Internet research: The "Corporation" and the War in Iraq

The idea of the "Corporation" as it was presented in the movie “The Corporation” was quite eye opening. As a lot of people know that a corporation is really legally a person now and has the same laws and responsibilities assigned to it. It was interesting to see how the people of the corporations are now working to avoid almost any kind of responsibility. There is a very diversified idea of what a corporation should do and how they should function on the Internet. There are still the dominating forces like Microsoft, IBM, Nike, Google, and other large commercial and retail players like Wal-Mart that direct what we see and what information we receive. It is interesting to see how each company goes about its movements and actions. I think the best one for being behind the scene is Google. They have gathered the largest amount of information on the planet and have it archived for our convenience. Other large corporations like Microsoft have gather a very large amount of data that most everyone feels should not fall into the wrong hands. I would ask, Are the corporations protecting us better nowadays that what was done 50 years ago?

The Iraq War on Terrorism. If my understanding was correct, we were to do our research and have it be included in our blog group project. So my blogs on that sight included my research and findings.

The Passion of the Christ

This movie has brought about quite a lot of controversy in its making. I am not a religious person so for me it only has a historical value. When comparing to older films like the Ten Commandments it has the same tone but with a new twist. The presentation is quite well done. In this version of Christ's last hours of life, it to me comes across as very political. Yes, there are the placements of power, male and female. This time of our world was a very male place to be. The men had the power and the females coveted the males with the greater power. The women are seen as compassionate and caring while the men are portrayed as dominate and almost unyielding. The gaze is overly male with the female being overly submissive in this portrayal.

I would put the brutality about what one would think they could do to a person for the time. I think this sort or representation will do some good for all the religious people out there that have no idea of just what sort of things were done in the name of religion, to people who went against the power in place at the time. Maybe, just maybe this will cause people to rethink things.

Ling Woo in Historical Context - Chyng Feng Sun, 656-664

Recap: Lucy Liu’s character, Ling Woo, has made the image of Asian females a very different discussion. For the most part of television history, Asian females have been portrayed as the submissive, frail, and quiet “China Doll.” This article talks about how the Asian male has been labeled as “sexually deviant, paradoxically either asexual or as a rape threat top white women.” The article continues to talk about a variety of television shows and movies that portray Asians in a stereotypical ways.

Comment: Our television shows and movies continue to portray Asians in a racist way and will continue until our society learns to accept everyone for who they are. We have started to see that a variety of minorities can get some respect for who they are, but will continue to considered below normal compared to whites.

Here Comes The Judge - Brian Locke, pg 651-655

Recap: The O.J. trial created a celerity out of Judge Lance Ito. He became the butt of jokes as the trial wore on over the process of a year. Prior to a comment made by Republican Senator Alphonse D’Amato, Lance Ito was used as a non racial joke source. After D’Amato made his remark about Ito the issues of using the likeness of Ito for the running gag of the Dancing Itos’ became tough for jay Leno to use. Especially after a comedian, Jack Cohen, makes on the fly jokes about what D’Amato said. This puts Jay Leno in a defensive position, as he clearly didn’t want to cross that line.

Comment: I watch the Tonight Show for Jay Leno’s humor and skits. The over all appearance is that he doesn’t like to offend people based on race. His Dancing Itos were briefly funny but for me they got old after a while. With so much attention in the media about the trial of O.J. it became hard to get any kind of news that at some point didn’t have O.J. stuff in it. I think the media made the issues of Ito’s race a bigger thing than it was. Yes, the Japanese Americans were treated with hostility and fear. That is what was going on during WWII. The Japanese had created a huge tide of fear across the world. I think for people of my generation, our bigger concerns have come from Vietnam and other incidents like this. The flare of racism will creep out at any point and be very prominent if the media has anything to do with it.

This is For Fighting, This Is For Fun - Fred Turner, pg 642-650

Recap: Reality based crime show dramas have become very popular and take a very masculine approach, similar to what the Vietnam veteran, Brian Winhover, went through as training to become a perfect soldier. The gun and penis connection is interesting how when watching one of the shows you can really get the feeling of it. The shows focused on here are Cops, Bounty Hunter, America’s Most Wanted, and LAPD: Life on the Beat.

Comment: I have never really had much interest in watching these types of shows. I have several friends who quite enjoy them and get quite a kick out of them. These friends also have a strong interest in guns. I don’t know if there is a direct correlation to this or not but it seems to be a similarity that I can’t pass on asking about. I grew up with guns and we actually hunted but I believe that my friends never really used the guns growing up and it is more of a power thing I think.

Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts, 1990s Style - Donald Bogle, pg 633-641

Recap: This article goes into the roles of African American characters in main line dramas of the 1990’s. It explains how the role of the black characters are used but not as the main character of the story. Very little in-depth history is given for each. Advancement has been done but over all the characters are mostly superficial.

Comment: I have watch a lot of the shows visited by this article. I really enjoyed Hill Street Blues when it aired and have also enjoyed N.Y.P.D. Blues as another police drama. ER is another of the shows that I watch with regular timing. It has been nice to see the black characters used but their history is somewhat limited. If we as a society can ever get past the racial tendencies, we might actually make out nicely.

In Their Prime - Karen Lindsey, pg 625-632

Recap: In this article Karen Lindsey reflects on how she enjoys broadcast television much more than going to a movie. Of which she refuses to do because of a variety of issues. She goes into detail about her five favorites shows. Two are on CBS and three on Lifetime channel. Judging Amy, Family Law, Any Day Now, Strong Medicine, and The Division.

Comment: This article was uninteresting for me. Reading about all of these shows that I don’t watch was not exactly fun. It is nice to see that women out there do appreciate the shows that do make it to air. It does look like there will be more shows to continue the progression of women focused shows.

Once in a Lifetime - Jackie Byers and Eileen R. Meechan, pg 613-624

Recap: For what has been a long time television has targeted women with advertising. Now we have Lifetime cable network specifically targeting women. As with the daytime soap operas, attention to the “Ladies of the House” as they were called early on, have been an advertisers target market. They have figured out that women tend to have a lot of buying power in the household. The Lifetime cable channel subscribes to the working woman’s interests and also makes for male-friendly women’s television.

Comment: I have never really watched the Lifetime channel since the shows have never really sparked any interest for me. However, it is nice to see that women can have a channel that programs for them. I believe with their success we have other channels like the Oxygen channel coming to the forefront. Not that it doesn’t help to have Oprah Winfrey support the channel too.

What's Wrong with this Picture? - Susan J. hubert, pg 608-612

Recap: Ellen DeGeneres has a coming out party and the television community has a field day with it. Some say this is a good thing and others were very against it. Ultimately, the show goes on and Disney, who produces the show wanted to be cautious and not offend any viewers. So for the most part, the show was scripted fairly dead center of left or right. Once it was aired and things have moved on as the one comedian, Kate Clinton, said, “all will be well.”

Comment: I can recall when this happened and the media was all over it. For me it was no big deal to find out that she was coming out about being gay. Everyone pretty much knew it all ready if they even had a clue. It became much more of a media blitz and advertising smorgasbord to make more all might dollars. Now, if you look at what she has done and where she is at, the top of her game with her show, it seems to have all worked out.

Representing Gay Men on American Television - Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, pg 597-607

Recap: The time table of the representation of the gay man on television. This article looks at the history of how the gay man on television has been represented. Early on the idea of a gay man on television was un heard of. There were sprinklings of gay jokes and other references but for the most part gay men were not on television. Not until 1998 did, we have a strong show centered around two gay men. Will and Grace has become a very popular show and rated very high in the Nielson ratings. Over all the gay man has come a long way in improving the way they are seen on television but more needs to be done to be rid of stereotypical portrayals.

Comment: For me the aspect of the gay man in television has come a long way. Growing up there really wasn’t any references for me about gay men or women for that matter. I think that the biases that are perpetrated upon gays is right up there with other minorities. Much more needs to be done to improve the representation of gays on television.

The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television - Kristal Brent Zook, 586-596

Recap: The 1990’s represented a time when regular white viewers were moving away from regular broadcast television. The major broadcast agencies, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox started to show more black oriented programming. They were giving black producers more and more leeway to produce shows the way they wanted. Fox even went further in giving total control to the black produces. This was an unprecedented happening for blacks involved with television.

Comment: After watching the movie OutFoxed, it is somewhat scary to think that Murdoch controlled a lot of how the black entertainment came and went on the Fox network. He used them to gain an better viewership and then after he dumps them to move back to a white oriented scope of programming. We have continued to see just how he has manipulated the system to his advantage but the only hope for the black producers and owners of the shows is that blacks own most of them. Right now, I think we will miss out on the harder edged shows that were produced and controlled by blacks since the current line ups don’t have the same feel. We will have to see what the next decade will bring us as we look ahead.

Ralph, Fred, Archie, and Homer - Richard Butsch, pg 575-585

Recap: This article talks about how the major broadcaster were the dominant force in television programming and when dealing with advertising. All of the shows that dealt with family had nice middle class families or even upper class family settings. A large selection of the shows had the father being a lawyer. Hardly any lower, working middle class families were presented in shows. After the slow decline of viewership to cable and other media, the 1990’s presented a situation of which the big 4 had not be in before. They started to take more risks to direct shows towards the younger crowd, 18 – 34 year olds. Middle class families began appearing with quite a lot of regularity. Even to the point of featuring dysfunctional families. Bringing all the way down to the blue collar level.

Comment: What really gets me is how what we watch is totally regulated by what advertisers are willing to spend money on. So it comes down to who gets the money and where does it come from. The broadcast channels feature the sitcoms and almost direct how the populace will eventually act towards who ever it is they have portrayed. I think this is where our society picks up it’s biases towards the blue collar worker nowadays. Back in the early years of television it was more they were trying to portray the life that everyone wanted. Here is our little house with the white picket fence with the perfect father and happy mother taking care of the two or three kids.

TV by Day - Gail Dines & Jean Humez, pg 463-467

Recap: This short article goes into the history of the daytime television and how it was developed from the radio and directed towards the predominate female audience. It goes on to explain about up and coming chapters that tie into this topic thread. Sections that we do not read for this blog.

Comment: Even though this article was brief it does give a nice history how the daytime was shaped by early radio thoughts towards advertising on the one-way radio. Men were thought to be off playing with their two-way radio and wouldn’t be interested in the regular radio broadcasts. Kind of interesting how it moved along from just the daytime soap operas to include the daytime talk show like Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael shows.

King Kong and the White Woman - Gail Dines, pg 451-461

Recap: The idea of the black man being the heavy hitter in the sexual way has been around for decades. The portrayal of the black man being a savage in bed while pushing the white man to the background continues to be a mainstream issue. With the magazine, Hustler, using the cartoons to portray blacks in a very racial way goes against the main stream focus on how pornography is used. Meaning that the other two big names, Playboy and Penthouse, tend to publish their product about a perfect white society. Blacks have to work to move their image to be equal to whites or at least about the same.

Comment: Interesting that the article starts off with mentioning the Birth of a Nation movie that we have watched in class. I was not expecting other connections to the movie in our readings. It is bad how the cartoons continue to spread racism about black males. Why is it that everyone has to take some issue that is different about another races and make it become a huge focal point?

Everyday Pornography - Jane Caputi, pg 434-450

Recap: Jane Caputi states that she is not talking about X-rated pornography but instead the type found in advertising. However, she continues into what is considered actual pornography later in the article. A lot of the advertising she mentions is the type that is demeaning towards women. She shows how men are portrayed being in control and secure of who they are while women are shown to be subservient and demeaned.

Comment: Sex sells will be the answer from the advertising agencies that produce the ads she is referring too. As for the other non X-rated pornography I think she is a little off base since a lot is considered pornography and some of it to the extreme. Over all not a overly exciting article but it was informative.

Mass market Romance - Ann Barr Snitow, pg 424-433

Recap: Harlequin books are written directly to women. The ideas presented in this chapter are that these books are pornographic in nature. Women need more of the romantic feelings versus the males point of view that they are more physical in nature. Researchers are labeling Harlequins as pornographic. Are they more sexually charged than looking at erotica versus the level of pornography? That is the question how and what women get out of reading Harlequin books. There appears to be a more emotional release for women where as a male uses the erotic or pornography for the same type of release.

Comment: Whether they are pornographic on not is a tough call. Each person labels what hey think is pornographic and what is not. Some would say that the sculptures from Michelangelo are pornographic. Others will disagree. We have even seen the U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cover the statue “Spirit of Justice” with blue curtains to hide an exposed breast. Pornography is what each person takes it to be. Yes, there is a point at which it becomes more than just sex and nude bodies. For example the exploitation of children, it then becomes more than just simple erotica. For females, the Harlequin books are a form of pornography directed towards females. Males will for the most part never really understand them as will most females will never really understand what it is for males.

Pornography and the Limits of Experimental Research - Robert Jensen, pg 417-423

Recap: How can one accurately measure the effects of pornography in an lab or some very controlled space? Will the reactions given by the participants be genuine? I think that the results would indicate that there are broad idea of how pornography leads to violence against women. Does the male who watches daily have the same issues as a male that views it casually? Does putting a scientific label on pornography make it a better topic to discuss? There are a lot of compelling questions that are asked of pornography and what makes it pornography. It seems that all pornography is different and how it is used etc. Now all that needs to be done is to find the specific pornography that causes violence against women and not do that type any more.

Comment: This article is very similar to the last one. Just what level does pornography play in violence towards women? Aren’t the people who commit sexual crimes against women all ready have problems. Same goes for the child molester, the desire is already there and fueled by their imagination. Isn’t a person’s imagination more likely to create a more specific type of thought process towards women. he only thing that should e really looked into hard is child pornography. That type of abuse is not something that can be forgiven.

The Pornography Debates - Karen Boyle, pg 406-416

Recap: Pornography is a such a large scale area that it has been an easy target for the feminist movement to attack. There is some small amounts of evidence that pornography does cause harm to women but the connections are harder to make than 20 years ago. What is considered pornography has become a point of contention with the feminists. The findings and research are showing little in that pornography is causing more violence towards women.

Comment: Pornography is a very strong topic for concern. What is considered pornography is a hot topic for sure. Does a Playboy contribute to violence towards women the same as an underground rape video? Personally I would think not and it depends on the person wanting to view such a film that would lend the idea that the person all ready had the desire to cause violence towards women.

Hidden Politics - Tricia Rose, pg 396-405

Recap: Rap music seems to have gotten a bad rap. No pun intended. Tricia Rose goes to several rap concerts and discovers the attitudes that are directed towards the black attendees. She gets to experience the body searching and the loss of identity or the gaining of a general identity of being black from the white security guards. This sort of profiling takes place all over even tough most people thin they don’t do it. Also with the media representation of Rap music being a more violent and angry type of music tends to push the profiling even more. She talks about the concerns over the potential damage to concert venues and the like. Also how insurance agencies increase the cost of coverage for “black” concerts. Over all it seems that the combination of the whites servicing the blacks for the concert develop more issues against the blacks and then they take the actions of the blacks and turn it again and the cycle begins again until at some point there turns out be violence. It is a vicious circle and either side can be blamed, but the rap music itself is not helping.

Comment: Personally rap music doesn’t do anything for me. Her article is somewhat informative for me but my feelings about rap music don’t lend much credit to this article. I can see how the music has caused some of its problems. To me the music doesn’t seem to be much more than violent lyrics directed towards whites or who ever happens to be the one pushing the artist.

Lessons From Littleton - Henry Jenkins, pg 385-395

Recap: Marketing violence to children is a continuing problem. As was seen in the chapter about the Power Rangers. A lot of people would believe that things like this would attribute to the happenings of the Columbine School shooting. There seems to be a large amount of concern about what happened with Columbine but how the Congress plans to try and fix the situation is the problem. We have a Congress that is culturally out of touch as it were and they focused on a particular segment of the younger population in creating a “cultural war” on these people. Moving into the third phase of the “cultural war” has allowed a larger following to back the Pseudo-science of Media effects. The problem is that the “Medical Association has no specific cultural experience.” So this approach makes it even more difficult to asses what is really going on in our country with respect to the younger generations. All the baby boomers are trying to recover from the 60’s and 70’s and now we have the Gen X and Gen Y creating an even larger cultural divide.

Comment: Being that I am of the last year of baby Boomers I feel that I am actually of Gen X mentality. I can see the issues of how the cultural divide is becoming an issue whether it is in music or movies or possibly any other media. Yes, there are issues with violence in our society. Our children need to be dealt with in a fashion that allows them to grow up without feeling as if they were forced to go down a one-way street. Growing up watching Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote as far as I am concerned didn’t teach me excessive violence. And this cartoon now gets rated very high on the violence charts. Just an interesting look at what has changed and what has not.

Lay Theories of Media Effects - Ellen Seiter, pg 367-384

Recap: An interesting range of interviews. Looking at how individual teachers look at the effects of television and how they deal with it at their particular school. The difference between the Montessori school and Gloria’s Family daycare are quite large. It appears that the teacher, Sara, at the Montessori school is very out of date where it concerns the television and what type of content is being seen. On the other hand, Gloria’s school has the approach that television is Ok with moderation. That is as long as it isn’t abused. The other day care was attached to the local hospital and serviced mostly the employees of the hospital had the largest number of children attending. Having a large attendance can sometimes make certain things harder to learn and keep all the children under control and learning.

Comment: My wife is a 4th grade teacher and she has talked about the Montessori schools here and it would be where she would like to send out children. However, the cost makes it a difficult to send our kids there. Personally, I don’t think the teacher from the example in this article was really staying abreast of what could be gained from the television at the Montessori school. To me that sort of reaction against television can make for a very limited learning experience. Television can be useful when used correctly and limited to a set amount of viewing.

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Diane E. Levin & nancy Carlsson-Paige, pg 359-366

Recap: Saben Productions has the top selling toy line with the Power Rangers characters. Violence has been around in children’s television shows for a long time. Even from the older cartoons there was violence established in them. Teachers have express concerns over the affect of the Power Rangers on grade school students increasing the amount of violence that was seen before they existed. Many children wondered if they were real or pretend. So many children acted out trying to be Power Rangers. With the large quantity of violent acts per show it was giving children the wrong idea of how to act and develop. Teachers are having to work to deal with the increased violence and to start developing class room guides to deal with the affects of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Comment: I can recall when the Power Rangers came out. There were a lot of Martial Art movies in the market place and children were getting into the idea of exploring the world of Martial Arts. Being that this character concept is from Japan poses an interesting question. It isn’t just America with the problem of violence geared towards children. How we deal with it and learn to grow around it will tell us a lot about how our society will grow in the future.

Advertising and the Construction of Violent White Masculinity - Jackson Katz, pg 349-358

Recap: Violence in the United States has been something that has been around for many years. With the advent of 9/11, the violence has been brought to the forefront. The focus of this chapter is about how violence is a more male dominated happening. Advertisers generally use a strong male image to sell and with the movies and other mainstream media of the late 70’s and early 80’s this has been brought to a head with great action heroes like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis. So this goes into a thought of, are males genetically violent or is it learned behavior?

Comment: For me I can recall growing up lots of specific advertising that was very male dominated. Playing with my “real” sounding M-16 rifles and playing soldier with my best friend was a daily past time. For me growing up in the 60’s and 70’s during my early years compared to how things are now is quite different. It makes me really look at what my son being one year old will have to deal with when he is 7 or 8 playing what ever type of male rolled game. I certainly think I will try and make sure that I raise him to be understanding of both the female and male viewpoints.

Television Violence - George Gerbner, pg 339-348

Recap: Violence in TV has been around for years. That is the problem for starters. The other issue is that violence is shown by the media heavily when compared with other aspects of news reporting agencies. Violence is a staple of television and is hard for media giants to move away from such a profit-generating source. It also leads to a greater separation of races by making the whites out as victims and the other races, specifically Blacks’ and Latinos’, as the victimizers. This distortion generates a lot of negative backlash against them. With many children watching record hours of television, it will lead to a youth that has become toughened to violence and will continue to tolerate it and possibly create more. This situation should be corrected and we should work towards a solution to stem graphical violence for children.

Comment: The violence in television has become common place and to be expected. Today if we don’t see violence in a show it is thought to be something less of a show. Our society has become so primed for violence it is all we expect to see in the news and in other areas. It is funny to see how people react to a news story that is about something nice that has occurred or occurring. They are almost ignored by most since it isn’t a strong visual image. Possibly coming across as goody too shoes’ish. I just hope as our new generation of kids come along we take care in teaching them all the right things and not all the violence that is happening in the world today.

Gender and Hegemony in Fashon magazines - Diana Crane, pg 314-332

Recap: The fashion industry has focused on bringing what it thinks are the important images of it's fashion to the market place. The media is thought to be directed towards men by most feminists. The media in general is directed to all audiences. Women of different ages perceive the images differently however. Younger women tend to believe that the images represent a woman’s strength of sexuality while older women believe it to be a sign of weakness and passivity. The actual ‘gaze’ of each picture is interpreted by the viewer and turned into meaning.

Comment: The idea of a woman’s magazine being directed at a male to read to me doesn’t make any sense. I don’t find myself looking to pick up the latest issue of Vogue to see what women will be wearing so the idea of the feminists is lost on me. The focus groups really show how the different women view each picture differently. All in all this article didn’t really doesn’t do me any good. Maybe to have a better understanding of the female gaze, but that’s it.

Selling Sexual Subjectivites - Katherine Sender, pg 302 -313

Recap: The use of advertising to the Gay and Lesbian market has been a missing piece in the big scheme of things. The new idea of Gay Window Advertising is a new concept of advertising to both heterosexuals and gay or lesbian people at the same time. At first, it comes across as an idea of subliminal advertising but the concept is more of a personality trait of each type of sexuality. By making the ads some what skewed towards the gay and lesbian tendencies but not too much to make the heterosexual think that the ad is directed towards that group, advertisers are able to code the ads for all audiences. Gay men have the easiest time of reading this coding followed by the lesbian population. Overall, advertisers are starting to understand the full impact of this market source.

Comment: It would be quite interesting to see just how much more advertising is being directed towards the gay and lesbian market place. This article was written long enough ago that much has changed in the way a gay or lesbian person is perceived. Yes, there is still a large amount of homophobia around but the idea of a gay man or a lesbian woman has really nit more into the mainstream with the results of the popular sitcoms and clothing shows. Now we have terms like Metro Sexual being thrown around to describe straight men that have traits of a gay man.

The Whole Truth about the Iraq war

New movie about the Iraq war. Talking about the WMD's in Iraq. More to the point that there are not any there. Focusing on the President explaining what he plans on doing about it. How the news media for the current President focused the idea of WMD's and creating reasoning to go to war with Iraq. Sept. 11th 2001 became the day that President Bush decided to go to war with Iraq. Now it becomes justification to go to war and not focusing on other aspects of what would happen with going to war. The President and staff are focused on going to war regardless of the evidence at hand. Even to the point of creating subterfuge about WMD's and other speculation. So, now we have the preemptive war aspect. A new concept for America for going to war. The President used his staff and himself pushing the idea of the smoking gun being the mushroom cloud. This sort of tactic with the use of the media becomes a push button effect to create the panic effect on the populace to generate support for his agenda.
It is interesting how the people being interviewed are not Saddam Hussein bashing but are saying that he isn't the crazy person that President Bush makes him out to be. They do still feel that he is a very bad dictator and has issues as well but not on the scale of being a direct threat to the USA. Another aspect of how the President and his staff have used the news media and other outlets to push their viewpoints to move the populace in favor of going to war with Iraq.

The use of the satellite imagery to promote the idea of WMD's and setting up Colin Powell is very interesting. Using him with his very strong presence and reputation to promote the idea of WMD's and chemical weapons.

"Over time the truth will come out" is a very prophetic statement by the President. The truth is coming out about what has been done by his administration and the deceptive nature of his administration.

The Yellow Cake documents proposes a very interesting idea. Where did they come from and who created them. Is this something that was created by the Vice Presidents office? And then are they looking for scapgoats about it to divert attention to the documents? Interesting how anyone that isn't with the "Program" seem to become members of the other side.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of this movie.

OutFoxed, part II

Continuing with the movie and discussion about the movie. Looking at the opening scene of the movie and the way they make Murdoch appear to be the Godfather and the controlling family of the news media. The media is giving us the distorted view of what is happening in Iraq due to the normative aspect of the news happening. By this they are showing what is good for one side and not necessarily the other side. For example we never really see news items like a new school being built and how things are going well for the citizens of Iraq. We only see how many soldiers are killed and how many civilians are hurt and killed as well.

We are moving to a new movie due to technical difficulties.

OutFoxed

The news media controls what we see and how we see it. They are being shown that they are too powerful in the specifics that they do. Fox News is a fake news agency from what I have seen. Typically they only seem to promote propaganda for the repulicans. Fair and Balanced they are not. Quite a funnny saying for them to use. Guess that is why I never watch Fox News. I suppose I should to get a good laugh and to see just what they are trying to pull over their fan base as news and real information. And all this owned by one person. Makes for a very scary real life situation. Just like what they showed in how many people he has control over what they get to view with all his TV and cable stations. In addition to his other media outlets. Makes me wonder just what his movie studio has done and what type of control he has exerted over the movies produced.

Hope to see the rest of the movie next week.

The Corporation, part III

Today we see the rest of the movie.

The wonderful world of child labor. It is hard to see that the big corporations only paying out pennies while making billions in third world countries is hard to take.

Hmm, interesting how some cities are starting to withdraw rights of the corporations. Something that needs to be done more to bring the accountability back in line. The Corporations are just too powerful in our society now. We need to work to fix all this before it becomes a bad B-grade sci-fi movie.

It is nice to see people standing up to the large corporations and being successful. Granted there seem to be a bit of sacrificing to do it but at least it is a start.

Over all the movie is very informative. I definitely have enjoyed watching it and seeing the new ideas presented there.

Current Perspectives on Advetising Images of Disability - Beth A. Haller & Sue Ralph pg 293-301

Recap: Disabled people are real people too. Advertisers are finding out that this market branch of society can be a very profitable group. There has been a gross lack of disabled people represented in advertising. Dealing with the stigmatism of a handicapped person being used in advertising was a huge stopping point for advertisers. Now, thanks to companies like Target, disabled people are being used in a large number of ads in various forms of media. Both in the United States and Britain there is a large movement to prevent further discrimination.

Comment: It is nice to see the disabled portrayed as everyday people. One of the places that I have noticed a large amount of disabled people showing up is in children’s programming. Having young children I am exposed to a large number of children shows that are now incorporating the disabled and other ethnicities. I am glad that they are doing this to help further eliminate racial hatred.

Advertising and People of Color - Clint C. Wilson II & Félix Gutiérrez pg 283-292

Recap: The culture issues of advertising in the US are quite straight forward. Exploit the minorities for your products and you will achieve great success. This seems to be the main idea of the advertisers over the year with characters like Aunt Jemima, Super Chief and Paco. There does seem to be a slight move away from excluding all minorities for specific advertising but not enough to really promote equal status between all ethnicities.

Comment: The advertisers have done a pretty good job of using all races to the promotion of products to main stream whites. I can remember various ads growing up that they talk about in this article. The airline ads stick in my mind from my teen years. The whole idea of the Asian doll or Singapore Girl really made for a nice visual when you are 14. I do hope that with our current situation in our society, advertisers will start to promote products to other ethnicities. It could be a huge market for them even though they tend to only market where they think they will reap the best bang for the all mighty dollar.

"Con-Fusing" Exotica - Sanjukta Ghosh pg 274-282

Recap: This article talks about how the media used in many places has basically removed the Indian aspect of this culture. Also shows how the media manipulates the imagery to show Indian like products but removes the Indian cultural aspect while generally using a white female to show the product. The people of India have been lumped into the Orientalist gaze of the American advertising media. Lightly touched upon is that this appears to be happening to all minority cultures in the United States but mostly directed to the removal of the Indian culture. Perceptions of their culture are ignored and lost.

Comment: Looking at all the commercials and magazine advertisements that I have seen recently really makes me wonder why the advertising agencies don't direct some marketing towards this population here in the United States. They generally are well educated and not of the lower income classes. Looks to me like a lost revenue that could be had by them and also make for a better acceptance of their culture as people would be more exposed to it through advertising.

Cosmetics - Pat Kirkham and Alex Weller pg 268-273

Recap: Talking about how the Clinique toiletry products are marketed to specifics about males and female. This is a brief look at one manufacture that is trying to increase their market share of male users by targeting them with specific advertising.

Comments: When one walks down the isle at the grocery store to buy some shampoo, the choices are huge. And all this is directed mainly at the female shopper or female consumer. While there are a few male specific products, it still is a female market place. To have a product basically the same, be marketed differently for men and women tells a lot about our society. If advertisers targeted only the male views, they would all go bankrupt. The whole idea of a product like soap having a maleness to it is quite funny but with consumers perceptions always in the forefront. After reading something like this, everyone should be more aware of what they are buying when they go shopping even for the simplest items. “Buyer Beware” should be the motto for our society right now.

The More You Subtract, The More You Add - Jean Kilbourne pg 258-267

Recap: This article goes into existence of girls and women in our society. She shows how the development of the female psyche is molded by our advertising and how they are treated growing up. Even with our society now, we still push women to be the submissive.

Comments: Women in our society suffer great injustices from all sorts of directions. This article focuses on the advertising directed at both male and female subjects in how it plays to both sides to make the woman the submissive. Women have been exploited for years and even now, they still are exploited by just about every advertising agency. I would say, they are exploited by all advertising companies, since the market has been put in place and we as a society have done nothing to try and correct it. Until something is, done women will continue to play the submissive role even if they don’t want to. Women can feel important but will have a long uphill battle to wage still as we move along in the 21st century.

Imaged-Based Culture - Sut Jhally pg 249-257

Recap: This article talks about the way marketing and media are used to shape the popular culture of specific areas. As consumers, we are directed to view specific media and are to have expected reactions. Advertising is a tool used by corporations to shape and guide consumers through out all market places. Not even country boundaries can prevent specific advertising influence.

Comments: What gets me is how fast our society has developed the idea of marketing or advertising to specific people or interests. To have all this take place in just a short period of time in relation to the existence of our various societies is quite amazing. Although I think that once the corporate giants figured out something that worked they sent a lot of money towards further development. “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” makes for a good analogy for advertising. They give us what we think we want were as in reality we are getting what they want us to get. Our only savor is that there are a few groups out there that recognize what is going on and try to warn up about them. A good example of this is the movie, The Corporation. Having watch most of the movie I can really see where the advertising of big business has gone and what direction they are trying to take us. Just what is next and what will be do about it as a society?

The Corporation, part II

Today we get to see the rest of the movie.

Public versus Private- which do we want to have. Hard to say but the idea of everything going Private really bothers me to some extent. Maybe it is the Native American thought that we can't own the Earth that drives my feelings.
The Nagging factor, figures they would do a study about how much a child nags their parents. Leave it to big business to utilize the nagging factor of children to influence the parents to buy certain products. Oh the joys of advertising to children and not the parent. Devilishly fun... Not.
Controlling the views of marketing in the American society is something that I think most Americans have no idea of what is being done to them. The control issue of what a consumer buys etc is such a large area. Also, the idea of controlling the view of the actual corporations is another huge area of marketing. This area of marketing starts to go beyond the bounds of certainly ethics I think. Trying to generate the right perceptions about a company when the said company is doing things that it really shouldn't be doing or that it is hiding the results about what it has done.
Ahh... The power of Phizer doing great things for the community. Interesting how they can spend a small amount on the subway project and create such a huge acceptance of what they do. The money spent is such a small portion of what they make that to them it makes for a great investment in public relations.
Branding for the interest of the public acceptance as the brand of choice. Undercover advertising is an interesting topic. Something that takes place everyday without most people know what is happening.
Patenting a live creature. Makes for some weird sci-fi moments in real life. Not something that I want to see in the near future.
Monsanto growth hormone is a very scary issue about treating food stocks for human consumption. It to me goes past how fast aspartame was approved for human consumption. Just over all a very scary issue.
Owning all water even if it falls from the sky, another very scary issue. It makes me wonder how a company can think that they can own the weather.
I hadn't heard about the Fanta Orange story. Makes for another interesting product development just to continue to draw profits even when it is not politically correct. Also the IBM connection to WWII for the Nazi and the printing of the punch cards. Also plays into how President Bush’s family had money invested in the Nazi system.
Who really controls the world? Corporations seem to be the ones in control. We can see it in our own government and how the current President supports big business.

We should be viewing the last part of the movie next time in class.

The Corporation

Commnet: For a few bad apples there seems to be a lot of reference to bad apples. Makes one wonder just how many there are that we don't know about. Hmm, the american way, use the image of the bald eagle to the advantage of the corporation.
Interesting look at the how it has evolved to a reference to something per man hour. If you think about it, that is all business is about for the most part.
The corporation as a pesron. Makes for a an interesting development of our history. Definitly sounds like some issues need to be changed.
The all mighty buck makes the world go around. Something that seems to be driven home through marketing and anything else that can be used by the various corporations.
Using factories in poor thrid world countries is definitly a double edge sword. Yes, we have paind them for cheap labor but they now have jobs. Granted they should be paid more and in better conditions.
Moving into the chemical production area. The issues are greater but with the situation of the corporation it will only be prolonged for many years. Nice focus on Mansantos. Now if only something can be done about it.
Accountablitity, doesn't seem that there is enough to actually cause a corporation tohave concern. They seem to just include the cost of paying fines into the budget plan and it just motivates them to make even more money to compensate for it.

It will be interesting to see the end of the movie next week.