Blog Assignment #4

Hello again everyone!

I hope all of my reader’s out there are still interested in what I have to say! Well ladies and gentlemen, the day has finally come! I hate to say it, but we are nearing the end of the fall semester which means that this is my fourth and final blog entry for MCOM 352. I cannot believe that this will be my last blog post for the wonderful Dr. Nichol’s Media Criticism class. I have learned so much throughout the semester with Dr. Nichol’s and I am so happy that I was able to take her class. This semester seriously FLEW by!

I’ve always found it extremely interesting to see how a topic can be understood so differently among a group of people. Since we all come from different backgrounds, everyone has their own individual thought process when interpreting pieces of information. I mean isn’t that part of media criticism after all?

Everyone writes differently. It is very fascinating to me how different a person’s writing can be from another’s when they are talking about the same topic. It is very interesting to see how two people can have an assignment, but interpret it their own way.

For our final blog entry assignment, we were asked to do just that, look at our fellow classmates’ blogs, and examine how we all interpreted the blog assignments and the different subjects within media criticism differently. This assignment allowed me to explore the different ideas of my classmates and compare their ideas with my own.

To start off, I’d like to discuss Isobel Kuchinsky’s blog post Ideology VS. World. After reading Isobel’s blog post, I was very impressed with the insight she gave.

Isobel,

I was so excited to read your blog because I love seeing how people can have completely different views on a topic.

To start off, I just wanted to comment on the overall appearance of your blog! I think the style really draws your readers in. It is very organized and looks like you put a lot of time into writing it. I love that you embed so many pictures to really help further your ideas and the things that you discuss in your blog.

I like your introduction as well as the in-depth explanation about ideology and the two videos we watched in class. It covers all of the important facts about what ideological criticism is as well as a detailed description of political economy analysis. You also did a great job of introducing your readers to the videos we watched in class.

I think it’s really important to thoroughly explain whatever you’re talking about so your readers can have a better understanding about the topic itself. Even though I am familiar with the videos we watched in class and ideological criticism, many of your readers may not be, and your explanation was definitely great for those who may need some background information.

My favorite part of your blog is when you talked about the film Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power. You explained all of the major ideas discussed in the movie and gave some great insight!

One thing I think you could have done a bit more of is added more outside sources and links to help further explain your ideas to your readers.

Overall, I think you did a great job on this blog post!

Next, I would like to take a look at Lauren Clifton’s blog post Grey’sssss. In this blog post, Lauren used the Genre Criticism approach on the television series Grey’s Anatomy.

Lauren,

I was so excited to read your blog because I love the television show Grey’s Anatomy!

I love the appearance of your blog! Embedding pictures and videos into your blog post really helps make the reader more interested in the topic because it allows us to visually see what you are talking about! I absolutely love the video and picture that you have in your blog, but I think you could have added a few more pictures, videos or links to further allow your readers to visually see your ideas.

I like how you introduced genre criticism as well as discuss the different approaches: aesthetic, ritual and ideological.

I love that you talked about reoccurring themes, such as Meredith narrating in the beginning and end of every episode, but I especially love that you talked about tragedy as a reoccurring theme! I agree with you that the creator of the show keeps tragedy as a reoccurring theme to keep viewers interested and always on their toes.

It seems like we have many of the same views towards Grey’s Anatomy. The television show definitely makes it look like it would be fun to be a doctor or surgeon meaning that this show has a certain power over us in controlling how we think about something. 

Overall all, I loved reading your blog and I think you did a fantastic job! 

Finally, I decided to look at Beth Hardisty’s blog. Like Isobel’s blog, I chose to read Beth’s blog on Ideology and Disney, Material World.

Beth,

Your blog was by far my favorite to read! Your personality was greatly displayed in your writing, making it so much more interesting and interactive for the readers to follow along and keep reading.

You did a great job talking about ideology and really breaking it down to make it easy for the reader to understand. We talked about similar things for this assignment, but I must admit, you went into SO much more detail about the film Consuming Kids than I did. In my blog post, I only really discussed and went into detail about Mickey Mouse Monopoly, so I was very interested in what you had to say about Consuming Kids.

I loved your use of videos, pictures and links! I think they greatly supported your ideas and really helped the reader to visualize what you are talking about. I also really loved your connection to the SpongeBob Macaroni & Cheese and how marketers did a great job in convincing kids that it tastes better, when in reality it tastes the same.

I think you did a great job talking about the two videos and ideology because you went into so much detail. You are a great writer and I really enjoyed reading your blog!

I thought that this final assignment was really fun and I loved reading my fellow students’ blog posts. I enjoyed it not only because it offered me more in-depth information about media criticism, but it also opened my eyes to the different opinions that can be drawn when given the same information. I really enjoyed this class and I plan on taking media criticism ideologies with me throughout my life as I continue to live in our media saturated society.

Thanks for reading all of my blog posts! You’ve been a great audience!

Blog Assignment #3

Welcome back everyone! In this blog post I am going to discuss ideological criticism.

Ideology is a reoccurring theme in the communication field. Assuming that you are not familiar with such a field, ideology is commonly referred to as a means of exerting power, used mainly by elites, to create and maintain power relations. Basically, this just means it is a set of ideas that give some particular account of the world.

With this term in mind, ideological criticism examines how these ideas are embedded in and circulated through texts. Ideological criticism also looks at how they reflect/serve the interests of the dominant elites. This approach to criticizing the media differs from other forms in that it focuses primarily on dominant media elites.

A related concept is called political economic theory which explores how media institutions and media texts practice to establish and sustain existing power relations. This theory is also used to orchestrate how media advances the interests of dominant elites.

To make it a bit more interesting, let’s explore how these practices are used in specific media texts. The two texts that will be broken down are, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood, and Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power.

First, let’s talk about the film, Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. This film explores how the media exercises their dominance over certain groups of people. The film mainly focuses on younger age groups and how they are increasingly targeted by marketers. The film sheds light on how the target markets are becoming more and more concentrated on younger generations to create a lifelong loyal customer.

The first shocking portion that really grabs one’s attention looks at how infants are being targeted by media experts almost from the womb. The strategies these marketers use include making the ads that are presented visually appealing for infants who cannot understand the actual meaning. The images are planted in children’s heads at such an early age.

This proves how ideology is embedded in media texts and is a reason that ideological criticism is essential in the understanding of such a concept.

There is also a growing market for younger generations of girls that seems to be ever expanding. The film provided information that points to how the target market for young teen girls is stretching to include a much wider variety of girls that seem to be acting older than any previous generation due to the ideas that are put into their heads by media marketers at such an early age.

The picture on the right is an example of an expensive, high-end and well known brand that is marketing to young kids.

This may come across as shocking to many, but it is seen as brilliant in the marketing industry to market to young kids because they are creating “brand loyal” customers, hopefully for a lifetime. This shows how media elites create and maintain the popular ideologies through their power. Ideological criticism is essential in understanding this, and the political economy theory is directly necessary.

The second film that shows these concepts at work is called, Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power. This film really intrigued me and discusses Disney’s role within our society and how it continues to be a powerful force on children’s culture.

Because Disney is in fact one of the largest media conglomerates, it is important to realize and understand that The Walt Disney Company owns the majority of the media that we consume and in turn, is what shapes children’s thoughts and beliefs about the world. Disney often gives children their first exposure to stereotypes of race, gender and class without the children ever realizing it.

When thinking about this, it is important to look at gender representation within Disney films. Throughout the company’s history, the portrayal of women has changed very little. All of the film’s leading female characters have been portrayed in almost the exact same way. Ranging all the way back from Snow White in 1937 to the new present day princess Rapunzel in the movie Tangled , the female leads are illustrated similarly. Built with petite frames, natural beauty and a caring sense of nature, each of the female characters are almost identical.

     

Aside from personality and physical appearance, these female characters are often seen as commodities within a patriarchal society. They are treated almost as possessions of their fathers and are “given” to another male. For instance, Ariel from The Little Mermaid is given to Prince Eric, Jasmine from Aladdin is given to Aladdin, Belle from Beauty and the Beast is given to the Beast, etc.

Another aspect of the female versus male gender role that is repeatedly found in Disney films is that the female characters are treated as damsels in distress and the male characters almost always have to save the female from villains and/or danger. In other words, women are portrayed as being subservient to men.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood & Corporate Power not only explores gender ideologies, but also stereotypical race and class representations as well. In the majority of the Disney films, the villainous characters are almost always represented as the racial minority. These films also contain racist stereotypical representations of other cultures.

For example, in the 1955 film Lady and the Tramp, the characters of the Siamese cats are treated with extremely stereotypical Asian features: squinted eyes, thick Asian accent as well as sneaky tendencies.

In The Lion King, the hyenas, which are portrayed as the savage animals in the movie, are characterized with African-American and Hispanic accents.

In the movie, these animals reside in an “inner city ghetto equivalent of the jungle.” Their behavior and environment reinforces stereotypes of these two races. In the movie Aladdin, the opening song “Arabian Nights” contains the line “It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” which represents a stereotype of Arab culture.

Below is a video I found titled, What Disney Princesses Teach Girls. It explores the message of what young girls are taught when watching a Disney princess movie. Towards the end, the video explores the message of what young boys are taught when watching a Disney princess movie.

Both of the films discussed are similar in a variety of ways, but they still maintain a bit of difference. Both films use the concepts of ideological criticism and the political economic theory to explore how media texts influence the world as we know it.Both of these films also effectively draw viewers in and create a certain passion for the discoveries that are made throughout the film.

There is a certain appeal that each has, which creates the ideology that our young are being targeted, as well as the rest of us. There is the common theme that we must protect our young and that the media abuses their power.

So what? If this question popped into your head upon reading all of the information I have given you to think about, you are probably not alone. There is the need the express why these concepts are important to understand and how they are used that is important to our world as a whole.

To answer the ever elusive “so what” question, one must go beneath the surface and realize what both ideological criticism and the political economy theory are, what they bring to the table and how they are used.

We explored what these concepts are, but did not talk about exactly why they are so important to us as a society. Without these concepts we would not know exactly how dominant elites can exert their power, and would remain completely unaware of what ideas the media puts into our heads on an almost unrelenting fashion.

These concepts, the explorations of them and how they are commonly used are also useful in challenging us as humans to realize how to remain individuals, make our own choices and formulate our own ideas.

Why does this matter? It’s extremely important to understand the messages that are being portrayed within Disney films and the potential effect that they can have on young children. The characters in these movies become role models to children, and can subconsciously exert negative ideologies onto these children.

By examining these films from an ideological perspective, we familiarize ourselves with the great power that media conglomerates have over our society and the role they play in the media.

Thanks for reading! I will see you at my next blog post! Hope you have a great day!

Blog Assignment #2

Hello again! For my second blog entry I will apply the Genre Criticism Approach to analyze my favorite show while I was in high school, One Tree Hill. 

I have always been interested in dramatic shows because I love watching drama that is not my own! This must be why I was drawn to the television show One Tree Hill. The show premiered in the fall of 2003 and has experienced great success among teens and young adult audiences. The genre of this show is in the category of Teen Drama (I will get into more detail on this a bit later).

First, let me introduce the show to those who are unfamiliar with it. One Tree Hill premiered September 2003 and takes place in the fictional small town of Tree Hill, North Carolina.

The show focuses on the lives of two half brothers, Lucas Scott (Chad Michael Murray) and Nathan Scott (James Lafferty), who compete for positions on their high school’s basketball team. Their relationship evolves from heartless enemies to caring brothers as the show progresses. The drama that ensues from the brothers’ romances and from the basketball atmosphere are significant elements within the series

In the first four seasons of the show the characters are high school students that deal with the drama and pressures that come from school, basketball and romance.

Here’s a short video of the show so you can get the gist of what I am talking about. This video is from the first episode of the first season. In this video you will see the animosity between Lucas and Nathan as well as their desire for the sport of basketball. 

Now I will show you a second video. In this video, you will notice the how different Lucas and Nathan are towards one another. You will see how their relationship has evolved from the first episode of the first season. This YouTube video shows various clips, but the first clip in the video will show you enough about how Lucas’ and Nathan’s relationship has changed.

Now that you have more of an understanding of the show, I will now go on to analyze the genre of Teen Drama with a focus on the show One Tree Hill. As stated above, I will do this by using the Genre Criticism Approach. 

First, let me start off by breaking this down for you. The word Genre is French for “type” or “category” that is based on shared characteristics. Genre is a complex fusion of formal, stylistic and substantive features.

Formal = The structure of the narrative

Stylistic =  Audio/visual codes

Substantive = Ideological values

As we learned in class, genre is both static and dynamic. It is also based on both “conventions” and “innovations.” There is a tension between them and a need to find balance. 

Conventions = Repetition, develops familiarity

Innovations = Difference, sustain interest 

The “conventions” of teen drama is that they share the same elements of a soap opera genre. The characters must deal with the dramatic ups and downs of their friendships and romances while facing an array of realistic teen issues.  

The “innovations” of teen drama are that the dramatic series has a major focus on the teenage characters and not the adults.

Three approaches are used while using genre criticism to analyze a text. The approaches are: aesthetic, ritual and ideological.

The aesthetic approach identifies formal and stylistic features and innovations, such as the narrative’s structure and audio/visual codes. It avoids the substantive features thus stopping short of providing insight into rhetorical force of texts. 

In a show like One Tree Hill, they focus a lot on the music. The show uses music to represent the intended moods of a scene or to prepare you for what is about to happen. In most television shows and movies, music is used to put the viewer in the right mood for the scene.

In the first video I showed there is a lot of upbeat music to get the viewers excited and pumped up for the basketball game. After the game, the music changes to show the scene change as more sentimental. This is shown with the use of quieter music.

In the beginning of the second video I showed, the song “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol is playing in the background. This sets the scene in a more serious and somewhat sad tone.

 In the first video, there is a good amount of camera work that shoots close-ups during the basketball game between Lucas and Nathan. This can be thought of as the camera being the director.

The ritual approach uses semiotic/structuralism to analyze syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of a genre. It looks at reoccurring themes such as the sequence of events.  We use the ritual approach to understand how texts of a genre interact with cultural forces (production and audience).

Teen dramas use themes that those who watch can usually relate to. These themes include things such as love, friendship, rivalries and betrayal. The most prominent themes in One Tree Hill are basketball and romance.

The pressure that comes from a sport or any other hobby is something that many people could relate to. Also, many teens are involved in romance at a young age. These are both things that teens have difficulty with physically and emotionally while growing up.

One Tree Hill follows a regular structure with each episode like many other teen dramas. An episode usually begins with a recap of events relevant to the upcoming narrative. The theme song is played either immediately after the recap, or after the first few scenes. This is common for most teen dramas.

During the final minutes of many of the episodes, there is a final narrative that acknowledges that the episode is concluding. Usually during the final narrative, a famous quote is being spoken in the background from one of the characters in the show (this is evident in the first video).  

The last approach is the ideological approach. This approach views television texts as instruments of power and control. It examines the genre to understand how it naturalizes dominant ideology. Dominant ideology is used as a hegemonic force. For example: gender relations, race and class.

Most teen dramas take place in rich area codes such as Gossip Girl and Beverly Hills, 90210. Some teen dramas, however, take place in small town settings such as One Tree Hill and Pretty Little Liars. Most teen dramas have a cast of attractive characters who live privileged, upper-middle class lives. It has been found that the shows that depict teen life in a more realistic manner do not tend to do nearly as well.  

Many teen dramas use a hegemonic force in regards to class. Teens watch these shows and see the rich and fancy lifestyles and want be like Blair from Gossip Girl or Naomi from Beverly Hills, 90210. They want to wear the newest trends and drive the coolest cars. Some people might think that these shows are encouraging teens to spend a lot of money so they can keep up with their favorite characters that they watch on television.

Some of you might be wondering why all of this matters. It matters because teen dramas have been acknowledged with their success in educating youth. There are episodes regarding sex, gun violence, eating disorders and teen pregnancy. These are issues that many parents do not discuss with their kids and their kids learn about them in television shows.

With that in mind media literacy is also important so kids can get the educational value from watching these shows, but also recognize and disregard the factors that are exaggerated and glamorized.

I hope my application of the Genre Criticism Approach has helped you to understand the importance of media literacy. It is important to be able to depict the meanings behind a text and be able to dig deeper because television shows are influencing our culture and they are influencing us.

Please stay tuned for my next blog post!

Blog Assignment #1

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my first blog entry! My name is Sarah Alexandra Claus and I am from Baltimore, Maryland. I am a senior at Towson University with a major in Public Relations. I am currently working as an Event Specialist for Chef’s Expressions and I hope to continue this job full-time after I graduate in May! I enjoy planning weddings and special events. Being part of the team that makes a couple’s dream wedding come to life is such a rewarding experience!

I am currently enrolled in a media criticism class, which looks at the pervasiveness of mass media. This class has been very interesting so far and I am learning a ton! Many people, not unlike myself, never fully consider how much media shapes our lives. The media surrounds us every day and plays a huge part in our everyday lives.

Why Media Criticism?

In media criticism, we examine the ubiquity of mass media. I have only been in this class for three weeks so far, but I have learned the importance of being media literate.  Media criticism is defined as a systematic study of media “texts.” This class teaches us the tools to evaluate these “texts.”

Once a person develops media literacy skills, they will then be able to look at various media such as television shows, advertisements and fashion, and be able to decipher the meanings behind the image.

Culture is the symbols of expressions we use to communicate society’s norms, values and beliefs. Therefore, it is essential to the development of our identities. Culture can be affected, however from various forms of media text.

An important form of media text is television. Television has the power to entertain, inform, interpret information, socialize, educate, persuade and inspire. It provides us with a constant and steady flow of information, and its messages are fragmented and disjointed. In addition, television acts as a kind of hegemony, a type of power the elites maintain over the masses that avoids overt force.

Another part we are studying in media criticism is semiotics, a text-centered theory. Semiotics can be defined as the study of how social production of meaning is constructed through a system of signs. Signs are embedded in all texts, they are a way to understand the meaning of a text and they are used to understand how reality is socially constructed.

This may be a little difficult to understand so I will try to break it down. There are three different forms of signs. The three forms are symbolic, iconic and indexical. An example of a symbolic sign would be a red octagon shaped sign. When a person sees this, they would automatically know it means stop. The sign has an arbitrary connection to its meaning. 

An example of an iconic sign would be the sign outside of public restrooms that indicates them as male or female restrooms. The sign resembles what it stands for.

And lastly, an example of an indexial sign would be smoke. The smoke would indicate that there was a fire. This means that there is a casual link between the sign and its meaning.

The Big Bang Theory

From left to right: Howard Wolowitz, Sheldon Cooper, Leonard Hofstadter, Penny, Rajesh Koothrappali

The Big Bang Theory is probably one of my favorite television shows. For those of you who do not know about the show,  it is a comedy series about four young scientists (Howard, Sheldon, Leonard, Rajesh) who know all about the world of physics, and one girl (Penny) , who gives the physics world a real spin.

From a semiotics standpoint, there are multiple facets about The Big Bang Theory that I could use to illustrate how television has the ability to socialize us. In the show, the four male lead characters are portrayed as ultra-intelligent “geeks” lacking normal social skills. They are contrasted against Penny, the female lead who, while portrayed as the “ditzy blonde” is shown to have superior social skills and common sense.

The male characters are the embodiment of people that are “book smart” and Penny is the embodiment of people that are “street smart.” These characters represent the idea that there is a fine line between people that are “geeks” and people that have high social skills.

To get an idea of what I am talking about, here is a link to YouTube, which features a conversation between the characters Sheldon, Leonard and Penny. This is the beginning of episode one in season one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh-5ynIgFd0. In this scene not only do you get a sense that Leonard and Sheldon have limited social skills, but you also get a sense that Penny is definitely not on the same academic scale as Leonard and Sheldon.

Moreover, if you watched the clip, you noticed the comments Sheldon and Leonard made about the stairs. This is the first tip that they are ‘”geeks.” You would also notice the awkward first encounter they had with Penny. 

Additionally, you would have noticed the clothing choices the characters wore. Leonard and Sheldon don’t exactly keep up with the latest fashion trends. Leonard typically wears a t-shirt with a sweat shirt and jacket over top. Sheldon usually wears clothes that are a little more “out there.” If you saw his plaid pants you’ll understand what I mean. You’ll then notice that Penny’s ensemble was very trendy and up to style, giving off a much different vibe than Leonard and Sheldon.

If you don’t already, I would highly suggest watching The Big Bang Theory. It it very entertaining and you will laugh your socks off!

Thanks for Reading!

As I stated earlier, media literacy is important, as it is crucial that we better understand how saturated our culture is with media. This was my first blog assignment for the semester and there will be many more to come! Stay tuned!

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