Girls and Negative Body Image (Barbie vs. Dove)

When I first started to read about framing, I immediately was taken back to when I was a young girl. Our generation grew up in a society very different from today’s youth. We didn’t have half of the games and barbies they have today, and media didn’t play as large of a role as it does now, in 2010. I was busy playing outside with my friends, while children today are posted up in front of the television watching highly influential television commercials – showing female’s that are perceived as “perfection.” Frame analysis “provides a systematic account of how we use expectations to make sense of everyday life situations and the people in them (Baran/Davis 316.)” Goffman asks “why are people so gullible (Baran/Davis 316.)” Children are gullable to this conformity, because it is what is perceived as “right.” Young girls are seeing images of skinny girl after skinny girl, who are assumed to be sexy and desirable.
There is a constant exposure of female advertisements in the media, and it is causing girls to become more conscious about their bodies, and how important they are, based on their beauty.
http://www.healthyplace.com/eating-disorders/main/eating-disorders-body-image-and-advertising/menu-id-58/

“Advertisements emphasize thinness as a standard for female beauty, and the bodies idealized in the media are frequently atypical of normal, healthy women. In fact, today's fashion models weigh 23% less than the average female (taken from article.)” This article emphasizes how unrealistic a models body is based on the average woman. And girls start to obsess over their weight when they start to play with their barbies, and see commercials of “real-life” barbies.
“Frames help illuminate many empirical and normative controversies, most importantly because the concept of framing directs our attention to the details of just how a communicated text exerts its power (Entman bottom of 5, top of 6.)” This article goes on to speak about framing paradigms. One idea, is the notion of audience autonomy.

“The concept of framing provides an operational definition for the notion of dominant meaning that is so central to debates about polysemy and audience independence in decoding media texts. “From a framing perspective, dominant meaning consists of the problem, causal, evaluative, and treatment interpretations with the highest probability of being noticed, processed, and accepted by the most people (Entman 6.)”
Problem -> Causal -> Evaluation (diagnosis) -> Treatment

I think that this helps us identify the problem with female’s and body issues. As Kelsey stated in her blog, young girls do have role models they can look up to. However, are they being outshined by commercial after commercial of selling sex through any product possible? Here is a youtube video made by Dove (a company trying to demolish this negative media influence, and “campaign for REAL BEAUTY.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

I this clip even effective? Or do you think young girls don’t care that models are photo-shopped? Do you think Barbie’s should change the way they make their dolls, to send more of a positive message to young girls? Do you think a campaign for real beauty is effective and changing a girls beliefs, or had the media already effected them to the point where they aren’t influenced by Dove’s campaign? Do you believe that boys receive the same negative messages through commercials of muscular men, that are desireable to an attractive female in commercials etc...? Or through action figures that are not proportionate with what a male should look like?

Sex Sells Women's Sports

The media prioritizes information and decides how and for how long each story will be told. I completely agree that the media has a role in telling us what to think about, not necessary what to think. “Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, casual interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman 52). “Frames highlight some bits of information about an item that is the subject of a communication, thereby elevating them in salience. The word salience […] means making a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to audiences” (Entman 53).Basically I feel that the media did not create stereotypes but they continue to reinforce them within society. They choose what to emphasize and what to minimize during an advertisement or any other form of media text. The ideal stereotypical "beautiful" woman exists within society and while the media might not have initially create this idea, small comments and images slowly reinforce this ideal within females.

Young girls do not have it easy in society right now. Every part of their body is picked apart and it is hard for them to find successful role models who aren’t stick thin celebrities. With the Olympics underway much coverage has been given to the Sports Illustrated issue featuring Lindsey Vonn, who is a gold medal favorite skier for the USA. Lindsey Vonn is an athlete at the top of her sport and yet the main purpose of her feature in Sports Illustrated was the pictures of her in bikinis. This article brings to light the issue that only 6-8 percent of sports coverage is dedicated to female sports. “Advertising using the sex appeal of women to attract the attention of men could inadvertently teach or reinforce social cues that could have inadvertent but serious consequences. Goffman showed how women in many ads are presented as less serious and more playful than men” (Baran & Davis 318). It is fair to say that the majority of Sports Illustrated covers feature men in serious and tough poses. The cover of Lindsey Vonn could be seen as “more playful" and while it might have increased popularity for both her and her sport, is it truly for the right reasons? It seems that every young successful female is made famous for her looks not her skills.

Young girls are given good role models to look up to through professional female athletes. Can female athletes be part of the media without using their sexuality? Some news outlets have commented on the sexualizing of female athletes. See an example of the news coverage in this article:http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=841322&catid=396

Do you feel that female athletes have to use their sexuality to further their career in the media? “Frames call attention to some aspects of reality while obscuring other elements” (Entman 55). Does the media reinforce female stereotypes by “framing” their female sports coverage to highlight sexuality and downplay their actual talent?

To see more of Lindsey Vonn’s photos from Sports Illustrated visit:http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010_swimsuit/winter/lindsey-vonn/10_lindsey-vonn_1.html

Media vs. The People: Who Is In Control, and Does It Really Matter?

While reading the assigned chapters for this week, I kept thinking back to the Massachusetts senatorial election last month, which Lauren referenced in her blog post below mine. For those not from Massachusetts who may not be that familiar with the election (probably not that many, due to the intense media coverage the election received), Attorney General Martha Coakley was running against Republican Scott Brown for the late Ted Kennedy's senate seat. A Republican win would drastically shift the balance of power in D.C., so it is understandable why our state election became national news. Most people thought Coakley would be a shoo-in, until Brown surged from behind and defeated the Democratic candidate in a notoriously blue state.

What I found interesting was the large role the media played in this election, and I believed agenda-setting was a major part of this. Baran and Davis define agenda-setting as "The idea that media don't tell people what to think, but what to think about." This was an extremely important election that could very well determine the future of health care in the country, and as the days passed and voting day came closer and closer, the media decided to focus on...Curt Schilling?

In a now infamous gaffe, Coakley stated in a radio interview that Schilling, a Red Sox hero, was a Yankees fan. Here is a link with more information:

http://wbztv.com/local/coakley.schilling.yankees.2.1430657.html#addComments

This insignificant, albeit embarrassing remark, was instantly the top news. It was on every local news station, in every local newspaper, and sent around the Internet by blog after blog. I know the news does tend to latch onto something small and make it News of the Year, but I ask you this - why was this remark so important? Why did the media make this the top story of the night, as well as a major factor in the election? The media did set some campaign agenda with the focus on this story, by taking the focus off of national politics and bringing it back to who would be best for Massachusetts - if you don't know anything about Curt Schilling, and by extension Massachusetts culture, should you really be our senator? It may have been incidental (after all, this is liberal Massachusetts with a liberal media) but do you think this was important? Do you think this should have been as important as the media made it out to be?

My other question is, if the media hadn't reported this radio interview, do you think the people still would have picked up on it and distributed it themselves? The agenda-setting theory gives a lot of credit to the media - it basically says that they tell voters what is important and, as an indirect result, who to vote for. But if the media ignores something the people deem important, do you think voters have the power to make their voices heard? To make their issue significant? Or are we at the mercy of media bigwigs, picking and choosing which issues they want to share with the world?

Agenda Setting: Who's In Control?

In terms of politics, the media plays an important role in influencing citizens. The question that must be asked in this relationship is “Who is in control”? Do media shape politics and the outcome of public opinion, or does the powerful government control the media for their own benefit? Bernard Cohen, in his agenda setting theory, would state that media control politics. Cohen once wrote, “[The press] may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Baran & Davis 279). Basically, media can’t control how people will respond to issues, but they can select which issues people focus on.

In regard to today’s politics, citizens have become increasingly critical of President Obama’s term thus far. Likewise, media have fixed a critical eye on the president’s action. While there are many issues that the media could focus on, they highlight certain issues more heavily than others. As McCombs and Shaw found in their study, the media definitely influence voters (and, to extend beyond this, media consumers in general). They write, “It might be argued that the high correlations indicate that the media simply were successful in matching their messages to audience interests. Yet since numerous studies indicate a sharp divergence between the news values of professional journalists and their audiences, it would be remarkable to find a near perfect fit in this case.” They add, “It seems more likely that the media have prevailed in this area of major coverage” (McCombs & Shaw 160). At the top of today’s most covered issues are the health care debate and the economy. While these are undoubtedly two of the most critical issues of our time, the media certainly help catapult these discussions to the forefront. While the media might not tell us exactly what stance to take, they still accentuate the important issues in Obama’s presidency. Here, the role of the media is clearly evident.

Since the media clearly has such an influence in terms of politics, this leads back to the question I first asked. Who is in control? Have the media taken over politics in a negative way? In media intrusion theory, Dennis Davis claims that “media have intruded into and taken over politics to the degree that politics have become subverted” (Baran and Davis 293). Take, for instance, the recent Massachusetts Senate election between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. Many of the ads from both sides attacked the opponent, then stated why the candidate running the ad should be supported.

For more details of the attacks, please see http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/09/brown_coakley_sharpen_attacks_in_debate/.

This is certainly nothing new from today’s presidential campaigns. As Baran and Davis state, “These reports don’t help news consumers develop useful understandings of politics… Rather, they encourage consumers to become political spectators, content to sit on the sidelines while the stars play the game” (294). Is this approach helpful for consumers? While it might help the winning candidate, it simply doesn’t help consumers. McCombs and Shaw state, “In our day, more than ever before, candidates go before the people through the mass media rather than in person” (McCombs & Shaw 153). This means that citizens must depend on the media to inform us. If we can’t rely on the media to provide us with useful information on the candidates, then where can we turn for our information?

Is it possible for the media to cover every aspect of a politics? How do they select the most important issues for consumers? Returning to Cohen, he claimed the media don’t tell people what to think, but what to think about. If they have this type of control over public opinion, then what’s stopping them from telling people what to think? Basically, it seems that ethical journalistic standards are in place to prevent this type of influence, but if these standards were not in place, then what would the outcome be on how the media influence what we think?

Gatekeepers: Letting too Much Information Through?

February 3^rd was a very important date in the world of college football, known as National Signing Day, in which the nation’s top high school football players declared where they would play their college football. Since fans tend to show piqued interest, the media follows, as websites such as Rivals, Scouts, and ESPN not only cover signing day, but track recruits and offer analysis year round.

Personally, I find the media coverage that these 18 year olds receive downright ridiculous. Harkening back to my days in high school, I remember the strenuous process of deciding which college to attend, thus, I imagine that having the entire ordeal become a public process must be nerve-racking, to say the least. These high school students are called and texted on an almost daily basis by web reporters who are attempting to, essentially, read their minds. They are asked to report on where they stand on each school and to constantly give updates to changes in their opinions, only to find that statements made in passing can grace the headlines of one of these football recruiting websites. A bit much for one person to deal with? Decide for yourself, attached is a link to a related article on ESPN about the process.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=4848740

Media Intrusion Theory, as defined by Dennis Davis in Mass Communication Theory, claims that the media has imposed itself into politics and, as a result, changed the whole political process (Baran, Davis 293). I see the same thing happening in the world of college football recruiting (albeit, I’ll be the first to admit, football is not nearly as important as politics). High school recruits and college coaches read websites such as Rivals and Scouts as much, if not more, than fans. Therefore, it could be argued that what is reported is almost as important as what is truth. For example, if a young man reads that a college is unimpressed with his recent athletic performance, this will likely effect the outcome of his final decision, regardless of whether or not the report is true. Furthermore, coaches will often stop pursuing potential players who have reportedly “lost interest” in the school, even though many times, the reports are false.

This brings me to my next point: media accuracy. With competition rampant between recruiting websites, it becomes very important who breaks major stories, sometimes leading to lapses in fact-checking, a microcosm, in my opinion, of all media today. The issue came to a head last February when Kevin Hart, a young Nevada football player held a press conference, attended by local media, and announced that he would be accepting a football scholarship to the University of California. Hearing wind of the news from local media, Rivals reported the story without fact-checking boasting that it had gotten the scoop. In a rush, Scout and ESPN news services soon followed. The only problem was that Kevin had never been contacted by the University of California and had, in fact, never received a scholarship offer from any school, instead, concocting a selfish hoax to play into his own ego. A simple call to the University by any of these websites would have instantly revealed this. Eventually, Kevin was caught, although not until thousands of people had been duped. You can read further about the story here.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=3236039

How did this happen? As Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann theorized, “Mass media constitute the major source of reference,” (McQuail 300). Essentially, it means that what the media report, we, the public, automatically assume is truth.

Journalists are considered the gatekeepers of information and, in this situation, they dropped the proverbial ball. In a rush to release the story, Rivals didn’t think to fact-check, a basic law of journalism, and published a piece that should have never seen the light of day.

I will leave you with a number of questions, so feel free to take any of these in any direction you want. Baran and Davis state “Media [doesn’t] manipulate passive individuals,” (Baran, Davis 271). The reason that so much information about college football recruiting is reported is because the public craves this information (I may be safe in assuming that most of this public resides in or near states such as Mississippi, Kentucky, or Alabama). However, we must consider the ethical concerns of constantly hounding an already stressed high school student. In journalism, is the demand for information enough of a reason for reporters, society’s gatekeepers, to cover an issue?

Second, I question whether Kevin Hart’s elaborate scheme was concocted because, as he claims, he wanted to play Division 1 football, or whether he simply wanted the media attention that accompanies it. Does intense coverage of events (whether it’s college football recruiting, crime, or something else completely) spurn individuals to engage in copycatting in order to receive attention?

Third, in Kevin Hart’s situation, his fraud worked because the media was more concerned with speed than anything else. With the influx of online reporting over the last five years where information is shared quicker than ever before, has speed replaced accuracy as the most important part of journalism?

Lastly, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann also claimed that “The media tend to speak in one voice, almost monopolistically,” (McQuail 300) as was the case with Kevin Hart, in which they all reported a lie. The reports were released, essentially, in the name of speed. Has speed, as a benefit of online reporting, contributed further to the problem of media conglomeration?

The Teetering Line of Reality

The powerful medium of media has had an influential grasp on people's lives since it's origins. There are many reasons why people are attracted to the media; for either an escapism purpose or just to be informed about external influences. In recent years there have been shows that have been so influential on people's lives that it could be effecting the perception of reality verses fiction. No, I am not referring to the numerous reality television shows that have consumed the airwaves I am referring to shows such as CBS' CSI, NCIS, and Cold Case ; NBC's Law and Order, truTV's Forensic Files, and A&E's Cold Case Files.

As many of you I was brought up in a household that contained more than one television set. To be exact as of right today we have 4 television sets, all with DVRs and DVD/VCR players attached to them. So I am for definite part of that 98 percentile of Americans that were spoken about in Children and television violence in the United States (Wartella, Olivarez, Jennings).

Although I grew up in a heavily television immersed environment that was never mine or my family's first focus. However, I have always been intrigued by mysteries. Searching, discovering and uncovering information has always been a passion of mine no surprise I became attracted to these types of shows. According to the ratings of all of these shows I am not the only one.

The social learning effect (Bandura; 1960s) is very much evident as a response to these shows. The show Law and Order, which originally premiered in 1990, prides itself on basing their story plots around recent national and local headlines. For those of you who have not caught atleast one episode from this 20 year running show or one of it's spin-offs Law and Order: SVU or Law and Order: Criminal Intent the premise of the show is that the law force works hand in hand with a group of attorneys to solve crimes and eventually convict the criminals. Do you watch these shows and believe this is the how the inner workings of the legal system work? No, because as educated and rational individuals we realize that this is not the case. The bad guys are not always caught and even if they are they are not always convicted. We also know that many innocent people are convicted without an overwhelming amount of evidence.

Some people receive this instant gratification from the television shows as reality of the legal system. This blurred understanding has lead to the recent phenomenon known as The CSI Effect. This derived from the CBS program CSI: Crime Scene Investigators, which is focused on forensic science solving criminal cases. There have been discoveries that people who have participated in court have watched criminal shows like CSI and have only based cases on whether there is an abundance of forensic evidence to convict people. Thinking that there is this mythical missing piece that will tie a whole case together. This relates to Gebner's culivation analysis that people create a reality towards over exposure to media and a false knowledge or perception about it can occur. Gebner of course was referring to violence but the over exposure to the idea that forensic science is the ends all to solving criminal cases.

This over exposure has been debated as both a positive and negative. That the CSI Effect is educating and that it is hindering people's judgments. The CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=681918n) analyzed this debate with opinions from Legal Analysts Wendy Murphy and Mikey Sherman. In Sherman's opinion the criminal analysis shows educate people about forensic science and while Murphy's opinion is that this is a valid argument for prosecutors to make for cases being lost. There is no clear middle ground whether this is The CSI Effect does have an influence on the outcome of trials.

In 2007, Jeffery Toobin, a writer for The New Yorker was allowed complete access to the New York Police Department's forensic science crime lab, and analyzed the myths of DNA profiling and this CSI Effect. Through his research he discovered that unlike on the show CSI evidence such as hair or other fibers are not as conclusive as made on the show. Unless the percentage of similarity is high. Also most of the time it is hard to determine the direct connection between a fiber or a strand of hair having connection to that case. Just like people the legal system is flawed and complicated. The accuracy and precision of the forensic findings is not 100% certain as displayed on these television shows.

complete article- http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_toobin

video of his findings aired on CNN- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGc4PaLB-ek&feature=player_embedded#

So I leave you with this. Do you think that this CSI Effect is a valid blame for jurors perceptions about a case during a trial? Due to these shows do you think you have become cultivated into thinking that the technology, accuracy, and time span of DNA profiling and fingerprinting that occurs on these shows is actually how it is?

Is Hip-Hop To Blame? Is it a threat to our children?

In today’s society media has proven to be a very powerful tool. Media has the capability of influencing many people and slanting public opinion in a certain direction.  As children we are very vulnerable and believe what we see or hear through the different technological mediums.  Children today “are actually exposed to the equivalent of 8 ½ hours a day of media content, even though they pack that into less that 6 ½ hours of time” (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr 193). Children of all ages are curious about many issues and that curiosity makes parents very scared. 

With the emergence of  “Gangsta Rap” taking the music world by storm in the late 1980’s, parents became worried if their children would react to the negative lyrics.  Jennifer Copley proposes the question, “Many parents are alarmed when they discover that their children have developed a taste for rap music, but is there really any reason for concern?” (Rap Music’s Psychology Effects).

Reference to violence and drug abuse had parents from the suburbs in a frenzy. However, I have been an avid music lover (in particular Hip-Hop) since I was eight years old. These depictions and stories that these “poets” told fascinated me. Even at the tender age of eight, I could have been easily influenced to react to some of the artist’s stories. However, what hip-hop music did for me as a child was make me more socially aware of issues that were going on in the inner cities.

Groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A. painted vivid pictures of the turmoil and chaos that occurred on a daily basis in urban communities. If anything hip-hop became an outlet or vehicle for me to learn about our world that I wouldn’t necessarily have learned in grade school.

In my opinion, I believe the media blames “hip-hop” for many societal issues. The most recent thing I can think of is when radio personality Don Imus referred to the women’s Rutgers basketball team as “Nappy-Headed Hoes”.  His remarks had a direct effect on hip-hop viewers and divided the genre. Even though it came out of his mouth, the media twisted it and turned to hip-hop as the reason he used the word. 

African American activists became involved and started to protest against hip-hop music and the vulgar language that is used. As a result of the media uproar many hip-hop artists refused to curse and made their albums profanity-free. What does this tell our children though?  Should they not be allowed to express themselves in a way that can be very therapeutic? Do they have to limit themselves and follow society because the media tells us what’s wrong and right?

Overall, what influence has hip-hop had in life? Do you think that the media today is influencing kids not to listen to Hip -Hop? Lastly, if you were a parent would you be worried if your child listened to hip-hop music? 

Further information :http://cognitive-psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/rap_musics_psychological_effects