Social Networking -

The research question our group conducted was “What do teens use most when social networking, and how does it affect them?” As a group, this question was prompted after we decided that we wanted to target two age groups and compare how social networking affects both ages, but also when teens use any sort of social networking, we wanted to know what they turned to; if facebook is still their main source for media, or has twitter taken over? Exploring this question was interesting for us, some of our results were shocking, and we also can conclude that social networking has left students with a positive feeling at one point or another.

The group we have targeted for our survey is grade eight students, ages 13-14, and grade eleven students, ages 16-17. We chose this selection of grades because in grade eight you are just approaching social networking where as not so much previously. We also chose the grade eleven students because by this age they are more into the social networking world. As a group, we decided that comparing these two age groups responses would be interesting.

We got our information by creating two only surveys via www.surveymonkey.com. Once we created the two different surveys we posted them to Morgan’s Blog, and AJs blog. From this point, we asked grade 8 students to do these surveys (both equally alike). We found the results did vary between the two age groups, and the results were surprising, especially those questions that referred to bullying and feeling good from using a social networking site.

After contemplating our results within our group we have come to the conclusion that Facebook is relied on much more when narrowed down to social networking with the grade eight students, over the grade eleven students. We also came a crossed the prediction that these grade eight students surveyed have lots of positive encounters while using Facebook, because the grade eleven students did not have  as high of a rate of positive social networking, and also had a lower rate of Facebook users experience that made them feel good about themselves. Our final conclusion is that Facebook gives user’s confidence in some cases, especially the younger ages.

When we compared our results to a handout we seen that 73% of teens use social networking sites, however compared to our results the grade eleven students showed a result of 90% teen’s use social networking while the grade eight students showed a 78% result. From our personal studies we can conclude within our school that social networking is more popular in our school than to the “Students like social media” survey.  

The media literacy concept we linked to our study is “media has social and political implications” because our whole survey is based upon social networking and this social part of this concept refers to exactly what we surveyed. We asked how many used social networking with high results, and besides that we asked how many felt like social networking was a positive things with many positive results.

Below is an example of one of our graphs, where you can see that YouTube is the highest site that students rely on when social networking.

Survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Y9H3CGR

Sexualized ads

Advertisements lately are extremely seductive, rather than a company selling their products, in my opinion the advertisements are more focused on selling a woman's seductive body. Advertisements are losing their purpose as the time goes on.

The first image I looked at is a Gucci advertisement, according to the critics of this advertisement it is offensive to woman, because rather than focusing on selling the shoes, they have placed the woman at the mans feet suggesting that is where a woman belongs.

The second image I looked at is an advertisement by Dolce & Gabbana, where the focus should be placed on the clothes the woman is wearing rather than selling the clothes in a seductive way. This ad is suggesting that when a woman wears these clothes they could be "gang raped". After some research on this ad, it was found that the president of D&G while referring to this ad had in mind that it would hopefully "attract publicity because this ad is mannered in such a provocative way".

Sext it*

Recently I got the chance to watch a video called "Sext Up Kids" and I realized how the media is deteriorating the minds of all children, ages ranging from toddlers to teens. The media plays a great deal in how most, if not all people reflect on themselves - emotionally and physically. The media is destroying us little by little, and this video really proved that to me.

While watching the video I could easily see that the media is strongly affecting the parents' mind and they are turning their children in what they wish they could be, and it is fairly disturbing. Parents have gone crazy, not only are the children wanting to be the "prettiest" rather than the "sexiest" but the parents are too. In my eyes, parents are the main reason for why today's children are turning into "Wanna Be's", the parents are responsible for what their children are seeing, and also what they are buying and feeding into them.

The next point id like to discuss is, "playing princess as a young girl actually primes them for sexualization"; in my opinion this is true. What the media is displaying to toddlers as a "princess" is actually very sexualized, their dresses barely cover anything, they have the pouty lips, and a face filled with makeup, this to me is considered "sexy" and not very princess-like. However, when the children see these dolls they instantly want to be just like them, and this is very damaging, they are maturing at a young age, they want to be able to have the freedom adults do, and they want to show their bodies off like adults do, they are beginning to lose control of their age, and parents are sitting back and watching it happen.

The previous point takes me to the next topic, "Children are using "adult" devices (like cellphones) and appear not to be capable of understanding the difference between private and public". I also agree with this point, children are more aware of adult knowledge and are putting themselves everywhere, "kids" are taking over facebook, and they are only throwing themselves out there for child pornographers, or older teenagers to see and take "advantage" of them. Children want to act like adults, however they are just to young to do so, they don't know about the dangers they are putting themselves into, and with cell phones or smartphones especially, they have all the freedom they want to post whatever they want, wherever they want, and whenever they want.

The last point I would like to discuss is, "Girls either have to portray themselves as sexual objects or be invisible", in my opinion this could not be any more correct. Based on the media, girls see images that have been photo shopped, and are not even "real", however they still feel they need to look this way in order to be considered by boys. Girls will starve themselves, and do drastic things to themselves just to try to get a "look" that is not even realistic. The media is killing our generation, and making us feel as if we will never be good enough. Media wants us to be either fake, or act older than we actually are, and its not a positive message to be "selling".

Lastly, in the video Miley Cyrus was brought to every ones attention on how she supposedly went from "Disney to diva", this is one of the points I do not agree with. I believe that while Miley acted for Disney she was mature, and set out of positive outlook on life for her fans, she was responsible when she was out, but when her Disney contract was up, she took full grasp of her life and pursued her career in a more "grown up" way. Every celebrity has the money to dress as they like, or go where they want, and Miley has every right to take full advantage of that, in my eyes she works hard and deserves it. In order for her to be successful in the music or acting industry she must look and act a certain way, and I believe its up to the parents to continue letting Miley be their children's role model or not.

Here is an article about Miley, and the above subject:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/miley-cyrus-talks-fame-sex-and-growing-up_n_955436.html

Blog Ratings *

http://justin-bieber-pix.blogspot.com/

The first blog I reviewed was a Justin Bieber fan-site blog, which is basically to keep the fans up to date on Justins music, pictures, and news. Many die-hard fans really want to know these things, like myself, therefore this blog is a great idea. Its very easy to access, all the links work, and the design is very creative.

http://adayinthelifeofaplanner.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-07-03T12:07:00-07:00&max-results=3&start=6&by-date=false

The second blog I reviewed was a wedding planner blog, which is a guide to brides as to how their wedding day should go as planned. It gives brides some great ideas, such as what colors to use, how to set up, prepare for their big day and even picking the right photographer. The author of the blog, is a wedding planner herself, and her blog features q&a with her clients to show others interested in hiring a wedding planner, what she can offer, and do for your wedding. I thought the design could have been improved, and that is why I only rated the appearance and whatnot a "4'.

Follow Me! *

http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/cultivating-twitter-followers-social-commerce-what-followers-do-and-dont-want

The role of mass media I think contradicts this article about cultivating twitter is "the media entertain us". This article explores "the media entertain us" because it is discussing the entertainment aspect twitter plays in many lives today, twitter is a get-away for most people, to express how they are constantly feeling and to "follow" those who inspire them.

According to the article twitters origins trace back, even way beyond the invention of computers, the author of this article states that twitter is a comparison of the 19th century in England where people gathered in a corner of Hyde Park, referred to as "Speakers Corner" and here, they had arguments and debates, where anyone could talk about anything of their interest to those passing by. This is a comparison to twitter because when these people began to speak, only those who had good ideas or made interesting points, had people listening and standing around "following" their discussion whereas on twitter you do the exact same thing; follow who meets your interests, and inspires you.

This article, to me, is mass media because it is exploring many different ideas, such as entertainment - providing us with information about where twitter actually comes from, which many will find entertaining and interesting. This article strongly proves that even though we live in a media surrounded enviorment, it may not be all that different from our past century. Many ideas of media we consume today come from the past, and this article proves it in many points, and I agree with the whole article; I don't think many people would realize how our media came from the past, and I think it is interesting to be aware of.

Harmful, yet wonderful...

Recently, I got the chance to watch two videos regarding Media Literacy, they were both very informative and contained some great aspects- both negative and positive of the media today.

The first video discussed exactly what media literacy is, and how it is created. They expressed how when the media is being made, you have to be as big of a critic, as you believe the people watching your media will be; in other words, do not only criticize the message, whether you love it, or hate it, but as well criticize how the media was displayed; if it was effective to the consumer or not. Within the video, it mentioned that a lot of the media-revolving corporations, are only concerned with the money that they are making rather than being passionate about the work they are selling, or the message they are trying to express.

The second video discussed how big of an influence media literacy is in the 21st century. Media is very powerful and can be beautiful, but it is also very dangerous; this point can be taken many ways, but I would argue that it is expressing how helpful media is in our lives today, but not to mention it is also very harmful. A lot of people in our society would be helpless without access to media, and we take it for granted, however a lot of the media we access today, is hurting us in ways we could not imagine.For example; a research project, without the media, many people would be speechless as to what to do without google, or wikipedia, and therefore we would be living in a very sad and pathetic society without these sites, and they way they grant us media.

Another point to argue is how the media is harming children; a teacher in the video argued how he would have to continually teach his students respect, and to be generous, due to the fact the media was messing with these childs brains, and making them think (because of the sites on the internet they access, and the television shows they watch) that they have to act like snobs, and brats because the media is not teaching them any better.

The media can be very useful, but only if you use it at its fullest advantages, and disregard its disadvantages.