Teenage Cellphone Usage Among BHS Students

In this assignment, Exploring How Youth Use Media, we were asked to gather information on how teenagers were using media in today's world.  This was done in reaction to the Nielsen Report on "How Teens Use Media" which we viewed ans discussed as a class.  

For my survey, I decided to pose the question, "How are Blackville students using their cellphones?" I guess that this just crossed my mind because, well, I myself am a Student at Blackivlle High School and I own a cellphone.

The majority of the students who participated in my online survey were from high school.  This survey was really applicable to any age group who was sufficiently literate to read and answer the questions themselves. I was originally aiming to have somewhere around 20 students participate in my survey, however, I fell a little short of that and only managed to squeeze through 15, but that's okay because without the generous help of my Media Studies instructor, I would not have collected much of a sample at all.  (THANK YOU!)

There were several possible methods for gathering information on the students—personally interviewing individuals, one-by-one; issuing an observational handout; etc.—but in the end, I decided to choose the one that would cause me to have the least social anxiety (I'm being serious here!) and go with the online survey.

In my survey, I focused on two main areas of cellphone usage: text messages and calls.  I then decided to do a further break down of how teens were using cellphones in asking them, in a run of a day...

• how many times they called/sent text messages
• how many different people they were in contact with through calling/sending text messages

I also provided them with the option to list, in general, who some of the people they called were.  (e.g. their mother, their aunt, a friend, etc.) 

When I started this survey, I hoped that I would be able to make some kind of "new discovery" or find some kind of connection that was never made before in how teens use their cellphones, but when the results from the first students who were polled started flooding in, I saw no significant difference between my data and the data that the larger research organizations had collected.  Pooy!  So I guess that that my results are only able to confirm what we already know—teens text a lot!

Looking back to the "key concepts of media literacy" we have discussed in class, I find that I am not able to make much comparison between my research and those.  However, there is one key concept that can be said to apply here, and that is that "audiences negotiate meaning."  That is not to say that, "Because you are said gender, you are thought to act in said way," but rather that, "there are certain human characteristics you have that can be used to determine how it is you will make use of the technology when it lands in your hand."  For instance, I found that upon looking at those 15 students I surveyed, girls tended to say that they were in contact with less people through text messages in a run of a day than boys.  When these kinds of results are compared to how certain kinds of audiences react when they are watching a movie, some similarities can be made:  "A person negotiates the meaning of their phone (or rather what they do with it) more so than the actual developers of the telephone." is similar to, "The audience negotiates the meaning of a movie almost as much as the developers of a movie themselves."  If that makes any sense.

I enjoyed looking through the data I had gathered and found the results to be interesting.  I had never conducted a survey on this large of a scale before; it was nice.

A wild VIDEO appears!

Here is a good video I found which discusses a mixture of different things we discussed this year in our Media Studies class.  I thought that I would post it here so that anyone who was interested may take a look at it.  I think I may choose to do a little write up on this subject myself:  Gender Stereotypes in the Media

A Media Giant's Profile: Rogers Communications

Rogers Communications in Canada is no small company.  Employing 28 745 people (as of 2011), with $12.42 million dollars in revenue, it has a major impact on Canada's media industry as a whole.

The company started when Ted Rogers bought a struggling FM radio station, CHFI, while still in law school, and turned it into a success.  That was back in 1960.  Today, Rogers specializes in more than just radio and has expanded to provide television and telephone services as well.

There are many different television channels owned by Rogers that you would already recognize—City, OMNI Television, Sportsnet—but even when you look at just these three names for example, they do not represent one channel on television, but many!  OMNI Television has stations based out of four Canadian cities: Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver; and City has stations based out of seven to eight Canadian cities: Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Regina/Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

Here is a list of all the specialty channels Rogers owns.  (Stations which specialize in one particular genre or theme):

Not only does Rogers dominate the digital market, it also possesses Canada's largest publishing company.  Rogers Publishing Limited has over 70 consumer and business publications.  These include popular magazines, like "Chatelaine," Canada's third most popular magazine currently in circulation and Maclean's, Canada's most popular news magazine.

Rogers is perhaps better known for its cable services here in Atlantic Canada.  (....) New Brunswickers have Rogers cable.  Rogers owns 51 radio stations.

They also own a major league baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays.

People on online forms only seem to have one shared opinion of Rogers—that it stinks!  But, given that it is the Internet, that kind of response is to be expected.

People just want to be able to express all of their anger and disappointment they have when something doesn't seem to be working properly.  They want to be able to share their experiences with other people who are going through the same kinds of ordeals, and so they turn to the Internet when a company like Rogers fails to fix things for them, discovering they are not alone in their frustration.

There was one woman who had this to say about her cable service from Rogers:

A snarl of unused Rogers cable runs along along the outside wall of my house, at waist level. It's a hazard and interferes with my wireless (if live and uncapped) and an eyesore (if dead). 

She is VERY critical on her views towards Rogers Communications and the kind of customer service they provide, but she was also very humourous in her response to a question someone had about the company and I enjoyed reading what she had to say. (Click here if you wish to read the forum from Yelp.)

According to Amplicate, a website dedicated to gathering data on people's like or dislike of any given topic and whose slogan is "Make Your Opinion Count", Rogers Communications is receiving an 80% rate of hate from visitors to their website.



So it is quite clear that Rogers' customer service (at least from the Internet's point of view) is quite shabby, if not downright shitty, and does not receive many positive reviews at all.  So what are people saying about the media they produce?  Nothing actually.  There isn't too much negative feedback that shows up on Google when you search for people's opinions on the various TV stations Rogers Communications owns, so it is only safe to assume that people are quite pleased.  In my opinion, I think that it is just less of a hot topic than the high speed Internet or cable television bundles people buy from them because it doesn't evoke as much frustration as having to deal with things like waiting on the phone for an hour to talk with someone who is supposed to provide you with solutions to a problem you have or to send someone to your home to give you help.  So, according to the Internet, all the magazines published by Rogers, the radio stations, and the channels on television are, for the most part, A-ok.

Now, what do I think about the company? Hmm, well, I can't say that I have had any real bad experiences with Rogers Communications on the cable, satellite, Internet or telephone side of things, but that's only because I don't have to be paying for these kinds of services myself, because, at the moment, my parents do. Mind you, I am sure that once I am off on my own, have a job, and am responsible for making these kind of decisions as to which company I want to get my services from, I might be the slightest bit skeptical of Rogers Communications, having done this assignment and seen all of the negative reviews it was receiving.

I can however talk a little bit about the media they produce. Looking at all the different kinds of television stations they own, it seems as though they cater more towards a male audience than a female one. OMNI and City, for the most part, are neutral, showing sitcoms in the evening that can appeal to both genders. But what about Sportsnet? There really isn't anything that Rogers provides women audiences that can balance out the large amount of men who watch Sportsnet, accept maybe The Shopping Channel. The Outdoor Living Network (OLN), is also very much geared towards males. I don't watch a lot of television, but even so, I find that when City TV chooses to air a movie for their audiences, it tends to be something more along the lines of an action film, which, again, from a stereotypical point of view, appeals mainly to men. I don't know. I wouldn't call it sexism--that may be taking it a little far--so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but that is the trend I see.

In my household, my father is more likely to be found watching OMNI or City than either my mother or sister, and nine times our of ten, if the television is tuned into one of the many different stations under those two names, it is my father who is in the room watching it. Just sayin'

For more information on the history of Rogers Communications, you can look here:
http://your.rogers.com/aboutrogers/historyofrogers/overview.asp
(Although, it may be a little bias) :)

Use Of Sexual Images For Advertising

For this assignment, we were given the chance to discover how it is that our society has come to integrate  large aspects of pornography into mainstream media and to witness the effects that it is having on today's youth.
We were asked to find and do an analysis of three advertisements we found on the Internet where sexual content has a presence.

The Axe Effect: Billions of Women

This commercial was part of the "The Axe Effect" advertising campaign in which mostly all of the commercials portrayed the aspect of pornography known as "male dominance over women."

It seems as though all of Unilever's advertisements for Axe work in this way, not just the ones from this particular campaign.  Watching any of their commercials or viewing any of their posters or magazine inserts almost always reminds me of an image of flies swarming a peeled banana that has been sitting in the sun for a couple of hours.  I mean, it is crazy to think that anyone would actually be able to take these kinds of commercials seriously—but then again, I do suppose that I do currently own and make use of at least one of their products at home... but that's not the point!

I guess that it just bothers me how mindless these women are portrayed in these types of advertisements and I think that it distorts the male perception of women quite significantly, especially for the inexperienced youth.  Women do have brains of their own and they should have the right to decide whether or not they want to approach a male or not.   They are not obligated to obey or preform for him in any way that they do not feel comfortable with.

Hmm, maybe I'm just breathing too much into this, but even if I am, thinking back, I can understand why I dislike this particular method of advertising so much.  Being asthmatic while in a middle school changing room was a difficult task.  Well, it was hard enough as it was, but having to hold your breath the whole time in avoiding being suffocated by clouds of Axe made the whole experience four times as bad.

SKYY Vodka:

Looking around on the internet, I found various images from a company based out of Milan, Italy which sells the alcoholic beverage SKYY Vodka.

Images like the one to the left are definitely intended to make the viewer receive some kind of sexual arousal and then associate it with the drink.

The women in this image is more objectified than is the man (her head is not in the shot) and the exposure of her upper thigh region accompanied by the posture of her body is suggestive.

The fact that the man in the image is engaging in socially inappropriate behaviour (gazing into an area of the woman's body that would normally only be exposed in private and under her approval) is also sexual in nature.

The only ting that I like more about this advertisement than the previous one from Axe is the target group for the product.  Axe products are used for managing body-odor and the target group can range anywhere from 12 year-old boys to grown men, so sexual content is a bit iffy and questionable at times with their advertising.  SKYY Vodka is alcoholic and part of an area of the market highly restricted to adults, so there is not really as much of an issue if they wish to make their advertisements sexual or not.  However, what about the females who are looking to purchase an alcoholic drink?  They would still be within the target group for SKYY Vodka, would they not?  Why not appeal to them with images of men?  Hmm?

Metropolitan Home Magazine:

This next image comes from an insert to Metropolitan Home, an interior design magazine with their headquarters in New York City, and the fact that they have chosen a male model to appear in this issue is rather interesting.  You know, it's not the kind of place you would think to find even a mildly sexual image, as most of the magazines I have seen for people interested interior design or home renovation do not make use of this.  It even has a play on words with the "Our Model. Exposed." caption written in the top right-hand corner, which can have a dual meaning depending on what catches your interest the most in this image—the attractive male model or the various items of furniture surrounding him.  (I fail to interpret the appropriate message first.)

For this image, I would say that it is human sexual objectification that appears in the picture as an aspect of pornography.  The only difference here is that it is a man who is being objectified and not a woman.  That really says a lot, doesn't it?  See, men can become the focal point of a sexual image for an advertisement too!

My Opinion
After having completed this assignment, I am torn between the idea that mild elements of pornography do have a rightful place in advertising or that they do not.  It is a tough call for me at times and I find myself being more uncomfortable with certain images than I am with others.  That being said, I do not really have a clear understanding of where we should be drawing the line as a society, but certainly any sexual images being placed in a marketing area for children is a no-no.  I mean, children are going to have these images shown to them through advertisements throughout their day due to the hyper-sexual of today's media and the marketing world, but we can at least try to limit how it is we are advertising to children, specifically when a product is to be used by them.

Before the age of twelve, children are typically not going to be able to achieve full-on arousal from a sexual image anyway, and until the age of sixteen, their organs and brains are not going to be fully developed enough to handle any kind of sexual intimacy with a partner responsibly, so I do not even see a reason why it is needed when advertising products to them.

In all seriousness, sex sells.  You and I both know that, and the people in charge of advertising for major companies and corporations know it too.  It is no big secret—porn has a flair and appeal to it, and if a person says that it does not appeal to them on at least a sub-conscious level, they are either lying or of another species that does not desire human sex.  Humans are meant to be creatures of sex; that's just how it works.  No matter how chaste and pure a person tries to make themselves, it is nearly impossible to remove all sexual desire, as it is necessary to human reproduction and thus the survival of our species as a whole.

I am happy that society has loosened up a little and is more open to having appropriate and intelligent conversations about sex, instead of trying to pretend that it just does not exist.  That "hush-hush!" era of our grandparents is long gone, and society has taken a plunge into the pool of "freedom of sexual expression" which has its roots in the sixties.  Even though it can be a little too much to handle at times, I truly hope that it can level itself out over time to a point where people feel open and accepting towards a sexual desire which is different from their own, and where our children can still live the lives of happy and playful kids without having to worry about what a potential sexual partner thinks about their appearance.

Good? Good.
I'm glad I made myself clear.

Mass Media: The Key Roles: Vsauce on Thinker

Last week in our Media Studies course, we spent so time talking about the six main effects mass media (television, radio, newspapers, etc.) has on a society:

1. Informs us  
2. Influences us in opinions and dictates much of what we choose to talk about  
3. Expands our personal experience of life by giving us an understanding of what it feels like to be a participant in something we would probably otherwise not have the chance to have perceived in our lifetime.  
4. Sets a standard for the norm; provides us with examples (inaccurate or not) of how people look, feel, dress and speak, or of how things in a society work or function.  
5. Shows us advertising; influences our buying habits
6. Entertains us 

We were shown an example of an article on the Internet that discussed how one or more of these mass media effects present themselves in the forms of media we consume each day.  Then, for our assignment, we were asked to go search up an article or video on the Internet that we liked and which could be used to help explain these effects to ourselves or the other students in the class.

I chose this video from the popular YouTube channel, Vsauce, titled "Does The Internet Make Us More Alone?"

For this assignment

• Discuss which role(s) of mass media is/are discussed.
• Discuss how the roles are explored.
• Consider whether the article/video observes changes in the roles, offers criticism that the roles are not being met, etc.
• Discuss the article/video's position.
• Indicate whether you think the media being discussed is actually mass media and why you think it is. Also include your own viewpoint of the article/video and whether you agree or disagree with the article/video's position.

Now, just in case you are curious and would like to learn more about what Vsauce does, I will put a link to Micheal's channel here, so that you can check out his videos and gain a better understand of what he does.  He makes science-/information-based, educational videos on the Internet for a living now and a large portion of his income consists of the checks he gets from Google through his YouTube partnership, where he gets paid a fluctuating rate based off of the number of video views he accumulates over a certain period of time.  Basically it all comes back to the advertisements that appear before, during or after his videos, as well as the ones that show up next to the YouTube sidebar—but, I am really running on a tangent now and if I go any further than this I am going to distract you from the true purpose of this post!  (Just trust me, he makes good stuff... 'nough said?)  

I know that the person talking in this video, Micheal, is somewhat more experienced in creating and managing social media and the more interactive and feedback capable form of media, the YouTube video, as appose to to actual mass media, but I feel that many of the opinions he shares with us are applicable to things like Newspaper and the radio as well.  (I'm sorry.  It told us to choose something we found interesting!  Out of all the things I read and viewed, this was the one I liked the most.)  I will try my best to make a comparison of how the things he says apply to mass media the best I can.  

Now onto the real mark-able portion of the assignment where I discuss the examples of the effects of mass media that are being described through this video:

I guess that I have already talked about how advertising has made an appearance in the video through the methods mentioned above, but other than that, Micheal really didn't say anything about how the Internet or mass media make use of advertising.  

Micheal's videos are all about suppling us with information.  If there ever is an organization that is to be considered number one in explaining how things in the universe come into being, their purpose and how they work, my vote's on Vsauce.  However, mass media does more than that.  According to Micheal, when he talked about visiting the Flat Earth's Society's webpage, he said, "In reading their forums and arguing with their viewers, I learned a lot more about [Einstein's theory of] relativity, and Lorentz contractions, and all this stuff that didn't have a reason before.  It was just information—now it's useful..."  Perhaps the same thing could be said about mass media.  

If we become more open to receiving information—like Micheal said he was—even if our views don't match that of the media producer's, we can still find ourselves learning something we didn't know or discovering a way of thinking that we never knew exists.  In that sense, by being open, we allow ourselves to expand on our personal experience of life.  If we listen to a mother of a murder or hate-crime victim speak about her struggles in coping with the loss of her son, then we can develop a feeling of what it is like to live the life of people dealing with the issues that woman faced.  

Of course, after we watch, listen to, or read a story that really makes a strong impact on us, then it can also come to the point where it begins to influence our opinions.  Micheal said, "I also think that because the Internet allows us to discover new and different viewpoints, it also allows us to meet people who think exactly the way we do."  Through mass media, not only do we get to have our opinions changed, but we also tend to organize ourselves into groups of similar-minded people, who have been re-shaped in the same way.  Within these groups, the common ground you have with people is the fact that you all: watch that new show, read that hot-selling book, etc.  So obviously the common form of mass media in which you consume is going to influence what you talk about or what you may or may not choose to say around these individuals.  

The video does speak vaguely about how mass media, through the form of the Internet, sets standards which create a picture of what is to be considered normal to us in real life.  Micheal suggests that you may find more people who agree with you on the Internet, than you would in real life.  I feel that search engines play a big role in this because they allow you to ask questions and to search topics where you are more likely to find groups of people who are all arriving at the same destination, looking for the same thing.  For example, if you search "I love unicorns" then you will more-than-likely be directed to webpages filled with people who share the same passion and love for unicorns that you do (if you do.)  Thus from visiting those kinds of websites, and noting the boundless enthusiasm these people have for the mythical creatures, you may begin to think, "Gosh, I guess I never really even realized just how much society loves unicorns!"  Yet, when in the real world, the percentage of people who love unicorns may be slimmer than what you are lead to believe.  

The last key role of social media that is said to be the most important to some people is entertainment.  If the form of media we fallowed wasn't in the least bit entertaining to us, then we probably wouldn't be watching, listening to or reading it in the first place!  However, Vsauce says very little about entertainment when speaking about their experience in working with mass media.  I guess that I could say that I find their content quite interesting and entertaining, myself, but I can't speak for the rest of their viewers.  (Some people might report feel bored or annoyed while watching one of Micheal's videos!)  But other than that, I can't really say much else about this key concept from having watched Thinker's video on Vsause.  Sorry!  

Lying Photos: Manipulative Media Thrives

Instructions to this Assignment: 
Read through the links and view the photos, then complete a blog reflection. Use the questions below as a guide. You can discuss your own points or use the questions for help. Your reflection should address at least FIVE issues/questions in at least a five paragraph reflection.

Questions I chose and my response to them: 

• Identify one or two photos that really stood out for you, and explain why they did.

There is one with Barack Obama standing in front of the sight of an oil spill (#9 in the *link), and in the image, The Economist magazine had removed two people that he was leaned over talking with.  There was a shorter woman that he was trying to hear, and so when she was cropped out, it made it look as though his head was cast down in sadness or frustration.  I found that it had an impact on me because it is depicting a political person in a way that is untrue to the situation.  I also wonder how Barack Obama would have reacted, had he come across the image himself.

• Do you think some photos are manipulated by the media because the public expects celebrities and politicians to be "airbrushed" and to appear perfect? Do you think it is acceptable? Discuss.

It is good to show the brighter side of people, and perhaps removing a blemish or two is a good thing. But as far as slimming the person down goes, I'm not so sure if that is what what should be done.  It's not that I think it is a bad thing, but I am not sure if it is a good thing to do either; in a sense, I am neutral.  If it is for something like a product however, like for a skin care item, and they are editing the images of people who use there product, then I don't think that is fair and is very shady.  The same goes with weight-loss programs that slim down the people in their magazine or online advertisements.  You can edit a persons body for a skin care product ad, or clean a person's skin for a weight loss ad, and still have me not complain too much.  However, if it is done in a way that makes your product's results untruthful, say, that you only clean up the person's skin in the "after" picture and not in the "before" when showing their weight loss results, then I have greater concerns about the shadiness of your business.  

• Do you think magazine editors/illustrators are justified in manipulating photos to make the image more artful, entertaining or compelling? Discuss.

From an artists point of view, I feel that artistic manipulation of photos for magazines is an essential thing and really helps to make the images more appealing to the reader.  Do I think that it is realistic, no, not so much, and the more manipulating you do to the photo, the more detached from reality it becomes.  However, there are some exceptions to this, and I believe that it is up to the illustrators as to how far they want to go with it.

When working with touchy subjects, such as natural disasters, maybe the photographs should not be tampered with; you should not make the scene appear any more better/worse than it already is, and should instead let the photo speak for itself.  Do not past in images of screaming children into the background just to build a "dramatic" effect.  The most you should ever do with a photo of this nature is maybe crop it and then make minor adjustments to the colour, brightness and exposure so that the scene is easier to see. 

• Some photos that are famous for being fake are quite old. Were you surprised to learn that photo manipulation and staging occurred long before the digital age (computers, Internet, etc)?

Yes, it is harder to believe that the manipulation of photos occurred as it did before the age of computers and digital images, however, it does not mean that I felt that it was impossible.  People often played with things like exposure times in an image so that a person walking in and out of a scene would appear as a ghost.  And, I guess in the fairy photos, it was carefully positioned cardboard cutouts that did the trick.  The one thing that I find interesting though, and that I haven't given much thought to before, was just how gullible people were during the time of early photography.  Well, maybe gullible isn't the correct word to use.  As a human race, we are no more gullible now as a species, on a mental-processing level, than we were a thousand years before —ah, perhaps that is a little too deep.  What I'm trying to say is that people are more used to being tricked, thus their eyes are more adapted to it and can spot out a fake a little bit easier than the generations before.  Does that make any sense? 

• If you were a professional photojournalist do you think you could avoid being tempted to manipulate or stage a photo if you knew it would be a great picture? Explain. 

I don't know.  I feel that, as an artistic person, this may be a challenge for me, as I will constantly be seeing different ways that I can make a raw image look better.  I would be always tempted to re-crop and re-colour an image so that it was more appealing to me and the others who would be seeing it.  It is a hard thing to say.  I guess that I would just follow the policies of those of the media corporation where I worked.  

This is my last post for my Journalism class.  Just in case I don't have any others after this, I just wanted you to know that. 

I had a good time with this course and feel that I have a better understanding of the world of journalism than I did before entering this class.  I hope that you enjoyed reading what I wrote (to my teacher and my one follower I gained somewhere along the line) because I took enjoyment in writing it.

See you around the internet.

Future Plans & Ties to Journalism

For this assignment, I was asked to discuss various topics concerning modern-day journalism in response to a meeting we had with a radio host from the CBC here in New Brunswick, Terry Seguin.  I was absent from school on that day, and so I did not have the privilege of listening to the experienced journalist speak.  However, I will try my best to present my views on similar topics that were discussed in that meeting from that day, to the best of my ability.

Topic #4: Thoughts On My Future
It is clear that Mr. Seguin really enjoys his career. As you consider your next step after graduation, is this something you are considering? Is the path you are considering something you think you will be excited about and enjoy? Discuss what you plan on doing and why you think it is something you will enjoy.

I describe my journey as not a set path, but rather a known direction.  I know where I want to be at the end of my education, in my career and in my personal life, I just haven't put constricting titles to each of these things yet.  Perhaps I never will really quite know what to call myself, artist is a broad term, so it is best for me to use that for now, as it encompasses so many occupations and ways of life.

There is such a thing as an artist lifestyle and a tightly night artist community and that is something that I want to embrace as I leave high school and seek out my own path.  This includes working alongside those who are in the journalism industry as well.

I may not become a journalist; it is still too soon to say and I don't want to restrict myself to just that title.  However, many of my close friends will be journalist, I am sure, and I will love being in the company of people who I can relate to on a more personal level.  Photographers, writers, painters, graphic designers, musicians, sculptors, dancers, actors and journalists --we are all very much alike.