A. My final Thesis
Overall, the uncensored portrayal of violence in the visual media has caused for society, as a whole, to become desensitized.
B. The Necessary Steps in my Argument
The first part of my paper discusses the changes in the amount of violence on television over time. The next part then discusses how war is portrayed on the news and in movies and includes specifically why this portrayal desensitizes society. The final part of my paper discusses crime in television, specifically in shows and on the news. It also includes how these specific portrayals desensitize our society.
C. My Sources
The first type of sources I have are scholarly articles. Most of these articles discuss experiments that were conducted on people dealing with violence on television. The second type of sources I'm using are books. These books mainly discuss war in the news but touch lightly on crime. The final sources I have are websites. These websites mainly give me my statistics and facts that I am using for the first part of my argument.
D. My favorite source
My favorite source by far is a book called "Mediatized Conflict"(I can't figure out how to underline the title), written by Simon Cottle. This book basically puts exactly what I am thinking into clear thoughts. It makes sense and is not completely overriden with big words and complex processes like some of my other sources.
E. Interesting fact
One interesting fact that I have learned so far is "By the age of 18, the average American chold sees 200,000 violent acts on television". (Social Impact 2) Can you imagine how many violent acts we see before we die! And what about all those couch potatoes...I'm sure they see alot more!!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Research Paper Topic and Theses
My topic for the research paper is going to be violence.
Theses:
1. The unsensored portrayal of violence in the media has caused our society to become desensitized.
2. War and crime have become such common focuses in our modern media, causing a level of immunity to violence, in our society.
3. Modern day media operates in ways such that violence is no longer reserved for the imagination. This has lead to the desensitization of our society.
Theses:
1. The unsensored portrayal of violence in the media has caused our society to become desensitized.
2. War and crime have become such common focuses in our modern media, causing a level of immunity to violence, in our society.
3. Modern day media operates in ways such that violence is no longer reserved for the imagination. This has lead to the desensitization of our society.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Reality T.V.
Part One: This blog actually kind of confuses me. I had to choose the second question, because to be honest I really don’t understand the first question at all. I think that this blog question might be going to deeply into what reality T.V. is all about. I’m not so sure we really need to be going this deeply into reality T.V., but obviously that’s just my opinion. I’m not really sure where to go with the second question, so I’m sorry if it seems like I’m just winging it. I guess it’s nice that we talked about it on class on Monday, but not really exactly about what this question is asking for.
Part Two: Who is the audience of reality T.V.? That is actually a very hard question to answer. In my opinion, I believe that the audience depends on the genre. For “makeover shows” (“Extreme Makeover”, “What Not to Wear”, etc.), the audience tends to be women. I don’t really know very many men who look forward to watching shows like these. As for shows like “Man vs. Wild”, the audience is many times men. Walk into a class and simple whisper “Man vs. Wild” and I assure you that all of the men in the class will automatically erupt into chatter. As you get into, “fantasy” reality T.V., the audience tends to be teenage girls. The drama and thrill of the “rich” life always seems to appeal to this age group. The list of different audiences goes on and on, as the genre changes. Now, the main message of reality T.V. shows can be generalized. Most shows are portraying the “average person”. I think that these television shows are trying to prove to the “common” person that he/she can do anything. Basically, the shows are saying if he can do it, so can you.
Part Two: Who is the audience of reality T.V.? That is actually a very hard question to answer. In my opinion, I believe that the audience depends on the genre. For “makeover shows” (“Extreme Makeover”, “What Not to Wear”, etc.), the audience tends to be women. I don’t really know very many men who look forward to watching shows like these. As for shows like “Man vs. Wild”, the audience is many times men. Walk into a class and simple whisper “Man vs. Wild” and I assure you that all of the men in the class will automatically erupt into chatter. As you get into, “fantasy” reality T.V., the audience tends to be teenage girls. The drama and thrill of the “rich” life always seems to appeal to this age group. The list of different audiences goes on and on, as the genre changes. Now, the main message of reality T.V. shows can be generalized. Most shows are portraying the “average person”. I think that these television shows are trying to prove to the “common” person that he/she can do anything. Basically, the shows are saying if he can do it, so can you.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Take Charge Assignment Ideas
1. Personally, I really like the whole idea behind this assignment. People are constantly complaining about what their teacher made them read the night before and how boring it was. Now we get to blame ourselves or at least the people around us. Sooo beware…don’t pick anything boring or you will have the entire class to answer to! The topics that people choose should reflect what people my age believe is important for everyone to know out the many topics that the media covers. I’m not really one for watching the news at night..personally I find it somewhat depressing. Hopefully, this assignment will bring me back up to speed with some of the most current and/or the most important events.
2. After reviewing the assignment, there were a few topics that I believe I may want to look into. One of the first options that popped into my head, was the idea of global warming. I know that this has been a big subject in the news recently and I think that it would be good to bring to the attention of people my age. I would also like to explore eating disorders. If I did this topic, I would take a look at celebrities and the effect of their media portrayal. I overhear on a fairly regular basis girls of an average weight, saying that they are “too fat”. I think that the media has a very large part to do with this. I also think that it would be interesting to look into what is being done to find alternative fuel sources. People are constantly complaining about gas prices and worrying us with the fact that oil isn’t always going to be there for us to use. The only problem with this topic is that I think it would be hard to find sources. There haven’t really been many suggested solutions to the problem and therefore the media hasn’t really jumped on the chance to write about alternative fuel sources.
2. After reviewing the assignment, there were a few topics that I believe I may want to look into. One of the first options that popped into my head, was the idea of global warming. I know that this has been a big subject in the news recently and I think that it would be good to bring to the attention of people my age. I would also like to explore eating disorders. If I did this topic, I would take a look at celebrities and the effect of their media portrayal. I overhear on a fairly regular basis girls of an average weight, saying that they are “too fat”. I think that the media has a very large part to do with this. I also think that it would be interesting to look into what is being done to find alternative fuel sources. People are constantly complaining about gas prices and worrying us with the fact that oil isn’t always going to be there for us to use. The only problem with this topic is that I think it would be hard to find sources. There haven’t really been many suggested solutions to the problem and therefore the media hasn’t really jumped on the chance to write about alternative fuel sources.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Part 1.
Out of the two articles, I chose to read “Which Media Do You Trust?”. This article seemed to me to be very poorly written. I felt as if the author kept almost repeating himself in different ways all about the same topic. He focused heavily on the fact that the trust in blogs was small, which after the first paragraph I clearly understood, yet he felt the need to continue further into a second paragraph. The article seemed to me to be a bunch numbers followed by a poorly thought out argument. Printed out, the article was only two short pages long, yet when I was finished I felt as if I had been reading for days. I’m not sure if that’s the author’s fault or if the topic he talked about bored me. Personally, I believe it to have been both. The author seems dumbfounded by the fact that people tended to choose TV as their most trustworthy source of information. In my opinion, I don’t see where else anyone would choose to get their information. After hearing over and over again from high school teachers that you have to be careful about finding credible information on the internet, I can understand why that option is out. As for the newspaper, they report the same thing that the TV news broadcasts report anyways!
Part 2.
Mark Glaser, the author of “Which Media Do You Trust?”, chose to claim that the trust of “the masses” of certain media sources was based already on media. Mr. Glaser stated that only twenty-five percent of “the masses” believed that blogs were credible. He then went on to state how he felt that the trust in blogs is based upon the preexisting media stereotype that “blogs have none of the great fact-checking of mainstream media, so they have no credibility”. Angered as Mr. Glaser was, he stated that this general statement should not stand true for every blog. He explained that the trustworthiness of a blog depends on who’s writing and his/her credibility with the audience. For this argument, I have a counterargument in the form of a situation. If a person is looking for something that contains the news, why would he or she search the internet and run the risk of running into a phony site? Many people have never encountered a legitimate blog once in their time of surfing the internet, so why in the world would they decide to look for a blog with the news? Taking a step back from these arguments, I pose a simple question to the author: if you believe that blogs deserve more credibility, how do you plan on proving the credibility to “the masses”. Simply enough, this argument/claim does not have enough of a realistic view or solution, to make it credible.
Out of the two articles, I chose to read “Which Media Do You Trust?”. This article seemed to me to be very poorly written. I felt as if the author kept almost repeating himself in different ways all about the same topic. He focused heavily on the fact that the trust in blogs was small, which after the first paragraph I clearly understood, yet he felt the need to continue further into a second paragraph. The article seemed to me to be a bunch numbers followed by a poorly thought out argument. Printed out, the article was only two short pages long, yet when I was finished I felt as if I had been reading for days. I’m not sure if that’s the author’s fault or if the topic he talked about bored me. Personally, I believe it to have been both. The author seems dumbfounded by the fact that people tended to choose TV as their most trustworthy source of information. In my opinion, I don’t see where else anyone would choose to get their information. After hearing over and over again from high school teachers that you have to be careful about finding credible information on the internet, I can understand why that option is out. As for the newspaper, they report the same thing that the TV news broadcasts report anyways!
Part 2.
Mark Glaser, the author of “Which Media Do You Trust?”, chose to claim that the trust of “the masses” of certain media sources was based already on media. Mr. Glaser stated that only twenty-five percent of “the masses” believed that blogs were credible. He then went on to state how he felt that the trust in blogs is based upon the preexisting media stereotype that “blogs have none of the great fact-checking of mainstream media, so they have no credibility”. Angered as Mr. Glaser was, he stated that this general statement should not stand true for every blog. He explained that the trustworthiness of a blog depends on who’s writing and his/her credibility with the audience. For this argument, I have a counterargument in the form of a situation. If a person is looking for something that contains the news, why would he or she search the internet and run the risk of running into a phony site? Many people have never encountered a legitimate blog once in their time of surfing the internet, so why in the world would they decide to look for a blog with the news? Taking a step back from these arguments, I pose a simple question to the author: if you believe that blogs deserve more credibility, how do you plan on proving the credibility to “the masses”. Simply enough, this argument/claim does not have enough of a realistic view or solution, to make it credible.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
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