Jameson Blogs Media

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"The New Normal:" Homosexuality in TV

After reading Gross, Gamson, and Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan's perspectives about sexual minorities portrayal in media, I started reflecting on my own experience with watching TV and what types of representations I see of LGBTQ individuals in media today. Immediately, I thought about NBC, who recently picked up two new pilots for TV shows that revolve around gay couples. The most hyped show, The New Normal, is about a gay couple and their process of surrogacy to establish their family. However, if you look at the creator of the show, Ryan Murphy, it is the same creator of Fox's hit show Glee, which is one of the most popular primetime programs to portray a homosexual relationship. The fact that Murphy is evolving into a go-to creator of gay television somewhat proves Gross's point that we think we are making tremendous progress as a society while, in fact, the actual progress is not so in reality. Though NBC picked up another pilot of the 13 they chose that portrays gays with children, it seems as though this may be a desperate attempt by a desperate network to appeal to a niche audience. I just wonder: why now? Why has NBC not ventured into broadcasting scripted television with gay leads who have a family? And why only when the network is struggling to survive? While I do applaud the exploration of the gay family in modern times on national network television, I pose the question: will this show succeed? Is America is ready to handle a program revolved around a gay family? I will be closely following the progress that this show makes and whether or not it can gain any traction among mainstream America versus solely the niche LGBTQ population. 

http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/nbc-greenlights-ryan-murphy-allison-adler-new-normal-family-comedy/

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Women "Off the Sidelines"

Reading about Helen Gurley Brown and her empowerment of women as independent beings immediately provoked a mental connection to the work done today by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D). Gillibrand is an outspoken, active leader in the fight for gender equality and women's rights in all senses of the term. Her organization, Off the Sidelines, works to rally women to become more involved with public issues, mainly those that affect women's rights. These issues range from abortion to fair and equal pay. Her goal is to influence women to take ownership over their lives and subsequently over the issues that affect them to render the change as a united front. This ownership can be demonstrated in a plethora of ways, whether through rallies, the formation of women's groups, writing to government representatives, or, better yet, running for office. Gillibrand often uses her Twitter as a venue for expressing her support for women candidates vying for public office, traversing the entire nation in hopes to usher in more women into Congress. One of her newest ventures with Off the Sidelines is a women's book group, which she uses to help unite women and educate them about the issues that threaten their rights. 

From analyzing Senator Gillibrand's speeches, interviews, and written statements, I think her initiative is one that is quite remarkable for her cause. While firm and steadfast in her cause, she frames equal rights somewhat similarly to Brown in that the overall message is positive toward the building of empowerment versus the tearing down of others. Of course she must play hardball and criticize the oppositions attempts to repeal fair pay laws and pass legislation to make abortion illegal; yet, she does so with a pivot to educate fellow women to believe in themselves and their voices to fight oppression. Though, I wonder: with a sweet, encouraging tone, will she and can she be able to effect the change she envisions in the female population of our country, the change that could alter laws and level the gender playing field? She certainly is a political figure to watch as she continues promoting her cause in the United States Senate.

http://www.offthesidelines.org/home

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Racism: A Two-Way Street

Peggy McIntosh's article "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" reminded me very much about my family and the seemingly casual discussions we would hold at the dinner table about race. My mother is a 5'1" Jewish woman, whom some might call "white," while my father is a first generation American-born Korean man, who anyone would be able to point out is Asian. However, my sister and I grew up in our suburb of Philadelphia being racially ambiguous, which was confusing for my peers as a youngster but more of a novelty as I grew older. Sometimes my sister and I would jokingly ask our parents at the dinner table who looked more Asian or who looked more white. My dad would play along and flip-flop between who looked "more Asian" on a particular day, while my mom would tend to enjoy focusing on who looked more like her. (Unfortunately for her, neither my sister or I look ANYTHING like my mother. Or really my father for that matter.) While playful about my sister's and my genetics, whenever my dad would make a comment about society and say something like, "That's such a white person thing" or "Oh, he was just some white guy," my mother would retort back with a "Hey, I'm white...what are you saying about me?" or an occasional "Hello! Your wife is white! That's not nice to talk about white people like that!" My mom does not ever discuss my dad being Asian, nor does she ever mock Asian people, their accents, their habits, their culture. It was always my minority father who was in charge of that area of poking fun. Thus, for me, my perspective about the power of the white man is muddied by growing up in a home where my white mother was more often the minority. She did not have any Asian genes in her--the rest of us did. She did not participate in racial jokes--the rest of us did. She did not dwell on her race and her identity--the rest of us did. My mother, while technically the white person with the "knapsack," mostly felt like the meek minority in my home and provided me with perspective of how stereotypes, prejudices, and racism can affect even those in possession of the "invisible knapsack." Hence, I was raised with an understanding from two different individuals with their own minority perspectives, which has shaped me to embrace and appreciate everyone. And by everyone, I mean even "the whites."

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The Manifestation of Misrepresentation

The representation and interpretation of an image is incredibly powerful. Sturken and Cartwright explore the use of images and representation as a means by which we understand and negotiate our surroundings. However, the uncertainty of these representations and the potential for miscommunication by an image is a problematic concept to grapple with. The above photograph was taken by photographer Thomas Hoepker on September 11, 2001. Hoepker was a photojournalist in Manhattan who drove to Williamsburg in an attempt to document the events that were unfolding on that day. An initial examination of the photo leads people to see a relaxed group of adults nonchalantly enjoying the sunny weather while horrific clouds of smoke billow from the World Trade Center site over the river. However, Hoepker explains that the reality of the situation was much different than what was captured in this one image. After taking many pictures that day, he reviewed his photos with his colleagues and decided against including this photo in their joint album, for he deemed this image misleading. Thus, it took approximately 5 years for this picture to be published, a time when Hoepker saw enough time distance from the actual event. When released, the photo was greeted with much controversy, Frank Rich of the New York Times writing an article criticizing the Americans in the photograph. Hoepker ultimately gave his voice to the controversy, stating that this picture is more ambiguous and confusing than it is telling of the reality of the situation. He explained that this was more about a misrepresentation of reality and a misinterpretation of a text. Thus, Hoepker's photo exemplifies the misrepresentation of a moment in time and the subsequent misunderstanding of a text.  While an unfortunately deceiving photo, I think the whole situation warrants a moment of pause to ponder the many moments of misrepresentation we face on a daily basis. Just walking through the streets of New York can expose you to situations for seconds at a time, and from those few seconds, you form a judgment and an evaluation of the situation. This is a daily occurrence that many times may just be Hoepker's photograph playing out in real life. If we actually take time to think about how often this type of quick judgment without knowing the full context of a situation occurs, I wonder if our concept of representation and understanding could be better understood.

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The Naked Truth About Porn

As Adult Video News founder Paul Fishbein says, "Porn doesn't have a demographic--it goes across all demographics" (Rich 52).  Hence, Frank Rich summons us as a society to step up to the plate and acknowledge that the porn industry is a mammoth of an entity.  Because it truly is.  Later in Rich's article "Naked Capitalism," Fishbein explains how sex is everywhere and inescapable, making an industry that is built on sex easily profitable.  The truth of the matter is, no matter what we say, sex is always something on our minds.  Even when you are walking down the street and you pass someone who you deem attractive, while your first thought may not be "I want to have sex with you!", your instant judgment of that person being attractive has roots in your innate sexual urges.  Porn allows for that instantaneous judgment of a stranger to blossom into a more voluminous form, acting out the fantasy you internalize.  One of the most talked about porn films in 2008 was "Nailin' Palin," a film that used a Sarah Palin look-alike doing the naughty, draped in an American flag.

And why exactly was this film such a hit?  Because it brought to life an unspoken fantasy that many men had about Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election.  The film fits into an already existent pornographic genre of mature women which similarly addresses that guilty urge to get with the mom next door.  While other industries will have to fight for their lives, the porn industry is one that will see years upon years of success and prospering.  Why?  Because no matter how bad the times, humans' fantasies and urge for sex will never spoil.

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Paul Starr: Death of the Newspaper or Reinvention of News?

The dire circumstances predicted by Paul Starr in his piece in The New Republic regarding the decline of newspapers seems to be somewhat valid while also rather sensationalized. I think the fact that newspapers have been a dominant medium through which events, culture, and beliefs have been disseminated for over a century plays an integral role in causing alarm and discomfort to people as the shift to new media becomes more palpable. Starr acknowledges this, but also states that this shift away from the newspaper is the beginning of the decline of democracy and an informed society, a point that I believe is sensationalism in an effort to attract attention to the dwindling newspaper industry.  In fact, I believe that new media is allowing for a greater variety of information to flow to the public in ways that are more flexible and less traditional; yet, while less "traditional," like Starr states himself, the paradigm of news and media flow is itself changing.  Search engines like Google allow the aggregation of multiple news sources through one medium.  Twitter, likewise, allows the streamlining of news sources and journalists into a tidy feed.  Starr's point that the loss of newspapers leads to the loss of local and smaller news organizations, thus less democracy and points of view, is certainly an area of concern.  It raises the question of quality and reliability of the news, which is something to worry about, but not something to think of as the imminent decline of democracy.  I think that there will have to be a new breed of journalism that grounds itself in the quality reporting to accessible sources, such as Google news and Twitter.  In terms of profit and business, it must look toward the creative investment in applications, products, and services that could enhance the news digestion process.  While this is certainly an uphill battle for news organizations rooted in print sources, I believe that democracy and quality news reportingcan be preserved and perpetuated. We all just need to be willing to make that change.

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Stuart Hall: Decoding Encoding and Decoding

  Stuart Hall's "Encoding and Decoding" is a rather dense piece to negotiate. Yet, this process of encoding and decoding which he explains is so crucial to communication, fundamentally defining this process. To tidy up my “grappling” process with Hall, I tested his encoding/decoding principles against one of my favorite guilty pleasures, ABC’s Desperate Housewives.  Hall proposes that encoding, the process by which a person allows information into their mind, is the boundary-maker for the process of decoding, providing the necessary parameters for a person to understand and interpret material. In relation to my favorite housewives, the code presented to the audience is that of a housewife, connoting decorum, comfort, and obedience.  As I sit down to watch the show, I encode the symbol of a housewife into my mind.  This would be the boundaries by which I would understand the program. However, the program defies these expected boundaries through the irreverent actions and controversial choices of the housewives, in turn, grasping attention and piquing interests by contradicting the previously encoded symbol of a housewife. Thus, the audience ultimately encodes the disarray and concealed struggles behind the facade of a tamed housewife, making the show an example of intriguing media.  In this less than eloquent example, I am able to tread closer to the heart of Hall’s work. 

Another aspect of Hall's piece that resonated with me is the dichotomy between language and codes and their respective importance. Hall notes language as being important in media for translating the 3-dimensional into the 2-dimensional visual and aural presentation when we watch film and television. However, he makes a linguistic analysis of the actual representation of words to the object of their origin and meaning, finding that there is very little resemblance between the two. He points to codes as at least pertaining some form of a resemblance to the object of origin unlike language. An example of code would be the drawing of a stick person on a "pedestrian crossing" traffic sign. While the silhouette drawing lacks much detail and accuracy, there is a slight resemblance that allows us to encode this figure as a human walking and decode it as a warning to be aware of crossing pedestrians. 

My question is this: while codes may resemble an object more than the word for an object may, is not language a more creative, expressive, and effective way of communicating? I do not think that Hall is making an argument that language is not more effective than codes, but is it truly necessary for a word to have a direct resemblance to its word of origin? And if Hall were to say that it is, then how would one go about formulating words that resemble their designated object? 

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Gerbner, Murray, and Violence: Is Sound a Contributing Factor?

After reading Gerbner and Murray's chapters about violence in media, I made an interesting connection to a study that I encountered regarding heavy metal music and its resulting effect on tweens and teens.  Developmental psychologist Dr. Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University found that the sounds of the music a child listens to rather than the lyrics can have major effects on the mindset of children. Gentile's study involved young teenage kids listening to heavy metal music with violent lyrics, heavy metal music with Christian-based lyrics, and music he deemed "easy listening music."  After the subjects listened to the music with the heavy metal elements, researchers studied the perspective of the children toward women. According to the study, the kids had the same negative attitude toward women from listening to the heavy metal music with violent lyrics and Christian lyrics.  Gentile claims that children associate the screaming, cluttered sound of heavy metal music with negative and angry thoughts. Thus, Gentile points to this study as evidence of the effect of music rather than lyrics on the children and their attitudes toward violence, women, and other aspects of society.

The indicative effect of sounds to certain thought processes is really something I find interesting.  The induced violence from media explained by Murray can be rendered from something as simple as the sound engineering of a program or song rather than the written content of the medium.  I think we often refer to the actions, plot, and appearance of media when we discuss elements that contribute to violence, yet sound is not typically addressed.  Hence, I think this is an area of research worthy of our attention.

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Baron and Davis: On Lazarsfeld and The Limited Effects Theory

After reading Baron and Davis' chapter about Lazarsfeld's study and conclusions regarding the limited effects theory, I could not help but immediately think of my short-lived semester as a politics major. Lazarsfeld was one of the most memorable readings for me as we discussed the influence of media in swaying voters to commit to a candidate. One of the central findings of Lazarsfeld's study was that those who are involved, curious, and knowledgable about politics are the ones who tend to have a candidate chosen from the onset of an election. These people, labeled "early deciders," are also the ones who follow the media the most. Rather than seeking the media for information that will help them arrive at a decision, "early deciders" use the media as a tool to help bolster their reasoning for supporting one candidate and opposing another. Those who are less informed and apathetic, typically the "waverers" or "converts," would arrive at their decision based mostly on the seeking of advice and information from those whom they thought were more knowledgable, the "early deciders," instead of consulting the media. Thus, the limited effects theory is important in presenting one of media's core purposes: the communication and reaffirmation of established public beliefs. One of the most obvious examples of the limited effects theory today can be seen in political cable news channels, especially in Fox and MSNBC. If you were to survey cable news viewers of which channel they watch, their political affiliation, and for whom they voted in the last three presidential elections, the information clearly aligns: conservatives choose Fox, and liberals choose MSNBC. Viewers choose to watch media that align with their political beliefs, not media that challenges those beliefs. While both channels bring in panelists of "opposing" viewpoints, they are not invited to persuade the viewers or balance the conversation as much as they are to help make the station appear balanced and to entice the audience. The truth of both Fox and MSNBC is that they work to reaffirm and perpetuate the views already held by their viewers. Thus, media certainly does have an effect, but it is in the promotion and continuation of where our society already stands more than the tremendous altering and influence of our beliefs. 

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Magder: The Business of TV in "The End of TV 101"

Magder's piece "The End of TV 101" provides fantastic perspective into the business that is television. Beyond being a source of entertainment and media that the public enjoys, television and its resulting industry is a mangled, straight-up business. What is quite interesting about this business, though, is that its buyer and seller of the goods is not quite as intuitive as one might venture to believe. In fact, there are three dimensions to this business: the network, the viewers, and, most importantly, the advertisers. The programs we see on television do not exist to cater to our interests as much as they are to intrigue advertisers to sponsor programs and help to cover the costs of producing these media. From looking at this process, I can't help but wonder: what potentially outstanding television programming is being lost in these business transactions? Because the executives are so concerned in the sponsorships that allow these programs to exist, there must be some disconnect from scouting and acquiring the most well-produced, well-written, unique materials to put on the air. The problem is, this dominant business structure exists with purpose and is a microcosm of the greater business structure of our country. Thus, I cannot foresee any movement to alter this triadic business transaction any time in the near future. What a shame.

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Peters - Media as Conversation: Implications of "Cyber Confidence" Today

John Durham Peters discusses how "modern media forms" (referring to the television and newspaper) do not permit the flow of conversation and discussion with the media and an audience. However, this points to the creation of new media, namely the Internet, which converges forms such as television and newspapers with the connectivity and convenience of a computer, laptop, tablet, or phone, addressing Peters' criticism of media's lack of conversational opportunities. The Internet has transformed once "one-way communication" media forms into a more democratic, interactive form, creating a multitude of new opportunities for the audience, who can now react and respond to the media's content. TV shows can be found in sites like Hulu, on which people can share clips and comment on videos and episodes, while the majority of newspapers have online counterparts where readers can make comments and start discussion boards, hence interacting and conversing with the media like Durham suggests. Something I began thinking about that makes the conversation between media and audiences in this modern form more interesting is examining the power of anonymity in these conversations. The inhibitions of an individual sitting at home in his or her pajamas on a living room sofa are much lower than those of someone having a face-to-face interaction. People use usernames that may reflect interests or beliefs but, nonetheless, generally mask their identity, providing a confidence to make remarks that can be more brazen and forceful than those that he or she may have made without the cyber barrier. I wonder what the power of anonymity and the Internet hold for the future of society and the debate of how this cyber confidence may help or harm media's cause. Just something to ponder!