Media makes cool

In class I noticed that a lot of people said that media did not influence what they wear or what they think is cool or uncool, but i completely disagree. I think that TV shows, movies and music absolutely affect what we think is cool! For example there is a trend in the hip hop community where girls shave off one side of their hair and keep the other side long. Why? Because singer/model Cassie started the trend and now girls everywhere are doing it. Also back in the early 2000s when Paris Hilton first hit the media, she was shown frequently carrying around her cute little dog in her arms or in a cute bag. Now you'll see average girls doing that all of the time. Even the things people say are influenced by media or celebrities. I believe that due to the fact that we often look up to or admire celebrities we do similar things to be like them. I see it everyday, someone will try to replicate what they saw on TV or movies. Because a cool celebrity wears something it automatically becomes cool.

more news

I watched the buffalo new at 11 on channel 4. I saw most of the same patterns that the class came across.

weather: 1 minute

PSU scandal: 4.5 minutes

commercials: 2 minutes 30 seconds

protest against the mayor: 1 minute

flight crash: 1.5 minutes

crime for cyber bullying: 1 minute

dog adoption: 1 minute

animal rescue: 19 seconds

donations for thanks giving: 17 seconds

commercials: 2 minutes 30 seconds

recession in buffalo: 1 minute

WWII veterans: 2 minutes

new flagpole in buffalo: 20 seconds

weather: 2 minutes 39 seconds

dog showing off: 25 seconds

commercials: 2 minutes

A big portion of the news is commercials and another big portion is the weather but thats why we have a weather channel. The news is more for entertainment I believe that the PSU scandal, dog adoption, animal rescue and a dog showing off is all for pure entertainment. The PSU scandal especially. That conflict is not about informing people of whats going on in the world its about a man that sexually harassed boys and now its getting so much news coverage because they know people who dont normally watch the news might turn in to hear about the creep.

Customers Would Rather Have a Pretty Young Girl Cash Them Out

One of my new favorite things has become searching the Buffalo News' website. There are so many interesting stories that pertain to this class. Type in gender or racial relations, and there's hundreds of articles to read. This one caught my attention because I've always been interested in discrimination in the work place. The article is about a manager at Panera Bread supposedly getting fired because he had a African American male employee cashing people out on his shift. Apparently, he should have been working in a less visible position, because "that is what the customers want" It could be a scam, the manager could just be using this as a way to get money since he was denied an extended period of medical leave after having hip replacement surgery. Just read the 1st 5 small paragraphs and you'll get the main idea. Here's the article.

The Big Three

Most of the music in America is owned by just a few major record labels. There used to be six major labels, Warner Music Group, Polygram, EMI, Sony Music, BMG Music, and Universal Music Group, but over the years the labels started to merge more and more until there were only four.

The "Big Four" labels, were Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. However, as of today, there are now only three. EMI sold their recorded music division to Universal for $1.9 billion, and their publishing group was sold to Sony for $2.2 billion.

This means that there is now only three companies to own basically all music. Each of these huge companies own a bunch of major labels including Columbia, RCA, Interscope and many, many more. Even independent labels are indirectly owned by one of these major companies. For example, Warner created something called the Alternative Distribution Alliance. This allows Warner to own and distribute most of the independent labels out there too.

I am not entirely sure how much control these huge corporations have on the music directly. I would like to hope that some music is still safe from their control and regulations, but it is a bit unsettling. It already seemed insane that only four companies could own so much. Now, that there is only three, it's ever crazier. The companies just keep expanding and merging until they are bigger, richer, and more powerful. I'm really starting to see how almost everything in America just comes down to a handful of giant companies.

fashion cycle

An interesting graphic I came across on google from flavorwire.com. Wasn't any article or sources to go with it but I think it rings pretty true. The mainstream jumps on trends early and beats them to death, then they become popular again. Plaid shirts were popular in the early 90's with the grunge scene, and recently made a comeback. It happens all the time; there are very few original ideas in fashion.

whats cool

I always believed that there is nothing cool about our generation. I always wished I was a teenager in the 1960s I wanted to be in the civil rights movement, protest Vietnam, be a hippy. But I can't go back, I'm disappointed kind of like the merchants of cool article. The cars today aren't even cool, give me a 2012 corolla or a 1956 mustang and ill take the mustang. Our music sucks too, Katy perry is horrible. But given these views I still have to admit I am a product of cool and anyone who says they aren't are lying. I shop at certain stores, i listen to certain music. Just because I hate kiss 98.5 and prefer Brand New or the Black Keys doesn't mean i'm an individual because all i have to do is put on 102.1 and i can hear all my music on repeat just like katy perry. Just because i think hollister is for 12 year olds doesn't mean I'm different because I shop at Urban Outfitters and Anthropology. People make the mistake of thinking that because they don't like "mainstream" means they aren't "mainstream", everything today is made for us, if you want to be rebellious and stand out just shop at hot topic and get the same skull tattoo that everyone has, and some thick rimmed glasses. Everything today is cookie cutter, no matter what your preferences are they were made for you. In the past people were figuring out all this, today we don't even think about it.

i looked it up on urban dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mass-produced

there are over 100 examples of this.
It really isn't even our fault though, what can we do when everything has been done before? How can we be an individual when everything is mass produced for us to follow.

Extra Credit Assignment

Watch one of the following films. Many of these films can be found in their entirety online, and all are available via Blockbuster, Netflix or the UB Library. After watching, write a 2-3 page response of the film. Your response should not be a summary of the film, but rather a critical analysis based on our class materials.

This assignment is worth 3 points towards your final grade.

Films:

Smoke Signals
Powwow Highway
Do the Right Thing
Ma Vie en Rose
Bamboolzed
Iron Jawed Angels
Boys Don’t Cry
When The Levees Broke
The Corporation
Mickey Mouse Monopoly
Rabbit in the Moon
Waging a Living
Walmart: The High cost of Low Prices
Iraq for Sale
Life and Debt

Documentaries shown in class

Hi everyone,

If you want to watch some of the documentaries shown in class in their entirety, here are the links:

Merchants of Cool: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/

News War: This is a three part, 4 hour, documentary. The segments we showed you in class were from part 3. Parts 1 and 2 explore the tenuous relationship between the media and the state and might be interesting to watch in relation to some of the readings assigned for class: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/

These websites contain a lot of other interesting information in addition to the videos, so do check them out in your free time.

Kritika

Nazis

After reading the article for class Thursday, I couldn't help but make comparisons to the way Hitler used the news as propaganda for what he was doing in the war. The way the media blindly agreed with what the government was doing, and how they lied to make it seem better in the Gulf War, is eerily similar. Chris Hedges posted in the New York Times saying “The press was as eager to be of service to the state during the war as most everyone else. Such docility on the part of the press made it easier to do what governments do in wartime, indeed what governments do much of the time, and that is lie.” With the government lying, and the news lying to cover up the governments lies, there is really no one you can trust anymore. Less than a third of all news coverage for the second Iraq war was peace centered or anti-war centered, and even less during the first war. Also, the Donahue program was cut from MSNBC 3 weeks before the war began because the show often had anti-war views and anti-Bush views. Not only does this show that news coverage was clearly biased and trying to influence the public into supporting the war, but that the news station knew we were going to invade, 3 weeks before it even happened!

News Bias

I don't ever really watch the news anymore, partly because I don't have cable, but I think I realized a long time ago that intense bias's existed. It's easy to see it, but only if you want to. For example Fox News, which is probably tagged (by other media sources) as the most biased, is quite obviously a conservative network and yet some people live by what they hear from Fox. This is where the real issues arise.

A critical thinker would realize that in order to get the REAL news and the REAL stories you have to look at as many different views of it as you can, and pull out the real facts yourself. Unfortunately this is kind of tiring to do with every story, so many people don't, which also means people are just sitting there soaking up whatever news companies want them too. And then these people are going out and voting for the other biased people who run the country. It's really kind of scary when you think about it...

The News

wow, how about the "news"? i mean talk about "scratching each others backs". the media is flat out rigged. no wonder we see the things we see, and hear the things we hear. six big companies own the biggest news and radio stations in the U.S. talk about big business and nearly a monopolistic setting. i have never been a big fan of the news and now I'm even less a fan than before. i know some of the stories can be sad and seem to deserve acknowledgement but there not all that way. we live in a country that seems to thrive on violence and has people screaming "of with the head"!
there is just no distinction between what is news and what is entertainment.

30 min of news

Over the weekend I watched 30 min of CNN during the afternoon on Saturday. Each news segment consisted of about 3 min of news time the first one was Remembering journalist Andy Rooney which aired for maybe 5 minutes, however the rest which included segments of the case about Michael Jackson's doctor, a family court judge accused of beating his daughter caught on video, Justin Bieber accused of supposedly impregnating a girl, all of which received about the same amount of news time. The commercials in between these news segments were longer than the actual news time however, which lasted about 5-6 minutes each. During this thirty minutes I did not see any news on sports or politics (which I assumed would get the most news time), but the segments I watched, I was surprised to find aired for the same 3-3 and half minutes of time.

news stopwatch

11 news on friday

stabbing- 13 seconds
shooting-17 seconds
baby abuse- 18 seconds
talking about voting- 1 minute, 51 seconds
ballot tampering- 1 minute, 10 seconds
new federal courthouse, new technology, new jobs- 2 minutes, 23 seconds
business- 1 minute, 23 seconds
black friday shopping- 1 minute, 20 seconds
picture of dog on younews- 30 seconds
making good things happen, mentor program- 46 seconds
weather- 2 minutes, 21 seconds
talking about their personal lives- 26 seconds
sports- 7 minutes, 19 seconds
weather forecast again- 26 seconds
random talking- 10 seconds

i didnt include the commercials, but this adds up to about 18.53 minutes.

News with a Stopwatch

I watched the Channel 4 news on Friday at 11:00 pm. This is what I saw.
At 11:00, the news started, and there was a 35 second introduction.
-For 1 minute, 3 seconds-A story about a boy being almost kidnapped and ran into the woods to hide
-1 min and 3 sec-a child predator was riding around on a bike
-1 min-man had road rage and stabbed another driver
-23 sec-girl stabbed by another girl
-19 seconds-couple accused of neglecting and abusing their daughter
-3 minutes-commercials
-20 sec-man who shot people in IHOP
-17 sec-Investigation of a plan crash
-26 sec-Michael Jackson's doctor in court
-21 sec- Lady Gaga bullying campaign
-25 sec- story about how students now have a lot of debt
-21 sec-Job Fair at Sciene Museum
-16 sec-iPhone 4 problems
-4 minutes, 9 seconds-weather
-22 seconds-telling what wll be coming up next, after commecials
-2 mintes, 12 seconds-commercials
20 sec- Tour the Vine, wine tasting
24 sec-collaboration of Albright Knox and First Niagara
-2 minutes, 10 seconds=commericals
-3 minutes, 10 seconds-sports
-2 minutes, 9 seconds-commercials
13 seconds-lotto
13 seconds-"Wake up Weather"
30 seconds- promote website, goodbyes, "Gotta watch 4"
Ended at 11:32

Cool Kids

I thought the film about the merchants of cool was pretty interesting. I guess I never realized how much advertisers/products strive to be cool. What I found most surprising were the focus groups of "cool kids." I know focus groups exist, but I guess I always assumed that something marketed to a teen would simply get focus groups of teens, not "cool" teens. It made me wonder how advertisers even recognize/find the "cool" kids. Are they really the "cool" kids? Or are they just the kids that sport the latest trends and are easily recognizable to the researchers? Or are these kids the same? bahh I don't know?