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When comparing feminist movement and perspective to environmental activism in our world today, there are a few overlapping characteristics in which the past and current effectiveness of the feminist movement could be influential in providing insight to environmental activism on a large scale. When reading through chapter 3, “Public and Paid For,” Naomi Klein discusses the value of government’s legislatures in different cities of Germany voting to take back control of their city’s variety of power grids from corporations that had paid for the control over these power sources in the past. The voters, however, have rapidly began moving towards legislations that put the cities governing officials back in charge, which is essentially wiping out the energy privatization by the old providing corporations. Shifting this power has made it possible for these citizens to make their energy payments to the city and bolster their economy with their own money, instead of paying an outside corporation to provide power and then watching their money go to the pockets of third party shareholders associated with these corporations. These shareholders may or may not have the best interest of these voters’ communities in their mind when providing them their necessary energy, and they also would not be willing to pursue renewable energy resources if it meant taking a massive cut in profits, so the attempt is to allocate resources to be more beneficial for the people of the city and cut out the corporate greed in order to sustain more effective means of energy for everyone. Klein quoted Anna Leidreiter, a climate campaigner with the World Future Council as saying “This marks a clear reversal to the neoliberal policies of the 1990s, when large numbers of German municipalities sold their public services to large corporations as money was needed to prop up city budgets,” (Klein, 84).

Making major policy reforms within the government is one of the driving factors of any sort of movement. Civil rights and feminism have all called for major societal reform by way of legislation and enforcement of that legislation within our country. The changing policy many other countries are seeing around climate change and environmental protection needs to be something that many of the extremely industrialized nations need to begin to accept as well. “Because one of the greatest misconceptions in the climate debate is that our society is refusing to change, protecting a status quo called ‘business-as-usual’.’ The truth is that there is no business-as-usual. The energy sector is changing dramatically all the time — but the vast majority of those changes are taking us in precisely the wrong direction,” (Klein, 124). The refusal to change is just because policy holders and powerful corporations hold this knowledge as much as they can; they create distractions and search for new and efficient methods that are often not even more beneficial in solving the problem. But they solve the problem of not losing profit to the investors in these corporations. When people wake up and see that these corporations are abusing the capitalist system for their own personal gain and not the betterment of our world and people, I think the government reform will occur rapidly. The issue is we are only hurting ourselves more and more by delaying action and continue to let these corporations and private entities manipulate our energy sources.

#mcst4200 #climate change #politics

Our Role in Climate Change

Naomi Klein takes on the topic of climate change in her book This Changes Everything, which has increasingly become a hot button topic in our country’s current political environment due to the current President’s denial of climate change all together. The issue is that he is not alone in his thinking; there are many people in our country and in our world who are uneducated, or simply unaware of the problems we could potentially be causing by polluting our earth and raising the temperature in slow increments. Those who are aware of the issues and still continue to dispute the claims scientists make about climate change do not see the importance of the topic in relation to themselves and our future. Why? I have come to two different conclusions. The first is that the temperature increase is so small that it is essentially unnoticeable to most people and therefore they are left to conclude that without any drastic changes occurring that climate change must not really be that big of a deal. And the second being that some of these people are fully aware of the dire affects human pollution has created for our natural ecosystem but making a drastic change in our lifestyle would result in noticeable profit loss, and since the effects by the end of our lifetime might not be that consequential, who cares right?

“Living with this kind of cognitive dissonance is simply part of being alive in this jarring moment in history, when a crisis we have been studiously ignoring is hitting us in the face — and yet we are doubling down on the stuff that is causing the crisis in the first place,” (2)

This quote from Klein directly represents the majority picture of our world today and our thoughts about climate change. Instead of our generation facing the issues that past generations and even our own generation has created for itself, negligence is practiced more often than not by a majority of people, and we are ‘doubling down’ as Klein says, because we lack the understanding and desire to make a massive change to our society. This is mainly because people in our country and many different countries around the world have been conditioned to play their parts in society with an inverted focus. We constantly look at what is best and most convenient for ourselves first, and everyone is guilty of this because that’s what our world leaders have deemed the pinnacle of our human experience to be. Work hard and provide for yourself and those that you love at all costs, not telling you that all the work you put in and all the time you sacrificed could be totally pointless because we did such a terrible job taking care of our earth that future generations may not be around to experience the fruits of your labor at all.

Humans are conditioned to seek power over one another. Yet instead of survival of the fittest like it once was in the animal kingdom where the biggest and strongest animals were the most powerful, the power structure we have created gives those with the most capital all of the power. And as long as they hold that power they will not be easily swayed to relinquish that to someone else. I personally believe the desire for man to dominate nature stems from the desire for man to dominate other men. Manipulating and controlling nature has just become the avenue in which these people maintain their control. In our lifetime, this might never change, but eventually, the want and desire to manipulate man and nature will become irrelevant when we are faced with the consequences of our actions.

#MCST 4200 #Blog 3

Week 4: Black Popular Culture

Black pop culture is something that, similar to gender roles, operates outside the norms of our hegemonic societal values. Black popular culture has operated under unrealistic, undesirable stereotypes within main stream media for years. When black media wants to be portrayed under a different light, they must often seek unconventional ways outside of the mainstream media to make this happen. So when the black community created hip-hop music as a way of expressing the oppression they were feeling as a race within society, it was originally highly disregarded and discredited within the mainstream. But with hip-hops continually growing audience, it was eventually adapted into the mainstream as a white washed version of what it was designed and intended to originally represent. Instead of speaking about the struggle of what it meant to be a black person in an unequal society quickly adopted the rich, wealthy, powerful characteristics of the white societal leaders that the music was designed to criticize.

#mcst 3050 #jennings

Week 4: Is Paris Burning?

In Hooks article discussing the film ‘Paris is Burning’ talks about how ‘identity’ is something that we in society value and ‘allow ourselves to construct’ and change based on our day to day action and behavior. This is something that is taken with quite a few lumps when discussing peoples gender identities. The unacceptance of forming a sexual identity opposite from the societal norm for your gender is something that people view and judge in a very negative light. It is something most people do not understand and associate with because they feel and act what society tells them is normal with no true understanding for something or someone who operates outside of their beliefs.

#mcst 3050 #jennings

Week 3: Paris is Burning

Paris is Burning discusses very different ideas about media consumption of gender based on the choice of sexual preference or orientation of those considered to be outside of our societal ‘norms’. There is very many things that make operating outside of the prevalent societal ‘norms’ surrounding gender and sexual preference very difficult for these people. There are stories of individuals who struggle to find their true identity within themselves due to what societal deems normal sexual preference. One person told a story of how their parents kicked them out of the house for identifying with the opposite gender because their own parents had become so engrained into what society had seen as standard female and male gender, their child identifying with something other than that was enough to make them unaccepting to their choice. Personally I think the insistence for a gender change is for people to align themselves with the cultural expectations of male and female genders due to the extreme criticism and unaccepting attitudes towards those who are gay and lesbian within our society. With that being said, everyone should be happy in their own skin and has the choice to make whatever decisions that want regarding their body and sexual preference, and the existing stereotypes and norms will eventually be broken down and reconstructed again.

#mcst 3050 #jennings

Week 3: Gender Bias in the Media

Gender bias is something that is highly visible within our cultures media consumption now more than ever. Judith Butlers article talks about many of the issues we can see within our cultures media consumption. It makes me think about many of the stereotypes we have come to accept within our media consumption rather subconsciously. The wide ranging popularity of men’s sports in comparison to women’s is something that I think embodies this characteristic perfectly. There is so much more coverage dedicated to men’s sports in opposition to women’s sports. The popularity of that women’s sport normally relies heavily on the over sexualizing of the athletes.

This not just common in sports, the highly sexualized roles women portray in all aspects of our media consumption is something that reinforces this stereotype throughout our everyday lives as well. Making a women’s true value seemed solely based on her looks more than any other trait.

/9؎l/

#mcst 3050 #jennings

Week 2: Analysis of Culture

In our readings by Raymond Williams this week, he defined three general categories that we use to help us analyze culture. The three categories are ‘ideal culture, documentary culture and socially defined culture.’

He discusses ideal culture as what we would envision as the ‘human perfection of culture’ which essentially means that whatever ideals and values we place the most importance on within our everyday lives, that we would never fail to uphold them in order to benefit everyone within the society. However, that is what makes it ‘ideal’ and although we strive for it, it is not likely it will ever be obtained.

The second category is ‘documentary’ where culture is used as the body of ‘intellectual and imaginative’ work. Throughout human existence, we have realized the importance of cultural documentation within different societies during different time periods all over the world. This documentation helps us to relate similarities and differences in cultural ideologies and values to our current situations and either continues to enact those values or reject them and seek something new.

The final category he discusses is ‘social definition of culture’ which looks at culture as a lens to see a particular way of life that expresses meanings and values not only throughout historical literature and documentation but also ‘through institutions and ordinary behavior.’

#mcst 3050 #jennings

One of the most important things I have taken from the Klosterman book and been able to apply to this term and will continue to apply in many aspects of my life all together, is the idea that what we know and collectively identify as the truths of our world now, are always subject to change. Everyone looks at every situation differently, and based on what we have provided as the ‘factual’ frameworks of our world to give us a basic understanding of our lives and where we fit in society helps us to determine how we feel about particular issues.

In the Klosterman book, he discusses the idea of a “historically great President.” The argument is based around the idea is this, perhaps one day the generally accepted belief of “someone currently viewed as a historically great president would be reversed by future generations,” (Klosterman, 97). He said this would be widely believed because “everyone concedes the potential to be subjectively wrong about anything,” and goes on to anchor that by discussing circumstances in which the things people previously believed to be facts had eventually be questioned, and replaced by something new as believed to be fact and isn’t questioned.

The examples he used is that a prior fact about dinosaurs was that they were cold blooded like reptiles, but after other theories about them being warm blooded arose and began questioning the old factual information, further research has concluded that they were more likely to be warm blooded and now that is more generally accepted by a majority of people to be a fact. But because we know that dinosaurs existed 10 million years ago and since no one was alive when they were around we are more open to the idea of thinking differently and challenging these facts.

The most influential thing that sticks with me the most from the book is the idea that we could all be “asking the wrong questions,” about ourselves and the world we live in (Klosterman, 99). He argues that we think we learn things each and every day but are we right about any of it? The truth is we don’t really know, and somewhere along the line we could potentially learn something completely revolutionary that changes our outlooks and perspectives about everything as we know it to be.

Or maybe we will keep making small strides and continue to learn and accept new truths gradually and with much resistance like we do now. Relating it to the class and to issues we see throughout our world exemplified by global media I have come to find that many of the issues we discuss could be looked back upon by our future society as so primal and absurd due to in change in fundamental beliefs about ourselves.

Many of the main issues we discuss in our world exemplified throughout global media are differences between groups of people and global conflict around a variety of issues we have all taught ourselves to believe. Things like racism, gender discrimination and war are things that are all man made ideas engrained within many societies in a variety of different ways around the world. As Americans we look at the underlying racism and sexism in our country and we are outraged. But at the same time, if you look at the way minorities, women, and people of different religion are treated in our country compared to many others around the world, one would realize how far along we are compared to some different places around the globe. Klosterman says Abraham Lincoln is historically remembered as a great president. Why? Because he abolished slavery and racism, but doesn’t racism and slavery still exist? Still he is believed to be a great president because of the steps he made to push the envelope to treat everyone equally. But what if one day race, gender and conflict aren’t the subject of the questions? Maybe one day racism will be so far behind human kind, people will no longer consider Abraham Lincoln to be a great president for abolishing slavery, or Barack Obama for being the first African-American president. We will look back on this time period and probably laugh at how silly we treated one another and therefore discredit any of the ideas from our time period. Star Trek is a perfect example of Kolterman’s idea. Things like violence and inequality will be looked at as primal compared to the evolution of people in the future.

This class, as well as this book, helped to open my eyes to many of the issues that mankind struggles with as a whole. Looking at issues around the world that are constant throughout the media go to highlight many of the things we struggle with as people no matter what skin color, religion, or gender we may be. The more differences we continue to create with each other, the further we become from achieving a new level of power and understanding about each other that could change our world as we know it forever. Hopefully generations to come will hold onto that as an objective, commonly believed ‘fact’ in their world to help move us past our differences with one another.

Klosterman, Chuck. But What if We’re Wrong? New York: Blue Rider Press. 2016. Print.

#mcst 4010 #global media #race #gender #conflict #Klosterman

Egypt is one of many African countries going through a major shift in their economy and government in the past few years. They are a country with a population of about 94.6 million people and 90% of the people living in Egypt are Muslim. They are the 16th largest country in the world by population and the third most populated country in Africa. And although they are an African country they have very strong ties with the Middle Eastern European countries and much of their political and economic influence comes from the Middle Eastern countries. The Egyptian economy relies heavily on natural resources as a source of income. Since most of the countries land area is a desert climate, 95% of the population lives on fertile strip of land along the Nile River that only makes up about 5% of the nation’s total land area. These natural resources as well as other industries and services in Egypt allow the country to bring in about $69 billion per year. However, Egypt’s spending budget for 2015 exceeded $107 billion. This is a region and country that over the years has been in economic and political turmoil thanks to heavy influence of many of the world’s major powers. Due to this political turmoil and overspending in their economy has led to large unrest within the citizens of the country and a very fragile relationship with the people and their government. The importance of reliable journalism in Egypt right now is extremely important so the people have a source they can trust that is uninfluenced by the government. According to Reporters Without Borders, Egypt ranks 159/180 countries in the world as far as freedoms allowed in journalism. Ever since the revolution in 2011, the new governments in power have had no problems continuing what the old governments started, trying to restrict journalism and imposing sanctions and targeting journalists that post unfavorable things about the government in their papers.

Daily News Egypt was newspaper launched in 2005 and then relaunched again in 2012 under new management after the revolution and government upheaval. They circulate roughly 40,000 papers to Egyptian people and also have an online website. Daily News claims that they are an independent news source that doesn’t receive funding from the Egyptian government and is free from their influence on reporting. This is very important considering the Egyptian government funds and operates practically all forms of media in their country like radio and TV (with exception of some independent satellite channels you need a satellite dish to access). Newspapers are truly the only form of media in the country that has the ability to be privately owned and operated, and even in those cases they are still subject to discrimination and punishment for their journalism to influence their stories to make the government seem favorable in the people’s eyes.

I followed the Daily News in Egypt’s online version for the past month and looked at a variety of different articles that led me to have a better understanding for the issues taking place in Egypt and the surrounding region. The Daily News I believe is truly an independent paper despite the harsh treatment of journalists in the country. They provide a balanced approach to news that seems pretty factual and well balanced with a variety of opinions going into one particular story.

An article I posted to our class Facebook group on October 12th was describing how tensions between Saudi Arabia and Egypt had gotten so bad that they are currently in an ‘unofficial Cold War’. The article described the story with unbiased facts and then went to seek opinions of different parties to see different opinions during the opposition. The paper says the governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia came to a disagreement about bombings in Aleppo, Syria. Egypt voted in favor of the continued bombing of people in Aleppo, while Saudi Arabia opposed in a UN vote leading to the disagreement between the two nations. Due to the disagreement, imports and exports were halted between both countries. Interviews were taken from both sides and had very different views. The Egyptians and Saudis both denied being in a Cold War despite the trade restrictions. A Saudi Arabian official was quoted saying that the actions in the UN vote was ‘painful’ and couldn’t believe how Egypt could vote continue promoting violence and bombing in their region. Many different Egyptians involved within different aspects TV and radio for Egypt providing both a pro-Egyptian outlook as well as an anti-Egyptian opinion from people within the country. If this was a paper run or funded by the Egyptian government it would have provided specifically a pro-Egyptian outlook on the subject.

The Daily News posted many controversial stories questioning the structure of their government. They continue to try and push the envelope of journalistic freedom within a country that is doing everything within its power to align its people’s opinions directly with what the government wants whether or not it is in their people’s best interest. Two of the other articles I posted to the group Facebook included a story about people protesting in different parts of the country due to some of the political decisions being made by the government. The second was a story discussing how Egypt was planning to release 15 journalists detained by the country charged with ‘false reporting’ which can be a real crime in places where there isn’t true freedom of speech and freedom of press. Both of these stories would have never been posted on a politically ran and funded newspaper in this country leading me to the conclusion that Daily News does operate independently within their government to give more reliable, balanced news to the country’s people.

Previously, when I thought of global news I had only considered one perspective. The United States media is so overwhelming and in cases of foreign affairs only considers how they pertain to the United States. Following a different countries media source was an eye opening experience for me. It exposed me to how similar yet different global media sources can be. Egypt’s news reporting followed a very similar style to US reporting, but didn’t truly focus on too many other issues with other countries unless they were directly related to Egypt. Due to this fact alone, I have begun to dig deeper into news stories to discover a variety of opinions and sources before I formulate my opinions around a certain idea or story, and I think everyone can learn something by considering more perspectives into their decision making to potentially make this world a much better place for everyone.

Egypt (2015). CIA Factbook.

Egypt. Reporters Without Borders. RSF.org/en/Egypt.

El-Shiek, S (2016). Al-Nabaa Photojournalists Detained for Additional 15 Days. Daily News Egypt.

Ezzdin, T (2016). Egypt, Saudi Arabia in Unofficial Cold War, Officials Deny Tension. Daily News Egypt.

Sakr, T (2016). 11 November Protest Calls Stir concern Among Government Media Outlets. Daily News Egypt.

#mcst 4010 #egypt #daily news egypt #global media #daily news #independent news

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire was a film released in 2008 directed by Danny Boyle. The film was modeled after an original novel titled Q&A that was written by an Indian diplomat named Vikas Swarup in 2005. The movie tells the story of a young man named Jamal Malik who is an 18 year old from the slums in Mumbai, India. After getting onto the Indian version of the show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ Jamal makes it to the final round of questioning where the question is worth 20 million rupees. But before he can answer his final question he is detained and beaten after suspicion of cheating on the show in order to get his answers correct. The premise by his detainees is there is no way a ‘slumdog’ could get all of the answers right without cheating. During his detainment he goes through a line of questioning to explain how he got the answers correct to all his questions. His explanations of how he got his answers take the viewer on a detailed journey through Jamal’s life in the slums of Mumbai. After his remarkable story, he is allowed to play his last question for 20 million rupees, and on a wild guess he is able to win the prize and be reunited with his childhood sweetheart from the slums, Latika.

Jamal Malik is played by Dev Patel who is a 26 year old British actor who was born in London after his parents migrated from Kenya. Still all of his family being of Indian descent, he was raised into the Hindu faith. Freida Selena Pinto was cast as Latika, the love of Jamal’s life. Pinto came from a well-educated background living in Mumbai, and began her career as a model first, and later after being hand wth 6 others from her modeling agency, she was selected for the film Slumdog Millionaire was then given acting classes to help spring her into a career in film as well. Madhur Mittal was the last main actor in the film and played the role of Salim, Jamal’s older brother. Mittal is from Northern Ireland but was born in the United States. He played roles in television and films prior to the Slumdog Millionaire but is still best known for his part played as Salim. Living in Mumbai for most of his life, he acted in many stage shows and TV shows as a child actor, and was able to continue his career as an adult in this film.

India is the second most populated nation on the entire earth and has been for some time now only coming in second to China. With over 1.3 billion people in India they are also the founding state of the Hindu religion. Hinduism is the 3rd most popular religion worldwide; they are currently making up for about 15% of the world’s total population only behind Christianity (31%) and Islam (23%). With a large chunk of the world’s population being Hindu, the more surprising fact is that almost 85% of the entire Hindu population world wide lives in India. The next most popular religion in the country is Islam at about 14% of India’s population. Knowing this background of the countries religion in relation to the story is significant in realizing some of the social issues that surround the harassment and detainment of Jamal Malik.

Hinduism historically practiced the use of the Caste System. The caste system is defined as a class structure that ‘allows social stratification of individuals into different social classes based on the social class they are born into being the determining factor’. Essentially meaning if you are born into a poor social class you will always remain poor, or if you are born into a wealthy social class you will always be accepted by the rich. The belief behind this Caste System was that it was Vishnu’s (God’s) choosing to have these people born into those specific classes.

The movie takes place in a country where Hinduism is the most popular religion and therefore the beliefs of Hinduism are widely accepted. The Caste System has a very large influence on the people of the country and how they treat others in all social settings. The opening scenes of the movie depict the Indian police force beating Jamal brutally, calling him ‘slumdog’ and harassing him while they do it trying to insult him based on his social class. The chief police inspector leads himself to many preconceived ideas about Jamal. The main assumption being that he is unintelligent, based on his social class he doesn’t have enough educational background or knowledge to get the answers on the show right.

The restrictions to jobs and opportunities in India based on one’s cast was said to be a “thing of the past” since it was supposed to be abolished in 1947. In a CNN article that was published last year, it states how there is still much resentment to the fact that those from higher castes are being denied jobs and seats in universities to those from a traditionally lower caste. Due to the ‘quotas’ the government has declared to make it more equal for people from all caste systems to go to work and school. (Agrawal, CNN) Here is a video about the article as well as a link for it:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/28/asia/india-gujarat-caste-protests/

Caste disputes and discrimination are happening to this day in India as Al Jeezera recently posted this article in August about protests by the Dalits (the lowest caste in the system) for being ‘continually discriminated’ still by the rest of their society. Dalits face the most discrimination out of all of the castes, but largely the underlying tension between many other castes still exists as well. The Dalits have largely been the ‘untouchables’ or the people for the other castes not to interact with. This is the group that Jamal would have been a part of based not only his social class, but also his religion. During the movie, it makes reference to the fact that Jamal, Salim and their mother are all Muslims. The boys’ mother is killed due to religious discrimination in a country that’s constitution states it is a secular nation.

So not only is Jamal at the bottom of the pile as far as his social class but his religion is even more of a reason for people to be spiteful to the ‘slumdog’ he is in the film. The BBC ran an article this August 2016 discussing the discrimination Indian Muslims see based on the caste system as well. They are caste into the Dalit (untouchable) group. The article states ‘many of the Dalits left Hindu religion to convert to Islam because of the discrimination they faced due to the caste system,’ (Biswas, 5). The article states 75% of the Dalit population are Indian Muslims, but what about the other 25%? As it turns out the other 25% have integrated themselves up into the higher caste systems and often will even treat the Dalit Muslims the same as ‘untouchables’ as well.

This image for Jamal was something that was prevalent throughout the whole film, but it was never really discussed as why. I didn’t like this aspect of the film because after watching it felt like watching a good love story about overcoming hardships to find the love of his life. When in reality he had to overcome so much more than that based on his social class and religion. Overall the film was amazing, and after researching more into the context behind Jamal’s social situation it is truly a well put together film. But for someone coming from a western background, it was not something I picked up the first time watching it.

This is an issue of violating human rights and mistreatment of citizens by their governments and religions and this is a topic we have discussed and witnessed first hand throughout the term in this class. Human Rights Quarterly writes that ‘domestic populations suffering significant human rights violations, international attention and support is far from assured,’ (Clifford,192) the Dalit’s and other experiencing these violations are normally subject to their own countries rulings that oppress them in the first place. Not giving them a chance or considering them a part of their society for one reason or another. The movie shed some light on characteristics throughout the film, but it hasn’t influenced much change still.

For Jamal, his caste and religion led to much discrimination and hardship throughout his entire life. Not only is this story about love, but it is also one that represents triumph for a group of people who have been stepped on and treated as ‘untouchables’ for as long as they can remember. The film tells a story about the unlikely hero accomplishing the seemingly impossible, a common theme in many Western movies. But due to its relation to the Indian people it will help to spread a message of love and acceptance to many of the people they have always looked at as untouchable, to realize they could amount to much more than anyone with the traditional caste mindset could have ever expected.

#mcst 4010 #global media #slumdog millionaire

Joseph Afandi

South Sudan is a country that won’t normally pop up on your internet news feeds or be covered in your nightly news broadcast, but is one of several nations worldwide that is experiencing a brutal civil war and political uprising for different groups within the government. Oppressive government regimes that are currently holding power throughout South Sudan are a major key in making sure there aren’t many stories being shared throughout international news about many of the issues within their country. President Salva Kiir and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement are the cause of multiple journalists being killed or imprisoned during the South Sudan Civil War.

Joseph Afandi is one of these journalists who was imprisoned by his own government for writing an opinion article “criticizing Kiir’s ruling over the country and how he failed to protect his own people and let civil war destroy the country,” (CPJ.org, 2). That article was published in the El Tabeer, a daily Arabic newspaper, has received threats along with much more harassment from the government of Sudan onto their journalists and editors. After researching to try and find the original published article written by Afandi, I couldn’t seem to find it. But the research did reveal that a day after Afandi was arrested for writing his article, the chief editor and colleague of Afandi at of El Tabeer, Wazir Michael, “announced at a press conference that he would be resigning due to the continued harassment by security officials,” after Sudan’s National Security Service (a service that answers directly to Salva Kiir) verbally instructed El Tabeer to cease publication.

This part of the story is particularly interesting because by preventing the publication of the news article, allowed for no one really to even read Afandi’s article he had written. Wazir Michael insisted on stepping down from his positon as chief editor directly after Afandi had been arrested, meaning that the harassment he was getting could have been potentially life altering or life threatening. The government and military powers in South Sudan are acting without penalty and without regulation and in turn can do anything they please to stifle journalistic freedoms and rights of reporters within their country.

Many different international organizations called for the freeing of Joseph Afandi after learning of his arrest without any convictions of committing a crime and for simply doing his job as a journalist and publishing his opinion editorial to his paper. Journalism has many definitions but can be collectively viewed as something that relies on “analytical addressing of social issues within an intellectual ethos and helping to provide a countervailing influence against short-term and parochial interests,” (Reese, 90). There are all types of journalism and many different styles that can be taken to provide stories and present issues to the public, and this definition claims that just because the style might not be in the best interest of the previously patriarchal order of society, doesn’t mean these social issues should be dismissed. Afandi is speaking against the government but because this is something viewed as criminal by few with ruling authority doesn’t mean that there is anything necessarily criminal about it.

Government officials, police and plainclothes “thugs” employed by the government in Sudan have been found of obstructing, detaining, and in some cases physically attacking journalists, according to UJOSS 2015 report” (Oduha, 11). Journalists like Afandi have been trying to help spread awareness about the issues going on within the South Sudanese government and are being persecuted for it. If it weren’t for international efforts from a variety of organizations created to specifically protect journalists, Joseph Afandi would still be in jail.

The power of these journalists’ international efforts all came to a head after Afandi was released from jail, and only two weeks later was kidnapped, beaten and burned by an unknown group of people (expected to be men paid by the government) who dumped him in a graveyard site and left him to die. Afandi was found, however, and was taken to a hospital to recover from his injuries. But after all the effort people put into having him released, they still couldn’t protect him from the reach of his government’s persecution. All of these “obstructions typically occurred when journalists sought to cover sensitive topics such as political dissidents, corruption, crimes, riots and other public unrest,” (Oduha, 13).

The current state of the situation of South Sudan’s journalist persecution continues at a high level, ranking 125 worst out of 180 nations for journalist mistreatment, misconduct and persecution. However, these brave men and women will continue to fight for their voices against this harsh treatment by their government and will seek to spread awareness of their ongoing fight.

CPJ (2016). South Sudan Arrests Journalists, Newspaper Ceases Publishing. Committee to Protect Journalists.

Oduha, Joseph (2016). Call for South Sudan to Release Journalists. Doha Centre for Media Freedom.

Radio Tamazuj (2015). Chief Editor of Paper in Juba Resigns of Alleged Security Harassment. Radio Tamazuj, Sudan News Crossing Borders.

Reese, Stephen (1999). The Progressive Potential of Journalism Education: Recasting the Academic versus Professional Debate. University of Texas. The International Journal of Press Politics.

#mcst 4010 #global media #joseph afandi #South Sudan #civil war

Kimmy, Jessica and Walt or Titus, Luke and Jesse?

New television drama and comedy series are being produced at the faster rate than ever before. More characters are being produced and more plot lines created, making a wider variety of characters able to represent societal groups and be relatable to as many people within their development as possible. But the real question is, how much have these characters and plots been developing over the years and are these shows really broadcasting characters in a new light, or rather representing the same roles and similar characters in different situations. Taking a look at The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Jessica Jones and Breaking Bad three different popular television series with one comedy and two dramas, we will make comparisons to classic depictions and stereotypical character representations as well as the evolving of characters in comparison to each and how it falls in line with the past TV representations of similar roles/

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a television comedy that began airing on Netflix exclusively and began airing in March of 2015. The show has become increasingly more popular and is now in its second season this year. The story is about a woman named Kimmy who was trapped inside a bunker for 15 years after being associated with a cult religion while she was younger. As her life begins outside of the bunker, she goes through certain forms of culture shock, making for a very comical representation of her character as she adjusts to being a functioning American adult finding her place within society. She is accompanied mostly throughout the series by her best friend Titus, another friend Jacqueline and her landlord Lillian who are all characters that develop using each other throughout the show.

The second show is Jessica Jones which was also a program originally released as a series on Netflix in Novermber of 2015. Based on a Marvel comic, Jones is an ex-superhero that has turned private investigator. She has super human strength and the ability to fly to an extent. She is accompanied in her plot with another super hero she has a sentimental relationship with named Luke Cage, and her arch enemy Kilgrave who has the power of mind control. She is the owner of her own private investigation company and becomes involved in much more than a case when she becomes involved with an investigation of a girl who is under the mind control of Kilgrave. After becoming involved with Cage and the strength of Kilgrave’s power, things get dangerous for Jones, who was already a previous victim of Kilgrave’s mind control.

The final show and characters to be compared is Breaking Bad which is a series that began airing its first season in January of 2008 on AMC. It was widely successful and led to 5 seasons and climactic series. It also led to its own spin off series that came out last year called Better Call Saul, which was also successful and is hopefully anticipating a second season. The story is about a high school chemistry teacher who learns he has lung cancer that will become extremely costly to treat for his wife, Skylar, and son, Walter Jr. as well as a newborn baby. Walter decides to use his chemistry skillset to produce methamphetamine with an old student from the high school who involved in meth dealing named Jesse Pinkman. The two become widely successful, selling the purest meth possible and making millions of dollars, but with all that money comes many more problems and the two experience dangerous and violent hardships on their way to the top of their drug empire.

Throughout all these shows, there are a variety of characters that all play many different roles and project many different personalities important to their character’s place within the plot line of the story. The three main characters; Kimmy, Jessica and Walt, dominate their specific plots and develop the most as characters being the focus of the show, but many of the supporting roles are important to how this character changes throughout.

The first character similarity comes from within the main characters of the two action-dramas, Breaking Bad and Jessica Jones. Both of the main characters are what would be considered antiheros. So when Walter decides to cook and sell meth to help support his family’s financial issues due to his cancer, he is acting on traditional family values as being the man of the house and providing what is necessary for their survival, although he is still breaking the law. Jessica is similar as she consents to not being a hero, and left that behind with her superhero career. However, in Kilgrave’s attempts to attack Jones using other people, she must commit murder in order to save her own life, defeat Kilgrave, and prevent him from being able to harm and manipulate anymore innocent people like he had done to her. So again, Jones needed to break the law and go against traditional heroine values in order to be the hero when it was all said and done. Kimmy is displayed as the all-loving hero, who is willing to help anyone with anything, no matter how rude or mean they are to her initially. She responds to everything with childish enthusiasm but is often the only one who can help to save the day for others and inspire them to be more optimistic in their thinking as well.

The ‘right hand man’ has become something that is fairly common in many dramas and comedies, so these characters can be the most comparable across all of the different shows. One thing that they have in common is that they all represent someone that the main character can turn to for help in their times of desperation. For Kimmy this is Titus, her gay African American best friend who is the token minority representation that plays a major role throughout the show. Titus is a two for one minority being black and gay; he is able to portray a very different character than traditional African American characters in television. Traditional TV representations of African American representations reflect “that African American youths in particular may see a limited range of occupations held by television characters of their own race and may affect their occupational aspirations,” (Hoffner,7) which is why common stereotypes become associated with this race throughout society and media. Titus goes against this portrayal of his TV stereotype as a black man and challenges it by being a gay, aspiring actor who experiences many more hardships for his sexual orientation rather than his race. However, is this racial stereotype truly represented any different in the context of the entire story? Not entirely, because Titus is still a secondary character throughout the show giving him the trope representation of the ‘black best friend’ because they are commonly not found in lead roles. He is also portrayed more similarly to the stereotypical older black woman (sassy attitude and always around the house), holding him still in identification with the African-American stereotype with the illusion throughout the show that the role was a redefinition of this.

Similarly to Luke Cage in the Jessica Jones series, although he is involved in a more romantic relationship, Luke is like Titus, depicted as the large, bald, African American secondary character who also represents his stereotype throughout the series as a the secondary character to Jessica. He is shown throughout as a promiscuous type have relations, or thought to be having relations with multiple women and even other superheroes in his Marvel back story. Titus is portrayed similarly as a large black man who is very promiscuous and not very good with relationships but in the gay community, again not stretching far from his stereotype other than the fact he is homosexual.

Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad is not a stereotypical minority portrayal, but he might as well be. Many of the representations he can be associated with are low class. But these representations are more associated with him being portrayed as a low class druggy, which can be associated with minority lower class neighborhoods. He is shown held captive as a slave at one point during the series and is constantly manipulated by those associated with a higher class that are around him. Most minority roles are often manipulated by their environment and others in it due to their social class or ethnicity associated with their characters. Jesse fits the bill when you look at the portrayal of his character within the Breaking Bad plot.

“Quandaries of marginality and the absence of power,” in minority roles in TV and movies had led to “some minority people opting to operate outside of the mainstream and form their own media,” (Cort, 15). This quote explains why there are such a variety of these minority roles being portrayed on different mediums. The two shows that were originally released outside of the mainstream TV networks on Netflix showed two minority men in different roles than we have been accustomed to mainstream television. Although the roles didn’t stretch far from the stereotypical minority actions, there has been much more freedom and room for expression in the roles. While Breaking Bad, being released on a cable television network, they decided not to include an actual minority character, but yet a lower class character who is constantly discriminated against and beat on by others, but still fights for his place and respect within his community much like a minority would.

Minority roles in classical portrayals of television have led to stereotypes people have embodied and over time realized these created stereotypes can be harmful, even if they are depicted in an unrealistic world like television. However, so much of our media represents our everyday lives that it is hard to draw the line between reality and virtual TV portrayals of reality. The character development and depiction throughout all three of these shows highlight differences from the normal stereotypes and the shift beginning to occur within TV media for changing how we represent people within our world. As times change, people’s values and beliefs begin to change. Showrunners are experiencing more freedom to portray a variety of characters that can break the mold of traditional TV stereotypes for these characters. While they haven’t strayed too far from the mold yet, they are beginning to take steps in the right direction in order to not pigeon hole certain groups of people in their representation because it is not always the most accurate representation of the world around us and makes it un-relatable to the audience. The next major step for these showrunners will be to a greater variety within their main characters and start to break the mold there to truly make an impact as appose to just providing different context for complimentary characters.

Breaking Bad / Characters - TV Tropes. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2016 Cort, C. (n.d.). A Long Way to Go: Minorities and the Media. Retrieved May 19, 2016. Felitizen, C. (1975, December). Identifying With Television Characters. Retrieved May 19, 2016 Hoffner, C. A. (2006). TV Characters at Work: Television's Role in the Occupational Aspirations of Economically Disadvantaged Youths. Journal of Career Development, 33(1), 3-18. Jessica Jones 2015 People Of New York / Characters - TV Tropes. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2016. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt / Characters - TV Tropes. (n.d.). Retrieved May 19, 2016.

#mcst 2200 #minority character comparrison #secondary character comparison #tv studies #kimmy #jessica #walter #unbreakable kimmy schmidt #Jessica jones #breaking bad

Rockies Experience in Relation to Women’s Pro Sports

This last Friday night I was able to go to a Colorado Rockies professional baseball game in Downtown Denver. Over the term we have discussed many instances of hegemony within the sports world and also how consumerism surrounding these types of hegemony have become the driving force in the popularity of American sports culture. Sport is one of the most popular forms of media consumed worldwide, with different regions taking pride in certain sports over others. The United States boasts American Football as its most popular sport, followed closely by Major League Baseball and NBA basketball. Being that all three of these sports are dominated by men throughout American sports media it leads to raise the question of where the professional women athletes fit into the picture.

“Female athletes are second rate, female sports are of little importance and society accepts only certain sports for female competitors,” (Adams & Tuggle, 2). This is where the exploitation of female athletes can take place especially in regards to their sexuality. Talented and good looking individual female athletes bring the most viewers to the sport and allow men to gawk at the appearance of an individual women playing in her sport. Even in popular women’s team sports like soccer, the most attractive athletes, not necessarily the most skilled, receive the most attention from the media and the audience.

So while I was at the baseball game, I was thinking about how little females are represented through the sport that has been often called America’s game or pastime throughout our culture. But little do people know there is a representation of this sport for women, extremely modified and not even represented on a professional level throughout sports media. Women’s softball is the representation for major league baseball within the American sports framework, but is essentially completely ignored on a professional level by the media. The NPF, or National Pro Fast Pitch, is a professional women’s softball league that takes place within our country! Shocking I know considering there is practically zero coverage on it throughout mainstream American sports media, but I am sure you could find some information or coverage if you REALLY looked for it. The strange thing about this representation of women is that college softball is actually more widely represented throughout mainstream American sports. Which is backwards of their male counterparts and the MLB who dominate the media coverage as far as male baseball goes much more than the collegiate ranks.

The MLB is a form of sport widely popular, and much of the focus of this sport goes to the men who can dominate at a skill level that others do not, and their popularity is not based on their appearance, but solely on athletic performance. The men are not judged on these scales because they don’t face the same discriminations that women do in sports. This was evident at the Rockies game I went to this Saturday because the best players on the field are showcased for their skills and they aren’t sexualized in any way, shape or form. People talk about them for their skillset either being a great fielder, hitter, or having a great arm and people attend the games for the same reason.

It is always funny to me how a male dominated sport culture can be so dismissive to females who envy their interests and still wish to consume these forms of entertainment despite the lack of respect they receive from their male counterparts who are doing the same thing. Think about it, a woman who attends a sports game who might not be necessarily a sports fan will be criticized and made fun of for her lack of awareness about what is going on in the game. But a woman can still go to a game and watch the male athletes perform and comment on their attractiveness and still be criticized, but only their lack of understanding for a game society doesn’t want them to understand in the first place can trump that form of criticism. When a women who truly enjoys sports culture and consumes it and is knowledgeable about gameplay and skillset of players very similarly to a man, she is still criticized and harassed for her ‘lack’ of knowledge and criticized because a women has never played in the league of pro male sports she is discussing. When the truth is, the men who are so critical of this have most of the time not played in the league either.

The most interesting form of this criticism comes from when a man talks about women’s pro sports. He can watch the game without any understanding of what players are more talented than others and it is still acceptable and he isn’t criticized for his lack of knowledge. He can also attend the game just to look at the attractive female players and still this is more socially acceptable than a female who does the same.

This event helped me to realize that these major sporting events that we place so much emphasis on are not doing anything at all to be more accepting of a female fan base. They are still shunned from acceptance into men’s pro sport culture and criticized when they are accepted. Hopefully there will become a day when there is no judgment passed for people who find interest in certain things. One day there will be no gender that can be labeled and stereotyped into liking certain sports. We are on our way to that moment in time, but after seeing the current state of men’s pro sports vs their women counterparts at a live event, we are still a long way from achieving this equality.

#rockies #colorado #denver #final project

Advertising has always been an essential part to all different forms of media production within our country. From early newspaper and radio advertisements for particular products, this has expanded now throughout the newer forms of advancing media technology like television and social media. Why has advertising always been a necessary cornerstone in the production of media? Simply because the corporations who fund the advertising normally helped to fund the networks and programs associated with the consumers media as well. This becomes extremely relevant when analyzing many current forms of network television programs because there are continual commercial breaks that always occur in order to advertise certain company’s products. The TV programs or channels with the most viewership attract the companies with the most money to spend for their advertisements in hope that more viewers will equal more customers buying their products. So it is advantageous for TV networks to display content people want to see in order to attract more viewers and in turn attract more corporate advertising sponsors.

However, the evolution of TV has led to online streaming services becoming extremely popular among viewers because of the ability to always choose what you want to watch, along with the lack of advertisements involved within this form of TV and movie enjoyment. This means more time the viewers can spend watching the content they desire and less time they are forced to watch inconvenient ads that attempt to engulf the viewer into frivolous, consumerist spending on the displayed products. With the trending shift towards online streaming sources as the popular medium for how viewers are consuming their television, advertisers are trying to find ways to try to reach their markets in a television and movie watching experience that is so popular because of its limited, or eliminated advertising structure forced upon its viewers.

This is where advertisers are using a modified form of product placement although the strategy is similar. Traditional product placement “normally requires a form of payment for the networking arranging a highly visible on screen cameo,” of their product that was much more popularly seen in music and long running TV series (Steinberg, 5). This new form of product placement emphasizes an understated appearance in a show or movie that will make for a more ‘natural’ appearance in hopes the viewers will connect the brands with their favorite shows. The brands then supply their products to the producers of the show as a form of compensation instead of paying the show runners to directly depict it.

Recently a deal has been announced that Anheuser Busch and Samsung have become the exclusive products to be shown on the third season of “House of Cards” to be released on Netflix (Variety.com). The new streaming TV experience is “re-conceptualized as being something more active” in comparison to traditional broadcasts because of TV streaming’s focus on the viewer experience. Their approaches differ much more from traditional television “activities such as channel surfing that are passive, while seeking shows and series to watch (or binge watch) is active,” (Tryon, 106). This suggests that because the users have a much more variety at all times they can always find something they want. They aren’t at the mercy of the networks show times based heavily inside the advertising blocks they have every hour.

This allows for online streaming services like Netflix and Hulu to focus their advertising on selling memberships instead of promoting shows because “the actual viewing of shows and the user interface is driving all of those sales,” (Schwerdtfeger, 2). This is the reason why advertisers have been reduced to such a limited role within online television streaming and are now finding ways to casually stay relevant within the rapidly growing online consumer audience. This implementation of strategic ‘casual’ product placement is just a beginning to the shift of how advertisers are going to continue to find ways to adjust their marketing techniques to continue to get their products in front of the viewer’s eyeballs.

Now the implementation of this strategy has not been received by all streaming services, but as regular cable television networks are battling to stay relevant, advertisers are trying to get to a market that doesn’t want to be reached by them—sparking the desire for viewers to change to a streaming TV service that limits ads. So the advertisers are making a big push and willing to spend large dollar amounts to continue to reach these consumers, but the streaming networks are resisting as much as possible. They are not willing to fully sacrifice their popularity for the potential that their consumers might become dissatisfied if ads were to become implemented. By casually implementing products within the content of the shows, streaming services like Netflix can begin to gain profit from advertisers, without sacrificing the ad free service they have developed as their cornerstone over time.

Consumers have begun to notice the product placement in their favorite shows. So as viewers begin to notice the change, and advertisers continue to try and force their way in the door, the streamers will have an important choice to make. As TV continues to change, the way we consume it changes as well. People are trying desperately to get away from the consumerism that advertising creates. If streaming becomes overrun with ads and product placement, viewers will begin to reject this media much like traditional television frameworks are being rejected today.

Schwerdtfeger, C. (2015). Why Netflix Doesn’t Spend That Much Money On Advertising It’s Shows. Cinema Blend.

Steinberg, B. (2015). How Advertisers Burrowed Their Way Into Netflix. Variety Media LLC.

Tryon, C. (2015). TV Got Better: Netflix’s Original Programming Strategies and Binge Viewing. Fayetteville State University.

#mcst 2200 #what is tv 2 #netflix #advertising

Cultural jamming is a tactic that is used to subvert mainstream media cultural institutions. This is a technique that is most often seen in anti-consumerist social resistance movements performed to send a message against the frameworks that have been displayed by mainstream media and then become internalized subconsciously by a society. The ironic part about the forms of cultural jamming in comedy shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report are that they mimic forms of mainstream news media, yet are part of the mainstream comedy culture in our society at the same time. Although the argument can be made this from of media is part of the mainstream and therefore not truly avoiding anti-consumerist media, the message aligns with cultural jamming in the aspect that it “also presents the political content in a way that calls into question the substantive claims of the dominant bran message, un-problematically disseminating it,” (Warner ,198).

This form of dissemination can help to shed light on some of the problematic frameworks the media places on certain groups or ideas as their representation throughout society. With the more power individuals are receiving through new media, they now have the power to spark cultural reform of our norms and help to create new norms and force mainstream media to adapt to the people instead of the other way around.

#mcst4050 #cultural jamming #jon stewart #daily show

Network Analysis

The movie ‘Network’ was released in 1976, yet the movie is still very interesting because although our television media is rapidly changing, the formula for what networks put on TV has taken a pretty similar approach to the ideas expressed by Diana, Howard and the rest of the UBS News Network in the movie.

Over the term we have discussed how different forms of television programming can highlight certain areas of important news and politics about the world as it is happening around us. The movie ‘Network’ similarly represents many of the political news and nightly news formats we see currently throughout our media and because of the lack of variety in the framework from then until now is why television news is beginning to take a back seat to more entertaining forms of media.

As television technology became increasingly more common it changed the spread of information as we know it throughout our culture. This shift helped to unveil the new age of news and information dissemination throughout the masses of society, but the networks thrived on audience viewership so attracting these viewers to their network and away from other forms of similar news broadcasting helped make the networks their money. This is highly evident in the film as the UBS Network is struggling for viewership; they are the lowest rated network of all four major international networks. So in attempt to attract viewership towards their floundering network, and using their anchor who had nothing to lose, they formulated a new type of reality TV and news broadcasting blend that has evolved and become widely adapted across many news mediums today. The technique of ‘framing’ has been used always in order for “writers and audience journalists to streamline the information flow to the viewers,” making sure that the “combination of words and phrases provides a message to its recipient,” (Cissel, 75). This framing was something that Howard Beale was able to strike on the head with his new style of political news show where he could play on the emotions of the audience and relate to them because he didn’t have to follow the agenda of the what the news network wanted to be broadcast. People began to rave about his show and ratings increased quickly because the people could relate to the message that Howard was talking about during his segment. This framing is still something that is done by many news networks still today in order to make their messages more relatable for the audience. The ‘talking heads’ as we have referred to them in class are people on the news networks, most of the time for political news, that share information and debate different viewpoints around certain issues. This is a direct attempt to appeal to the audience by offering many different ‘frameworks’ in order to help people relate with one of the ideas being discussed on the program. With more ideas and more viewpoints tossed around in a news segment like this it is assumed that the audience will relate better to show and this will help to increase viewership if the ideals in the show align with the ideals our culture views as important.

However, this ideology doesn’t actually always translate to actual viewers like the networks would hope. This is not only apparent within the movie, but translates to real news networks today. A study from Princeton University that studied news vs entertainment found that “political knowledge has decreased for a substantial portion of the electorate even though the amount of political information has multiplied and is more readily available than ever before,” (Prior, 589). So with the increasing amount of political coverage and channels that constantly play 24/7 news and politics nationwide, why would the information collected show a decline in public political knowledge? The reason is because no one is tuning in to watch these programs and they are failing to attract viewer interest. In the film, Howard is forced to change his message in order to align it with what the networks brass wants to be the topic of conversation for his news segment. As soon as his segment stopped becoming entertaining and engaging to the audience, the viewers began to abandon ship from the news program and seek their information elsewhere. During this highly technological and informational age, people can easily access news elsewhere. But the other types of exciting news and entertainment they are exposed to makes it difficult for truly informational news to be broadcasted and well received by the viewers if it’s offering the same traditional framework from 50 years ago. That is why new shows that are a blend of news and entertainment like Jonathan Stewart or Stephen Colbert have become a much more popular because the news segments are based on actual current events, but the manner in which the content is presented yields a much higher entertainment value than traditional TV news.

International news would be completely irrelevant today if it weren’t for the scare tactics implemented throughout certain stories. If people are scared they will continue to tune in and stay interested, but this is truly the only thing news mediums have left. With up to date sports highlights being vastly spread throughout the internet, weather forecasts for multiple cities and states being accessible through an app, and traffic updates being seen via GPS, the only thing the news has that its viewers cannot live without is the information about what is threatening to our society and life as we know it. That is why some people turn away from the news because of the high amount of violence, crime and terrorism that is shown, but it is the same reason people aren’t able to turn away from the news completely yet.

The movie ‘Network’ highlighted how news programs are the same as any other television programming. Diane’s desire to help run Howard’s news show in order to increase its ratings as well as increase the popularity of their network, shows the true importance of viewership to an international news program. It is a constant competition for viewership just like it is for everyone’s favorite television drama on a major network. News has a very important place in our world, and there is a certain civil responsibility for people to be educated about what is going on in our world. But with the increasing emphasis and focus being on television entertainment, worldwide news has to compete with the powerful force that is entertainment media, without sacrificing the importance of current events and news reaching the people.

Allan, C. Branston, C. Carter, C (2014). News, Gender and Power. Routledge London and New York.

Cissel, M (2012). Media Framing: a comparative content analysis on mainstream and alternative news coverage of Occupy Wall Street. Elon University.

Prior, M (2005). News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout. Princeton Universty.

#mcst 2200 #network #analysis #international news #ratings

Instagram Models and Internet Fame: Dealers Choice

Social media ‘fame’ is something that has become extremely relevant and desirable within our culture that has become largely driven by the individual persons need to express ideas and interact with others on these social networks. You always hear people say be careful what you put on your social media sites because this form of media has become a way to market yourself or project an image to potential future employers. Or now that social media fame has entered the conversation, you can potentially earn a job and get paid to project this image to your friends and followers.

In 2016 it seems that your social media image is everything, and because we as individuals place such a high emphasis on portraying an image through these networks, businesses have naturally become integrated into its frameworks trying to capitalize their income. The importance we place on social norms is extremely powerful. “If something is popular, society tends to place a higher value on it. If an article has numerous social shares, then it will merit attention,” (Greathouse,3). This attracts companies to these social media networks to try and increase customer volume by putting their products in front of as many people as possible.

Advertising has always used public figures, celebrities, and models to help sell their products and make them more desirable in the eyes of the consumer. So it would have been common for you to see an athlete promoting a certain brand of athletic shoe or apparel, or celebrities promoting clothing and household necessities. As things like Instagram and Twitter fame become attainable for people by going viral, companies seek to pay these people for their fame since the internet celebrity does not get paid by the internet itself since people cannot subscribe and pay to follow these people like they typically would for any other online service or product. The difference for the company is that these self-made online celebs come at a much cheaper cost than a high end model or a public icon would. And with such a focus on user driven content, it is almost more effective if a product promotion from someone who isn’t necessarily and important public figure and making them much more relatable or ‘normal’ making it more like an extension of traditional word of mouth advertising. However, “the uniqueness (of the internet) lies in the magnitude of the communication,” because now “consumers have the ability to tell hundreds or thousands of other people,” on a continual 24/7 basis (Faulds, 359). Coming from a seemingly authentic source, people who follow these accounts are more likely to interact with the media and less likely to blow it off as another corporate sponsored ad.

Internet fame can be achieved by practically anyone these days, which is why this user driven content that is viewed as desirable plays right into the hands of the advertisers, unbeknownst to the networks users who might be seeking internet fame for themselves. These regular people deemed internet celebs provide cash to the advertisers with likes and followers. More eyes on products equal more sales. But there is much more of a diverse selection of potential internet celebs that can accomplish the same thing, so these people become easily replaceable or working for much less money than a professional model or celeb who does many of the same things.

A news story about an Instagram model named Essena O’Neill was extremely popular near the end of 2105 because she was lashing out against the unfair treatment of being one of these internet celebrities. She was wildly popular on Instagram with over 800,000 followers and also had her own YouTube channel with 270,000 viewers. But she began making headlines when she suddenly announced in a YouTube video she was leaving her modeling career behind and wouldn’t post any more photos or videos via her social media. Then went and altered the original captions she posted with her photos on Instagram to critical comments about how the shots were highly manipulated and staged to give the candid, relatable appearance to her followers. The money she would gain from taking and posting these photos was mere chump change in comparison to a Hollywood model marketing high end brands very similarly. O’Neill reposted one of her photos with a caption in which she was paid $400 to post a photo of her wearing the dress. But the photo had to encompass the whole dress to peak her followers interest and focus on the product.

Although the average annual salary for a model is only around $18k per year, high end models with a high profile can make millions of dollars annually. These high end models have had much needed exposure over the years to help boost their modeling careers, and this is the idea behind social media modeling. Meaning more exposure throughout social media will help to boost the models profile and get them noticed by larger agencies.

This exposure it what makes it so difficult for these internet or social media models to make it big and receive lucrative payments for their efforts. In a society becoming increasingly more and more defined by social media followers, likes and views, it places a higher importance on these things for all people across these networks trying to make their mark. Young girls see these Instagram models and how much attention they receive from their followers or likes on their media and this can then create a “harmful need for followers and likes for young people,” as Essena O’Neill said herself, “I let myself be defined by numbers,” (Baysinger, 7). This need has become increasingly so important that websites exist that you can actually pay money to receive fake followers to boost your online social networking presence.

The appearance of fame and wealth these internet celebrities portray throughout their accounts is often just a front. They struggle to make money just like every day, regular working class people, but they must maintain an image of wealth and importance throughout their social media accounts that can become extremely difficult to do. It is not the glamorous lifestyle it is depicted as throughout social media. With people seeking to increase their own follower count and online presence, many more ‘wannabe’ Instagram models are being thrown into the mix, unknowingly making it harder and harder for themselves and others to succeed because now with the pool of do it yourself models increasing, marketers and advertisers have a much larger selection to choose from. This larger selection provides advertisers with all the power, taking the power out of the user’s hands, and this power is what separated social media from other platforms in the first place. Now, agencies don’t have to pay the costs of production and can minimize their budgets by more and more people attempting to create their own image by editing and producing content themselves. Then they can target these self-made models with the largest follower counts, offer them much less to promote a product, and if the model demands more, the company can turn away and look elsewhere to other models willing to do the same shot for the same price or sometimes even less.

“Celebrity culture articulates a way of thinking about individuality and producing the individual self through the public world,” (Marshall, 46).

We have always used the norms our media portrays to be important as a way to produce our own individuality and express ourselves within our culture. With the adaptation of social media across the board, this manipulation of image has become much easier and more attainable for the everyday person to accomplish and give them the illusion or false feeling of ‘fame’ without the payout of actually being famous.

This is creating a culture that is placing importance more on individual attention and appearance than ever before instead of the actual quality of what these people can accomplish. Essena O’Neill quit her social media fame to create a new image around veganism and positive messages. “The social media industrial complex is fraught with digital marketers and consultants who puff up their abilities and accomplishments,” (Greathouse, 10). People always say not everything you see on the internet is true. As more people like Essena O’Neill take a stand against these fake promotions of the self throughout our media and focus more on genuine portrayal of individual ideals you think are important instead of what the media culture deems as important, we will continue to strive for the user dominated power and voice that attracted everyone to social media in the first place—free of, or diminishing the power of corporate influence and manipulation.

Baysinger, T (2015). Why an Instagram Model With 800,000 Followers Is Quitting Social Media: Teen blasts the endless chase for 'likes'. AdWeek.

Chu, A. (2015). Pursuit of Perfection: The High Cost of Instagram Modeling. The Daily Beast Company LLC.

Faulds, J (2009). Social media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Research Gate

Greathouse, J (2014). The Cost Of Social Media Fame In 2014? About $6,800. Forbes.

Marshall, D (2010). The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media. Taylor and Francis Group.

#mcst 3090 #dealers choice #internet fame #instafamous #Instagram models #essena oneill

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