How Real are the Reality shows?

Reality television shows are getting extremely popular. If you turn on your television, chances of reality shows playing at that moment are very high. Reality television show is a genre of television show that presents unscripted events of real people. But are they real and is it a true reality?  It always bothered me to what extent are the reality shows connected to the true reality that all of us live in. Watching shows as Real Housewives always make me think what part of it is real and how strongly it affects young women who believes that the whole show is nothing but real life of other people. If you think about it for a moment you may realize that for the show to appear on TV it has to be camera recorded and well spiced, then the question arises: “how real can you be when there are at least two cameras and the whole set of strangers surround you all day long?”. I think it is quite not an easy task; therefore, i believe that reality shows are shows in the first place and reality in the second. However, the majority of people that watch those shows are strongly attracted mostly by the idea of these shows being real and representing people just like them only with the different lifestyle. I think that shows like Real Housewives are not any close to what people face every day and that what is called reality, on the contrary it shows the luxurious life of women that is not affordable to the vast majority. I can only imagine how housewives are watching this show, relating themselves to these women on TV , and how painful then it is to turn back your head from the screen to the actual reality and the small home that seemed so cozy and warm before does not seem as home anymore. so we could argue that reality shows are tool like no other that mass media uses in its own interest. Lost of people change their thinking and attitude towards different things because of the reality shows. The fact that realty shows do not portray 110% of the actual reality does not mean that there is nothing real at all. There are so many reality shows on MTV about people being struggling with various addictions and shows about life behind the bars. These shows are for most part educational and very helpful in preventing other people making the same horrible mistakes . There are a lot of messages that are sent by these shows to a public and most of the time the public responds and communicates back. 

Many reality television shows are competitions; many of reality shows present competitions, and document contenders’ journeys along the competition. For example, American Idol, is a competition looking for the “next big star” in America, and follows competitors during the duration of the show. The winner of American Idol gets a recording contract to become an actual artist. Other shows, such as America’s Next Top Model, have similar format as American Idol, and provide a “prize” for the winner. 

Reality television shows are dominating major networks. Reality television shows are usually cheap to produce, but it brings in huge ratings, thus money. Even though many of the reality shows are terrible, the networks/studios are in the business to make money, and reality television shows do exactly that. Unless the networks find another way to make money cheaply, reality shows are here to stay for very long time.

Go public. Go billboards.

If you drive along the freeway, or for that matter, any streets in Los Angeles area, you will encounter hundreds of advertisements in forms of billboards, banner on the bus, posters on the wall etc. Many companies spends huge amount of money on those forms of advertisement, because it is guaranteed to be seen by many people. Since those advertising space has high visibility, many organizations use those space as means to inform the public of information.

Many companies use such space to present their products to consumers. Some companies not only present their products, but also show that their product is better than their competitors’ products. For example, German carmaker, Audi, recently launched their new theme for the advertisement. Their theme consists of presenting their new product is much better than their competitors’. One of the billboards they posted up shows their new car, an A4, with a text that reads, “Your move, BMW!” With that one advertisement, Audi was able to communicate with consumers that their new car is better than their competitions. I have realized how many Audi cars we have on the streets today and it seems that the count keeps growing with every day. The popularity of Audi cars has grown up remarkably this last months. 

Many non-profit organizations use those spaces to provide information to general public. One billboard has a digital display that shows number, and the number gets updated frequently. It is an advertisement by an anti-smoking organization trying to persuade the public from smoking by scaring public with death counts of people who died from smoking-related cause. Los Angeles Public Service has used many spaces to encourage public to vote on the Election Day. FBI uses some spaces to show the pictures of “wanted” people. Other organizations have used spaces to educate public about various issues. Driving on Santa Monica blvd. and passing by the billboard that shows the amount of people who died from smoking makes me think twice before lighting the cigarette. Not that it actually makes me quit but it of no doubt makes me think. Such billboards can be viewed just as a pieces of steel put together but on the contrary it is a very powerful message sender and information provider that is a non separate part of our every day lives.

As number of advertising spaces goes up, those spaces are becoming a way of communication; from manufacturers to the consumers and from organizations to the public. With every day  the way of communication evolves more and more. Long time ago there was no such thing  as billboard now it is one of the most influential parts of communication between people.

I love movies but…

Three years ago I arrived at LAX sat in the taxi and took my first ride through Los Angeles. I was caught by shock of how wrong my idea of America was. Watching Hollywood movies and shows back home about US built up a stereotypical image of what America is and how it supposedly looks like. With all the expectations I had, I was totally confused when I actually got to see and live in Los Angeles. I was expecting high rises and streets packed with rushing people and shining billboards all over the city. Instead it was one or two high rises that would fall into my view and barely any people walking on the streets. Nobody was walking but everybody was driving and then I thought about the famous Subway that I have seen so many times in the movies, and obviously it was not there, besides the one that makes sandwiches. Sadly enough, I never got the sandwich from the Subway and never got to get on one. 

After all, I have realized how much we trust mass media and the information that it is providing us with. I was watching movies and never thought that America would look any differently. All that TV was showing about US was images of Wall Street, Manhattan, Pamela Anderson lifeguarding the beach or small forgotten towns with farms full of ghosts and horses. In that way Movies and TV shows such as Sex and the City lead people to learn and think certain way. I think that Movies is a very strong and powerful tool of mass media shaping the way the society view the world different countries and cultures. For example, lets take my grandmother and see what she thinks about US. She has never been in America and all the information that she has is from Mass Media. The last day before I left she told me that I should be careful with black people and be more cautious when they are around and you would be shocked if I tell how many old woman back home would say the same thing. What does that say? It obviously shows how influential the media is. Nevertheless, the information that my grandmother and millions of people have back home is completely biased and misrepresented they will still think that way unless they face the truth with their own eyes. I happened to be one of this people who got to check everything with my own eyes.

First month of  living in US brought new acquaintances new experiences and knowledge. I have become good friends with a lot of people who were all of different races and ethnicities including African American people and people from Africa and all of them never made me feel uncomfortable or scared, on the contrary the showed respect and kindness. I could not wait to get home and tell my family how much of a biased information we get and how negatively it affects us. Not everybody would listen to me but they would still listen to the reporters and actors portraying the stereotypes that were easier to believe. Movies and all the TV programs including commercials have such a huge impact and influence on people. We might say it is bad but on the other hand if I did not see those movies, Sex and the City in particular, I might have never went to US and would not have the lifetime experience. 

Sport and Mass Media.

Almost every sport event makes news. While it seems as if the sports reporter is just reporting what has happened at the event, the reporter actually plays bigger role than it seems.

Sport section in the newspaper is where sports reporter mainly uses to flex its muscles. Most sports sections in major newspaper even gets their own opinion or editorial page, widening playground for the sports reporters. For example, sports section in Los Angeles Times, is divided in several sub-sections of different sports, and those sub-section is divided into smaller sections depending on the professional level, college level, and by teams. In those columns, reporters state their own opinion about the teams, and what each teams should do to improve their performance etc. Many general public tend to agree (or sway) with the opinions of such reporters thus cause teams to do something about it. Many teams actually listen to the opinions expressed by the reporters in the newspaper, and they tend to send away or bring in the players.

Not only sports reporters have influence over the teams, but they also have power to decide significant sporting events. Everyone who follows college football will agree that BCS rankings and AP rankings does not make much sense to anyone. Team A may have better record than Team B, but often, Team B ranks higher than Team A in those rankings, and the reason why such occurrence happens is because the ranking is decided by the votes of those sports reporters. Also, reporters have power to decide the winners of awards such as Heisman, or NBA season MVP. Sports reporters have more power over sporting event than many people may think.

President-elect Barack Obama has said that BCS ranking system makes no sense, and if he becomes the President, he will do something about the way college football rankings work, because such ranking decides which team will play in more prestigious Bowls. Although he was just joking, it shows how powerful sports reporters actually are. The function of mass media is to report the events to the masses, not manipulating the results of events, and sports reporters are doing exactly the opposite.

YouTube.com

YouTube.com, a video sharing website, is on its way of getting recognized as a form of mass media. YouTube was created in 2005 by former employees of a well-known internet company. The developers of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steven Chen, had experienced difficulty sharing videos and such experience led to an idea that created YouTube. Since its launch in 2005, YouTube became one of most popular website, and as a result, YouTube began to have huge social impacts in many societies.

 

An example of social impact of YouTube was the success of the video called “Bus Uncle”. The video shows an animated conversation between a youth and an older man on bus in Hong Kong, and it was widely discussed in the mainstream media, such as traditional television news and newspapers. During recent presidential election, the candidates extensively used YouTube as an outlet for advertising their candidacies. Even CNN’s election coverage featured YouTube as a way of “regular” people asking questions to the candidates. Recently, Queen Rania of Jordan used YouTube to launch a five month video conversation with viewers about Muslim stereotypes. YouTube became a tool of mass communication. Covering such important issues, YouTube can be called and educational website where people who do not watch news on the regular bases can get their information and be more acknowledged of what is happening in the world. In comparison to my country where YouTube is not as popular as in US, I can certainly see the difference of how well young people are informed in two different countries. YouTube has an enormous impact on people’s knowledge and extent of involvement in things that are happening to various nations. Besides providing information, YouTube gives the possibility of expressing personal opinions and thoughts on different issues. People take advantage of that and post their videos in hopes of communicating their message with other people.

 

YouTube was viewed as an entertainment website in its early days. But since then, YouTube has become much bigger than just another entertainment website. Now, it is substantial enough to cause a big social impact on society. Some countries, like China, have blocked its citizens from accessing YouTube, because of the website’s impact on society. Because YouTube can be used as a form of communication and its impact on society, now many considers YouTube as a form of mass media.

Speak your mind. Start a blog.

Technology advances faster and faster as days go by. As internet continues to advance and spreads to more and more household around the world, many people now have access to the internet. Internet now is a tool to find much information for many people. As internet continues to develop, a new form of media have emerged. It is called “blog”. Anyone with an internet connection and with little knowledge about computer and internet, one can post anything, including news, on internet for everyone to see.
Blog has started out as a personal diary or commentary, but now, it has evolved into many different forms. Today, it is not that difficult to find a “professional blogger”, who posts articles or blogs online for living. Now, many traditional media firms, such as Los Angeles Times, or New York Times, have their own blogs on their website, as an alternate source of information. One famous blog that actually turned into a main stream media is perezhilton.com. Many people used to get their “fix” of celebrity news by tabloids on the newsstands. But now, many people are using perezhilton.com as their main source of celebrity news. Media is evolving, and blog is one of the newest forms of media.
As technology advances to change the world, media will inevitably have to change to survive in this fast-changing world. Some may not see the “blog” as a legitimate source of information, but soon, they will find out that it will be the one of the forms of media that will actually change how people get their information around the globe.

The Power of Media

Media is powerful tool for all sorts of people and businesses. Recently, media has demonstrated its power by showing what it can do. Most recently, in America, there were two major events: Presidential election, and collapse of financial sector. In those two separate events, media had shown that it has big influence over people.
During the presidential election, there was a rumor that Barack Obama is a Muslim. When it was reported by the media, via newspapers and television shows, many people were actually led to believe that Barack Obama is, in fact, a Muslim. Obama’s camp had to actually spend lots of their campaign money to silence such rumor. Also, both Obama’s and McCain’s camps realized that television is powerful tool, and they have spent millions and millions of dollars to advertise their election materials on TV. Also, now, many people are saying that media actually fueled panic of general public, which dropped the stock prices to rock bottom.
Media is a useful tool, but it can also be used for malicious purposes.  Media is power, and power can be corrupting. As shown by recent events, people who have control of this enormous power should use their good judgments to not to exploit people, but to inform them of current events in a most accurate way.

Thinspiration

Morning brought another day and another million of messages sent to us by mass media, but some messages have stayed the same for the past couple of decades. The message that makes young beautiful and healthy women be anorexic. Eating disorders don’t simply pop up in our life without any reason.

Looking over the magazines like Cosmo or People makes you think about buying the diet pills not out of need but simply because they are on every other page next to the pictures of overwhelmingly thin celebrities. You start to compare yourself with the stereotypical perfect woman’s body and that when the starvation is on. Unfortunately, not that many girls think how it is just a stereotype that was set by people like themselves.

Thinspiration is taking over all the media portraying the ideal female’s body as a dry stick that cloth are just hanging on. Even worse, going to the grocery store is a learning experience how diet has to be the part of your life. Almost every food article that you can find in the closest Ralphs has a non-fat duplicate. You walking down the aisle and you see walking skeletons pathetically looking for non-fat cucumbers.

 Who believes that being extremely thin is actually beautiful and attractive? Some of you might be shocked if I say that there are hundreds of girls who died for that belief. According to ANRED’s statistics, one out of every one hundred young woman, between ten and twenty, are starving themselves, sometimes to death. (http://www.anred.com/stats.html)

These statistics grow with every year because media is where we get our information and that is part of our knowledge. And if we are acknowledged that being skinny is the goal and the portrayals of skin bodies are idolized then that is what we want. Every day on TV there are at leat 20 commercials I get cought by  about dieting and loosing weight.  Look into todays fashion industry that is full of barely visible models that w look up to. Models are not just girls doing the runways and taking pictures they are what is considered to be beautiful and graceful. And, sadly enough, with every year runways get slimmer and thinner not only in terms of models’ bodies but in desingnes. Beautiful cloth are made for what is called beautiful bodies which are size zero in worst case size 2.

There is a big impact mainstream has on girls starving themselves to fit in that category of beauty that was set by mass media. It promoted so-called thinspiration that millions of females live with every day.

Framing on Fox

It is surprising how well all the news stories on the Fox News Channel use

a technique of framing. If one watches Fox news, he or she can easily

notice that the Republican Party, its representatives, and affiliates are

at almost all times portrayed in a positive light. The Democratic Party,

its representatives, and affiliates, on the other hand, in almost all

cases, are portrayed in a negative light.

This pro-republican story depiction is achieved with the use of framing

which excludes various aspects of a particular story and only keep those

elements which are favorable to republicans. Fox can easily throw away

facts or alternative points of view on this or that issue or event and

this way would hide a real picture and deviate from presenting information

objectively.

The viewer is often left with the impression that McCain is good and Obama

is bad. For example, the story about  Cory the Plummer  which appeared on

the Fox website on October 31, tells about a business owner who does not

like Obamas tax plan. Although Cory the Well Driller  owns 4 businesses,

the news anchor described him in such a manner that he is from a lower

class, poor, and outraged that even more money would be taken away from

him if Obama became the President. People who watched this story would

most likely have an opinion that Obama wanted to impose high taxes on

working class of the American society, although Cory’s income probably

sums up to several million dollars and will be taxed fairly, according to

Obama’s plan.

 

Rihanna and Katy Perry shaping the society

Theodor Adorno, a founder of Frankfurt school of thought in the first part of the 20^th century, analyzed the contemporary popular music and compared it to live, or as he called it, serious music. Adorno s main argument was that popular music was standardized and repetitive; it was  pre-digested for the listener by the music industry. I believe that Adorno’s theory is relevant today.

Many songs that belong to mainstream music sound very similar. Producers from record companies make sure that the music hits are composed in such a way that listeners will replay these songs in their minds over and over.A large number of modern hits use the standardized structure that Adorno described. For example, Rihanna’s song  Umbrella,  Katy Perry’s song  I Kissed a Girl,  and Justin Timberlake’s song  I m bringing sexy back all have similar rhythm and repetitive lyrics. Therefore, we could argue that, in a way, songs and singers like Katy Perry are shaping our society and the way we view the world. Is that good or bad? I think there is no certain answer.

Some songs bring us the information that we were not aware of before. There are many artists that tell the story in their music: the story of people’s lives and struggles. Lots of songs talk about war and what consequences it has.  Other songs give us information that is not that much informative. But in the end it is without a doubt that music industry has a strong influence on us. Songs also set a lot of stereotypes that people adopt and then treat them as “that is the way it is supposed to be”. For example, how the vast majority of the Rap singers use the word “gangster” in their lyrics and by that they create a stereotype that all the people related to Rap are somehow related to gangsters. . If the same lyrics are repeated in your head over and over again through out the day it is more than certain that it will mark your conscious and change the perception of certain things.