I hart Dyzknee

Gitlin makes the point that the real responsibility of the exporting of American culture lies not on American imperialism, which he believes is the easy scapegoat, but in the demand for flash good times from other countries. He believes that the melting pot of cultures that is America has a strong multicultural appeal as well, with flashy action that at some points doesn't even require fluent English to understand. I agree with Gitlin in that there is a major demand across the globe for American merchandise, movies, and celebrity news more than any other country and that it is the main driving force behind culture change throughout the world. But one thing I noticed about Gitlin's writing is that he seemed to be attempting to diagnose a problem with his writing, as if dying world cultures were his patients and American culture was a kind of infectious disease. I find the expansion of American culture to be a positive. I think it proves there is common ground between all nations and that the people of planet Earth really aren't all that different from each other. Maybe this is at the expense of sectional individuality throughout the world, but I am not in any way upset by the global culture trend of the age.

Mahrfa Stooourt

In looking for a present day comparison to what Martha Stewart was at the time the article by Margaret Talbot was written, Oprah Winfrey would be an obvious choice because of her wide and powerful influence of her audience with her book club, radio station, and all of the other amenities that come with Oprah. However, Paula Deen comes to mind as another excellent example of televisoin power, and she also directly relates to Martha Stewart through her work in revolutionizing the culinary industry. Deen's story of overcoming her agoraphobia and panic attacks is inspirational, and although her work and audience are on a slightly smaller scale than Martha's, Paula still has a great deal of sway with her food-loving audience members. Her Southern charm and easygoing nature make her very attractive to viewers and give her a somewhat trustworthy aura, something that anyone wishing to gain power needs to have. Not only is she my favorite chef, she's also the one celebrity I feel like if I ever had a problem, she would listen to me and help me through the tough times. XOXO Paula

Kihlborn

Kilbourne's hypothesis is that portraying men and women as sex objects in advertising is dangerous because it both consciously and subconsiously degrades members of our society. She also believes that the degrading of the women in society is more concerning than men because woman are already treated as a lesser class than men in that their role in society is stereotyped even outside of the media as a lowly housewife working at menial tasks as the man goes out into the world to bring home the bacon. Although I agree that to a certain extent these commercials have a degrading effect on people, especially those who struggle with self-esteem issues and are not confident in their appearance or actions, I find Kilbourne's point about the status of women clearly shows the bias she has on the subject. Kilbourne was recognized one of the greatest Feminists who Changed America from 1963 to 1975 by the Veteran Feminists of America, and I believe her feminist values led to her alleging a more painful situation for women.

Commercial Targets of Cheap Seats

The 30 minute show I watched was Cheap Seats, a 9pm sports comedy show on ESPN Classic which takes a comedic look at old sporting events shown on ESPN in the past. As I expected from a show on a Sports network, the commercials were fairly simplistic and centered upon the audience the show was intended to attract, men who are fans of sports. The vast majority of commercials were centered upon food, whether it was A1 steak sauce or Hardees, and there were also a great deal of commercials for hardware stores and different tools, which supports the idea that the advertisers believe sports-loving males are more likely to enjoy a nice building project in the garage than on another less sporty channel such as Lifetime. I only saw one commercial on any real hard-hitting material, the famous reused catheter commercial. After paying attention to the commercials of the show, it is much more obvious to me how centralized the focus of commercials are on the specific type of audience they expect to attract.

Byis in da meadea

The main point I took from the article "The Bias of Language, the Bias of Pictures" was to never let my guard down when it comes to bias in the media because there is truly no information that we can receive from television or newspapers that has no bias whatsoever. I realize now how many outside factors contribute to the creation of a news story. A person has to observe the event and relate it to another person who then writes a story about it and presents it to a newscaster who then relates the story to the consumer. There are so many spots on this chain where some sort of bias or creative interpretation of the story can be put in place of the real facts, and it would be almost impossible for the average listener to notice this. I find it astounding how hard it would be to get genuine straight facts from any source of information.

Byis in da meadea

The main point I took from the article "The Bias of Language, the Bias of Pictures" was to never let my guard down when it comes to bias in the media because there is truly no information that we can receive from television or newspapers that has no bias whatsoever. I realize now how many outside factors contribute to the creation of a news story. A person has to observe the event and relate it to another person who then writes a story about it and presents it to a newscaster who then relates the story to the consumer. There are so many spots on this chain where some sort of bias or creative interpretation of the story can be put in place of the real facts, and it would be almost impossible for the average listener to notice this.

Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld

On Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, a 3am talk show on Fox News, I noticed a strong amount of bias in both the content of the show and the humor of the show, but I think that the show itself was fairly open and honest about its bias and was not attempting to be a legitimate news broadcast. The general theme of the show is the show's host, Greg, presents news topics both prominent in todays world, such as President Obama's State of the Union, to totally irrelevant and comical topics such as a study showing that women are more likely to have sex with men after a heavy night of drinking. The content of the show provides an opportunity for individuals with trouble sitting down and watching a regular newscast enjoy themselves while getting informed about prevalent issues, as long as they don't mind a little biased information.