October Blog Post

For my October blog post, I wanted to talk about transgenders. It was the most interesting part of that month to me. When the "I am Jazz", episodes were played it brought back memories of when I use to watch that show. To be honest, I was not the biggest fan because I felt like they glorified her a lot and some of the situation did not seem realistic to ALL transgenders. A transgender by definition is someones who personal identity does not match up to their birth sex. Basically, someone might be born with girl sex chromosomes but, their gender may be a boy or something else. They might go through procedures to have their sex physically changed or might show their true identity by the way that they behave, dress, or act.

I think learning about transgenders and their stories is important for society to be more accepting towards people who are "different". It can allow our community to grow and learn about every individual and that can benefit everyone as a whole. Outside of this class, I have had multiple friends who are transgenders and have had to see what they have gone through. It is hard seeing the discrimination that occurs in their life and how people can treat them so cruel when they are the same as everyone else. Having those connections though, has made me a more accepting person because I am educated on their life and with that it has given me many opportunities that I would not have gotten if I was narrow minded.

More people need to be educated on the different types of gender identities because it can spread love and culture all around the community. It will allow people to show who they truly are without being afraid of getting treated poorly. This can spread through different religions, ethnicity, sex, gender, basically anything, If more people just accepted one another it could make benefit our society.

October Blog Post

October Blog Post

            The important theme that I wanted to focus on for my October Blog Post is the media culture. I felt this was an important theme for us to focus on in class this month because much of our lives now revolve around or are affected by some sort of media. This could be present in the form of social media outlets like Twitter, Instagram, etc. or it could be present through television programs like Fox News or CNN. In some way or another we get information about the world around us. How this information is presented to us is important in shaping our culture and creating a reaction within our society. It is possible to present an image of a non-threatening situation and alter it to create a feeling of fear. This power the media has over the culture we have created is something worth understanding.

            I work for Idaho Public Television and I spend a lot of my time directly involved with the judicial and legislative branches of the government. I observe and record much of the legislative committee meetings during the legislative session at the beginning of each year. I also record many of the Idaho Supreme Court hearings as well. I have been involved with this for the past five years and it has presented me many opportunities to learn about the inner workings of the government and how it affects the regular citizens. I think that this is an important opportunity for me because I am able to hear the same presentations that the legislators hear when they have a piece of legislation presented before them. I am able to consume this information without any of it being altered by the media. This is a good example of how the media shapes our culture because we see it all the time in campaign ads.

            During recent months leading to the upcoming elections in November we have consumed information regarding the potential candidates and many of the hot-button issues that we will be able to vote on upon. Depending on how someone consumed their information they may view a candidate as evil or self-interested by some of the negative ads being run. They may think a candidate is the obvious choice because they got an endorsement from someone who we respect. There are many ways that the media plays its role in shaping who gets elected and what topics are pushed through as a result of how they are portrayed to each citizen.

            I think that learning about media and its effect on culture has been important to understanding why it is important to do research. Prior to making any decisions it is important that we completely understand both sides of any topic. This reduces the control the media has over our culture and can allow us to educate ourselves in order to make better decisions. Not all media is bad media but that doesn’t mean all media is good media. It is important that we develop the skills to make this distinction and keep ourselves independent from control by the media we consume.

Sources:

Warren, John T., and Deanna L. Fassett. Communication: a Critical/Cultural Introduction. SAGE Publications, Inc, 2014.

October Blog Post

This month we talked a lot about positionally, media and different impacts that culture has on us and then intern how we impact culture. The things that stuck out the most to me from this month was how Disney effects us from a very young age and media is used to make us feel a certain way.

From a young age we see gender roles, stereotypes and culture played out in tv series and movies presented by Disney. In class we watched Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood, and Corporate Power. This documentary gives light to a dark and more controversial side of Disney. Many of the movies that it references are from the 40s to 90s. Most of the documentary was going through the themes like cultures, historical events, and gender emphasized on a female perspective. One part that showed me was when they asked children, ages of 6 to 11, about these themes and their perspectives. For example one girls stated that if you just love a moan enough he will change his ways. That sentence really showed red flags for me because growing up my parents always told me that you can't change someone they are the person they want to be. 

Media is a plate form for use to get advocated at and to advocate through. These messages that are being used can either hurt or hinder our end goal. In class we talked about the 30 days challenge. This is an example of how you can make advocacy hinder your goal and make important things seem like a joke. An Article from The NewTimes  states that media can have a positive or negative effect on culture. The example it uses is the Rwandan way of dance. The author talks about how the Rwandan dances were about legends, fairytales and history. They tended to be sad songs to dance along to with some humor. The media has changed these dances to be fast and more promiscuous. Children learn about culture from the people around them but in this millennial era children learn from the people around them but also what they see on a screen. 

Media has changed the way we think and look at the world in many ways. We are constantly having information feed at use from all directions. It up to us as people to decide if this information is true, false, or just someone opinion. No matter what the media says we need to stick to our morals and what we believe. 

Blog Post #3

Chase Cord
COMM 160
11/1/2018

Perception: Looks can be deceiving

     When analyzing our lecture on Identity and Perception, I find interest in the idea that perception can be characterized so many different ways by people everywhere. Perception to me, means that there are visual or object materials in the world that one person sees a certain way and someone else sees it as a whole different thing. Sometimes one person can see something and the other may not even be able to 'perceive' it. This topic varies from person to person and that is why I think it is unique. 

     Outside of class, this is something that happens to everyone everywhere, yet they may not realize it. For me, as a football player, I may have had an off game but my parents will perceive it as a great performance. Even though they are telling me that I did a great job I still see my performance in a completely different way, due to having different perspectives. Getting even more specific, I am a quarterback on the football field. Every single play I start with the ball in my hands so it is up to me to decide who I will hand or throw the ball to. Sometimes my wide receivers will say to me that they were open and to throw them the ball, however, I perceived that there was a defensive player who had good position to make a play on the ball. He was focused in on the football and where to run his route to but I was focused on who was around him and if I could be able to successfully get him the football. 

     I believe that it is extremely important to know what perception is and in which different ways it could occur. Mostly commonly this can occur with perceiving looks and characteristics in different people. I may think one girl is extremely cute but my closest friend or even my brother may not find that female attractive. This also occurs with same sex genders as some girls may judge how other females look and could lead to self esteem issues. It is important to keep sensitive perceptions to yourself in order not to start issues that can be prevented. I found an article that provided terrific insight on perceptions. Scientific American article states, "If you routinely misperceive or even hallucinate and act on those misapprehensions, you won’t survive long in a world filled with dangers whose avoidance requires accurate distance and speed assessments and rapid reaction" (Koch). I can understand that not only cultural viewpoints can shape perception, but also dependent upon an individual's psychological state of mind. It is important for people to feed their mind and bodies healthy things in order to maintain positive thoughts and feelings. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/looks-can-deceive/  

October Blog Post

The concept I want to discuss in this blog post is media's affects on culture. In one of the classes, we discussed a quote "we use and create media even as media use and create us, putting images inside your head just like eating." This quote really resonated with me because of how true it is. This concept basically describes how what we consume in media has a ripple effect into our society. Everything we watch, play, and read will mold us. It also shapes how we see things, it may solidify stereotypes we may already have, it could also help diminish preconceived ideas about people. 

For instance, there is a lot of media coverage on immigrants right now. Most of the coverage discusses the dangerous behaviors of some immigrants, but applies it to them as a whole group. President Trump often solidifies people's assumptions about immigrants, making people afraid. He uses these scare tactics to gain support for laws that will restrict their ability to live in the United States. Rather than trying to understand this group of people as a whole, we consume what the media feeds us. This shapes our culture in a negative way, it breeds hate. Media doesn't always cause negative effects. In some ways, it can help us gain an understanding of someone else's culture through movies, songs, etc. 

This is an important concept to understand because the more we realize that media can shape us, the more we can pay attention to what we're being "fed." Knowing that a lot of the people who create mainstream media are doing so to fit an agenda, the more we know to filter out what we're seeing. We can also learn to fact check posts on Facebook, news media, etc.

October Blog-post #3

For my October blog post for this class, I wanted to focus on the cultural differences and controversies with Disney movies. For many of my communication classes this semester we have examined the culture of Walt Disney and the empire that he built, along with the most recent films from Disney. There are a few examples that I want to touch on from what we discussed in class.

The first example is the portrayal of ‘evil’ or the ‘bad guy.’ The characters who are always touched on as the ‘bad guy’ are always portrayed with darker skin and darker hair. There was a point in class where we discussed a little girl in a mall who saw a group of children who happened to be African American and she compared them to the hyenas in the film, The Lion King. She saw the children in the mall and automatically associated them with the evil characters in the popular film. This is a scary realization to see children associate those two things because it brings out the racism issues in our country. Obviously, the film was made a long time ago and our world has changed since then, BUT that still does not excuse the fact that children’s minds are so influential by the little details in a film.

The next thing that I want to discuss is the idea of feminism. I am a white female, so I cannot personally connect with some of the racial issues, but I am a female and do not think that it is right for Disney to portray the women in their films as individuals who have no flaws and who need a man to rescue them from their problems. The more recent films have done a little better at creating strong female characters, but that does not mean that they are doing much better. There is still always the aspect of the ‘damsel in distress’ idea. That is just how films made by Disney are done, they will always have the sense of the woman needing rescuing. It is something that will probably be around for the remainder of the Disney empire (which is probably going to be a very very VERY long time).

These issues do not make me want to boycott Disney films and they do not change my love for these films that I grew up with. But being opened up to these ideas that I didn’t see when I was a child made me realize the problems in our society and that going forward we all need to be aware of these problems and try to improve these areas of cultural sensitivity. 

October Blog Post

The Key of Advocacy

Personally, I believe one of the most key concepts learned and dissected this month was the idea of advocacy. Advocacy serves as a means of recognition and acknowledgment for a specific cause. However, the avenues of advocacy spread deep. The waves of advocacy is represented through: reflexivity, the acknowledgment of the roles played; dialogue, respecting what a person has to say; critical literacy, digesting what is beyond an image, tale, gesture, etc.; listening, central line of communication; speaking up, standing up for a cause and saying something; alliance building, baning with others to stand behind a cause (“Chapter 12”). Though there are distinct avenues, the waves of advocacy tend to work together.

I have recently learned about how crucial advocacy can be to a culture as a whole. This semester has been my first opportunity to take an American Sign Language, ASL, course. Throughout this course, ASL history serves as a primary section of the curriculum. Embedded in the ASL history, is a long line of oppression and mistreatment. It was not until recently that the deaf culture was able to have their needs heard and accounted for. It was through a main combination of advocacy through dialogue, advocacy through listening, and advocacy through speaking up, that the oppression was recognized. Through this dynamic trio and the assistance of many other things and people, the mistreatment of deaf people has begun being brought to light.

The concept of advocacy is key to many things, for many reasons. Advocacy allows for people and things to be heard and stood up for. The avenues of advocacy are important to know of by all, so when the time is comes, everyone will have the tools to advocate.

Works Cited

“Chapter 12: Communication as a Means of Social Action.” Communication: A Critical/Cultural fgffIntroduction, by John T. Warren and Deanna L. Fassett, Second ed., Sage, 2015, pp. 245–249.