this horror film, unlike others, that there is little to none of sexuality or nudity. What this movie strives on is the suspense and lack of visual for some intense situations. A rule of thumb for horror films is to let the audience imagine what's going on instead of showing them. Their minds will do so much worse than what can shown on screen. Take Jaws, for example. Originally, they built a massively huge and expensive shark, but it kept breaking down so they ended up with very little scenes with the shark actually in the movie. But that is what scared the audience so much, the never knew where it was, where it was coming from, or what it looked like.

Blog 4: Danny Phantom v. Cage Fighters

Ah, Danny Phantom. This was one of the last cartoon shows that I was into and loved to watch before I got into more "grown-up" television. The episode that I chose to content analyze was "Fanning the Flames" from season one. In this episode a sudden new pop-star, Ember, comes out of nowhere and is an instant hit with the teens of their town. Danny Phantom soon finds out this strange idol is, of course, I ghost with a devious agenda. 

Most of the episode, besides the side story lines and corny gags, is nothing but fighting between our hero Danny Phantom and the ghosts he encounters. The violence involved is much more than a few punches thrown here or there. There are laser beams shot out from Ember's guitar, Danny throwing back his own ghostly laser beams from his hands. Danny at some point throws Ember right into a huge screen monitor at the stadium her concert was at. And to go along with the physical violence, there's plenty of that corny name-calling and threats to go around too.


Most of the villains in Danny Phantom are male, and always as adults; never anyone Danny's own age (which is around 15.) Any of the male villains can range from short, fat and ugly to tall, dark and handsome. 

The female villains, however, are almost always the same stereotype: Curvaceous, beautiful, and sexy. 





















Eventually, though, Ember meets the same fate as all other ghosts who have crossed Danny's path, and gets sucked into the Fenton Thermos; back into the ghost world.

Cage Fighting

Watching two men cage fight right after Danny Phantom was quite a different experience. Personally, at first it looked like some kind of weird homo-erotic dance, but we all know that's not what's going on. Left and right, back and forth, non-stop the men are throwing punches, jabs, hooks, and kicks.


There are both men and women in the cage fighting world, though predominantly men. Since this type of entertainment is for men, the female cage fighters are amped up on the sexy level at an almost laughable rate. 










Believable, huh?






















I myself prefer the cheesy cartoons than to the more realistically violent entertainment. According to the desensitization theory, if I had been a fan of such shows, though, and watched a whole lot more of it, I probably wouldn't feel so adverse to it. It is easy to see that from watching a lot of this kind of entertainment, how a person can become affected by it. The  whole time I was watching the cage fighting, I could feel my heart and blood pumping pretty hard. To a younger viewer, it can be incredibly influential to them. They see people fighting as being glorified, why not try it out themself?

Blog 1: Building Blocks

With every beginning we all have to learn those wonderful little building blocks. That's what this first blog posting is about; the basic tools of media theories and what the heck it all means.

Theories of Uniform Influences: Members of mass society have essentially similar human nature. This mass society is presented messages by the media, which they percieve uniformly. These messages are the stimuli that influence the individual's emotions strongly. The stimuli lead individual's to respond in uniform manner, creating changes in thought and action that are like those changes in other people.

Theories of Selective Influences:  The media gives messages to the mass public, but it is perceived differently. The basis of selectivity lies in variation of habits of perception. Variations in habits of selection occur because each individual has a unique personal beliefs, attitudes, values, needs and models of experiencing gratification acquired through learning. Because perception is selective, responses to media are selective. So, effects of media are not uniform, powerful, or direct. Limited by psychology. Chief supporters of this are Joseph Klapper.

Disinhibition Theory: We have acquired a set of moral and personal ethics. Some of them prohibit us from engaging. They're called inhibitions. Over time, if we come into a number of mass media messages condoning this behavior, and we may lose our inhibitions. Once they're gone, we're likely to engage in these behaviors.

Desensitization Theory: Overtime, heavy media use can cause people to become less sensitive to issues.

Sensitization Theory: Overtime time, people become more sensitive to issues caused by the media.

Modeling Theory: An individual sees certain behavior portrayed in media content. The individual thinks it's attractive and useful for coping with situation. The individual reproduces behavior in a personally relevant situation. The behavior proves useful, thus rewarding to the individual.

Cultivation Theory: In the 1900's, George Gerbner looked at the impact of violence on audiences. He found violence in television was more common than in real life. From all this, Gerbner derived that:

• TV is essentially different than all other media that came before it.
• TV is the center cultural "arm."
• TV reality is basic assumption in life.
• TV's function is in socialization and enculturation.
• Observable and dependant materials of TV's culture is relatively small.

Socialization Theory: As a social group develops through the interaction and socialization of its members, a series of events are repeated and transmitted from generation to generation. Those events, that can be divided into norms, rules, ranking and sanctions, are the driving motives for the actions of each individual within the social group. Therefore, before the individual takes the initiative towards an action, he or she will be comparing his or her actions to the ones of the fellow members of the group. This equilibrium through the mere imitation of actions is, in very broad terms, the basis of any given social group.

Uses and Gratifications Theory:  Suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media.  Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use.  The theorists say that a media user seeks out a media source that best fulfills the needs of the user.  Uses and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy their need.

looked at why people watch certain media. Based on assumptions.

• the audience is active
• media used to met needs
• other factors may be involved
• media compete for our attention

Agenda-Setting Theory: The news media helps set the public agenda by showing certain stories by implying that the topic's more important than the others. The audience then encodes it as the most important. Ex: Karan Burning, Hurricane Katrina. 

Reinforcement Theory: All people posses mental collections (schema)  of possible  behaviors that can be used in various situations. If you come into contact with content similar to schema, then it is reinforced. Eventually, the consumer will become increasingly entrenched. The consumer will be further entrenched if: 

• Violence is awarded
• It occurs with reinforcing context
• the violent character is glamorous and/or a role model
• the content is similar to the viewer
• the content is entertaining to the viewer

Schema Theory: It helps us differentiate between reality and "the pictures in our heads." They reflect and idea from overtime in our head. We are not born with these ideas, they're built up overtime by contact and experiences.