Thursday, October 20, 2011

Race, Gender and Media 10/29

                   Today in class we presented our media analysis projects. I presented a ridiculously long prezi over the movie "Crash". I really love that movie because it justifies why I started Never Be A Stupid Girl. If we would take advantage of the different cultures that we come encounter with everyday we would get a broader view of others and realize that we are actually more alike than different.
                       I also really liked the presentation on football quarterbacks. I thought that was a perfect example of a media analysis. I also thought about why I have never questioned that. It was nice to see and hear more about a predominant subject discussed in sports.
                   Overall, all of the presentations where awesome and I really was influenced to open my eyes to what message the media is trying to give and when and where to be analytical.

Race, Gender and Media 10/22



                     Today in class we talked about how advertising influences our perception of body image. Of everything that we talked about in class my perception of who I am was most influenced by body image in advertising. I first became self-conscious about my weight when I moved to Texas in 6th grade.
               The picture above on the left is me in 6th grade about four months before I moved to Texas and the picture of me on the left is me a couple of weeks ago at the age of 21.
              I was always in sports and had a lot of friends and even boyfriends! I started to compare my self in Texas to other girls in middle school. I think the difference was the demographic region. In Oklahoma I went to a very diverse school and looking different was normal. When I moved to Texas I was going to a predominately white school where everyone wanted to have long hair and be a size 0. I remember being on diets in middle school and I always stayed active. The show FAT CAMP came on MTV and I always wished I could go, so that I could be transformed over the summer. I know that this mindset could have been influenced by nothing else than advertising. My mom, sisters, friends never said anything about me being bigger or not good enough. I got these ideas from TV mainly. I wanted to be thin, popular, and the star of the anything like all the girls on the Disney channel.
               In high school I got taller and I was on the basketball team, so I thinned out. In my mind it wasn't exactly what I wanted but because I was involved in several sports I just told myself I may be bigger but I bet you I can run longer, throw longer and jump higher than the skinny girls! I had boyfriends and of course that's all I was thinking about in high-school was basketball, and boys.
              Now thanks to the healing grace of the Lord my mind has been transformed and know that my self worth is determined by me and no one else but me. I now would rather have a compliment on my intelligence and int intellect than my physical appearance. I am what the Lord says I am, I was made in His image.

I am Lovely.
   
                

Race, Gender and Media 10/15

                      Today was the day that has influenced me the most to proceed in my career as an African-American Female Journalist. The documentary we watched today was about the influence black newspapers had on the Civil Rights Movement. It also talked about how these Black owned newspapers helped literacy in the Black community as well as economical opportunity for the Black community as well. The Black newspapers gave people an opportunity to express their opinion and to stand up against injustice.
                      This video influenced me to think about how if it wasn't for the black newspapers a large number of Americans, both black and white and anything other would not have been fully aware of the truths about the lack of justice in the government systems and the civil cases in their own towns that were not being justified.
                      This documentary displayed the perseverance of African-Americans through this time. It makes me proud to be a part of that culture. Because of what they have done before me bringing light and truth to the public on a subject that was very sensitive but very relevant and very important for people to know about.
                         I want to do that with my career. I want to ask the hard questions.
                         I thought it was very ironic that we are taught in journalism class today to be neutral but then all that was in the newspaper was opinion. So which one is more important for society? Now we are taught to just present the facts and not chose a side. They did state facts about an event that happened such as exactly how many people where affected but the rest was opinion and persuasive articles that transformed the minds of all Americans.

Race, Gender and Media 10/8

I learned a lot of what we learned tonight in class in my Psychology of Women class I took Fall 2011. I thought it was awesome that we recognize what media has done to the image of what a woman is. I feel a responsibility to change this influence to a positive one. The video that we watched today to me is much deeper than advertising. I believe that the natural insecurity that women have inflames when we are only presented with things that we need to make us better or things to buy to fit in and be accepted.
As a christian the way I initially viewed this is that since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve were in the garden and they both ate the apple. Women have been cursed with feeling incomplete. Think about it. Eve was tempted from the serpent, she was told that if she eats of the apple she will have the power and knowledge of the Lord. She was told that she was not okay with her current state that she needed to do more to be more. Is that message not still being told to women today?

Race, Gender and Media 9/21

Class was awesome tonight. We talked about the images of race in the media. I learned a lot about this last summer in my news internship. Our objective was to diversify the newsroom as well as the media that we produce. The issues that we talked about today is the exact reason why our M.O. was and as a minority especially, still is to bring about diversity. I want to talk about through the stereotypes that the media has but on African-Americans have been influenced in a negative way.
In the African-American community many women have issues with self-worth and discontentment of their image. I believe that majority of this is due to the media. Black women are pressured to perm their hair straight or wear weave in order to not stand out. Then the issue of the color shade is very prominent to black women. Dark women are portrayed in movies and commercial as the harsh and "ghetto"and the light skinned woman was portrayed as the higher-class, stuck up woman. Regardless of shade the ultimate image they were striving for was the image of a white woman. There are now movements that encourage women to embrace their natural beauty but I still feel like newspapers, TV, and movies have a responsibility to think about the influence every character has on their viewers.

JOUR 4250 8/25

Today was the first day of classes for the 2011-2012 school year. It was also the first time meeting for my Race and Gender in the Media class. We are asked to post a blog every week discussing our opinions on the class session for that week. So for the next four months if a blog is labeled with the "JOUR 4250" and then a date I am referencing to what we talked about in class for that week. Besides those the rest will be my personal blogs. I will try to keep up with doing both often.

This week in class we got to know one another. We found out that not everyone in the class was a journalism student. That was very interesting and inspiring of the students who are not journalism students that they would step out of themselves and enroll in a class that may challenge their thoughts, and it's not required of them to do so.

Our first analyzing of the media was on the cover of the NTDaily and the Andrea Dodson video on YouTube.

The NTDaily we examined and we discovered the lack of diversity. I thought this was right up my alley. I transferred to UNT last year and one of the first things I noticed was the lack of diversity on campus. There are so many cultures and ethnicity's on campus and I was sitting next to a different type of person everyday in class. As a journalist I naturally as questions. I wondered if anyone else saw the opportunity at the tip of their fingers like I did. Not only would I get a great education but I would be able to be well rounded and open to different views. Which as a reporter we must be both. I then realized that the major issue is that UNT doesn't promote themselves as a diverse school. If asked they may say yes but as far as that being a major advantage in attending UNT, that is not there. I think the media outlets that we are provided here at UNT must represent the demographic of the people the paper or newscast is serving. So if the school is more populated with ethnicity's other than white and the whole newspaper staff is white then how are you truly serving different demographics. I don't think it is impossible. I do believe that people naturally think about what they are familiar with first.

The Dodson video was a great example of how the media can influence viewers and their perspective of another race. Imagine if someone is in a neighborhood that has no other race besides black people and have been living there their whole life. If this newscast is the only perception they have of black people it would have totally misrepresented the majority of blacks in America.
This makes me want to continue on in my aspirations in journalism. I want to change the way people think about stereotypes of others.