We the Media

To be honest, I wasn’t too motivated to read this We the Media. I eventually finished it, but it wasn’t too encouraging.

Mainly because all the articles were all over the place and the layout showed several ideas at once on a page. It could also be that it reminded me of a textbook where I thought that I could not concentrate. The readings so far I have enjoyed, but when it came down to We the Media, I did not feel as much of a willingness to learn. It could also be because midterms has just ended and I have also been all over the place with my subjects trying tomake sure every assignment is handed in and every test is completed to the last end.

It wasn’t the context of this book that turned me off, but rather the presentation of the context did not keep me interested. I know I say I am a visual learner, but a layout similar to the one used in We the Media only discouraged me to keep reading. It took me about two weeks to finally finish this book, and by finally finish I sound relieved to have completed this book.

Hazen, Don and Julie Winokur. We the Media. New York: The New P, 1997.

Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

We are a very self centered and conceited race (McCLoud, 32)

After reading this book, I totally worship Scott McCloud. I love comic books and I think that this was a brilliant piece to pickup. Not only did he talk about all aspects of comic books for those on unfamiliar ground with it, but he also taught us how to really understand the concept of comics. Now I have a better understanding of comics and how they’re not just simple illustrations, but images that grab our mind because of detail and colour choices.

I remember Mark Lipton telling us about the success of the show “The Simpsons”. I always thought the success came from Matt Groening’s simple detail in the basic skeletal drawings of each character as well as the script written by the show’s writers. Mark Lipton explained to us that it was because of the basic colour choices used in the show. Apparently, Matt Groening’s animators use the same consistent colours rather than having various shades of the rainbow. Mark told us this was because of our perception as humans; if we saw all the colours of the rainbow in the show, it wouldn’t be as successful because our attention would be all over the place. I never thought colours could play such a crucial part to a television show until I finished reading Understanding Comics.

Scott McCloud has a chapter about colours where he explains if he had used colours in his text; our attention to the context would have a different perception than it would if he left his book in black and white. There was also another portion McCloud talked about when he was explaining about detail. If he detailed so many features in his facial expression, he claims we probably wouldn’t take him seriously. Further speaking into detail, Scott also said we see ourselves in just about everything; cars, automobiles, electric sockets, and even in cartoon illustrations. He simply replied, “We see ourselves in everything...and we make the world over in our own image” (32, 33). McCloud was right when he said this; we are self absorbed. The way we see ourselves in everything shows we think of ourselves as a dominant outline for everything around us.

I’m currently researching some more of Scott McCloud’s other books and want to purchase Reinventing Comics, which apparently was published after Understanding Comics. This has got to be my favourite text so far as the visual context kept me interested and also because I love comic books.

McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comics. New York: HarperCollins, 2000.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

How do you See me?

Men survey women before treating them. Consequently, how a woman appears to a man can determine how she will be treated. (Berger, 46)

When I saw this book, my first impression was it looks quite different than Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. Since Ways of Seeing has pictures throughout the context, I felt I was given a better sense of understanding since I am a visual learner. My greatest interest in this book was when I came across the chapter with the collection of all the female ads displaying women’s body parts and the woman portrayal in art. Women were used as figures to look at rather than appreciated. Women were definitely not taken seriously, and instead were viewed to be seen and not heard.

Women did not get a significant role in the pre-renaissance era, and nudity was used as the audience would perceive it. “The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.” (47)

The message I basically got from these quotes was that women feel they should always be concerned with their physical appearance. Today, the majority of women are still insecure with their body type because of the kind of women they view in the media. Back when art was appreciated, a woman would pay attention to their audience, and how they are looked at is determined but how the audience sees her.

I admit that when I see Evangeline Lily in a magazine, I wish I looked like her in a bathing suit. I think I have more control on what I see in terms of female appearance, as I acknowledge how the media tries to make me feel. I believe my personal eating habits and self-esteem has not been impacted from the images of women I see in the media. I also believe that men treat me a certain way because of a sense of confidence I have in my persona. I know I won’t be able to look like women I see in the media, and I definitely don’t look like a piece of meat for men.

I think if a woman has enough confidence, she does not need to feel insecure about her body in anyway. If a man sees a woman in a particular way, she allows them to judge her. Women should not be used as an object for a man’s eye candy, but should take pride in her other intelligent strengths that truly make her a beautiful person. The point I am getting at is physical appearance is nothing compared to who a person really is.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.

Image Distortion

For the group project with Mandi and Meg, we chose image distortion. At the stages of the discussion process, Mandi, Meg and I thought we should run by a topic reflecting upon women’s sexuality, exploitation, or patriarchal societies. It came down to an image shown in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing that we finally made a decision. In Chapter 2, there are exquisite photos of women in all different body shapes and forms. In my opinion, each woman is potentially beautiful because of the confidence they portray in their poses. The pose on page 45 made us think that we should talk about how images are made to influence our emotions, on body image.

When we saw this image, we saw what the definition of natural beauty used to be. If you look closely, you see a male figure watching the woman through the window like a piece of meat. Today, this is how the media displays women as, objects for the public to gaze at without appreciation of who she is.

This is where we brought image distortion into our image slide show. Our slideshow is a collection of various pictures and images we distorted ourselves to display just how much manipulation can be put into a photo in order for it to be called beautiful. Being beautiful like these women will make you a "happier" person.

It is not only women, but men are also viewed in a way where they appear “just for show”. Predominantly, our focus was on how anything in the media can be altered to fit the writer’s perspective.

We also learned the alteration of images in the media have a strong impact on the general public in terms of what we purchase, what we consume, and the different messages we absorb (hidden or not). No one realizes that a simple advertisement can change our spending habits almost instantaneously and input ideas into our heads; ideas marketers do not want us to recognize off the bat.

Amongst my group members and I, I found that I probably consume a lot more from the TV than the two of them. Mandi does not have cable in her room at res by choice, and the only show Megan assures she tunes in to is her Tuesday night "Gossip Girl". Since I commute from my home in Mississauga, I'm guilty for tuning in to about three TV drama shows a week, which is evident on how many coffee and clothing advertisements I am exposed to. On the comparison of advertisements, it is relatively the same since billboards splash across the same distorted images. The media affects our ideas on body image when we see these images. We either see someone we adore or someone we envy and want to become; no matter what, these distorted images will always toy with our emotions.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.

Post on Postman!

Last Thursday, I finished up my last class for the week and had to wait about an hour for my friend to come out of class so we could get home together. To bypass time, I decided to open up Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.

As I sat down and began to read, I became drawn to what the book was about. Even though it was just the introduction by Postman's son Andrew, as well as a Foreword, I paid attention to the context. This occurred as I knew of the references to George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, thanks to previous knowledge in my academic career. I felt proud to have this previous knowledge with me as I had a better understanding of what the ideas presented.

Saturday evening rolls around, and after an evening with several close friends, I opened up my copy of Amusing Ourselves to Death to read of several referrals to Sophists, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; a few of the many key points found in the Philosophy course I took in my graduating high school year. Again, I am once more fascinated with many of the elements the book has had to portray, but I do admit there were other factors that I did not understand until I had to look them up.

One of the quotes I read from Postman made me think about what television really does to us. "Television does not extend or amplify literate culture. It attacks it...What is television? What kinds of conversations does it permit? What are the intellectual tendencies it encourages? What sort of culture does it produce?" (Postman 84). Television redefines its purpose according to our behavioural changes, rather than providing messages we receive as ‘knowledge’. In other words, television definitely plays a part in terms of how we act, our self motivation, as well as attitude.

Before I finished reading, I disagreed with Postman on our world being similar to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World rather than George Orwell’s 1984. The Orwellian world portrays the government to be in control, where everything an individual does is conditioned. The dominance of the government in 1984 convinced me that our modern society can turn into this limited dystopia. It was not until nearing the end of the novel that I realized present day is more of Huxley’s Brave New World after all. “The President does not have the press under his thumb...Lie shave not been defined as truth nor truth as lies. All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused to indifference...Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions” (110). Television presents what we want to see, and the media pays attention to society’s demands; it works both ways on how television and society function. Postman presents evidence by paralleling Huxley with Orwell on their views of society portrayed in both novels. Huxley had the more accurate type of dystopia whereas Orwell’s dystopia features the government taking over our lives completely by feeding continuous lies. I believe Postman was right in a sense that television provides us with entertainment which we see as “news”. This shows the media and television provide us with our demands (our entertainment). This becomes a part of the information we believe to be actual news.

I enjoyed this read about media culture and how society gets a dosage of corruption and manipulation. Corruption in our society only goes as far as we allow it to happen, similar to how far we let television feed us our information.

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin, 1986.