Week 10

A picture’s worth a thousand words comes to mind when reading “Australian Review of Applied Linguistics”. The pictures, along with the captions about the asylum seekers, generalize what really happened to these people. The photos give interpretations, while the text gives facts. The use of images to tell a story in the news is a deceiving way of telling the facts. Even headlines can be deceptive to the actual story. When reading this article I thought about a game that I used to play as a kid, telephone. One person whispers something to another and it gets passed in a circle and at the end you see if it is what the original person said. Usually at the end, the original story is changed. That is how the media works sometimes. Some of the tools that the author mentions about analyzing images explain why the story might get changed around so much. First off when re-telling a story, you have to be specific to whom you are talking about. In this case is the media talking about all asylum seekers or just a specific person? Grouping all asylum seekers together gives a different image than if you are just talking about one person. Grouping all of them together makes a generalized image of them, if one acts a certain way, then they must all act that way. This is how stereotypes about people come about. Secondly, the author mentions categorization, which groups people together. By categorizing people, no one has a different identity. In this case, no one is a mother or father or any other occupation; they are all just ‘boat people’. When talked about they are categorized by their attributes in the images rather than their name. Lastly the idea of role allocation tells the reader who the doer and who is the action being done to. Some times images alone can make this difficult to figure out. In this case, the re-printed black and white image doesn’t let the readers know who the rescuer is and who is being saved. By looking at an image alone, you can’t tell what is really happening; sometimes the picture is taken at a time that doesn’t depict the actually events. The use of verbs can help to let the reader know how the story happened. The war on terror is another major topic in which the media has to make sure that they are clear as to what really happened. It is very easy to generalized the whole Middle East has being terrorists and suicide bombers, just from the media coverage alone. I think that the media makes it hard to realized that people who live over there aren’t all bad, the civilians are living in just as much fear, if not more than the American soldiers are.

 

Macken-Horarik, M. “This children overboard affair” Australian review of applied linguistics 26.2(2003), 1-16

Week 8- Audiences

    The world is in constant motion and these days it seems as if technology and media are too. The constant replacement of media and communication devices is shaping our world into a faster more efficient place. Each day we are given a choice of what communication tool to use and besides just a choice; there is usually a meaning behind that choice. In the article “Research Questions for the Evolving Communications Landscape” Haddon analyzes why people choose to use what they use. I know that for many people my age, texting has become one of the fastest and most used modes of talking. I would choose to send a text message over a phone call if all I wanted was to ask a quick question. Phone calls are used for more elaborate conversations. Haddon talks about this concept of technology having different uses as communication evolves. Another evolution of communication is the use of slang in texting. There are limited characters in a text that you can use, so evolves the LOL’s, BRB’s.

 Cell phones are becoming the center of our worlds as 3G networks allow us to do almost everything on our phones. We can stream TV shows, text, e-mail, listen to music and even use it to call someone. This replacement of other devices doesn’t mean that they aren’t used anymore; they are just used at specific times and for specific reasons. We are adapting to the new technologies and virtually multi-tasking our lives everyday. When talking about social constraints, this is where making a choice comes in. When on public transportation, you may choose to use a text message rather than call someone. Also I think it is interesting when considering relationships. Breaking up with someone via text message is considered too impersonal so people do it over the phone. I’m sure that before cell phones and the amount of communication technology we have today, that breaking up with someone over the phone would seem just as impersonal.

Technology will continue to rise and society will continue to adapt, thats be the beauty of this mobile age we are living in. People can’t fight the communication age, everyone should embrace the changes and continue to keep up with the emerging technologies.

Haddon, Leslie

Playlist on TV?

Programming your own channel: An Archaeology of the Playlist

                When someone says create a playlist, I automatically think of my iPod and iTunes. It never occurred to me that a playlist could be on the television or on YouTube. This article discusses how the shift of power from the producers and television stations is now in our hands.  With the use of TiVo or Foxtel iQ, the consumer is the creator and producer of their own playlist of shows, all with the simple click of a button. Playlists are essentially interruptions of broadcasting flow, in which the consumer can watch a television show when ever he or she chooses. This idea of personalization and customization relates to the use of time and space. No longer do you have to watch a show at a certain time, at your house, you can record a show and upload it to your iPod and watch it anytime you please.

                Flow is the way that things are structured and interruptions are what make flow work. There was an example from the text that states that “traffic flow is dependent on the constant interruptions of traffic lights, stop signs, roundabouts and give ways”(pg 180). The article then talks about how if there weren’t interruptions then there would be constant traffic jams.  Interruptions in flow make sure that there is a break up in say programming or a change in song, but it is still always interconnecting.  By making your own playlists in life, you can make sure that there is always a flow that suites your needs.

                I think that this whole idea of creating everything personalized to you has positives and negatives. It’s a good idea because you can make sure that you are always satisfied with your life and view and listen to what you want. However, as the article touched on, making everything personalized to you can become an anti-social addiction. I know that at home all my friends and I get together to watch certain television shows, but if everyone just recorded them and watched them on their own time, we might not see each other as much. It’s the same thing with the iPod, if you have so many movies, music, podcasts and whatever else on your iPod, you may never take your headphones off and meet someone new every now and then. The constant rise in technology and personalization, may be leading away from true communication and interaction.

 

Rizzo,Teresa;”Programming Your Own Channel:An Archaelogy of the Playlist.” In Kenyon, Andrew, Ed Tv Futures:Digital Television Policy in Australia. Carlton,VIC:Melbourne University Press,2007,108-134.

Week 6:Convergence

       “Buying into American Idol: How we are being sold on reality television” was a really interesting article about the shift from non interactive television to interactive television.  By teaming up with AT&T and allowing viewers to choose the winners by calling in or texting their votes has changed the way that people watch TV. Not only is television becoming more interactive, this article discussed different marketing techniques that television stations use to create more brand and fan loyalty. By appealing to viewers who regularly watch a certain TV show, the producers and advertisers can gain loyal fans that will watch the commercials and remember them. By understanding the demographics of a shows viewer, marketing companies can understand better who they are selling to and conform to their target audience. Jenkins discusses a lot about how television shows have to create loyal fan bases to produce profits. He uses Coca-Cola as an example of how the American Idol judges drink from Coke cups and Coke sponsors events that the contestants attend. As quoted from the article, “Marketing gurus argue that building a committed “brand community’ may be the surest means of expanding consumer loyalty. Most loyal fans could become valued customers to advertisements because they relate the ad’s to the shows they watch.

I think that with the economy being in the shape that it is, advertising during highly watched shows becomes very important for businesses. More people are likely to be home and watching television as opposed to being out, which means that ad’s could be seen more and remembered. The most important part of that would be to understand the target audience and work with TV stations to better understand who to appeal to. However, this idea becomes increasingly difficult with people who have DVR and record the shows then skip over the commercials. Advertising companies maybe should come up with a way to make their commercials more interactive like the shows that the viewers are watching, to get people to pay attention.

Overall, creating a good fan base is important for television shows. Fan communities will get together on websites and blog about or remark about the show. This is a form of audience participation in which people can talk about the shows they are watching with people who are just as enthusiastic about it as they are. Also, this is a good tool to get the word out about a show, if people are only half interested but someone’s comments draw them in, they could become a loyal fan in the future. This all relates to the convergence of different technologies, such as the TV and the computer bringing people together.

Jenkins,Henry. “Buying into American Idol: Giw We are being Sold on Reality Television” In convergence Culture:Where old and New Media Colide. New York,NYU Press,2006,59-92.

Week 5-Mobile Media

        Volker talks about how the spread of media is becoming easier and easier through the use of these ‘mobile social software’ such as Semapedia or Socialight. Through the use of these, “cyber space” is linked to physical space. This cyberspace is a reality escape, a different place than the physical space that you are occupying at the time. As quoted from the article, “virtual and ‘cyber’ became synonyms for ‘digital’ as opposed to being a precedent to a ‘material’ and more real reality”. I think that this quote is very true to how media is perceived today. I also think that software like Semepedia and Socialight, while making communication about products easier and faster, it’s also becoming less personal. When you go to a store to look at a product or inquire about it, you usually have to talk to someone. But with these, all you have to do is take a picture, get on the internet and learn about it. I also feel like with Socialight, there is too much contact going on at all times. Every time you walk by a store that has been tagged you get a message about whatever it is that someone tagged that place for. If Socialight got really popular, your phone could buzzed ten times in one city block; to me that would be really annoying.

   Traveling through different thresholds allows media to be spread faster and faster. The lecture this week was interesting and ties into this article because we had talked about moving from place to place such as a bus station and then a bus is mobility of media. Using a phone during these transitions is a flow of spaces. The shift from stationary places to mobility is the essence of technological growth. Also in relation to the lecture, we talked about how mobile media are a more private form of communication as opposed to TV or radio. This was demonstrated in the second article we read, about Japanese teens using their mobile phones to make private personal calls to a boyfriend as opposed to using the home phone. I did the same thing when I got my first cell phone, as well as texting. I could send my boyfriend or friends private conversations while sitting in the room with my parents because they wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Overall, I think that mobile media is an important aspect to our society, as long as it is used for the right purposes and doesn’t become more important to people than actual conversations.

 

Volker,Clara. “Mobile Media and Space” In Goggin,Gerard and Larissa Hjorth,Eds Mobile Media 2007 Sydney:Sydney University Press 2007,135-142

Week 4-Doubling of Place…

After reading “The Doubling of Place-Electronic media, time-space arrangements and social relationships”, Moores’ main idea is that a person can be in two places at once through the use of technology, hence doubling of place. Not only are people doubling places, they are multiplying social relationships and interactions too. Moores suggests that through this use of these mediums, people can have greater than before simultaneous interactions with people. To show this theory, Moores gives three examples of how space is multiplied through the use of the television, Internet and a cell phone. Another theme he discusses is how a “media event” differs from broadcasting. A media event is something that stops people’s daily routines where as broadcasting is on a schedule and is a regular occurrence.

The first example that Moores gives to help understand doubling of place is also categorized under a media event as opposed to just broadcasting. The example is of a couple watching Princess Diana’s funeral on television, and how they watched it all day, never leaving the house. Even though they didn’t know her directly, they still felt the need to “be there”, without physically being at the funeral. Another example he gave was September 11, which is a very well-known day that so many people tuned into watch as this tragic event occurred. I’m sure that people all around the world watched this event happen and felt sadness and anger, even though they were thousands of miles away. Media coverage of this event and afterwards, I feel, brought the U.S together and made me feel like we were all connected; it brought about a feeling of national pride and anger and sadness for the loss of so many people.

The second example that Moores gives is a girl using an Internet social network to connect to people that aren’t in the physical room as her. This is expanding her social interactions and in reality she could be talking to different people all over the world. The doubling of place through the use of social networking sites makes it very easy to be in “many places at once”. Another good example of doubling space through the use of a computer is Skype, you can see and talk to another person in another country, just through the internet. You can actually see your “doubled space” and they can see yours.

The third example he gives is a person on a train using a cell phone. This woman on the phone is talking loud enough that people can hear her then she gets mad when someone is looking at her and “listening to her private conversation”. This is a really great example because so many people are on their cell phones all the time. Even though these two people are in different places, they share a “virtual co-presence, [like] that created by ‘synchronous’ Internet chat.” (Moores, pg 30).

Moores, Shaun.” The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangements and Social Relationships.” In Couldry, Nick. and McCarthey, Anna., Eds MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. London: Routledge, 2004, 21-37

Week 3-Dailiness

In the article “Dailiness” Scannell discusses how media is connected with our everyday lives. Television shows revolve around what we are doing at the time, such as the Today Show or evening news programs. These shows tells us what is happening today or what has happened; we sit and watch these programs at certain times each day, to the point where it becomes a routine. Dailiness and routine, surrounding people lives, sort of begin to control it. People make sure that they are home at certain times to watch a program or listen to the radio at certain times. A theme that is constant is that time isn’t our time anymore; its technologies time and we run on it. Publicness is another term that the author uses to describe television and radio. It discusses how these technologies are making life more public. The news and politics are a great public broadcast; people can know what is going on in the world. However, I think that some things such as reality TV become too publicized. A term that the author uses is Phenomenological time, which is “human-time”, I thought that this was interesting in talking about time being cyclical and linear. I think that it makes you realize that even though the days are going by and you can’t get them back, each day is a new day and you have the power to make it a good one. I think that this is relevant to technology use because people in general can waste their days on the Internet or being sucked into the television routines that they forget to live by other means.

Week 2:Domestication

“Disciplined and disciplining co(a)gents, the remote control and the couch potato” brought up ideas of how technology makes life easier for us, but at the same time is causing us to become lazier. Not only is the remote a tool to help us engage in watching television, it has become a symbol of power and order in the household.
Mike Michael talks about how the idea of the couch potato is becoming a class of person as opposed to just a general idea of a lazy person. He gave many examples of how companies are marketing to the “couch potato” and saying things such as “so easy, the couch potato could do it”. Not only is slogans like this making people think that it’s ok for them to be a couch potato, it is causing obesity in people. In the study from PSL medical news website it stated that “obesity cannot be explained by the increasing consumption of fast-food alone. Changing exercise habits could be more to blame than diet”. (http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/328ae.htm-15 January 1998). In the United States, we have commercials that show kids playing and getting outdoors and the slogans is “Verb, it’s what you do”. These commercials are helping to promote kids get up off the couch and go outside and play. I think that there needs to be more commercials like this, instead of remote control companies promoting easy ways for lazy people to do things.
The father of the household is usually the ruler of the remote, the father dictates what is watched and for how long. As quoted “ …through the very monopoly of the remote control’s channel hopping facility, comes to reproduce the relations of power within the family”. (Michael, 54). Something as simple as watching television has become a power struggle, who owns the remote rules all is the way of thinking when sitting in social setting watching t.v. I think that this creates negative energy within a group of people because if one person just watches what they want to watch and no one else is happy about it, then a simple social event as watching t.v turns into unconstructive family bonding time.

Michael M. Reconnecting Culture, Technology and Nature: From Society to Heterogeneity. London: Rouledge,2000,96-116.

“What do Media Do to us? Media and Society”

After reading “What do the media do to us? Media and Society”, I concluded that the media sometimes influences us in many ways, subtle or not. Some examples can be fashion in music or through subliminal messages, such as making smoking look cool in movies. Smoking in movies isn’t always just props, its advertising; it’s about tobacco companies paying celebrities to endorse these products in their movies. I think that the main point that the author was saying in this is that media has been so influential in all aspects of life, that we have sort of conformed to the ideas of writers and editors. The media doesn’t allow people to think for themselves what is important, instead media chooses and broadcast what they think should be important to people. When talking about the African Football Cup of Nations and how it receives no coverage even though it is “arguably the third most significant international soccer competition in the world after the World Cup and the European Cup…”(O’Shaughnessy pg43). This lack of air time could have to do with how the media and society has chosen to portray Africa and that their sports must just not be important enough for television, when in reality, the African Football Cup is a big deal.
There are many cases just recently where the media has influenced people into doing things. In the United States there is a single woman who has six children, living on welfare and just recently had eight more children through artificial insemination. On top of all of this, she is trying to look more like Angelina Jolie, who has been publicized about her children and adopting. She has let the media influence her to the point where she is putting the lives of 14 children in danger, because she can’t take care of them, all so that she can get some sort of media attention and idolize a celebrity. Another horrible example is a teenage boy had a live video feed of his suicide on a website. Tools such as the internet have made people crazed with letting the world know every move that they make, to the extent that this boy wanted to publicize his own death. This relates to the part in the article where “romanticizing” suicide has been a question of the effect of media. This issue of whether or not media influences these decisions is a major topic of the article.

O’Shaughnessy,Michael,and Jane Stadler.”What Do the Media Do to Us? Media and Society” Media and Society: An Introduction,Third Edition.South Melbourne,VIC:Oxford University Press,2005,31-58.

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