1F25 Blog Response 4: News, Trust and “Truthiness”

After reading some of my classmate’s blogs, I’ve noticed that many of them agree with my opinion that satirical news reporting like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are useful additions to the public sphere. In fact, some also said that they are just as informational as the regular news. Tara Wilken even goes so far as to ask “if these shows did not exist how many people would actually know what is happening within their government”. I know for sure that without watching the few episodes of The Colbert Report that I have, I wouldn’t know half of what I do about politics. These shows capture attention in a way that regular news shows can’t. They make you laugh but also make you think about what is being said. According to Ashley Gamsby, “this allows for a more well-rounded discussion”. I believe this is true, as shows like The Rick Mercer Report bring in different audiences from different demographics than those of the regular news, thus creating a broader amount of more educated viewers.

Haya Alsakka claims that satirical news reporting is even more reliable than the regular news, and that they cross boundaries with the criticism of anything that has a large impact on our society. She says that “only by crossing such boundaries can people fully understand an opinion different from theirs”, which brings me back to the broader audience. When people understand other opinions, they either automatically gain more understanding or they do more research on their own to create such an understanding. This only further proves the point that satirical news is very useful to the public sphere.

From the blogs that I read, it is hard to contest the idea that satirical news shows such as The Colbert Report and The Rick Mercer Report contribute greatly to the information base of the public sphere. They create understanding and push people to do their own research on important matters that help us as a society to grow both as a group and as individuals within a group. 

1F25 Post 4: Is the Fake News the Real News?

 

O’Shaughnessy and Stadler state that culture jamming is a “mode of resistance to the norms and conventions of mass culture that exposes and opposes the media’s underlying power structures and ideological messages”(p. 213, Media and Society). So, the question is: is satirical news reporting, like that in The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, a mainstream form of culture jamming? I think the answer is yes. Although those shows are used for comedy, they are also used for education on the basis of exposing what goes on behind the scenes of politics and whatever else is talked about, in a matter of speaking. These shows “actively try to denaturalise the media images that we see every day by making us notice and question their underlying messages”(O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, p. 214, Media and Society). I myself am not a devoted viewer of these shows, as I have only watched a few episodes of The Colbert Report, however the few that I’ve seen have both educated me and made me laugh. They also made me question the validity of what was being reported by other sources. This brings me to the next question: are shows like The Colbert Report useful to the public sphere?

Judging by what I said earlier, you can guess what my answer might be. Again, my answer is yes. These shows educate me on current events, since they need to give background information just in case the audience doesn’t already know what is being discussed. They made me question the validity of the actual news, which, in these days, is partially automatic but not always viable. I believe that these shows are just as useful, if not more so than the regular news. They create understanding and show the other side of the news stories that they report. They omit the stories about meaningless things like, as Professor Bradley says, “water skiing squirrels” and catch people’s attention by creating something funny that is also informative.

Satirical news reporting, such as the programs stated above, create an understanding of current events (which the news is supposed to do), while also making me laugh. In my opinion, they are very useful to the public sphere by doing these things while also being a viable source of culture jamming. 

 

Again, I’m not sure why the font sizes changed between paragraphs. I apologize for any inconvenience caused by it.

1F25 Response 3: Demonstrable Demographics

After reading many of my classmate’s blogs, I found a HUGE commonality in the theme of each one. All the blogs that I read talked about self image, no matter if it was a male or female author. Most of the girl’s blogs talked about commercials for lingerie, and all but one of the boy’s blogs I read talked about commercials for Axe body spray, saying that the media portrays images of our (I’m assuming we are around the same age group) demographic as ‘beautiful’.

Tara Wilken chose an ad for a Swedish eating disorder clinic that shows an image of a girl who is looking in the mirror and sees herself as overweight, when she is actually underweight. Tara goes on to talk about how the media portrays a beautiful body image and how that image makes money. She feels that “this advertisement conveys an accurate portrayal of the tennaged mindset and the need to be perfect”. As an 18 year old girl in this society I have experienced these feelings before, as I’m sure many others have.

Somaya Kalla chose an ad for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. I think you can figure that one out for yourself. Somaya points out that the ad is trying to convey an ideal body shape, which she disagrees with. She talks about how “the superficiality…allows women to believe the ideology of having a slim body and a pretty face”, which is common in most of the ads chosen. I doubt Somaya believes that the ad was successful in hailing her, as she also says that she doesn’t think that the body shape portrayed is the ideal body for a woman. This is her opinion, however I agree. Just because a woman portrays society’s ‘ideal body image’ doesn’t mean she isn’t beautiful.

As I said before, I saw some male representations of ideal body image in the blogs that I read. Hunter Lackey chose a commercial for Axe Apollo Body Spray that shows a woman in a burning building who is rescued by a firefighter. However, after they are outside the woman sees a man dressed in an astronaut costume and chooses to go with him while the slogan “Nothing beats an astronaut…ever” is seen. Hunter believes that while the commercial is unrealistic, it is effective. He said that “it is obviously most appealing towards the young male audience”, which is agreeable because every heterosexual male wants a woman running toward him in a fit of love or attraction. He also speaks about the degradation of women in this commercial, and how they are wrongly portrayed. I noticed that this is a very common worry of many people in our demographic, and rightly so.

Overall, I believe that my classmates feel that the ads directed to our demographic are effective, but unrealistic. Body image is a big indicator of what is portrayed in the media, and most of the blogs I read took the opinion that it is the wrong portrayal. I agree, as what society deems as ‘beautiful’ is essentially unattainable. In order to properly hail people that are partially impervious to these types of ads because they know that no one actually looks like the portrayal in the advertisement. 

1F25 Post 3: What the Hail?

As a white 18-year-old female, there are many advertisements that are targeted toward my demographic. Many of those advertise beauty products or clothing, as does the ad I chose to, for lack of a better term, analyse in this entry.

This is an ad for Victoria’s Secret lingerie, if you didn’t already notice. As we’ve discussed in class, ads try to sell you something that you think will better yourself. This one seems to portray that their lingerie will make you love your body, possibly throughout all body types (which I’ll discuss later). Let’s look at how well (or not) this ad hails me personally.

First, I look at this and see models, not myself, in the product. When I see an ad I need to be able to identify with it, or see myself in the product, to be able to count it as effective. Second, everyone in this ad (with exception of the African-American girl) is blonde or only a slightly darker colour, which is seen as the more desirable hair colour overall, which is displeasing to me, since I’ve always had dark hair (not meaning that I’m jealous, but just bringing up how unfair it is). I would say that because of my experience in seeing and examining ads, this one does not successfully hail me.

Back to the overall effect of the ad, there are many issues with it. One could see this ad as accepting of race and weight, if one simply glances quickly and doesn’t look more into it. However, upon closer inspection, this ad is sadly a display of what our society has come to in the face of what is ‘beauty’. The phrase “I love my body” is, in my opinion, trying to make women want to lose weight and look like the women in the ad instead of loving what their body is actually like. It could be “putting us in our place”(O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, Media and Society, p.185) in the way of ‘true beauty’. It could also be that this ad is trying to answer for us the question of “Would being fatter, thinner, or more attractive…change how you feel about yourself and how you are perceived by other people?” (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, Media and Society, p.185) with the simple word ‘yes’.

There is also the matter of race. Three out of the four women in the ad are Caucasian, and the African-American, although having her arm slung around the shoulders of the girl next to her, is seemingly disconnected from the others. I’ll let you do with that what you will.

That being said, while this ad in particular doesn’t hail me (though, in part, manages to disgust me), there are some that do. Our society will be dominated by advertising until the day when we aren’t susceptible to them, which, in my opinion, won’t happen in our lifetime.