Sana

__Media and Society__

What I found interesting -
 * 1) Reading the table of the extreme positive and negative perspectives on the media and the authors personal views of the media
 * 2) As an American, I found Noam Chomsky's content analysis of American media coverage interesting
 * 3) The debate of whether economic control of the media leads to "homogenization" or not

Questions -
 * 1) What are the contributing factors to fears of the media? Does it depend on where one is from?
 * 2) How can misuse of the media be prevented? Is it possible to prevent it?

Hannah:

I think misuse of the media is a very hard thing to define. For example, if someone views pushing political messages through broadcast media misuse of the media, then what is the political party's alternative? They are there to promote certain messages and to campaign to remain in power and their means of doing this is obviously through the mass media! When it comes to preventing this misuse then, because the lines between use and misuse are so blurred (or seem to not exist at all), I do not think it's possible to prevent.

Sophia:

I think that it is very difficult to stop the misuse of media. If you're talking about it from the point of view of the government (having political agendas) and private sector firms who are busy looking for profits then I think it is extremely difficult. It would be tough to find a regulatory body with no selfish intentions at all and in some way or another, a party is going to be bias. Because there are so many ideologies based on the variety of people, something could be deemed bias to one person but deemed as 'democratic' to another. Plus, even an audience from the same pool of people may have different perceptions and interpretations to a single idea. I think that what's important here is education; when students are taught to critically analyse media and take the good, leave the bad and treat certain things as mere entertainment. Then again...education can also be biased! I'm stuck!

I agree with Sophia: It might not be possible to stop the e.g. political abuse of media. But you can argue that the ‘freedom of the press’ means that it is not possible for e.g. politicians to misuse the media. Because one of the advantages about the media is that it gives everyone a voice. If we assume that everyone express’ their views in the media, it is not possible for politicians to misuse it because the audience can turn to another media to hear the other side of a specific case. The misuse would when be the passive audiences who does not turn to other medias to hear other opinions. Whu, hope you can understand. :) Lærke
 * Commentary to Sana**

Jennifer: I personally think that the factors contributing to the fear of the media does depend o different people's cultures. As we saw on the day we presented our advertisements in class, we had lots of different reactions and when asked for explanations, people tend to bring up the line "Where I was brought up...", showing that the environment in which we were nurtured had effects on the way we view things. There are different factors as well, such as morality, religious beliefs, so on. On the second question, I agree with what everyone else has said. Especially now, we always want to know more and demand for some things to be made known to the public. Politicians always make use of our thirst for knowledge to give us messages they deem important, or things they want us to think are important in order to get people's support. I think what it comes down to is for the audience itself to pay attention and seek more opinions before passing judgement.

Reflection on my Favorite Advertisement The importance of self-esteem is something that was greatly emphasized in my previous school in Atlanta, and I myself am also an advocate of self-esteem, especially in young girls. The advertisement I chose as my favorite advertisement was first shown to me at my school a few years ago through a group at my school called GERLS. GERLS stands for Girls Empowered through Relationships, Leadership, and Service, and it is made up of a group of high school girls who serve as mentors for younger girls. In order to promote self-esteem, they showed us this advertisement made by the Dove Self Esteem Fund which is a Dove initiative to show the importance of self-confidence.

I remember that when I first saw the advertisement, I enjoyed it and so did all the other girls in my grade who were watching it as well. I liked it because it was captivating and dealt with the issue of photo editing in the media, an issue that I know is quite prevalent in society. Now after further analysis I can say that the advertisement uses many good strategies. It is short with only few words used at the end but it still succeeds in getting the point across. This makes it accessible to a wide audience. However, the target audience is women. It creates interest and awareness in young girls as well as women. Furthermore, they successfully promote their products while bringing attention to the issue of self-esteem. This strategy, I think, gives the company a good image. However, an interesting question to ask is whether the image of Dove that is portrayed through this advertisement is real or not.

When I brought this advertisement to class we had an interesting small group discussion about it. In the discussion, one point that was brought up was that the Dove Self-Esteem Fund could be considered hypocritical. Dove is a company that sells beauty products and they also have many advertisements for these products. This means that they are advocating self esteem and beauty products at the same time. Using beauty products to cover up imperfections or improve your physical appearance may seem contradictory to the concept of self-esteem.

Although Dove may sometimes go against what the Self-Esteem Fund promotes and their motive may be to sell their products, the fund does a lot of good work to improve self-confidence in young girls. In the end, I think that this advertisement sends a strong message and uses many good strategies and techniques to reach out to women all over the world. Even though now I am slightly more critical and analytical when watching this advertisement then I was in middle school, it's message still resonates with me and that is why I picked it as my favorite advertisement.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

**Response to Class Discussion ** I found the discussion that was held in class interesting and thought provoking as we had the opportunity to hear many different perspectives. I particularly enjoyed hearing Alaa's perspective as a Muslim living in Egypt where Islam is the predominant religion as well as the perspective of the other Muslims. This was a relatively new experience for me because coming from my school in the United States, I have become accustomed to being part of discussions where I am the only Muslim in the room. However, I also found Martin's point about discrimination against Christians fascinating. Although, I am aware that discrimination against Christians is also an issue in many countries, I think that Martin is right to say that this is not always something that comes to mind when you think of discrimination. Offenses against Christians are not as common in the media, at least I have not heard much about it. But in reality it does happen very often and it is something that even I myself overlook I think partially because I am not from a country where Christians are the minority. I think it is important for us to acknowledge both sides as wrong and to remember that they both happen even though we may not hear about it.

I would also like to comment on the Orange County video Linda showed us. It was saddening to me to see what took place on that night. Although it is true that the video itself, like all media, had some amount of bias, the stereotypes the people had against Muslims were clear. These stereotypes stem from the media and do not by any means represent Islam. Shortly before I came to LPC I heard an interesting statistic on a program I was watching, It said that in Europe in 2010, out of 249 terrorist attacks, only 3 were carried out by Islamists. I feel as if a few acts carried out that were not representative of what Islam is, have created an incorrect image of Muslims in many places. Also, this is where the concept of negativity in the media comes in. The majority of the media searches for negative things to say about Islam and this is how these stereotypes are created.