Mirror Mirror on the Wall..Who's the Sexiest of them All?

  Alright so, I looked at myself in the mirror for 10 minutes. What did I notice? What was I supposed to notice? Am I supposed to compare myself with some young movie stud with an amazing physique? Why should I compare myself to a total stranger I have no connection with? I mean I don’t want to hurt his ego by standing next to him. Yes, I am very considerate person. But on a serious note, jealousy or feeling intimidated comes when a person is feeling insecure about themselves. And everybody has it, at one point or another. But, you have to get over the fact that you ain’t as macho as the next person, and you have to keep it real. In the end, for me, as a person who has been wrong way too many times for judging a book by its cover, I have to say that it comes down to the personality of the person I am hanging out with. To me, the looks and everything outside really does not matter, once I get to know the person, because I value people’s individuality and good sense of humor. Anybody can look good with expensive clothes on, but how many look sexy with the morning boxers and wife beaters on. Advertisements attack people’s ego to make them feel unsatisfied with themselves, and I am not saying that the advertisements don’t intimidate me. But don’t forget you have to keep it real. These advertisements will make you feel the need to have smooth an silky hair, or amazing beach physique, or a heavy built, and even though some might feel that these ads are projecting a healthy physique and healthy lifestyle, you can not force everybody to follow it, because everybody is an individual, and they have the right to live their lives by their choice. Social icons and ad figures should not restrict the individual from doing what they want.       

The Corporation vs. Ad and Ego

“The Ad and the Ego goes beyond deconstructing individual advertisements to reveal the economic and political dimensions of living in an advertising infused environment. In our “new world order” of diminishing resources and devastating pollution, this film makes the critical connections between the rise of consumerism, environmental degradation and our blind commitment to economic growth at any cost. It forcefully demonstrates the link between our debased public discourse and a media culture that defines freedom as consumer choice rather than democratic participation.”  

Consumerism is directly affected by the media environment and the public. Consumerism is most effective in an urban, developed city, where the media effect is most, and the “competitive” society is centered as well. The media is very influential in today’s society because it has the power to set standards and social values and figures, through commercials, posters, articles, news etc. The Corporations control the mindset of the society. In the 1920’s the media’s sole purpose was to bring their products in the open, and sell them. Since the 1960’s the Corporation’s have stopped selling products, but they have started advertising a lifestyle. They promote a certain lifestyle with their products, which attracts more customers. This is why corporations are very dangerous, because they can limit our knowledge and change our perception of an event, to benefit themselves. But we as a society have very little knowledge about how consumerism works. The power is handed to the Corporations, and they use the power of commercialism to construct a utopian living through their advertisements, and the public fall for these messages encrypted advertisements, and fall into the cycle of buying to fulfill consumer wants, instead of consumer needs.

Corporations are very smart, indeed. By targeting the youth and the wealthy, they create the sense of “need” or “unfilled” emotions amongst the public, and therefore, display how their products fulfill the gap in their “unhappy” lifestyle. This is a growing trend, because the shift in focus to lifestyle of people is flushing the market with more hungry customers and fueling the Corporate markets. We as society are being brainwashed, into thinking that buying the product, will enhance our lifestyle. So one way to look at this is, even though we believe that we are buying a product to fulfill our needs, we are actually buying a “key” to that utopian lifestyle, or otherwise, a key to happiness. Also, these Corporations want us to believe that buying their products make us a part of the “economic growth”. Going back to the point where, we mentioned how the Corporations use the media to limit the public knowledge, in the documentary, “Corporations”, we saw how Fox News Channel was caught in a scandal for not exposing the infection of cow milk due to external substances injected into cows to enhance the milk production. This would harm many companies that supported Fox News and therefore this news was not telecasted, and the reported was fired. This came out in the open only after a law suit was filed against Fox News. The choice made by corporations to safeguard their profit and interests at the cost of public health, raises the issue of reliability and faithfulness amongst the public. To what extent can the media control out mindset?

 In Ad and Ego, a very interesting observation is brought up that we are more prone to influence by commercialism when we are not paying attention that is when we are subconscious of our surroundings. Even though we believe that we focus on particular types of commercialism, we are always infested in buy commercials and media all the time, that in our subconscious, we let these little glimpses of ads influence our bigger decisions. The target of advertisements is to leave people in a shallow self esteem, to make us feel that we are unsatisfied with our lives. Obtaining these products will provide us with salvation. So we are living in a very materialistic society, or we can say in a growing one for sure. Advertisements do not just sell their products; they are marketing qualities of life. They are attaching value to these products such as class, success, wealth, progress and what not. Desires for a better living….

Commercialism will continue to grow as long as the public misleading follows. It is a cycle that is hard to brake, because commercialism has manipulated the entire world, because they are working towards a “better future”.

              

SUPERSIZE ME REVIEW

Both the Reviews were centered around the common idea that, in the modern face paced world, we have many food choices. And a majority of these food choices are unhealthy, but we tend to overlook this and we still continue to eat. Both the articles stated clearly that fast food is unhealthy but they also mentioned that fast food is not the only reason why such a large population in the United States is suffering from Obesity. The Documentary, Super Size Me, shows us a very shocking experiment of a person with a good physique and health surviving on a 3 day meal, exclusively composed of McDonald’s fast food, for an entire 30 days. This movie received a lot of critique and controversy because of the inaccurateness of the experiment. The two reviews criticize this experiment as unrealistic and if health issues can be purely controlled individually.

I personally agree with the New York Times review, because it clearly highlighted the purpose of the movie, which was “McDonalds’s should be “killed” before it kills us”. I believe it was more realistic because it presented the idea that it is not only fast food that is killing the people’s health, but it is rather the people who choose to eat that food. Also, it focuses the abundance of unhealthy choices of food that surrounds us, that influences what kind of food we are drawn to. Even though, we have fast food available at every corner of our streets, the review emphasizes on the individual’s responsibility to make the right and educated choice. The review does not attack the fast food chains, but it constantly attacks the need for the people to realize to take charge of their health and life in order to not be manipulated by the food advertisements. Choose to live healthy, and the choice is only yours to make.

On the other hand, the TCS review, is biased because it states how the whole experiment is very unrealistic. It emphasizes on how the information presented in the movie is previous knowledge and not very original. It also talks about how unrealistic it is for a person to be eating such a huge quantity of 3 meals of McDonald’s every day, and to conclude that the problems are common in all fast food eaters. Spurlock, who is the director of the movie, is only going on such a diet to showcase the effects of such bad eating habits. The reviewer believes that it is not the fault of McDonald’s, or any other fast food chain restaurants, but it is the fault of the consumer’s. The reviewer believes that Spurlock is trying to blame McDonald’s and other fast food chains for this bad food habit, but not everybody suffering from obesity is on the same diet as Spurlock followed, so turns out that the experiment is not very realistic. But in Spurlock’s view, believe it or not, there are is a population of Americans who do eat their 3 meals outside every single day. Spurlock is trying to spread the word that this is becoming a growing trend.

I definitely agree with the New York Times Review because it is not in denial and overlooking the fact that fast food is one the growing trends and one of the major issues why people in the United States are suffering from obesity and have their heart at stake. I believe that the first review is focusing on the larger picture, that fast food is one the biggest reasons why American population is suffering from ailments. The second review is in complete denial, and does not approve of the documentary, suggesting that it is not the food that is being sold but the careless choice of the American citizens. But in my opinion, if food is cheap, readily available to me every corner, at walking distance, and if I can get proportions that are double anywhere else I can find the same food at half the price, I would not mind eating there. And that is the rising trend of the new generation. Personally, I feel that there is a great responsibility of the individual as to what we eat, and only we have the choice to regulate our eating habits. That is why I agree more with the first review. The second review is in complete denial that there is any connection between fast food and the unhealthy population, and labels the movie as an “attention seeker” and “unprofessional”. It blames people lack of responsibility and all kinds of fatty products available in the market, not only fast food joints. I feel that even though Spurlock pushed the experiments and took it to another level, the sole purpose to show the devastating effects on health of fast food, is becoming very common because a large population is liable to fall into the same pattern, due to the increasing commercialism, and cheap marketing. And the big picture is, you eat more, you die faster, they live on, and they make the money. Or let me paint you a picture, there is a McDonalds 20 minutes down the road, and a meal will cost you 40 NIS. For me, I will say, go ahead and grab that 40 NIS because I rarely go there about once a month or maybe a little more often with my friends, but I am not addicted, so I am good. But are you...?

       

      

The C.O.R.P.O.R.A.T.I.O.N.S Response

  The documentary was a very big opener. It forces the perception of the normal person to such an extent that we are able to comprehend the profit making business dealt by the large Corporations at the cost of the public knowledge and powerful control over the media. What is even more surprising is that we feel that Corporation is run at large, we think it is very big organization and there has to be a  large number of people managing and a huge system for checks and balances in the corporation, while the Corporation in reality, runs and is supervised by only a handful of people. When the documentary analyzed and personified the word “Corporations”, psychological analysis listed this “person” as a Psychopath. Psychopath, the term used for a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct but masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal. Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.  After reading this, Corporation’s as a person started to make more sense. Corporations survive on profit from the market, but how do these corporations compete with each other in such a big market. How do they manage, to pay their workers, maintain the quality and standard of their products and spend so much money in advertising. It is not very simple. Firstly, these large Corporations hunt for cheap labor and the best place to farm on cheap labor is usually in developing countries, where the economy is weak and a majority of population is living under the poverty line. In such places, where the sole earner of the household is working to feed their family of 6 to 8 people or more, these are the poor souls that the Corporations likes to hunt and force to work under unhygienic and unsanitary conditions and exploit them, that is force them to work long hours for a very low wage. For example, the minimum wage in India for a worker is Rs. 45 an hour, while…

 “Mothercare announced the probes after an investigation into pay and conditions in Bangalore found that factory workers are being paid as little as 13p an hour…. Britain and the US including Marks & Spencer and H&M, have confirmed that wages paid to workers are as low as £1.13 for a nine-hour day.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-479571/The-High-Street-sweatshops-Primark-M-S-factories-India-pay-13p-hour.html#ixzz10MX2O4D8

     These Corporations are called Psychopaths, because they are masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal. In this case, these big Corporations who are exploiting the workers in developing countries by making them work for low wages, use the economy as their shield. They are able to say that they are helping the poor economy by providing more jobs to the poor and the workers are not able to retaliate because in such poverty, there is stiff competition to get jobs and they have big families to support. Also, in the marketing world, competition determines the lifespan of the company. Big companies, who monopolize the market, do not stand alone, they work together in close ties so that they can help each other out in times of tough competition. The best way to stay in the market is to reduce the competition that is to diminish the products of the rival companies. In many cases, when people try to sue large companies, these big companies use the help of the bigger “hands” to soften the issues and take certain damage control. 

     There is a huge difference between the living quality of the consumers and that of the actual producers of the factories. And what me feel worse was the fact that I was a part of this whole system, because I play the role of the consumer, and as the products I buy are to fulfill the consumer wants, and not the consumer needs. But to give this idea a different point of view, the workers in these factories actually do benefit even though they are not given wealth of the company, because they are given a source of income, which puts them in a better position than when they were jobless. We are the consumers, and we are extremely dependent on the goods of these industries, and therefore, we also become a part of the illegal activities that the companies issue. After watching this documentary, I feel that Corporations fulfill the demands of the people, the economy and we are restrained in an economy where we as the people have to understand and take actions to limit the power of these big corporations. This, is a major issue now days, but at personal level, we can at the least be the “smarter” ones, and prevent ourselves from being manipulated by the advertisements, which create the need in the economy, and this gap is filled by the Corporation and its products.                  

Media Consumption LOG- Week 2

In a course of a single day how much time did you spend with:

Friday 1:00-12:00 p.m

Print: 1 hour 20 minutes

Photography: 20 minutes

Radio: 20 minutes

Film: 3 hours

Television: 1/2 hours

Computer:  9 hours

What other types of media did you encounter?

·       I encountered several online advertisements

-       - DHL

-       - Hummer

-       - Samsung Mobile Phones

-       - Twitter

-       - Inception (movie)

-       - The Expendables

-       - Cinema City

-       - Gallete Bakery

-       - Camel cigarettes

-       - Coca Cola

-       - Chocolate Milk

-       - Humos ad

-       - Toyota Ad

-       - Disney

-       - Panasonic

-       - Acer

-       - VISA

-       - Guinness bar

-       - Carlsberg

-       - Heineken 

·       Additionally, I encountered several billboards and posters in the shopping mall:

-       - Play Station 3

-       - Max Brenner

-       - Castro

-       - Guitar Hero IV

-       - Sony Vaio laptop

-       - Modern Warfare III

How much of your time was devoted to multiple media?

Approximately 2 hours of my time was devoted to multiple media.

Which media were used in a combination?

I used the reading book with my ipod all the time.

I used my ipod when I was working on my posters.

Radio and twitter.

Magazine and radio.

How much of your media activity was voluntary?

 70% of my media activity today was voluntary and completely out of my choice.

How much media activity was involuntary?

About 30% of my media activity was involuntary (during school hours).

How much involuntary media was embedded in voluntary media?

Through the 30% of involuntary media activity, 10% was probably voluntary.

Reflection: I had rather a lot more control over the media that I was using today. This is because I was working on my poster for Student Council Elections, so there was a lot of research involved and that is why I was more aware of the media I was using. I noticed that I when I was working and looking through magazines to collect pictures for my collage I realized that magazines are one of the biggest source of advertisement because firstly, not everywhere is internet as easily accessible to people like in Israel, so there is  a large, so there is  a large population, especially teenagers who subscribe to fashion magazines etc. secondly, there were more then 3-4 advertisements per page, and I am fascinating because I noticed that the advertisements were promoting a picture, or an image, that had nothing to do with their product, but they were targeting the youth, anywhere between 14-22 years, by selling them sex and the glamour world. It is like they are trying to trick the youth into believing that, for example, the new Diesel campaign, “Be Stupid”, is trying to promote people to be stupid, and break from the normal customs, because we would not be creative, if we did not have stupid ideas. I found a few of their posters, sensible because it provoked a very “cute” emotion towards the poster, but the others were clearly trash, and hard to understand.  

I went like "Awww...":

And then I went, “What the hell…….”

On the official site, people had mixed opinions:

"Wow…Tough crowd. I didn’t get into advertising to make a lot of money. I did it because I loved it and had passion for it. I think this campaign is fantastic because it sets out to “change our perceptions.” Isn’t that what it’s all about, the changing of perception, looking at something from a different perspective? To me, most advertising is pretty boring. The Diesel campaign is fresh, lively, and although corporate types may nay-say it to death, who gives a crap?" - January 28, 2010 at 8:21 am

"That’s the thing. you should try to understand the definition of stupid from diesel. stupid is the one who has the balls to do something that others don’t, a thing that is going to make a diference. they have one thing on their spot that goes around these thoughts… “be stupid, don’t be dumb”. there’s a difference so your interaction with the ads are just wrong. it’s seems that you didn’t get the idea of it." - February 12, 2010 at 2:09 am

While others said:

 "This is embarrassing. This ad campaign and your one-dimensional defense of it is just a testament of how lazy and jejune the whole mediocre institution of advertising has become. I live in NYC, and two weeks ago the entrance stairwell I pass through on my daily subway commute was relentlessly covered in these ‘Be Stupid’ adhesive-poster ads. My twice-a-day (or more) forced endurance of these ads has inspired me to think of an appropriate metaphor: my interaction with these ads is like being in a romantic relationship with a stupid person. At first, judged on face value, I find her cute, fun, and attractive, and I mistake her stupidity for carefree optimism. “Oh I’m so envious of your carefree lifestyle!” It’s intoxicating." - February 10, 2010 at 9:58 am

"Yeah, we know you’re stupid, don’t brag on something you can’t help.The ads are gross and sexist…I don’t see any naked dudes, only women. If you’re going to do naked be fair."- February 12, 2010 at 6:18 pm

Media Consumption Blog- Week 1

In a course of a single day, how much time did you spend with:
Thursday 12:00-9:00 p.m

·      Print: 30-35 minutes

·      Photography: NA

·      Radio: 20 minutes

·      Film: 5 hours

·      Television: 1 hour

·      Computer: 9-10 hours

What other type of media did you encounter

·      Billboards: while riding the bus from school, encountered the following advertisements

-       The Cat house

-       FedEx

-       Orange

-       Toyrus

-       McDonalds

-       Coca Cola

-       Milk product

-       Castro

-       T-shirts

-       Model United Nations

-       Save a Child's Heart

-       Castro
-       Moo Milk
-       Dominos
-       KFC
-       AM:PM

How much of your time was devoted to multiple media?

Approximately 5 hours

Which media were used in combination?

·      Music, Facebook and youtube.

·      Phone and music

·      TV and laptop

·       Newspaper and music

How much of your media activity was voluntary ?

80% or more of my media activity was voluntary

How much media activity was involuntary?

20% of my media activity was involuntary

How much involuntary media activity was embedded in voluntary media? 

Probably all 20% of my involuntary media activity was embedded in my voluntary media.

Do you devote more or less time to media-related activities during the weekend?

Over the weekends, I devote less time to media-related activities because I am usually outside.

How many of your weekend social activities revolve around the use of media?

On a normal weekend(Friday-Sunday) 12-14 hours of my social activities revolve around the use of media.


Reflection: This was my first media consumption blog. I did this on a Thursday which was a regular school day for me. And I noticed that even when I spend 7 hours at school, out of that I spend a minimum of 3 hours on my laptop because it is required in most of my classes. Also, everyday I travel about 40 minutes to both ways to reach school, and on that way, I encountered a minimum of 40 advertisements. Also I felt that I use a lot of combined form of media, because I like to work with music on whenever I am home doing homework, or watching any show, and I am on Facebook a lot of the times, while conversing with my mates during 6:30-11 p.m. But I realized that around 9-10 p.m which is around my dinner time, I am usually on Youtube or SideReel watching t.v shows. So I am guessing that a lot of the advertisements which I notice are for entertainment and not political. Because if I was in India right now doing this project, I would have definitely mentioned Political party banners and rallies because it is so open there.