"Look at Ron Paul, he doesn't even look like he would last 4 years!"

Should politicians with graying hair dye it to

achieve the 'Presidential look?'

This comment made by my mother while watching the GOP debate reminded me of the idea of 'posing for presidency'. As mentioned on page 199 of the Graber text, columnist Marquis Child noted that, “candidates no longer ‘run’ for office, they ‘pose’ for office. The term “television-age recruits” is referring to the fact that in the television age, the most important factor for candidates is to look presidential. This has paved the way for many television actors and media friendly individuals, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Palin, to assume office. The obvious problem with this is that this is the worst factor on which to base the selection of a president. The media campaign strategies of today are structured around the ability to generate and regulate extensive positive media coverage. Everything candidates do is timed to garner the most media attention possible. Vying for coverage has also become the main part of a media campaign because the amount of media attention usually dictates the amount of votes.

What would you classify as the presidential look?

For women:

White men: have to look young and competent.

Black men: have to look nonthreatening and some would say they have to look Caucasian.

LOVE YOU RON PAUL!!!

Freedom of speech... well not really

In the latest media feeding frenzy, high school senior Emma Sullivan is fighting for basic first amendment rights after tweeting: “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.”

This article further clarify's that, "In reality, she made no such comment. But in the brave new world of instantaneous electronic communication, that doesn’t matter. The tweet itself was reality enough for Brownback’s staff, which -- like most political protectors -- routinely monitors the social media whirl."

I think that this is a great example of how the traditional media is slowly loosing power to bloggers and social media users. This is a clear example of how the press focuses on who is on top and who is not, rather than educating the press and perpetuating the win/loss situations and feeding frenzies.

I don't think that this girl owe's anyone anything! Rather, she should be awarded for having the courage to speak her mind, but also to hold her ground. As there is no criminal offense here, I think that this will all blow over after her 5 minutes are over.

First article Literature Review draft

· Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn

o In their study of 121 girl’s age 3-6 years old, Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn found that appearance related media did not affect the girl’s body image in appearance related play. They state that this suggests that media exposure does not affect body image in young girls. I feel that these results actually just show desensitization to the media that the girls have already been exposed to, especially since the self-reported data showed that half of the 3-6 year olds thought they were fat. I don’t feel that this early body dysmorphia came from anywhere else other than the appearance-related media that the girls had been exposed to leading up to this study.

o In the Hayes and Tantleff-Dunn study, the researchers measured difference of the video stimuli in appearance-related clips versus neutral clips, immediate behaviors resulting from the viewing clips, qualitative reactions through interviews, and the level of body dissatisfaction among the girls.

o The video stimuli measure categorized the video clips into 2 groups based on whether or not there was appearance related material in the clip. In an example on page 416, the researchers note an example that they use in the study from Beauty and the Beast where “Gaston comments that Belle is ‘the most beautiful girl in town and that makes her the best.’” Other appearance related clips in movies such as Anastasia, Cinderella and, Sleeping Beauty showed characters participating in appearance enhancing acts like changing clothes to become more beautiful. . The control group was shown neutral clips from shows like Dragon Tales, Clifford, and Lilo & Stich with only cartoon humans.

o The behavioral rating sale was used to catalogue appearance-related behavior in the children after they were shown the clips. The researchers used two assistants to code and time a finite amount of appearance related activities, like playing dress-up, vs. the non-appearance related activities like Legos.

References

Hayes, S., & TantIeff-Dunn, S. (2010). Am I too fat to be a princess? Examining the effects of popular children's media on young girls' body image. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 413-426.

While finishing up my readings for this week's class, I had an ADD moment that led to looking up the old schoolhouse rock "Just a Bill" song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TBxxPPhzj8

Notice that there really isn't any partisan bias in this video and that it remains completely educational and objective. The race and gender bias is a conversation for another class, but this did make me think about what changes would be made if this were redone today.

It seems as if this very informative video was highly educational for most of us growing up.

I will admit that everything in this video summarizes the extent of my knowledge of how bills become law.

(Future Vice President and President, in that order)

Since I have a unique opportunity to discuss this among future lawmakers, I ask:

If it were done today, would you change anything (I realize that lawmaking policies haven't changed in the past few decades)? What would you add personally to make this more useful for the child audience? What would you change for an adult audience? Is there any other legal information would you consider important for children to know?

As far as edutainment goes, this is truly the finest and the golden standard in my book, I love Schoolhouse Rock!

Uses and Effects in class assignment

Ariana Wharton

Tiffany Lempeesis

Masiah Mitchell

Valerie Carr

· What do you do online

o Pay bills

o Check accounts

o Open business

o Play games

o Talk to friends

o Face- stalk

o Get news

o Play on pinterest.com and stumbleupon.com

o Waste time

o Wikipedia

o Reading books

o Watch TV shows and movies

o Download music

o Create presentations

o Create portfolios

o Create websites

o Advertising for business

· Second life

o We don’t believe second life is relevant anymore because it doesn’t seem to have a point or advantage to other games. We don’t know anyone on the website, and we think that World of Warcraft is a more prominent RPG gaming experience.

· Mass communication is defined as transmitting messages to people by mass media. This definition has not really changed but just evolved to include new emerging media technologies.

· Perpetual Linkage is the emerging trend to be continually connected through some type of technology.

o The impact of this on young people is that they may develop problems of being alone and codependency issues in the future. This may also lead to a tendency to alienate people in real life and be less outgoing in interpersonal relationships. Anxiety may develop if your perpetual linkage is broken or interrupted.

o This has changed relationships because people are completely connected at all times and is easier to keep in contact with your significant other. It also makes it easier if a spouse has to work far away.

· The Carnegie Melon Study revealed what might be termed an “activity displacement effect”

o Activity displacement effect- there is a limited time in a given day to engage in activities. when the internet is added into the mix. the potential to “spend more time in isolation from others” is likely to occur when people turn to the internet for entertainment and web surfing. Displacing strong social ties- people go online and talk to folks in chat rooms, making new “friends” there is a tendency for these new friendships to be superficial and characteristically weaker than face-to-face born friendships. The main reason for rejecting the activity displacement effect is because the “data showed that some many people in their sample used the internet for social purposes.” If it really caused “isolation and loneliness” then the internet use would have decreased, but the data does not reflect that. It shows that internet use remained the same, therefore it stands to reason the research is incomplete or infactual.

o Yes. The authors believe that in order to form a deep social connection there needs to a sense of “involvement and mutual service” that dating online lacks. Simply chatting online is not sufficient to get to know someone well enough.

o The study is relevant. Even with online dating sites like eharmony, nothing can take the place of face-to-face interaction. While the Internet has changed and is now considered 2.0 over the web 1.0 that the researchers of this particular study were basing their research off of, the research they collected is still useful in the context of forming friendships online.

1) Social Augmentation Hypothesis- People who use the internet to communicate with others should expand their social networks, thus permitting them to derive many of the relational benefits that come with being more connected to other people.

2) Social Displacement Hypothesis- Every minute spent on the internet is a minute that one cannot use to engage in social relationships with family and friends. Consequently, heavy use of the internet should cause one to communicate less with the people immediately around them and this leads to the loss of the positive benefits that those social networks provide.

3) Social Compensation Hypothesis- The effects of the internet on social and psychological are positive, but only for certain individuals. Individual differences posit that the internet may be beneficial for some and not so good for others when it comes to forming and maintaining social relationships.

4) Out of the three hypotheses I would “buy” the Social Compensation Hypothesis. I think everything in life has the potential to be good for some people while it may be not as good for some others. The Internet can be used by a person to help create and maintain social relationships but at least some of those social relationships should be a part of that person’s “real life.” But if a person spends all their time on the Internet and doesn’t bother with social relationships in real life then the Internet turns into something that is bad.

· Reeves and Nass theorized that our brains are made to believe that things we see are perceived as real. Because of this, new media has tricked us into believing that the things we see are real and the interactions we have are real. We do agree with Reeves and Nass because one cannot help but be scared by scary images in a movie or even scary pictures. Humans are emotional creatures and therefore develop emotional attachments to the things they see whether it is real or on television. Because of these attachments emotional reactions are elicited from whatever image is displayed. This can be seen when people talk to the television screen when watching a scary movie or an intense sporting game.

Social Media Film

Parents have always had to fight to keep their children safe from the evils of society; however, with the introduction of the internet, children are more vulnerable than ever to terrible predators who want to harm them. I was personally shocked by a lot of what they showed because I have a sister who is 13 years old and I couldn’t imagine my sister saying anything like what those kids were saying. The kids in the beginning were saying that they would cry if they were a parent and saw what was on their kids pages. I was that way when I was young and on the internet, but my younger sister and her friends are very tame and juvenile in their use of social media now. That may be because of early socialization on social media sites for kids that their generation has been exposed to. There was a guy who said that his younger brother was getting an early lesson in web socialization on club penguin. My sister did the same thing and now she is using media to create videos and is considering being a director. This is one of the positive outcomes of children using the internet and social media at a young age; they can learn skills that may prove to be invaluable to them in the future.

The problem with the amount of media today that I see in children like my sister and people my own age, they have no break from media, they are texting constantly. I have friends from high school and from long ago that I can’t even go out to eat with because they will text so much that they will not even make eye contact. Also, the 14 year old taking pictures in lingerie fishing for compliments by taking her clothes off really worried me. She was really just looking for people who wouldn’t make fun of her and would tell her she was beautiful; the problem is that she felt she had to be half naked to achieve that. I couldn’t imagine being her parent and finding that out about my 14 year old child. I also couldn’t imagine being that 14 year old kid and having my father know that about me!

The kids say that parents don’t realize that they have been online since they were young and they know what to avoid on the internet, which is true. But predators are tricky, and if they want something they can find something in the picture or in the background that the kids don’t even realize. It’s a risk that is not worth taking! Predators and pedophiles are what parents and their children are mostly concerned about. There are many other new and secret threats in the internet as well like cyber bulling. This is becoming an increasingly popular way for high school students to taunt one another because you can do things to someone online that you wouldn’t do to someone in person.

Fortunately, as I was looking on my sisters Facebook today, I noticed one of her friends experimenting with being 'sexy,' but it seems they know how to protect themselves for the most part...

Even so, we have to continuously remind ourselves and children that there are dangers out there, and the internet has many of the dangers of the world in one place.

Face-ism in the media

Face-ism, or facial prominence, is the tendency of the media to show the face of men and the body of women in still or moving photographic portrayals. Our textbook defines face-ism as “the tendency to represent people in terms of their face or head as opposed to their body.” The researchers who have conducted research in this field have found that the higher the facial prominence, or the more the face is focused on, the more positive the perceptions of the person in photo are.

I agree with the text that this may be because photos with high facial prominence focus on the head, where the brain is, which makes people believe that the individual is more intelligent. I think this may also be due to the fact that women’s bodies have always been the focus in advertising in the media, causing the perception of the full body photo to change.

Obviously, the groups that have the lowest facial prominence are African Americans and other minorities including women. This is documented in art, photographs, moving pictures, and even postage stamps. Women and Blacks are more often depicted with less facial prominence, i.e. more of their body is shown. Research has indicated that the photos with higher facial prominence signify more dominance. This means that in a very subconscious and sneaky way, the media is telling us who is dominant and who to like more by simply deciding how much of a person’s body to show.

What consequences that could result from using this technique in political advertising? What about in advertising different medical treatment options, or even in choosing a doctor? Without being aware of the ways in which media is used to manipulate society, then we have no way to protect ourselves from that exploitation.

Below are photographic examples of face-ism in the media.

Head to hips Hayden

Magazine cover 1947 (Full body woman)

Current magazine ad (Head to thigh photo)

Another head to thigh shot

Retro women's fashion ad (full body)

MEN'S PHOTOS

Head shots of men like Andy here illustrate the intelligence and prominence of the man pictured. I just so happen to love all of Andy Samberg, not just his lovely noggin.

Current men's fashion ad (head only)Retro men's ad (head only)

Examine the difference in this men's cover and the women's covers from earlier.

Even in this Calvin Klein ad that was shot around the same time in the early 90s shows signs of face-ism even though the photos are almost identical. Kate brings her foot into frame, exposing more of her body, while at the same time Marky Mark's head is about twice the size of her's. This is a minor alteration that helps to maintain the prejudices set forth in the face-ism theory.

Mmmmm, Marky Mark....