Through this Comm11 class, I've learned so much about media as a whole. Yes, I've learned about the in's and out's of all the theories and even if every single one of them has it's own special opinions and propositions, I've come to a little conclusion of my own. Through all the blog writing and the studying, I'd like to say that I have come up with a central idea that perfectly encompasses all the theories into one singular, archaic and well-formed hypothetical statement. Though it may be shocking and mind-blowingly rebellious, I'd like the reader of this blog to give it a chance and actually think things through before bombarding this good-looking and charming blogger with expletives and hand gestures that would be illegal in some US states. So without further a do, I bring you the most eccentric and the most radical theory anyone has ever given you since Albert Einstein gave you that E=MC^2 bull...
Media is the anti-Christ.
Relax. Chill. Chillax. Let it sink in for a bit. Let it marinate for a little more, and let it cozy on down to the inner workings of your brain as I explain. The anti-Christ is described as the person (OR THING!!) to bring on the rapture, the end of the world essentially. I believe my statement to be true because Media has the utmost capacity to do so, or at least somehow be the cause of it all.
With this, I call upon another theory to support my case - the Uses and Gratifications Theory. The theory states how "people actively seek out specific media and specific content to generate specific gratifications and satisfy particular needs". These needs may extend as far as needs which are entertaining in nature, to those which have a purely informative purpose. In any case though, one can deduce how the society, as a whole, is so dependent on media as an outlet.
Back in the early 20th century, people were not so dependent on media as we are today. Most of the people didn't have easy access to it and weren't as, for lack of a better term, addicted to it. Then fast forward to 1929 when a man by the name of Philo Farnsworth laid down the foundations for what is known today as the television. With that, Farnsworth unknowingly started a revolution that extends until today. And hey, let's face it, every single one of us is part of that revolution. Society nowadays is, as previously stated, is a society that is too dependent on the media like a crack head would be dependent on his dealer. Again with the history lesson, if I were say, wanted to look up what a certain word meant, I'd have to go through some arduous tasks to actually get it done. I've have to walk down to the library, check out the Dewey Decimal System, actually look for it (imagine the stress in that!), not find it, ask a librarian for help, and finally find it after 30 minutes or so. And once I actually have it in my hands, I'd then have to look for the word instead of just pressing CTRL+F on my keyboard. Nowadays, looking up a word is as simple as going to Dictionary.com and typing down that word all in a span of 5 minutes.
Furthermore, imagine a world without Media. Society would be thrown into a perennial dark ages. News would be less-accessible, people wouldn't know how to communicate with their loved ones overseas because we've all lost the ability to snail mail a letter, and most importantly, we wouldn't be able to watch the nest episode of Glee!! Oh the humanity!! I don't know about you, but when my internet is down for a day fore example, I go into a state of withdrawal and paranoia. I log onto FireFox and click refresh over and over and over again, hoping that by some miracle, I am able to return to my online life and continue on stalking that girl I saw by JSEC on Facebook. Here, we see the importance of media to our Cognitive, Affective,Personal-Integrative, and Social-Integrative needs (I just realized now that Facebook does fulfill all 4 needs under this theory, whuuda thunk it, eh?). A world without the internet is unimaginable, but a world without the media be just hell.
And with that, I'll end this explanation on my theory with a little equation of my own. Media = anti-Christ, Anti-Christ = brings about a state of catastrophe, panic , and destruction. State of catastrophe, panic, and destruction = hell. Hell = a world without media.
Thank you. You may know award me the Nobel Peace Prize.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Cultivation Analysis Theory focuses on the powerful effects of media, specifically in the form of television, and how it somehow has a something to do in the formation of society's idea. It argues how something small can actually turn out to be something universal and consuming to a wide number of audiences. As Gerber and company would put it, Television "brings about a shared way at viewing the world", arguably providing society with a set of biases, perceptions, and generalizations that would somehow be distorted compared to the truth. Though, Television may be the main medium when it comes to this theory (because of the wide number of people it reaches and it's ability to connect with those people with little or no effort at all), the theory can also be said to apply to other kinds of mass media such as radio, print, and more recently, video games.
With new advancements in technology, the gaming industry has been booming. It is a billion dollar industry racking up total sales of 19.66 billion USD at the end of 2009. With this in mind, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that each common, middle-class household wouldn't have some form of gaming apparatus hooked up to the family room TV. Also, as with TV, there has been a growing concern about how violent video games nowadays are getting and how large a grip it has on it's respective consumers. And out of the pile of zombie-killing, old lady-beating, terrorist-shooting genre known as action adventure or shooting, one video games stands alone as the most violent and controversial - Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto.
Take it from someone who has been a fan of the series since he was 13, this game is as violent as it gets. With it's mix of over the top and overbearing humor, coupled with some entertaining cuss spitting characters, and of course, some guns, cars, and money, it is not hard to see why the Grand Theft Auto series has been a success with the audience for over the course of a decade. For the latest installment of the series, players step into the shoes of Niko Bellic, an ex Scandinavian soldier turned mercenary for hire on the shores of Liberty City (Rockstars version of New York City complete with it's own version of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and so forth). As the main story progresses, the player finds himself shooting down his enemies without prejudice with a plethora of weapons at his disposal, running from the police and "accidentally" running over some pedestrians along the way, and even commandeering an army helicopter to deal with some of his foes. The most controversial parts of the game however is probably what players do when they're not busy completing the main storyline of the game. Since the game is of an open world, players have the ability to run around the wide expanse of the city wasting their time. Players can choose to go out on dates, check on the game's fictional internet, do side jobs for other characters, go bowling, play darts, go out and party the night away in bars, clubs, and strip clubs, and wait for it......invest in the services of a prostitute for a little health boost. And yes, if you do shift to a certain angle, you do get to see the action happen in all it's softcore goodness. Moreover, this type of "gameplay" isn't all that new to the franchise. Back in 2005, the predecessor of Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, came under flak when a mod(ificataion) for it's PC version presented a mini-game in which the player could have intercourse with one of his girlfriends, sparking outrage all over not just the video game community, but of all society as well.
Like the way girls dress up like Blair Waldorf or Serena van-der-whatever, ugh, scratch that, Blake Lively, there have been a number of reports where people have emulated the main protagonists of the game. For one, a man in Vancouver, Canada was apprehended following a string of car thefts. After being arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (who obviously caught him while on horseback), his mugshot revealed a Grand Theft Auto tattoo on his back and admitted to being a very big fan of the game. A second instance was reported in Virginia when a 6 year old child intentionally missed his bus and actually drove his family's Ford to school instead. Michael Schumacher, Jr. over here made it 6 miles before crashing into a pole. When asked by the police, he told them that he learned how to drive by playing the game. Props to the kid though, when I was 6, all the driving I could do was to drive my parents insane, aaaaaaand queue the laughter...
It may be the very charismatic and humorous characters who just seem to grow on you (so much so that spin-off games have been made for 2 of them), or the element of freedom it gives the player ( As Alicia Keys would ironically put it, it's a "Concrete jungle where dreams are made of".), or even that small sense of the feeling of power (take it from me, flying around in an army helicopter with miniguns and rockets mounted on it makes you feel like a cross between the Terminator and Barack Obama), video games such as this prove to be a catalyst when it comes to the theory. However, it is, in the end, always up to the person whether or not to fall victim towards this false perception.
With new advancements in technology, the gaming industry has been booming. It is a billion dollar industry racking up total sales of 19.66 billion USD at the end of 2009. With this in mind, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that each common, middle-class household wouldn't have some form of gaming apparatus hooked up to the family room TV. Also, as with TV, there has been a growing concern about how violent video games nowadays are getting and how large a grip it has on it's respective consumers. And out of the pile of zombie-killing, old lady-beating, terrorist-shooting genre known as action adventure or shooting, one video games stands alone as the most violent and controversial - Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto.
Take it from someone who has been a fan of the series since he was 13, this game is as violent as it gets. With it's mix of over the top and overbearing humor, coupled with some entertaining cuss spitting characters, and of course, some guns, cars, and money, it is not hard to see why the Grand Theft Auto series has been a success with the audience for over the course of a decade. For the latest installment of the series, players step into the shoes of Niko Bellic, an ex Scandinavian soldier turned mercenary for hire on the shores of Liberty City (Rockstars version of New York City complete with it's own version of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and so forth). As the main story progresses, the player finds himself shooting down his enemies without prejudice with a plethora of weapons at his disposal, running from the police and "accidentally" running over some pedestrians along the way, and even commandeering an army helicopter to deal with some of his foes. The most controversial parts of the game however is probably what players do when they're not busy completing the main storyline of the game. Since the game is of an open world, players have the ability to run around the wide expanse of the city wasting their time. Players can choose to go out on dates, check on the game's fictional internet, do side jobs for other characters, go bowling, play darts, go out and party the night away in bars, clubs, and strip clubs, and wait for it......invest in the services of a prostitute for a little health boost. And yes, if you do shift to a certain angle, you do get to see the action happen in all it's softcore goodness. Moreover, this type of "gameplay" isn't all that new to the franchise. Back in 2005, the predecessor of Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, came under flak when a mod(ificataion) for it's PC version presented a mini-game in which the player could have intercourse with one of his girlfriends, sparking outrage all over not just the video game community, but of all society as well.
Like the way girls dress up like Blair Waldorf or Serena van-der-whatever, ugh, scratch that, Blake Lively, there have been a number of reports where people have emulated the main protagonists of the game. For one, a man in Vancouver, Canada was apprehended following a string of car thefts. After being arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (who obviously caught him while on horseback), his mugshot revealed a Grand Theft Auto tattoo on his back and admitted to being a very big fan of the game. A second instance was reported in Virginia when a 6 year old child intentionally missed his bus and actually drove his family's Ford to school instead. Michael Schumacher, Jr. over here made it 6 miles before crashing into a pole. When asked by the police, he told them that he learned how to drive by playing the game. Props to the kid though, when I was 6, all the driving I could do was to drive my parents insane, aaaaaaand queue the laughter...
It may be the very charismatic and humorous characters who just seem to grow on you (so much so that spin-off games have been made for 2 of them), or the element of freedom it gives the player ( As Alicia Keys would ironically put it, it's a "Concrete jungle where dreams are made of".), or even that small sense of the feeling of power (take it from me, flying around in an army helicopter with miniguns and rockets mounted on it makes you feel like a cross between the Terminator and Barack Obama), video games such as this prove to be a catalyst when it comes to the theory. However, it is, in the end, always up to the person whether or not to fall victim towards this false perception.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Blog 8 : The Genius that is Media
Media and Society have a very unique and complicated relationship with each other. A good metaphor for the two would be a couple, so interdependent on one another that neither one of the two can "go on living" without the other and that life without their special someone is more or less empty. Media, specifically Mass Media, and society share this relationship because both essentially feed off each other by media attaining the ideas and codes of society (what makes society tick) and society receiving this information, translating it into something that most of the populace relate to, and finally providing media with a stable source of revenue to repeat the cycle over and over and over again.
After watching and analyzing the documentary "Merchants of Cool" this past week, one comes to realize that this little economic cycle that the two share falls in between the lines of some sort of sick yet unbelievably intellectual idea. Think of it, media responds to their consumers' ever changing demands by not thinking of their own original ideas for their TV shows and movies, but by using society's ideas on society itself. All the popular TV shows nowadays such as Gossip Girl or 90210 emphasize this fact. Every single one of us wants the fame, every single one of us wants the money and the girls that come along with it. Moreover, almost every one of us want some sort of drama in our lives, that little extra spice that makes life all the more exciting and would provide us some escape from the same old doldrums that we call life. Every single one of these factors is in these TV shows, which is why we respond so positively to them. The funny thing is, we are so blinded by the glamor and entertainment value of these shows that we are not able to come up with the conclusion that what the media is presenting us is a reflection of our own lives, of what we want our lives to be. Here, it is simply the media, tapping into our inadequacy with life, converting that into a TV show featuring a blonde bombshell and a 6 foot bad boy, and raking in the cash that comes along with it.
Yes, I am sounding that I'm against this, but the truth is I'm not. I am just amused with how the mass media-society cycle is structured in such a way. In all honesty, I am amazed with how people in the media industry are in someway geniuses in their own right. The MTV special on Spring Break, for example. Hell, let's be honest, if I was flipping through my TV and came across that show, I'd turn up the volume, make myself a tub of popcorn, cozy on up to the couch, and intently watch that show. Why? Because it's entertaining! And if the same channel brought about 10 rednecks jumping into a pool of human excrement, heck, I'd do the same thing minus the big tub of popcorn. Why? Because it's even more entertaining! And through all of these TV shows directed to the teenage population, it's scary to think that the teenagers have a vice-like choke hold on the media.
In this day and age, we are beginning to see 20-something-year-old billionaires come out of the woodwork just because of a tiny social-networking site called Facebook. Oh, what fun it would be if in 10 years or so, teenagers would have a complete monopoly over the mass media.
After watching and analyzing the documentary "Merchants of Cool" this past week, one comes to realize that this little economic cycle that the two share falls in between the lines of some sort of sick yet unbelievably intellectual idea. Think of it, media responds to their consumers' ever changing demands by not thinking of their own original ideas for their TV shows and movies, but by using society's ideas on society itself. All the popular TV shows nowadays such as Gossip Girl or 90210 emphasize this fact. Every single one of us wants the fame, every single one of us wants the money and the girls that come along with it. Moreover, almost every one of us want some sort of drama in our lives, that little extra spice that makes life all the more exciting and would provide us some escape from the same old doldrums that we call life. Every single one of these factors is in these TV shows, which is why we respond so positively to them. The funny thing is, we are so blinded by the glamor and entertainment value of these shows that we are not able to come up with the conclusion that what the media is presenting us is a reflection of our own lives, of what we want our lives to be. Here, it is simply the media, tapping into our inadequacy with life, converting that into a TV show featuring a blonde bombshell and a 6 foot bad boy, and raking in the cash that comes along with it.
Yes, I am sounding that I'm against this, but the truth is I'm not. I am just amused with how the mass media-society cycle is structured in such a way. In all honesty, I am amazed with how people in the media industry are in someway geniuses in their own right. The MTV special on Spring Break, for example. Hell, let's be honest, if I was flipping through my TV and came across that show, I'd turn up the volume, make myself a tub of popcorn, cozy on up to the couch, and intently watch that show. Why? Because it's entertaining! And if the same channel brought about 10 rednecks jumping into a pool of human excrement, heck, I'd do the same thing minus the big tub of popcorn. Why? Because it's even more entertaining! And through all of these TV shows directed to the teenage population, it's scary to think that the teenagers have a vice-like choke hold on the media.
In this day and age, we are beginning to see 20-something-year-old billionaires come out of the woodwork just because of a tiny social-networking site called Facebook. Oh, what fun it would be if in 10 years or so, teenagers would have a complete monopoly over the mass media.
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