Group 3 Media Support Industry– Advertising

In Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass Communication, John V. Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh state, "Advertisements for the Super Bowl have practically become a media even in and of themselves, with advertisers jockeying for the most clever or creative ad that will have people talking days after the game. At times it seems that nearly as much analysis is done for the ads as the game."

Our presentation focused in on Super Bowl advertisements and what it means to consumers.

Advertising in the historical context.
In Ancient Egypt advertisements for products and services were written on papyrus and posted in common, public areas for people to see.
The printing press transformed advertisements into mass communication tools
Advertisements become a way of marketing -the key way.
Advertising agencies began to form, and then the rise of commercial television, with advertisements during programming.
And now advertisements revolve around tools such as the Web and Public Relations Firms.


CBS: The following video Super sell: How Super Bowl changed consumers
The biggest role advertisements have played can be seen during important events and shows on television, for example the Super Bowl. 

Video notes: "That's right. This year, right here on CBS, the spots are going for a shade under $4 million for 30-seconds. Why? Because it's the only live TV event watched by over 100 million fans - i.e., consumers -- as much for the ads as the action. Over the years, watching for the spots has become part of our national DNA. It's coming on 30 years since Apple introduced its Macintosh computer to the world with that shocker of a cinematic spot. It set the bar for Super Bowl commercials to come, that whole other game within the game. From a technological perspective, the Apple spot was predictive. The Internet has revolutionized the process -- for advertisers."


NYTimes:
"The arrival of Super Bowl commercials before the game reflects a broader trend across the media of sharing content with consumers ahead of time. Magazines release big articles early, to draw more readers to newsstands, and networks like NBC are offering opportunities to watch online the first episodes of series like “Smash,” sometimes weeks before the shows make their debuts on television."

"In 1979 Coca-Cola debuted a commercial that ran during the broadcast of the Super Bowl that will be remembered as one of the best advertisements of all time."
The commercial is still remembered today. Although it might not inspire people to go out and buy a bottle of Coke. It definitely reminds of the world of how powerful Coke is. The advertisements lives in the hearts and minds of individuals that have watched the ad. It lives up to the grand reputation of the Coca-Cola company. 

In reference to the 1979 Coke advertisement: ESPN reported, "The Super Bowl has turned into a popularity contest as far as who can produce the best commercials," said Sergio Zyman, the former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola, who pulled the Mean Joe Greene campaign and author of "The End of Marketing As We Know It." "I think that has hurt because the best ads don't necessarily translate into sales and I don't think the consumer is absorbing while watching the game."

Super Bowl Advertising Value

Other interesting information:
Super Bowl Values at large 

The Super Bowl's Ad Meter Era: A Look Back, Year by Year

Black Women in the Media- Reality TV Edition

 Black Women In Media: Reality Television Edition

These days there are more and more television channels who capitalize on reality television shows. From Big Brother to Real world, the shows are constantly growing in popularity.When we watch these television shows we, as an audience, are often too consumed in the entertainment, fights, love, and drama. Its hard to see the bigger picture of how reality television can negatively affect the image of a gender, race, or religion. For my project I want to focus on reality shows like Love and Hip Hop, Basketball Wives, and Maury that portray African American women in a negative way. The shows help classify us as seductive, angry, manipulative and materialistic. They constantly expose the drama in the lives of the characters and rarely expose something positive. I believe shows similar to these are reassuring the stereotypes of Black women by dictating what is shown and the context in which it is shown.




Love and Hip Hop is a series on VH1 which follows a group of mainly African American and Latino women who are, in someway have connections in the music business. The show captures the drama and fights between lovers, friends, and enemies increasing the overall appeal. The show chronicles the ladies in their ups and downs with their cheating boyfriends, backstabbing friends, and trying to break into the music industry. To the audience the women come off as unintelligent, dishonest, and violent. One of the shows creators and executive producers, Mona Scott Young is widely famed for being the genius behind the show. However, what most people fail to realize is that Scott-Young is joined by 4 other executive producers who are white males.  There are even unconfirmed wide spread rumors that the show is scripted and the women are portrayed this way on purpose.The show is mostly watched by women ages 18-49 and have an average of 3.6 million viewers weekly according to the Nielson ratings. 





Similarly, the  Maury show also illustrates African American women badly in media.  The show focuses on a range of issues like shocking sex secrets, polygraph tests, out of control teens, and its main subject paternity tests. The Maury show takes advantage of the problems that his guests face and uses it for the audiences entertainment.  He recruits largely minority women to come onto his show to find the father of their children or to expose a sex secret to their spouses. The show is widely seen as entertaining but in the bigger picture, Maury purposely casts African Americans because he knows that people love to watch them  and it will keep his ratings high. Maury's show classifies Black women as sexual and promiscuous further adding to the harsh stereotypes being reinforced.



For this project I will write an article exposing these reality shows for enforcing stereotypes of black women and portraying them negatively to a large audience. Through my research I have read articles, by Bell Hooks who is a professor and writer who focuses on race, culture, and gender. She claim that many media sources purposely in certain roles to make it believable and in some instances compelling. When she interviewed the director of "Smoke," Wayne Wang, she asked him why he used a black boy to play the role of the theif. Wangs response was "This will give this movie more zip to make the thief black, it will make it more compelling to people. It will give a kind of good guy, bad guy quality to it and it will just make it all the more stimulating, because he would have to admit that the fact that he simultaneously in making that choice is also reproducing certain kinds of racial stereotypes." This is an instance that reaffirms the fact that certain shows and films purposely represent African American women in a negative way. Most of the time they do it for ratings or an increase of popularity. My article will set out to expose the television industry for enforcing stereotypes of black women which are unjust. I will try to get the article published in a local magazine or newspaper because my audience will primarily be Media students who have a hand in changing the way people are represented on television in the future.

Resources.

Youtube video on Bell Hooks

Maury Episode

Love and Hip Hop Episode Recap

Bell Hook on Cultural Criticism

Bell Hooks Video on Popular Culture

Marriage and Consumerism

"Love, has been increasingly commodified with the advent and growth of capitalism and consumer culture." ( Consuming the Romantic Utopia, by Eva Illouz)

Through out the history of humankind we were and still  are questioning what is a successful marriage?

“Although the practical importance of marriage has declined, its symbolic significance has remained high and may even have increased. It has become a marker of prestige and personal achievement”. ( The deinstitutionalization of American marriage, by Andrew J. Cherlin

In the age of sophisticated technology and virtual space the humankind is still hanging on to the legally sealed an old design of marriage that is based on affection and measured by amount of material possessions.  While many struggle financially for possessions, for some the possessions might as well include spouses and children not so much for the pleasure of the relationship rather as a necessary or additional factor of successful career and marriage.  

The appropriate ages for marriage are shifting to a later stage to allow to accumulate more possessions.  However, the process of financial accumulation does not end with marriage rather evolves into a monstrous consumption.  With marriage couple enters into a new stage of the relationship where every aspect of the relationship involves massive consumption.  It starts with bridal showers and never ends rather snowball into wedding, house hunting, baby shower, vehicle shopping, preschool payments, afterschool activities…the list is only growing.           

Female is often looked upon on as a successful person only if she is engaged in a “successful” marriage.  Whereas, male success, despite the age and marital status, is often measured by his financial earnings.  In both situations, male and female forced to be involved in massive consumption to prove their success.

//My project is a photo-book that would depict modern marriage and consumerism.
It requires further research including following material:

The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism

 By Colin Campbell

The evolution of sensibility into a full-blown romanticism can be seen as following, at least in part, from the necessity of defending a philosophy of feeling against its detractors, something which placed an excessive strain upon the attempted association of the values of sincerity and propriety.

Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage

Margaret Mead once said, with the fatherhood problem strongly in mind, that there is no society in the world where men will stay married for very long unless culturally required to do so.

Marriage, once both sacred and economically essential for survival, is today based solely on the fragile tie of affection for one’s mate.

Will You Marry Me?

Spectacle and Consumption in the Ritual of Marriage Proposals

Phillip Vannini Department of Sociology University of Victoria

http://dspace.royalroads.ca/docs/handle/10170/167

  

Vote Vegan ... Vegans Rock

       

        Vegans are always in your face with their in-your-face- pretentious attitude, and you just can’t handle it. People always shy away from being vegans because it seems like too much, or just near impossible. I feel as if people were introduced to the vegan diet in a more friendly and approachable way, they will become more accepting, There are two types of Vegans, one who does not put any animal products into their body and the vegan who follows the vegan lifestyle, who doesn’t use any animal product. Each is an easy lifestyle to lead depending on how committed you are. 

If He Can Do It You Can Do It !

     For my semester project my aim is to promote veganism, my audience will be anyone who is non-vegan. Instead of focusing on how terrible animal eaters are, I will focus on how great vegans are. A lot of people get offended because vegans are always like “you are an animal killer, and the way I live is better than the way you live ! ”  I feel like If I focus on the positive, it will help to convert more people. I will start a blog that will give a daily tip, recipe, activity, picture, video, etc, that will help people to see the amazing ways vegans contribute to the society. 

         I first want to implement a 30 day nutritious and healthy plan to becoming a vegan. I want to blog about about the actual truth to the stereotypes and theories. I also want to blog easy to find food brands, that vegans can find at any local supermarket, for reasonable prices. I find that the hardest thing about being a vegan, is that when you are out and about you can never stop for a quick snack, because half of the food retailers do not sell vegan friendly food. Also I will blog, traditional recipes that they can still enjoy with a vegan twist. If I make it as easy as possible to convert to veganism, how can people turn it down. Also I will include restaurants in the tri-state area. 

                                

          To make this blog different from others, I will start with a minimum of ten dedicated “followers”. These ten people are people that I will try to convert through my “30 day road to veganism”. I will post every day with posts that keeps that motivated, I will be available 24/7, for them to reach me with any questions, problems, or concerns, regarding their diet. This way I can learn from them what are the hardest obstacles they faced, what was easy for them, what they crave, how are they psychologically and emotionally affected. If I can hear first hand the problems they are going through, it can help me to better filter my blog, so I know what topics to discuss to help the next average person to become a vegan. 

         I will also try to implement my personal journey. I became a vegetarian when I was 11. The hardest thing I had to do in my life, I think. Because I was so young, and all my friends enjoyed eating “normal food” I had to stay strong and committed. My friends made it harder because I was the type of child to do things for a certain period of time and then give it up, once I felt accomplished. So they would constantly try to feed me chicken, or fish, or meat. But I was also the type of child to stick to what I believe in and I was very gullible. My aunt made me watch this vegan video and she said anyone who watched it, whatever animal they ate after that, they would turn into that animal. So they next day when my mom gave me a chicken nugget, I was so scared I would turn into a chicken. The only thing I regret was becoming a vegetarian so young, I feel like I missed out on part of my childhood; happy meals, lunchables, turkey and cheese sandwiches. But by the time I figured out my aunt was lying I was too far in.  But for the bigger picture, I’m happy that I was able to save a few animals. Just remember it takes just one person to make a difference. 

GET INVOLVED PETA

LEARN AT VEGAN ORG

Bibliography 

The Vegetarian Resource Group 

PETA 

PETA 2

Veganism.Com

Vegan Society 

Vegan - TIME

Vegan Outreach

American Vegan

The Vegetarian Resource Group

“That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals” - Ruby Roth

What the Heck is Going On?

Kristine Villanueva
My blog is called wtheckisgoingon.tumblr.com 


I think the premise of my blog title encompasses people's thoughts on the news. What exactly is going on? With each passing day, it becomes increasingly difficult for some to follow big stories. Information becomes too hard to swallow. My blog is a way to mediate news and break it down for people who don't have the time to pick apart articles or complicated topics. Simplicity is key, especially when it comes to people of my generation. It's hard to spot a twenty year old holding a newspaper.

People have turned from print media to internet. Blogging is a good way to target my audience, especially since society seems to have replaced their newspapers with tablets and cellphones. Blogging is easily accessible. I believe our society now looks for aesthetic appeal. My layout has a banner that stands out, but the rest is minimalist to allow the posts to stick out and so that readers are not overwhelmed by graphics. By coupling interesting images with blog posts, I think people will be more inclined to read a few paragraphs. I will also be utilizing graphs and images to explain the news. Some of these graphs come from articles I've read or from Poynter or Pew Research Center.
One example is this:






Also, humor and tone in writing will make for interesting pieces. Blogging is an entirely different culture to that of traditional media. Therefore, written pieces can have more satirical, comical, or critical edge. Similar to the Onion and Gawker, I write eye popping headlines.

My blog also has information about the changing mediascape and demographics. I don't think people not only need to know what's going on, but how information will be presented in the future. I will be pulling information from credible news sources such as The New York Times,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press. My blog also includes reblogs from other tumblrs that cover the news such as politicalfreakshow, lolgovernment, and diegueno.

My staff consists of writers:


Jay Patel
Pao Ling Lopez
Kadyanne Ressaissi
Sumyia Dabney
Joseph De Guzman

Graphic Designer

Karen Cunanan

Citizen Journalism: Fact and Fiction

                       For my semester project, I want to focus on a couple of topics that have been discussed in class and in the texts. Those being, citizen journalism and it’s relationship to social media. My interest stems from whether or not citizen journalism, as a whole, is inherently good or bad. The other aspect is the social media side of things. I want to explore how, why, and what social media does to encourage both good and bad types of citizen journalists. The core of my research will be just how important citizen journalism can be vs. how unimportant it can be, and the effect social media has on that. What kinds of stories are people putting out there? How dedicate is the public? What are people more interested in seeing, a serious news story, or a mindless bit of entertainment? How do ethics play a role in citizen journalism? these are some of the questions I want to explore. One of the other negative issues is the amateur journalist providing news purposefully biased or with an agenda in mind. There appears to be a trend in groups creating biased news in order to get their story out there. There is a lot of talk referencing these groups as a threat. In terms of a format, I would like to write a research paper, preferably with images exploring the concepts of good and bad citizen journalism. Being that I’m of a video background, I would also like to produce a short film to accompany the paper. My initial thoughts are that the short film will take a more entertaining approach to outlining an issue like bad citizen journalism. The film will most likely be a few minutes long, and act as a visual accompaniment to the paper. Since this class is very journalism focused, I decided to take on the task of a research paper in order to challenge myself. There are a few resources I have been looking at for some ideas and inspiration. Those include: 

Citizen Journalism ruins the world (again), Jeff Jarvis:

buzzmachine.com/2008/10/06/citizen-journalism-ruins-the-world-again

Value of citizen journalism, Peter Horrocks:

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/01/value_of_citizen_journalism.html

36 stories that prove citizen journalism matters, Katie Hawkins-Gaar:

www.cnn.com/2013/04/03/opinion/ireport-awards-hawkins-gaar/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29
http://www.research-live.com/citizen-journalism-isnt-always-a-good-thing/4001064.blog

Women In Media

What am I doing?


Women In Media is a project that will follow the state of women in today's media. 

The question is: WHO are the women in media and how are they changing the conversation ABOUT women in the media. 

Who Run The World? Girls!
Photo: Rick Tulka/Morgan Gaynin Inc.

In the class we have discussed how computing, telecommunications and media have come together in a digital environment. This is known as convergence, who are the women at the forefront of this movement.  In an article by Matthew Flamm for Crain's New York Business  titled "Women lead media into digital age" The author discusses the how women such as Arianna Huffington and Anna Wintour have taken their respective publications and launched them into the digital world. This brings up a number of questions. But the main question I want to ask is how does this affect women? 

The Women's Media Center has released their annual report: The Women’s Media Center: The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2013 Some of the statistics show that "The percentage of women who are television news directors edged up, reaching 30 percent for the first time. Overall employment of women in TV news remains flat." 

Magazines have become more than magazines, with the influx of digitization, we have seen magazines embrace more of an online presence, we have also seen magazines exist only online. Radio which was at its inception a male dominated field has seen women garner more recognition at certain stations.

The question that I want to ask is how has media convergence influenced the gender structure? For example, the structure of television has changed. As mentioned in class Netflix, is now a content provider that is rivaling cable networks. Who is producing this content and who are they producing it for?

These are just a few of the topics I would like to discuss.

How am I doing it: 

Women In Media will feature interviews, feature articles and editorials on my topic. I plan on featuring Women who are presently in the media and getting their take on where we are now, where should be and how we can get there. 

I plan on not limiting my scope to only women in the media, but feminists, sociologist, professors and media observers alike. 

Resources

Women's Media Center 

The Women’s Media Center: The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2013

Women Lead Media Into Digital Age