Not everyone is Homer Jay Simpson

Since its commercial release in the 1930’s television has captivated the American public with entertainment to news and everything in between. Over the years television has grown from a luxury to a necessity. Often people make the claim that we are a generation that was raised on television. Many parents placed their kids in front of the “boob-tube” to distract them for hours on end with mindless entertainment in order to get a moments rest, hence why many call it a babysitter. Knowing this it’s not hard to believe that television is a pedagogical force. Many of us are “brought up” on television shows and like all kids we absorbed it like a sponge. Because of this absorption we without a doubt learn from it whether we like to believe so or not. The important thing though is not that we learn from it but rather what we learn.

Television, especially sitcoms, tends to create or rather reinforce stereotypes of men, women, race, and religion without a hesitation. This has been on going for as long as the sitcom has been around. For example Pepi Leistyna in “Social Class and Entertainment Television” cites shows like The Goldbergs, which ran in 1949-1955, and I Remember Mama, which ran from 1949-1957. Both of these depicted immigrant families the first a Jewish one and the second a Norwegian.

The stereotype that I find most predominant in today’s television is that of the incompetent working class father. The characters are as funny as they are misrepresentative. Too often has television sitcoms depicted the blue-collar dad as a bubbling buffoon. They are represented in this way in order to reinforce the idea that the only reason that they are in the working class is because they’re dumb or have poor work ethics. This represents the entire working class whether or not it is meant to because it is the dominant character. Now I have a problem with this. Yes, in many cases there are those who don’t take their jobs seriously or are in fact incompetent, I do not deny this fact. I simply would like to point out that for every one of those people there are tons of others that putting in all the effort they can but to no avail due to other circumstances. The sad truth is that while yes there is class mobilization in the United States, the vast majority of people stay in the same class they were born into. People point to success stories like Oprah or Barack Obama, however regardless of their prominence in today’s society they are the minority.

Despite my feelings toward the misrepresentation of the working class father I don’t really see a need for it to change drastically. I, like millions of others, have fallen in love with shows like The Simpson’s and Married with Children partially because of the buffoon father figure. I agree that television places ideas in our heads of what a certain type of people are like but I would like to believe that we have gotten to the point where we can make the distinction between reality and entertainment.

YouTube

Its accessibility is right at your fingertips. Your just one click away from the next self made star. YouTube has become a massive sensation in this generation. We can watch the latest music videos or the latest Internet sensations, but is YouTube more than just a means for entertainment. Many like Douglas Kellner and Gooyong Kim argue that it is. They claim that YouTube is being used as a learning agent for those who post their self-produced videos. They make reference to a particular YouTuber Zakgeorge21 who had posted a video asking “why do you tube?” and “what is the future of UT and how is it going to impact the world globally”. They cite the tremendous amounts of responses the video and the interesting ideas brought up by other Youtuber’s. However, I don’t see eye to eye with them on a lot of the points that they make. Yes YouTube can be used for means such as this but even the 700,183 who viewed the video and the 4,062 people who commented on it only make up a small fraction of those who are on YouTube.

It is in my opinion that as it stands now the authors are giving YouTube too much credit. The article ignores a lot of what is happening on YouTube and puts too much weight on the few instances that demonstrate their idea. As I mentioned above, Zakgeorge21’s video provoked a lot of views and a substantial amount of comments, but not only is this a small fraction of those on YouTube but this is a rare instance. Yes there are videos that are thought provoking but the vast majority of the videos are for entertainment purposes, because while Zakgeorge21’s had over 7,000 hits this guy has had over 20 million.

Another instance that the article seems to weigh heavily upon is the large success of the Obama Girl. For those of you who do not know her click here. The video to date has over 17 million views. Now while these numbers are staggering, the authors ignore a very important fact about it. Simply put, the Obama girl has sex appeal. She is a very attractive woman and I can almost guarantee that a large portion of these views had little to do with support of Barack Obama and more to do with seeing a pretty girl dancing around.

All criticisms aside, it is important to note that YouTube has had large implications in today’s society. There is no arguing the vast amount of grassroots support Barack Obama got from YouTuber’s. We can also not ignore the fact that Presidential debates are posted on YouTube, which allows it to reach larger audiences.

Over all I have come to the conclusion that the primary use of YouTube is for entertainment purposes but has enormous potential to be much much more. Although YouTube has had its social and political effects, these are just not the majority. I firmly believe that while YouTube’s role will constantly to change, it will continue to be used primarily for entertainment.

There is a lot more than meets the eye

Have you ever sat there and wondered if what we're seeing in the media, the news especially, is really all that's out there? Or better yet if it is being skewed without our knowing? Never before coming to college were these questions remotely familiar to me, however, since I've took my first communications class I have been fascinated with the idea that in between the mass media and the public there is another medium of sorts. I couldn't help but wonder why? What are the reasons the public cannot get an unbiased full picture? And who is deciding what I get to see.

It was for these reasons that Edward Herman's article "A Propaganda Model" intrigued me so much. In his article he explains the five filters that the news goes through before it reaches the mass public. The filters he outlined begins with the “size, ownership, and profit orientation of the mass media”, the next filter he discusses is the role that advertising plays, the third filter is the sources from which the news gets their information, the fourth filter is the negative feedback against the media, and the final filter is “anticommunism as a control mechanism”.

Personally I am most interested in the first two filters, ownership of the media and advertisings role. As far as ownership, a few major conglomerates own the mass media that everyone is all too familiar with. The affect of this is that what we see in the news and other media outlets is in the hands of a tiny but powerful elite. We see what they want to show us.

Now the second filter is where I am particularly interested. As a kid I always had the idealistic view that the shows that I was watching were there solely to entertain me, however, as I got older I began to realize the truth that I was being sold to advertisers. Whether it’s the news or sitcoms, the main goal is to get all of us to watch the commercials. Therefore if the advertisers don’t like what’s being said or portrayed on the media then it will not get put out there. Herman uses the example of how newspapers before advertising was prominent had to cover all of their costs, but when some newspapers began to attract ad’s their profits went up because the ads covered their costs not them. Slowly the other newspapers either adjusted to the new system or fell off. This goes to show that in order to survive and make profit off of your product you must succumb to advertising. Naturally companies placing these ads do not want to be associated with certain things that could poorly reflect in their product so they filter out anything they don’t like.

The perfect example of how this works is with the case of bovine growth hormone. In Tampa Florida reporters from Fox 13 investigated a story about the harmful affects that the bovine growth hormone, which was being secretly injected into cows and ends up in your milk, had potentially very dangerous repercussions to people’s health. After these reporters found out this dark truth they attempted to bring it out into the open. However it wouldn’t be that easy. As it turned out Monsanto, the company that produced the hormone, was a large advertiser with the station and they expressed concern over the report. Subsequently the report was never aired. You can read the whole story here The media can legally lie.

After reading Herman's article and seeing how many filters messages go through before they finally reach us I came to the conclusion that more important than what is reported on the news is what is not. The media sensationalizes little things like what dog Obama was gonna get when he became President and yet they stifle stories like the one above. the fact is that we need to take what we see with a grain of salt and know that there is a lot more than meets the eye.