April 2012
3 posts
3 tags
"The New Normal:" Homosexuality in TV
After reading Gross, Gamson, and Croteau, Hoynes, and Milan’s perspectives about sexual minorities portrayal in media, I started reflecting on my own experience with watching TV and what types of representations I see of LGBTQ individuals in media today. Immediately, I thought about NBC, who recently picked up two new pilots for TV shows that revolve around gay couples. The most hyped...
2 tags
Women "Off the Sidelines"
Reading about Helen Gurley Brown and her empowerment of women as independent beings immediately provoked a mental connection to the work done today by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D). Gillibrand is an outspoken, active leader in the fight for gender equality and women’s rights in all senses of the term. Her organization, Off the Sidelines, works to rally women to become more involved...
3 tags
Racism: A Two-Way Street
Peggy McIntosh’s article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” reminded me very much about my family and the seemingly casual discussions we would hold at the dinner table about race. My mother is a 5’1” Jewish woman, whom some might call “white,” while my father is a first generation American-born Korean man, who anyone would be able to...
March 2012
3 posts
5 tags
The Manifestation of Misrepresentation
The representation and interpretation of an image is incredibly powerful. Sturken and Cartwright explore the use of images and representation as a means by which we understand and negotiate our surroundings. However, the uncertainty of these representations and the potential for miscommunication by an image is a problematic concept to grapple with. The above photograph was taken by photographer...
5 tags
The Naked Truth About Porn
As Adult Video News founder Paul Fishbein says, “Porn doesn’t have a demographic—it goes across all demographics” (Rich 52). Hence, Frank Rich summons us as a society to step up to the plate and acknowledge that the porn industry is a mammoth of an entity. Because it truly is. Later in Rich’s article “Naked Capitalism,” Fishbein explains how sex is...
3 tags
Paul Starr: Death of the Newspaper or Reinvention...
The dire circumstances predicted by Paul Starr in his piece in The New Republic regarding the decline of newspapers seems to be somewhat valid while also rather sensationalized. I think the fact that newspapers have been a dominant medium through which events, culture, and beliefs have been disseminated for over a century plays an integral role in causing alarm and discomfort to people as the...
February 2012
4 posts
5 tags
Stuart Hall: Decoding Encoding and Decoding
Stuart Hall’s “Encoding and Decoding” is a rather dense piece to negotiate. Yet, this process of encoding and decoding which he explains is so crucial to communication, fundamentally defining this process. To tidy up my “grappling” process with Hall, I tested his encoding/decoding principles against one of my favorite guilty pleasures, ABC’s Desperate Housewives. Hall...
4 tags
Gerbner, Murray, and Violence: Is Sound a...
After reading Gerbner and Murray’s chapters about violence in media, I made an interesting connection to a study that I encountered regarding heavy metal music and its resulting effect on tweens and teens. Developmental psychologist Dr. Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University found that the sounds of the music a child listens to rather than the lyrics can have major effects on the mindset...
7 tags
Baron and Davis: On Lazarsfeld and The Limited...
After reading Baron and Davis’ chapter about Lazarsfeld’s study and conclusions regarding the limited effects theory, I could not help but immediately think of my short-lived semester as a politics major. Lazarsfeld was one of the most memorable readings for me as we discussed the influence of media in swaying voters to commit to a candidate. One of the central findings of...
4 tags
Magder: The Business of TV in "The End of TV 101"
Magder’s piece “The End of TV 101” provides fantastic perspective into the business that is television. Beyond being a source of entertainment and media that the public enjoys, television and its resulting industry is a mangled, straight-up business. What is quite interesting about this business, though, is that its buyer and seller of the goods is not quite as intuitive as one...
January 2012
1 post
8 tags
Peters - Media as Conversation: Implications of...
John Durham Peters discusses how “modern media forms” (referring to the television and newspaper) do not permit the flow of conversation and discussion with the media and an audience. However, this points to the creation of new media, namely the Internet, which converges forms such as television and newspapers with the connectivity and convenience of a computer, laptop, tablet, or...
