andrewgrise-blog

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Entry #8

In my opinion yes, doing the English media unit on Tumblr was a good idea. I found it easy to hand in assignments, efficient to add links, and helpful to see what my piers are doing. Although this project was easily accessibile I found it hard to stay focused throughout the process.

When writing the assignments for this unit I would often pop in on my good friend Lucy's Tumblr page and see what she had written for each task. Now what I was doing was not plagiarism and I know that it may seem like plagiarism right now but what I was doing was simply getting inspiration from my dear friend Lucy and not writing word for word what she had written. I found this extremely helpful because I find it difficult to structure paragraphs and to get my point across clearly, seeing how my peer had started her thoughts and carried them out point for point helped me write full bodied paragraphs that make more sense than they did in the rough copy. Another thing that I enjoyed when working online for this unit was how efficient it was to hand work in, getting to add links was really helpful when all the assignments require them. There were no physical obstacles when trying to do an assignment, no shortage of paper and no broken pencils, all you needed to complete these assignments was a phone and a pair of hands. The only issue I had during this unit was when I was on technology writing about technology and I kept getting distracted by technology. When you have ADHD and three of the assignments require you to watch YouTube it's a little hard to stay focused and throw yourself into a workflow, but I digressed and had a lot of fun during this unit. In conclusion I appreciated that we did the media unit on Tumblr as it was accessible, fun, and efficient, even though it can be distracting and it was hard for me to build momentum in my workflow, I definitely prefer this to paper and pen.

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This video is the first ad for the Fenty Beauty ad campaign. This video challenges hegemony and mainstream ideology for its extremely vast inclusively of all races in the beauty industry. The beauty industry is a hot topic when it comes to being inclusive, some brands will carry twenty five shades of foundation labeled “cream” or “honey” and throw in one “mocha” or “mahogany”, and talk about how they pride themselves in diversity. Fenty Beauty is breaking the norm and has come out with universally flattering shades of lip products, eyeshadows, etc, and fifty five shades of foundation so everyone can feel included. Fenty Beauty challenges hegemony by marketing to everyone instead of a certain group.

http://www.latina.com/sites/default/files/screen_shot_2017-09-08_at_9.44.54_am.png

-a picture of the shade range

[andrewgrise-blog]

"The Incredibles" was a highly anticipated, highly beloved movie. With the sequel "The Incredibles 2" coming out soon, the anticipation is even higher and families will be getting in line to go see it. This is clearly a family movie but the genre "family" has tons of subcategories, the trailer markets it as an action/coming of age/political/family movie which it is unlikely to be due to the last one being a straight up action/family movie. Movies sometimes market themselves to be something their not to get more people to come see them, judging by the trailer "The Incredibles 2" looks like it might be one of those movies. Here are some key components that I noticed in the movie trailer. Characters - A family of super heroes, a baby, a stereotypical dad, stereotypical teenage girl, Mom, and brother (a family basically) Setting - An exiting cartoon metropolis Events - A villain is terrorizing the city Storyline - All super heroes are outlawed but the mom is the only one that can still be a super hero and fight the villain Themes - Empowerment, family values, good and evil, coming of age In the trailer for "The Incredibles 2", they make the mom seem like a strong individual that doesn't care about your sexism bullshit because she is a crime fighting badass. In this era people go crazy for a strong female role, everyone wants to see inclusivity and diversity in movies. Big movie companies hopped on the band wagon and started casting more diverse roles and writing bigger parts for women and minority's, but it all came back to the fact that it was a business strategy to make more money. I'm not saying that casting more diverse roles and writing bigger parts for women and minority's is a bad thing because it's totally the opposite, but what I'm saying is that much like this trailer, having strong female roles shouldn't be a business strategy to make more money but should be a decision based on what the creative vision for the movie calls for. In the last "The Incredibles" movie the mom is uses as a mere damsel in destress for the dad to save and was given no character development, growth, or depth throughout the entire movie, and the fact that they want to make the same character a strong empowered individual is a tad suspicious due to the recent demand of diversity in big Hollywood movies. In conclusion I think that the trailer for "The Incredibles 2", uses a strong female lead as a token to play into what our current climate faces.

[andrewgrise-blog]

The link to my mediated life assignment was wonky so here is a screenshot, sorry if it's a bit blurry

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Entry #6

The person I interviewed was a 13-year-old girl named Julia, she loves her phone and loves posting selfies on Instagram. Instagram for a 13-year-old girl is hell, you are constantly comparing yourself to your peers and you are expected to fit into a certain category. I asked her some questions for this assignment and I was shocked from the amount of maturity and the raw truth that took place in her answers. Although sometimes immature in the way she would craft her responses, none the less I got exactly what I wanted for this assignment.

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Ideology Post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTXVM5EgDdE 

Chevrolet "100 Years of Trucks" CMA Awards Commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG7L4hEY8HE - Old Dodge Truck Commercial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qriNbVCIsow - "My Truck" Chevy Truck Commercial 2008

When advertising, brands will often pick a mood, tone, or setting that speaks to whoever they are trying to market their product to. When looking at the marketing strategies of trucks, Chevrolet and Dodge Trucks specifically, I noticed the message they were trying to send to their consumers instantly. The typical truck commercial consists of a twenty-something white guy saying he loves his truck because he’s a farmer and works a long day; an old white guy who talks about how long he’s had his truck; and if it’s a high budget truck commercial they will usually put in a blond girl who learns how to drive the twenty-something white guy’s truck because he teaches her how to. This underlying theme of white privilege and patriarchy is one ideology I noticed. Another underlying ideology/theme is the scarcity of ethnicity in the commercials, there is usually only one token black person in approximately every two truck commercials and I don’t think a truck commercial without a white person even exists. The ideology of truck commercials comes from what you could call “country values” they are marketed to people who own farms, drive into town, and stack hay. The people buying trucks aren’t city people who care about presentation, diversity, and flashiness, these people care about being represented and acknowledged for being hard workers. But the fact that there is such an issue with inclusiveness is a major problem, without consciously knowing what their doing, these brands are making it more difficult for further progress in equality, and progress of people’s perception of equality in the media today.

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Audience Theory

Youtube - Hypodermic Needle Model

Youtube fits into the “Hypodermic Needle Model” category because it assumes the audience is easily manipulated and takes advantage of the user by bombarding them with ads and click-bait.

 Instagram – Uses and gratifications (diversion)

Instagram lets you be whoever you want, you get gratification from the likes you receive, and you can interact with others on it. Instagram fits into this category because it is an escape from the everyday.

 Snapchat – Personal Relationships

Snapchat can be used for any type of interaction, but is widely used by kids to see what’s goin’ on.

 Spotify – Reception Theory

Spotify fits into reception theory because it is up to the user to choose what they are listening to.

 Imessage – Reception Theory

When using Imessage or any messaging app there are no strict guidelines on how to use he app, it’s a platform open to interpretation, and it is up to the audience whether they accept the information or not.

 Television – Hypodermic Needle Model

Most things on television are directed at an audience of regular people that want to passively watch something and not think too hard about whatever they’re watching. Television fits into this category because it focuses on not challenging information and is directed at a specific group of people.

 Google - Limited Effects Paradigm

Google is filtered by “Opinion Leaders”, and they interpret how the audience receives it, by filtering and tagging photos Google gets to decide what reaches veiwers

 The news – Limited Effects Paradigm

To report the news the facts of the event being reported have to go through several people before it hits the public. People working in the news stations can pick and choose what people know and don’t know, and can input their opinion on the matter, although it may be hard to believe, people are guilty of doing this. “opinion leaders” decide what is reported and how it is reported.

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Assessing Marshall McLuhan

Assessing Marshall McLuhan

 Assignment Question: Discuss what the probe might mean, assess the extent to which each is valid, and give specific examples of new media use in life today that supports or contradicts the two probes.

“When faced with a totally new situation, we tend to always attach ourselves to the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.” -Marshall McLuhan

Currently in this modern day and age, interaction has never been harder to achieve. We bury ourselves into our phones and wait for the next big thing to happen. We fear interaction because our interactions define us, and when faced with one we turn to our phones. The ever growing amounts of information that is thrown at us on a constant basis makes it hard to escape everyone else’s opinion and focus on your own.

In the quote Marshall McLuhan speaks of being faced with new situations, and how when we handle them there seems to be an influenced opinion or common thought floating around in the zeitgeist. In the quote he says, “…we tend to always attach ourselves to the most recent past. We look at the present through a rear-view mirror”, I thought this was an interesting quote because before technology, people would just live their lives, and if something big happened across the world that didn’t affect them, it was irrelevant. At this period in time with technology being everywhere, if something big happened across the world everyone would know about it instantly, and most people would even care about it, even though it is outside of anything that could affect you. Take Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy for example, it’s a topic that lots of people know about, and it’s also a topic that lots of people care about too, although it would never affect someone that doesn’t know Kylie Jenner personally, we treat it like it is part of our lives and therefore we treat it like it is our pregnancy to.

“We march backwards into the future”, is a great food-for-thought quote it’s a comment about how we are always witnessing news second hand, the event is behind us and we are just looking at the outcome it made. We are marching backwards towards the future because we are progressing but we are moving into the future in the wrong way, because we are unable to see what we are moving towards.