Society and Local News...

After discussing media effects such as active viewing and the passivity theory in class this week, I began considering how society affects local news. Many people claim that local news is more propaganda than actual necessary news, but are audience and society demanding these kinds of thoughtless stories without even knowing it?

You may be wondering how I even got on this rampage, of sorts, so I'll tell you....my apartment was burglarized on Tuesday. Over $12,000 worth of stuff was taken, including all six of my boyfriend's guitars, a piano, a drum set, a lot of our clothes, shoes, an original Nintendo, jewelry, pictures, towels, kitchen utensils...you name it.

While I understand that robberies, even as large as ours, happen often. However, the news rarely reports on it. As everyone knows, as it gets warmer in Milwaukee, it seems like crime skyrockets. So over the last few days, I have seen a lot of things (like tarps covering two bodies on North Ave. as squad cars blocked off the whole street last night) that have not been on the news, or even online. What I'm asking is does society prefer to hear sensationalistic stories like the Fonz statue in Milwaukee or do we like to hear about real news, like crimes and deaths? While I think that these things are important, I also realize that they could be disheartening, and I'm sure that no news channel wants to constantly showcase the bad things. However, I think that a lot of audiences are blind to what really happens in Milwaukee because the stories are never told.

About seven police officers and detectives were at our apartment this week. As we chatted with them, they told me horrible stories like murders, suicides, drug busts, etc. that I have never even heard about. Why not? I want to know why local news outlets don't tell us these stories!

What do you want from your news? I want the truth...true stories that open our eyes to what is really going on in our neighborhoods. I couldn't care less about a statue of the Fonz! Maybe we also need to consider how audiences are reinforcing their acceptance of local news by continuing to enjoy these stories rather than voicing our opinions on what we really want to see.

Women can earn the big bucks too

Ladies there is hope for us all. I know you all have heard that men make more money than women. That's not always the case. According to a recent article on AOL.com, Dr. Warren Farrell, best selling author and gender issues expert, says in some fields women bring home more "bacon" than men.

In her recent book titled Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Gap--and What Women can do about it. Dr. Farrell examines the pay gap between men & women, work life decisions, and he tries to help women achieve a higher pay and understand the trade offs involved.

The 10 careers where women earn more than men:

• Sales Engineers
• Statisticians
• Legislators
• Automotive Service Technicians & mechanics
• Library Assistants, Clerical
• Baggage Porters, Bellhops, & Concierges
• Financial Analysts
• Aerospace Engineers
• Human Resources Assistants, except payroll and timekeeping
• Advertising & Promotions Managers

The reasons for the higher pay in women's fields can be explained, women's pay can be significantly greater than men, it can be in male dominated fields, female-dominated fields, or well integrated fields. Women have more obligations to tend to, family, home, etc. Overall, men do earn more money because they put in more work hours and are willing to relocate if need be. Men are able to make more sacrifices than women that can lead to an increase in salary.

Latino's on Prime-Time TV

I'm going to go outside of what we've been talking about in class because I've had this urge to write about this for a few weeks and I just never got around to it. I'll preface this with something you may not know about me, I'm actually Mexican. My mother immigrated to the United States with my grandparents when she was still a child.

So, a few weeks ago I was watching "Nick at Night" and discovered (to my delight) that Viacom had bought the rights to show "The George Lopez Show". For those that don't know, George Lopez is a Mexican stand up comedian and his sitcom ran on ABC from 2002 to 2007. Seeing the show for the first time in a few years (the last year of the show was pretty bad) made me bust out his stand-up DVDs "George Lopez: Why You Cryin'?" and "George Lopez: America's Mexican". At the end of one of the shows he says something that made me think, he said that there have only been three Latinos to ever have a leading role on a prime time sitcom.

Desi Arnaz was the first to have a leading role opposite of Lucille Ball on "I Love Lucy". Arnaz paved the way for Latinos on TV by not only being one of the stars on screen, but off screen he owned the production company and produced the show.

The Second person he mentioned was Freddie Prinze (father of Freddie Prinze Jr.), who stared opposite of Jack Albertson in "Chico and the Man", which ran from 1974 to 1978 on NBC. Prinze only appeared in the first three seasons because of his suicide in 1977.

Obviously the third Latino is George Lopez.

I'm not trying to start a call to arms about the lack of Latinos on television (though it does make you think), just thought it was an interesting fact.

Yo Gabba Gabba!

Considering our talk yesterday about kid’s television shows, I thought I’d bring up the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba! It’s a children’s television series that was created by the MC Bat Commander and other indie artists. It started last year and seems to have a great success with children. I think it’s a fresh entertaining show with a different spin then most children shows. It’s hosted by a character named DJ Lance Rock, and five toy monsters: Brobee, Foofa, Muno, Plex, and Toodee. A lot of crazy things happen on this show like, Biz Markie teaching kids how to beat box, Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo teaching kids how to draw and much more fun stuff that I enjoy watching. The show has kid friendly songs and a wide range of guests like Rahzel, The shins, Mya and Elijah Wood does an awesome puppet master dance. The show does have an absurd style of humor that is intended for adults but that is also kid friendly. I’m not saying it’s better than Blues Clues but it is easier to sit through.

Charity Radio!

Well incase you don't listen to 102.9 WHQG in Milwaukee ( The Hog), you have been missing something spectacular. Every year in early April, the morning show hosts Bob & Brian stay on the air for a total of 28 hours over like a day and a half. The event is called the "28 Hour Bob & Brian Leukemia Radiothon." The fundraiser is to help benefit cancer research. I think last year they raised over $110,000 in just the 28 hour time span. Here is a link to the page if you wanna go check it out. Every hour they auction off gifts (usually donated to the station) and the money goes right to the charity. The best part is that they reinforce the phrase "we will do anything for money!" While in class today I heard them playing the Hanson sisters "Mmm Bob" hahaha.

It really is crazy to listen to. The normal DJ's and guests of the show are constantly stopping in to just chat and kill time. Today they had Mark Metcalf (from Animal House), Joe Panos (former NFL lineman), Drew Olsen (onmilwaukee.com baseball writer), and Natalie (the 102.9 rock girl). Joe even was taken up on his challenge "the next person to bid $2,000 ... I will wax my legs and arms." Sure enough, it took 30 minutes and the event raised two grand for just that "item."

Last July the guys even got their own day named after them by the mayor of Milwaukee for all of the charity work they do. Another example of their work would be the food drive that I believe takes place in the fall. So please...check out the website, tune your old school radio, or listen live online... It is a great cause and it is pretty entertaining to see some of the things they will do for money :-)

Interesting USA Today Article

So I just found an interesting article while surfing the internet. In its contents it highlights the financial earnings of every companies Executives and how much they pocketed from 2007. It also breaks down the executives by the industry that they are in. For each executive of each company, the article lists their salaries, bonuses, other compensation, stock & option awards and the total amount of money that they made in 2007. It also lists their % change of earnings from 2006 and the shareholder return.

Some of the more interesting ones that I found were at the bottom of the salary list. For example, Richard Fairbank of Capital One Financial had a salary of $0 from last year, but his stock and options rewards and other compensations totaled over $17 million. Another one was Steve Jobs of Apple who made a total of $1 last year.

All in all it was a very interesting article to look at.

Bugatti Hermes Veyron's U.S. Debut

I don't know how many girls are into cars, but I am one of them. I like super cars. I saw a video of this new hot Bugatti Veyron. It just arrived in New York on April 2, and it is a new edition of Bugatti. You probably have heard of both brands. Bugatti is the fastest car in the world, and Hermes is luxury French design home. This car costs 2.4 million dollars before tax!! The performance features are the same. But, Hermes hand designed the interior, and he also designed the exterior. That's why they call it Bugatti Hermes Veyron. The reason Hermes designed this car is to take an extra step to make more individualizations to satisfy costumers. It is very expensive for a car, but this is more than a car to people who participate in that particular car market. The emblem is different compare to the other Bugatti because Hermes designed so they combined Bugatti’s "B" emblem with "H" which refers to Hermes. They are selling 10-15 cars with Hermes signature on it. I am not so surprised that they have already sold five of them because this car has enough interest to people who like SUPER CARS.

MySpace Beatdown

Yesterday I read a pretty unbelievable story about teenagers from Florida beating down one of their "friends" on video so they could put it up on MySpace and YouTube.  Apparently the 16 year old girl who was beaten was lured into the house by six other girls she knew.  The attackers say they were upset with so called "trash talk" the victim put up on her MySpace page, and they wanted to post their revenge in the form of a video on their own page.  I found a link to part of the video here while good ole' Nancy Grace is debating the meaning of it all.  The victim was said to be barely recognizable by her parents at the time she arrived at the hospital.  She had temporary loss of vision in her left eye and loss of hearing in one of her ears.  To me, this incident is flat out sickening.  The attackers have been arrested and I hope they are all tried as adults and face jail time.  There is no reason things like this should be happening, but of course this is never the case.  This story could relate back to a discussion we had last week on pointing the finger.  Is this a case of media violence or neglect on the sake of the parents?  One would think morals would kick in at some point and make the attackers realize the senselessness of the situation.  Incidents like these make me think about what kind of environment teenagers are growing up in today and how we can fix it.

Rare and Miraculous Baby

The picture above is a real and not doctored picture of a baby, Lali, that was born in a northern village of India on Tuesday. The baby seemingly has a rare condition called craniofacial duplication, where a single head has two faces. It also has been reported that people have been coming to worship her believing that she is the reincarnation of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga.
Also, Lali's mouths, eyes, and noises all work. She feeds from both mouths and can open and shut all her eyes.

'reality' tv

I often struggle with the concept of modern reality television, and have never really gotten into any of the shows very much.

There is something attractive about peering into the lives of everyday people, and a lot of it probably has to do with relatability. If a show is about a typical person rather than a famous actor trying to be someone else, there is probably a better chance that the viewer can relate, and like we talked about in class on Tuesday, that is an important thing to many people watching television.

However, reality television has seemingly devolved (well, that implies it was once better, not sure) into the most fake and impossible of all television, from what I can tell. Seriously, the scenarios are often just completely ridiculous, and pretty obviously staged. And I'm not talking just about the editing to create a story.

There seem to be a lot of shows that are based around someone finding love. You know, like Rock of Love, the one with Flavor Flave and then the girl from that show that got her own, probably The Bachelor or something, I don't know. Setting aside the fact that the whole situation is about the furthest thing from anything real on earth for a moment, it's amusing that inevitably there are multiple seasons, despite the premise being that the star is looking for true love. Umm, no. And I'm not going to bother linking to them either because that would seem entirely too supportive and/or promotional.

The fact reality television is so awful is too bad, because regular people can be most interesting (though it's probably more fun to live your own regular life than watch someone else's), but all too often the way it's presented on television is anything but real.

This all makes 'reality television' probably the biggest misnomer going.

And again, regular people are fascinating.

videogame violence

so this week in entertainment weekly,
stephen king shares his thoughts on video game violence, in reaction to the HB 1423 bill which is trying to ban the sale of violent video games to anyone under the age of 18. He disagrees with the bill based on a whole bunch of different ideas.
One of his ideas is that parents, not government, should be responsible for what their kids are playing and watching. He believes that even if this new legislature is put into place that kids will find a way to play these games anyways. He points out that the government loves to use pop-culture as a whipping boy because it is easy and always gets a strong reaction from whoever they're accusing.
The point that most strikes me is that legislatures tried to point out that the Virginia Tech killer loved video games, which he didn't, but failed to say anything about how easy it is for an obviously insane individual to acquire a gun and ammo in our gun-loving country. The irony in the gun situation is that the second amendment was written so that the populus could stay armed to overthrow the government if it didn't serve them, but the people now who are so in love with guns are the ones who strongly support the government, whereas the dissenters have no interest in firearms. The idea of guns keeping us safe is flawed when you notice that without guns most of the violence within our own country perpetrated by crazy mofos would not happen.

the anti-fat task force parade

...OK, the organization's real name is National Action Against Obesity and they aren't having a street parade, but every time something positive happens to a women over 160 lbs they go on a press parade talking to cable news programs and morning talk shows and yak about what terrible role models they are.  When Jordan Sparks won American Idol a few seasons ago the founder of this organization went on a media tirade discussing how fat Sparks was and how terrible it was to have an "obese" American Idol.  Roth ruined my breakfast this morning when she went on the Mike and Juliet Show to talk about how horrible it was that a Chloe Marshall, a "plus sized" model, won the title of Miss England.  Marshall is a size 16, the average size of an English women, and according to medical standards only 6 lbs overweight. Regardless, Roth was outraged that Marshall would win, believed that she was a terrible role model, and said "plus-size is nothing to be proud of."  The real kicker is the Roth appears to have NO medical training, licensing, or degree what so ever.  WHY DO NETWORKS KEEP INVITING THIS "EXPERT" ONTO THEIR SHOWS? Is it an attempt to seem unbiased in the media?  Did the pressure to create an unbiased media create this monster?  Sensationalism? I agree that health and fitness are important, and that models and beauty queens influence people, but COME ON.  

Here's a Fox News classic featuring Roth: Does Santa need to lose weight??

Another Lauren and Heidi Battle

Let me start by saying I love watching The Hills and even more reading about the drama in the tabloids. Ever since Laguna Beach, I enjoyed watching the life that most of us can only dream of. However, it seems like the media pushes Heidi and Lauren to constantly find something to fight about even if it doesn’t truly come from their lives (television show). In the recent Life & Style, there’s a cover story entitled “Heidi vs. Lauren: It’s a Skinny War” now supposedly they are fighting over who is skinnier. Do you honestly think that they are fighting over who is really skinnier? I think their main consider if any is whose clothing line will be the bigger hit. It doesn’t make sense for them to fight over being skinner. Heidi is 5 foot 4 and 110 pounds. Lauren is 5 foot 6 and 115 pounds. Lauren has been working out ever since Laguna Beach ended and she is maturing and it shows. She now has a routine. Heidi on the other hand, has always been skinny since Laguna Beach. I don’t think they are fighting over who can be skinner rather they are both keeping up with being in the spotlight.

Jay Z & Beyonce Say "I Do"!!

I don't know about anyone else but if they did get married I am happy for them. It's about time I mean they have been dating for six years or more. However I am tired of hearing about it. It's like you can even listen to the radio without them mentioning it, or watch television for that matter. It's like don't they have anything better to talk about. Evidently Jay Z and Beyonce don't want to talk about it and we are not even one hundred percent sure that it's true it's really just speculations. (I hope I spelled that word right.) The things that they are assuming do make you believe that it might be true. Like on these pictures that I saw of their hands there was a tattoo on both of their ring fingers that read 4ever. So maybe instead of wearing huge rocks that definitely would draw attention they did the tattoo rings. I think if Beyonce and Jay want everyone to stay out of their personal lives they should just tell people the little things they want to know like if they really did get married. That's really not something that you keep a secret they act like they are ashamed of something. I know I wouldn't be they are both very successful and talented people who are at the top of their game so I say celebrate that. I am pretty sure they are married so, Congrats. And if they are not oh well they should be.

My new communist friend plus some media

Soooo...I spent some time with our class visitor last week. As soon as she introduced herself as a visiting scholar from China curiosity kicked in and I wanted to know more. I approached her after class to find out if she had some free time. Turns out she had lots of it and would welcome the opportunity to engage in some social intercourse with a "local."
Bear with me, I'm getting to the media consumption part.
Anyways, I took her to Lapham Peak State Park (the highest point in Waukesha County), Old World Wisconsin (it was closed but the gate was open so we went in and drove around anyway), Conejito's (her first experience with Mexican food) and the lakefront where we climbed around on the huge boulders for a while. I invited her to attend a lecture Wednesday evening in the Fireside Lounge at the Student Union. We both enjoyed the presentation given by a Jesuit priest from Marquette University entitled "The Iraq War, Who Profits." During the Q&A afterwards someone asked the speaker to recommend an outlet for honest, relevant news. He cited Alternet.com as a reliable source. I logged on later and perused the headlines and authors and thought it looked promising for people taking their news seriously. You have to be your own gatekeeper though, running the risk of reading only the news you know you'll like or agree with thus avoiding a broader perspective and exposure to differing points of view.
Another outlet I was alerted to in reading the book We're All Journalists Now is Newstrust, an online news rating system. I logged on there also and found it to be a fascinating site I intend to spend some time with.
There, that's the media part. Now back to our visitor.
She lives with her husband in a small apartment in Guan Zhou, a little burg of about 7 million people. She teaches Journalism and Communication at Jinan University and commutes by bicycle. She used to get around on a scooter but they were outlawed. She continued to ride until the officials confiscated it. Her husband gets chauffeured to work as an editor of an alternative newspaper owned by the main stream communist press. It seems the commie press doesn't make money so they started this alternative paper because it appeals more to the "peasants" (her term). She commented on the blue of our sky, theirs is grey. According to her Tibetans don't like the Dali Lama. They are enslaved by him and his monk followers. Chinese propaganda? She says the info was found in books authored by Tibetan refugees.
All in all it was an interesting couple of days, and I got through it without causing an international incident which may not surprise anyone reading this but my friends and family were crossing their fingers and holding their collective breath.
By the way, more media. While I was laboriously pecking this out on the keyboard I was listening to a program on WHAD, the NPR station out of Madison. The show is called To The Best of Our Knowledge, this segment, Dumbing Down, Smartening Up, aired Sunday at noon and I highly recommend giving it a listen.

My Name is Zak...and I'm a Geek

OK, first and foremost, this post will make more sense if I preface it with this...I'm a geek. Since I was a kid I've played video games, taken apart computers just to see how they work, and I've even read the occasional comic book (and yes Spider-man is a punk and Daredevil would always win in a fight). So, with this is mind, the following may make sense.

Recently I've joined an organization called the Video Game Voters Network (VGVN). The organization was founded in March of 2006. The VGVN opposes regulation on all media art forms but obviously focuses on video games.

The VGVN has recently led a protest against Massachusetts HB 1423, which would have criminalized the sale of Mature rated games to those under 17. The VGVN helped to prevent the bill from passing, and the network has moved to Arizona where a similar bill is in the works (HB 2660).

In reality, video games are only about 35-years-old, meaning they are still young in the grand scheme of things. I do believe that some video games are art (i.e. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Mass Effect), and that they do hold a purpose in today's society. Do I think that games that are violent for the sake of being violent are art? That's not for me to decide; that's for each individual to choose. With this being said, if the government was to regulate the industry, it would be a form of censorship.

But that's my opinion. You can't pick and choose what is covered under the First Amendment. Video Games are art, and you can't censor art. But hey, make your own decision.

Anticlown Media

In class yesterday we discussed how the media is usually studied in a way to prove it’s a negative influence on society, not a positive one. Well usually these studies, articles, etc. are pretty serious and lack any time of humor about the issues. I found a site about a year ago called “The Superficial” that is similar to a tabloid magazine only it makes fun of the celebrities in the main stories in the media. I think it’s refreshing to read because Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly, Star, etc. are so damn serious about their “news” that it’s just plain annoying to read. “The Superficial” takes a very hilarious approach to updating you on news while also playing on the fact that the news is stupid and no one should care about it. It’s a blog style website with videos posted from youtube.com, pictures, quotes, and also reader comments to follow each “article”. I put the word “article” in parentheses because really each post is more like a paragraph of commentary, but enough to explain what the news is and the pictures/videos that follow. They have a couple cool features that follow each post. One is called “reddit” and it’s a feature you sign up for and once signed in, you can vote on specific links that you like or dislike and it helps them decide what’s popular and they should follow up with. One of the other features is called “Del.ici.ous”…it’s a funny name to say “save this story in my favorites”. “The Superficial” is actually part of a larger website called Anticlown Media. “The Superficial” is the gossip section, “Geeokologie” is the technology section, and “I Watch Stuff” is on movies. I think they are hilarious, depending on what you want to read up on. The only thing that’s irritating, especially during the writing of this blog, is that I can’t find a way to directly link to a single article. Or at least it isn’t blatantly obvious. It seems that in order to really do anything but read, you have to become a member of one of the features I mentioned. So instead I will just have to give you the link to The Superficial , Geekologie, and I Watch Stuff so that you can check out the posts yourselves. 

The U.S. Economy

I am not much of an economist nor do I consider myself one but anyone who pays even the slightest attention to the news has figured out by now that the U.S. economy is either in or headed towards somewhat of a recession. Over the course of March, the U.S. economy shed some 80,000 jobs in this article that I just glanced over this morning while checking my daily internet spots.

The article said, "Employers cut payrolls for a third month in a row in March and the unemployment rate jumped to a 2-1/2 year high, more evidence that a housing downturn and credit crisis may have pushed the economy into a recession."

It went on to say that those 80,000 some odd jobs that were lost in March was the biggest decline in nearly 5 years. The March unemployment rate also went up from what it was is February from 4.8% to 5.1%. This should be a cause for concern for most American middle class citizens. With the fact that energy and food prices are both going to continue to increase a lot of people feel like their paychecks are shrinking even when they really arent.

I just found this article interesting because I can't remember a time when the economy was doing this poorly in my lifetime. Now obviously I am young and don't know that much about Economics but I think it is a cause for at least a little concern among American Citizens.

Strike for a Reason

Taking what we learned from this week’s lecture, it made me wonder why writers haven’t gone on strike due to the effects media has on society instead for their own pocketbook. After reading the two articles, why isn’t there a writer or producer stating that they personally would like to see a change in the shows that younger generations watch. Is the only thing important to them is their own bank account. Or do they believe it is up to the parents to control what their children watch. I remember watching array of television shows when I was younger from Arthur, Rugrats, Care Bears, Rainbow Bright, and mainly Jetsons. Granted I turned out fine. However, what happens to those that did watch all the action, fighting shows that their parents didn’t control? Is the media responsible for the impact that hitting someone on the head with a bat is funny, when in real life it could kill someone. Are these the teenagers responsible for violence in and outside of school? It just bothers me that the writers finally ended their strike over their bank accounts but when it comes to the future of America, they will show whatever is popular not caring about short-term or long-term effects that the media has over society. It’s is just mind bottling.

How much is too much school discpline?

New Disciplinary Action for Students in Cheektowaga, NY, a local middle school. Reported they had a list of 150 students who were barred from after-hour games, crafts and ice cream socials because of poor grades or bad attitudes. This central middle school is emulating old principles of catholic schools or military academies. The program initially began by grounding middle school students whose grades in any class falls below a 65% or those that show a lack of effort. More than a quarter of the 580 students are excluded from extracurricular activities, clubs, dances and plays, unless they demonstrate improvement on weekly progress reports filled out by their teachers.

The schools main goal is to adopt a larger campaign to instill more responsibility in young adolescents in a town of 80,000 on the outskirts of Buffalo. The rules are as followed:
* Students must carry id cards at all times
*Students must stay to the right of the yellow dotted line in the middle of the hallways
*Students must sit at their assigned seats when eating lunch in the cafeteria and must wait to be called on by a teacher.

You may find these rules to be harsh and lacking in the amount of freedom given to the student or some may even find these rules to be exactly what these kids need. Some questions I’ve asked myself, are these rules too strict on the kids? Will the rules help tom improve the student’s grades?

These rules are similar to the same teachings of Joe Clark, from the 1980s movie “Lean on Mean”. The school did admit to following some of Joe Clark’s principles. The school’s principal, Brian Bridges grew up in a strict single parent home. He is bringing his up brings into the school. He says, by “bringing more structure and discipline to the school creates a safer environment and teaches students to be members of a community”. Several kids at the school are not pleased with the new rules. They feel the school is being too strict and the discipline is overwhelming. There is one thing to discipline for the decline in grades, but to outcast them in the school and to take away their privileges on a constant basis is another. Some of the students feel as though the school thinks their supposed to be perfect when their really not. School is supposed to be a fun learning place, not a prison.