Blog #3

The mass media plays a major role in regards to the formation of a consumer society. The media has such an enormous influence on society, making whatever they want to be the trend one day and absolutely absurd the next. “Dream Worlds of Consumption” along with “Advertising and the Ideas of Mass Society” correspond to the issues and debates surrounding the “developing rhetoric of ‘mass man’ ” These readings in addition to the magazine advertisement, explained later on, show how the media promises us things but how can we accept these promises from something that isn’t even constant or real?

“Dream of Worlds of Consumption” touches upon the expositions and ever changing culture into a “fantasy.” The view of structures changed drastically from showing a person how it was built and engineered to entertaining them. Science and technology were no longer focal points, instead, lavish decorations and random arrangements were the center of everyone’s attention. The French Exposition explained in the book (170-1) demonstrated how this site and other expositions introduced to the common man the “wonders” of technology and the growing consumer culture of industrial nations (170).

These expositions represent the consumer revolution evolving. Merchandising started to become more appealing to the people because the aim had changed. The consumer was starting to be deceived more because fantasy was being used often, and with fantasy, not everything is true. Many critics, such as Maurice Talmeyr, argue that all advertising was false and people were being exposed to flat out and subtle lies and not even knowing it. People are satisfied by basic needs like food but it is hard for people to satisfy their imagination, and that’s where merchandising comes in. Consumer goods, department stores, art museums such as the Louvre opened a whole new door for people wanting to be entertained. More and more things continued to cost more money and prices were now set, customers could not bargain their way down to a lower price. But the public was still fascinated by all these new ways of life, allowing the merchandising business to thrive (171-3). Electricity was finally invented and used in countless ways such as lighting up the streets of Paris or as marquees. Furthermore the automobile attracted everyone, every sex and color, making it one of the biggest items according to the media from the merchandizing companies (174-5).

The reading “Advertising and the ideas of Mass Society” also talks about the mass media and advertising to the consumer. Just changing the littlest thing can make a product more pleasing to the eye, causing mass amounts of people wanting it. The book gives the example of a hardware store worker leaving his hunter axes in the front window because he cannot move them. By doing this, crowds of people came during midday and bought the hunter’s axes (Lears197). These axes made men feel like men, they were appealing and being in the front window, anyone and everyone who walked by could see them without having to step into the store. Subtle changes, like this one, were what made people notice, making them want it.

In order to know what the public likes, people were asked what drew them to an advertisement. Illustrations are what sell, people don’t like just black type “yelling” at them (197). Childish images or ads with emotional appeal are also what sell to the consumer. People like to look at an ad and understand it almost and feel a connection with it. Having creativity, or not copying from another ad campaign, is hard to do but if achieved, the public will answer with applause and an open wallet. Enthusiasm, exaggeration, and being on the verge on lying are what will convince people to buy the product. If someone believes that this product will give him or her the ability to do something they cannot do, they will want it. It’s all about trust; the consuming trusting the advertisement that what is being shown is true (200-1). The “mass man” allowed advertisers to practically think of the public as a whole and an ad should and will be appealing to all people. The advertising men and women have the upper hand on society and can and will make the trends, almost forcing people what to like or dislike.

The magazine ad I chose is for Paul Mitchell hair salons and products. The ad is himself, Paul Mitchell, his wife, son, and dog all laying in a wheat field looking so ‘family like.” The quote on the bottom, which is very small, says:

Be Kind. Create change and build a better future. Join the Paul Mitchell System family of hairdressers worldwide to fight hunger and poverty, safeguard our planet’s water, and give hope to children in need.

I think this ad is quite deceiving and almost humorous at first. I am not laughing at this company for supporting all these causes, but how they portray it. You barely notice the bottom quote, and at first glance I thought: using his Paul Mitchell products will give me a happy, perfect family? There is nothing about hair at all, other than the hair on their heads, which is nicely groomed. It really does not say anything about them having the best hair styling products; it just appears that Paul Mitchell will make happy families. It is promising this, because there is nothing else in the ad to look into.

            Regarding the bottom quote, it shows that Paul Mitchell supports the fight against hunger and poverty as well as helping children and cleaning our waters. I think with the whole “going green trend,” this will appeal to the people who are really for these causes and maybe they will buy his products over other ones that do not state such things, or maybe not. It will help his name to have this at the bottom, but it really is not noticeable so people just scanning through magazines will most likely skip over this caption. This just shows that having a typical model with wavy hair holding a Paul Mitchell product is not good enough, consumers like to see realness (his family being pictured, not actor or models), happiness and up to date ads- decades ago people were not caring about poverty and the environment as much as they are today, so merchandisers need to advertise with themes that go with the now, not the past.

 

 

Williams, Rosalynd. "Dream Worlds of Communications.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th  ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 169-175.

Lears, Jackson. "Advertising and the Idea of Mass Society.” Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th  ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 197-201.

Presidential Debate 08

After watching the 1st 2008 Presidential debate, I really was not 100% sure on who won. Neither McCain nor Obama was the clear winner, making it really difficult to determine whom the better candidate is. The BiPolar post by Dan Kenitz on this debate concluded, too, that neither candidate clearly won. The only slip he really points out was when McCain mentioned his fallen U.S. soldier bracelet and Obama interrupts saying he had one also but had to look down at it for the soldier’s name. I re-watched this part of the debate and saw Obama hesitate, stutter, and look at the bracelet for the name. I think this kind of shows he really doesn’t care what had had around his wrist and to me he made it not important or meaningful to himself that he was wearing it.

I agree with this post because it wasn’t really an amazing debate and nothing special happened. This blog had a relatively short reaction to the debate, not really much to respond to. He says how it really did not catch much attention because it did almost get cancelled, which I agree. Finally, all in all, “people generally think that their candidate won” (Kenitz), so conservatives will say McCain won and liberals will say Obama won; no matter what comes out of their mouths.

Both candidates were asked about taxes. To me, it’s really a tricky situation that has made our economy sink so low these past years. Taxing the rich more, as Obama stands by, and letting the poor and middle class off a little is great for people trying to get back into “the game.” But I wonder, I know not everyone is able to make enough money to be well off and health circumstances definitely can hurt, but then I know there are those people who just are lazy. People who won’t get job at all, not even minimum wage ones for whatever reason. I think there needs to be a program that encourages more people to work because then we wouldn’t be having this problem, or it wouldn’t be as big. Immigrants, illegal or legal, come to this country for work and they work hard and do all the “dirty work” (i.e. lawn care, construction, cleaning). These jobs have an infinite work force, they will never be full so I think the people who complain about having no where to work need to step aside their pride and take these jobs. Any job is better then no job.  In regards to McCain’s plan, he would like to keep taxes the same for the rich and have the middle and lower class pay less. This plan would be wonderful but I’m really not sure how it would actually happen and benefit the economy. I do not think the rich, which defined by Obama is $250,000/yr, should be taxed more. I think these people work very hard, and I know there are those exception cases, but people should not be penalized for working high-level jobs that they earned (for the most cases) everyday and getting paid well for it. There are so many stories of men and women who grew up with literally nothing and then they become millionaires, some even billionaires, so I really do not think just because one grew up poor means they have to live the rest of their life that way. Also, people making just $250,000 are not really rich in comparison to people making millions, so I think the income should be much higher if Obama carries this plan out.

I think the build up and chance the debate may not have happened was bigger than the actual outcome of the debate. Neither candidate really did not say anything mind blowing. Before the debate took place, commercials such as “Doom for the Debate” advertised making it such a hype whether it would be postponed or not. It shows that the US was focusing on more important things that are detrimental to us right now and need to be addressed and fixed ASAP. On CNN, there was a graph at the bottom of the TV screen which basically showed what party (Democrats, Republicans, and Independents) approved of the points made by each candidate and who did not approve. There were also “analyst scorecards” on the sides of the screen, which showed the positive or negative reactions from six CNN experts.  (I found this blog that explained what the graphs and scorecard meant, I only read about the facts of the “grading” of the debate, not personal views on this particular blog). 

Kenitz, Dan. The First McCain-Obama Debate. 29 Sept   2008. http://www.bipolarnation.com/2008/09/29/the-first-mccain-obama-debate/

Pallasch, Abdon M. Tax Plan Face Off: Obama vs. McCain. http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1031268,CST-NWS-tax30.article

Scoring the Debate Live on CNN. 29 Sept 2008. http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/scoring-the-debate-live-on-cnn-420/

Writing Wins

The following essays, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading” along with “The Dumbing of America” give arguments about how the growing technology and media are putting a major dent into the world of reading books and writing poetically per se. Society has drastically changed from the time of using feathered ink pens and scrolls but it doesn’t necessarily mean that our culture has become ‘dumber’ because of our increase in technology. For instance, insanely educated and just natural intelligent people must make up these technologies such as the Internet and Ipod. Dumb people are definitely not just coming up with these ideas and magically somehow making it a real thing. The argument of people becoming more ignorant of the classics, claimed in “The Dumbing of America,” because of our growing technology is acceptable since I know I do barely read a book a year of my own choice just for pleasure. But I also argue that people today are much busier than people decades and hundreds of years ago. People now have sports, for example, and practice to attain to which takes up a lot of time versus when people had more free time to do more for themselves and relax with a nice classic novel.

            In today’s society I believe writing is superior to speech and has a much bigger impact on us. Today, people can voice their opinion with just the click of a button. Blogs, Facebook, and My Space are probably the biggest, free of charge ways for people to show thousands even millions of what they agree or disagree on. With speech, not everyone can be on TV or the radio to voice their stand. Anyone can be important and influence another with writing but with speech, usually one must be of importance or their job to actually talk and have more than a room full of people listen. The Origins of Writing in Communication in History claims “writing is among the greatest invention in human history, perhaps the greatest invention, since it made history possible” (Robinson 36). I definitely agree with this claim because without it, how could anyone record our past? Without recording our past, we would only know the stories passed down by word of mouth, making it become half untrue because word does not always travel the same from person to person. Robinson also acknowledges the beginning of writing started with accounting (38). Imagine having all those numbers and not being able to record them? It would be impossible to know the money coming in and out of the company making business very hard to succeed. Everybody uses writing everyday for the most part.

            Relating back to the two Internet articles, the fear of young people losing the ability to read and write is ridiculous to me. Using the Internet and blogs, etc is just a different type of reading and writing versus reading the writings of Jane Austin. We are living in an ever-changing world, making it almost impossible to stop technology from growing enabling us to using savvy technological devices and returning back to the “olden days” forms of communications. People are still writing and I think writing more than ever since we know have the capabilities to publish our works to the world. Writing is not lacking, it is just changing and expanding to different levels because of our ever-growing technological craving. I think people are finding more people with their same views and learning from people who are completely in contrast of them because of our advancements. And with these abilities to read about other people and their thoughts, I think we learn even more than we were able to years and years ago. We are just more interested in different things now then history shows but it is not a bad thing, it just shows how our culture values different things then the past cultures did.

            The alphabet is an incredible invention to society. It has allowed us to write and understand each other using the same format. Johanna Drucker explains how the letters in the alphabet has been used for centuries in regards to written documents (47). The alphabet is a pretty amazing invention, just 26 letters has enabled us to make thousands of words and be able to communicate to each other through written documents and technological developments. Without the alphabet, the English language would not be the same or maybe not even exist making history extremely different. Writing has really made history, literally, and without it who knows what we would be learning and how much of it would actually be the spoken truth.

           

Gardner, Howard. "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading." Washington Post. 17 Feb. 2008: B01. 16 Sept. 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html .

Jacoby, Susan. "The Dumbing of America." Washington Post 17 Feb. 2008: B01. 16 Sept. 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html

Drucker, Johanna. "The Alphabet" 2003. Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 46-55.

Robinson, Andrew. "The Origins of Writing" 2003. Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 360-45.

Political Blog Numero Uno

A topic that I would like to discuss in regards to the presidential election would probably be one of the most controversial, abortion. I really do not know where I stand exactly on it, that’s why I would like to talk about it. I am Catholic and went to Catholic school my whole life up until college. For me, I feel like a swing back on both sides of this controversy just because there are so many situations that could happen, altering my choice. My Pro-Life side pulls me one way because of my upbringing. I do see abortion as a bad choice when it comes to a woman just not wanting to have a baby. If she is mid 20s-30s, healthy, and nothing really wrong with her and she just doesn’t want to have a child, then I see abortion as not the right choice. There are so many ways to prevent pregnancy and women should use those resources if they do not want children, or else they are just ending a helpless life. It would be really hard for me, at least, to have an abortion done just because I feel like I would have ended the life of a person that had no control over their destiny. On the other hand, my Pro-Choice side comes out. Say for instance, a teenage girl was raped and became pregnant. I, as an athlete, could not have the baby, it would ruin my whole swimming career and the fact that it was a rapist’s baby would make it unethical to have the child. It really is a tricky situation and both sides have their pros and cons. Also, the debate of when life begins is so mind boggling to me because whose to say when life begins exactly. To say whether it’s at conception or later on, it just seems so technical that I understand why it’s such a controversial topic. In the end, I really do not see abortion as a real benefit to society but I also think people should be more responsible and maybe the fall back of an abortion would never have to be considered. 

The blog post I will respond to basically is extremely conservative and demeans Obama. I agree with this post somewhat but not to the major extent of the author. After reading about Obama being purely Pro-Choice and legalizing all forms of abortion including “partial-birth abortion,” seems almost inhumane to me. Like I explained above, I agree with Pro-Choice in some cases but allowing partial-birth abortions to happen really do not make any sense at all to me. Maybe I just do not know all the knowledge behind it but I do not understand why anyone would have this done so late into her pregnancy, it seems a bit cruel. I do not see Pro-Choicers as “murderous weirdos” as said in the blog, since I too am Pro-Choice sometimes but I just wonder when the line will be drawn in regards to abortion. Whether life has started or not, or which trimester it is, all greatly factor into this controversy making it trickier since different people have different definitions of each. This author definitely has a too conservative view and I think people like him need to broaden their views or at least try to understand the other’s side without completely shooting them down. On this topic I see myself as a moderate conservative since I realize this author is too conservative and almost narrow-minded but I do not agree totally with Obama’s side.  

First Blog

Hey everyone, my name is Rebecca Godwin. I was born in Baltimore, where I attended an all girls private high school, Notre Dame Prep, and swam as well as played lacrosse. I am currently a sophomore at UMBC and am on the Swimming and Diving Team as a distance swimmer. My major is INDS where I will make my own major of Sports or Media Marketing. I am really interested in different sports team, specifically the NFL. I would love to work as a Marketer for an NFL team. The media really affects how sports are portrayed in everyday life. One can just turn on the TV and see any tennis match, football, soccer or basketball game from any part of the country or even world. The media has hyped up sports so much that Saturdays during the fall on mainstream channels are dedicated to college football games, Sundays are ruled by NFL games, and when basketball starts, it’s all that plays when any game, big or small, is on. Other than sports, the media will cover any political, celebrity, or breaking news story. I try to watch the political broadcasts, both parties, on TV everyday because I know I am not that passionate about politics but I feel by doing this I will become more educated and be able to vote with more knowledge about the candidates’ beliefs. On the lighter side, I will watch the meaningless gossip shows about Hollywood and celebrities around the world just to watch some lighter TV. The media, as I talked about above, has many sides and branches out in countless directions. From politics to the latest actress, the media will cover it and will blow the story up out of proportion. I believe the media will dwell on the littlest facts, add mostly rumors, and make it the latest story when in fact nothing late breaking has happened at all. The media has a huge influence over our lives just because there’s TV, internet, magazines, newspapers, the list goes on with how the media communicates to us and how we are just prone to listening or reading it without even realizing we are. 

I will be following the BipolarNation blog.