Question 9

Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, be it publication, broadcasting, the internet, or really any type of communication. It is the media's way of placing an imaginary gate between them and the public to filter certain parts of stories, artciles, etc. Gatekeeping was first applied to the study of news in 1950 by David Manning White, an assistant to the man who actually later coined the term and took credit for it. Agenda-setting is the theory that the news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. As Jamie Warner argues in his article, Political Culture Jamming, the quality of media has gone way downhill, especially in daily news stories as well as shows and programs such as "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." In today's society we receive more factual information through sarcastic daily shows that only highlight certain entertaining parts of news stories but somehow these small segments become the ultimate truth behind what actually happened. Warner suggests that Stewart is "purposefully obtuse" (148) when telling what happened in the news because he embellishing the stories for humor and to make his ratings go up. Real news is not what the viewers want to watch, it is sarcastic news that is eye-catching (151). I chose an article from Onion News titled " Obama's Deficit- Reduction Plan Includes Spending Cuts, Robbing Fort Knox, Tax Reform." This article outline Obama's recent plan to end the deficit in the United States, however this article spins the actual news story and incorporates humor into and is less attacking of Obama, even though the article clearly thinks it is not the most brilliant plan. The Onion News network clearly conveys the point of their article through satire. However, I found an article from Fox News on the exact same plan, however they were bashing Obama and making the article create intense argument and debate about how unintelligent Obama is. Due to their conservative nature, they set the agenda for their audience to only include parts of the plan that they did not like and made Obama look stupid, which in a sense is also gatekeeping due to the fact they were filtering information. It is interesting that a real news broadcasting station gave less factual evidence and more opinion than that of a satirical one.

news stories:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/obamas-deficitreduction-plan-includes-spending-cut,20195/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/21/budget-panel-obama-deficit-plan-saves-advertised/

Question 8

Both Mouse Trapped 2010 and Mickey Mouse Monopoly are good examples of the different approaches of political economy and cultural studies. Political economy is based around economics and the power within different types of economies, which serves as the center of our world. Cultural studies on the other hand is just basically how culture shaped our world. In Grossberg's article he stated "certainly economic practices and relations determine the distribution of practices and commodities (although not entirely by themselves), but do they determine which meanings circulate and which do not? (page 631). Grossberg argues that political economy is not the basis that runs this world but a combination of both the Marxist perspective on political economy and cultural studies. Mouse Trapped 2010 and Mickey Mouse Monopoly both convey how the Disney corporation takes into account both political economy and cultural studies when contemplating how to gain power. In Mickey Mouse Monopoly they argue how Disney has become a “transnational media conglomerate” owning multiple TV shows, radio networks, magazines, sports team, theaters, ABC networks, etc.; therefore making Disney a major contributor to popular culture nationally. Due to the fact that Disney owns most of the media industries we watch on today, they have a large control of what our culture is exposed to as well as what our culture should not be exposed to. Disney has strongly affected much of our childhood. Disney is an unrealistic, fantasy world that sends hidden underlying messages to children that seem perfectly legitimate until one grows up and realizes the negative implications behind them. Henry Gioux, an American cultural critic stated , “Disney is the ultimate form of fantasy that never needs to be questioned.” It is also important to note that Disney has been able to impact our culture and our world so drastically because of political economy. Disney has maintained staying on stop by sacrificing the wages of their long time employees as explained in Mouse Trapped. Disney workers explain how they have to live paycheck to paycheck and have not every seen a raise even after working there for three years, while new employees will be hired at a higher wage. This information was shocking and so hard to believe that such a magical place like Disney can be so "unmagical" behind closed doors. Also, the company is so well off it does not make sense that they theme parks are unable to adequately pay their workers what they deserve considering they are the ones that help construct this entire Disney monopoly.

Question 7

In the video How To Make Your Breasts Look Bigger, both appropriation and reappropriation are noticeably visible. Appropriation is the art of taking authority or possession over ideas. Reappropriation is when the dominant person or thing takes the power of the ideas back. In this video, the woman is appropriated in a “how to”way into a sexualized pornographic woman. Through the majority of this video, the woman is given many tips such as how to wear the proper bra or how to tone certain muscles, to draw attention to her breasts to make her appear sexy. It is also important to note that this video is constructed through the dominant ideology of a male heterosexual perspective; a woman needing bigger breasts to please a heterosexual male and get his attention.Throughout the entire video, the woman looks almost equivalent to that of a pornographic star. In the end though, she takes her personality and her presence as a woman back. She is reappropriated into a woman not a pornographic star. The woman at first had lost all her dignity but by the end of the video she turns down the man she had been originally trying to get all the attention from and says that she does not want to have sex with him. She is a dominant woman, not pornographic woman. She ends up ordering him around and telling him what to do, almost completely switching stereotypical gender roles.

Question 6

Exoticism and Globalization are both very apparent in this video of Conan O'Brien exploring and venturing down the streets of India. Exoticism is when parts of another culture are appropriated into our own to make ours appear exotic and unlike any other. Exoticism was created based off of globalization because as a nation we have learned that in order to make our products more popular and pleasing for others, they needed to be different and exotic. The United States has truly globalized the idea of being America or simulating our culture globally, however many countries are not able to contribute to globalization because bigger, more dominant countries over shadow them. This video highlights the negative aspects of globalization. In this video, Conan O'Brien shows step by step how curtains in India are made. They have scenes showing sweatshops, yet they try and make up for it by making it more glamorous by having all of the workers wear the same, clean, typical Indian clothing, have elephants roaming around the streets, and making everyone in the video act as if they are all so excited to see a celebrity from America. Also, O'Brien speaks a different language to show the cultural barrier that globalization has created, however in India many people speak English and are very westernized. They also show manual labor such as the men crushing berries to dye the curtains red. Finally, Conan is brought back to the stage of the show where the curtain that we just saw made appears. He shows the ignorance of people when he pretends the curtain is in fact special and exotic, when in reality that was not how it was made at all. This relates to Confusing Exotica by Ghosh and his idea that things are made to look exotic so more people will buy them, but in reality they are made in bulk where all the special labor and culture is taken away from the process; there is nothing special about the curtain being made in India if the real process was showed.

Question 5

Ideology is "common sense." Hegemony is the construction of society using "common sense,"in places such as schools, churches, workplaces, etc. To males, when playing the Urinal Game, they are easily able to identify with the game, thus using common sense to get each level correct. In the game, each level has a different situation embodying it, making each level a little more complicated than the previous one. Men usually always discuss the fact that when they are in a bathroom with other men they choose the urinal farthest from any other male or the once closest to the door so they can leave as soon as they are done. These practices are not random, they have been culturally passed down from older men in society, such as family or friends who taught them or gave them insight on what to do when in these situations. As a girl playing this game, it was more difficult to pass all of the levels because this "common sense" about what to do in a men's public bathroom was never passed down to us or explained. However, we somewhat adapt this common sense from men after hearing them talk about it with other men. This is similar to the idea that girls always go to the bathroom together, but boys never understand why. The end up just accepting it because it is common and normal. Through ideologies, hegemony is created in society.

Question 4

Semiotics is considered to be the study of analogies, metaphors, symbols, or cultural signs in society. This particular image, "Cest n'est pas une pipe," which means "This is not a pipe" is an example of semiotics because in reality, this picture is nothing more than lots of tiny pixels placed together to create something aesthetically pleasing to the eye. However, due to cultural studies within society, the image created holds meaning such as a reference to an old man smoking a pipe or even a signifier of wealth in the olden days. Regardless of what it make us think of culturally, we are able to call this image a pipe because of its construction created by society. It really isn't a pipe, it is thousand of pixels, but to us and our culture it could not be anything other than a pipe.

Question 3

In the Everest College commercial, an African American male is used to promote getting an education from the college and give off the underlying message that other African Americans like himself, from a lower class, need a proper education to succeed. Class and race are both evident in this commercial. The actor is performing extreme Blackness by talking in a "ghetto" tone of voice, using slang words, and dressing in a hood, gangster sort of way. The setting of the video is also very key. The commercial is set in a sketchy parking lot with no one around, in the middle of a run down urban area, portrayed as the ghetto. The advertisement seems cheaply done with poor quality materials, thus insinuating the college is not even that good, so that is why a man like the one in the commercial could get in.
The Ghetto Delta Airlines video is racist and showcases many stereotypes about African Americans. A white man is performing Blackness by the way he talks in the video and presents himself. For example, he uses phrases such as "back at yo crib" and "it don't matter" thus portraying African Americans as less intelligent. Also the same point about dumbness is made when they show Delta's motto on the screen with multiple spelling errors, " We luvz us sum flyin." The white people in the background of this clip are physically and mentally more attractive than the person who is performing Blackness and other African Americans in the video. There is a direct reference to class just by the way the two different races are acting and being portrayed through out the entire video.
Both of the videos construct the African American race to be lazy and not intelligent. They are both reaching out to a black audience, however they go about it two totally different ways; one uses an actual African American man to relate to "his people" and the other uses a white man performing Blackness to contrast the two races. The idea of being "ghetto" is used in both videos to reiterate the idea of their lack of class and education. Racism is definitely more apparent in the Delta Airlines video due to the fact that a white person is blatantly making fun of the African American race. In the college commercial, it is not as obvious because although the man is still an actor, he is still performing an extremity of his race, thus making it seem not as racist.