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More privacy concerns on Facebook

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:45:19 -0500

This is a pretty funny article that makes you think about privacy settings on facebook. This person apparently inadvertently shared that she was reading articles on sex toys. An app posted that she had read an article about vibrators. There are definitely some things you don’t want on facebook, one of them is your browser history, especially if you aren’t careful about what you look at.

Should cable companies credit you for outages you don't report?

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:38:10 -0500

Should cable companies credit you for outages you don't report?:

I loathe cable companies so I would have to say yes to this. Not only do most cable companies basically have monopolies in most areas, they are consistently awful in the area of customer service. Each month we pay hundreds of dollars for service so why not get a break when they screw up for a couple hours. Okay so maybe you aren’t home anyway or you aren’t using the service and you have no idea it’s out, but the fact that they aren’t providing you service for those times should translate into a rebate in my opinion.

The Avengers - Box office records

Wed, 09 May 2012 23:30:29 -0500

The Avengers - Box office records:

This article not only talked about the fact that The Avengers has surpassed previous box office records for opening weekend, it also claimed that part of the success of the film was based on the advertising it has been getting since 2008. The author reminds us that the first hint that there would be an avengers movie was in 2008 in Iron Man. This is a pretty good strategy. It lead to almost four years of anticipation that paid off big time for the studio.

This is John Tortorella, coach of the New York Rangers. He...

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:58:13 -0500

This is John Tortorella, coach of the New York Rangers. He doesn’t like the media and sometimes it gets him in trouble. I read an article that said that Tortorella was fed up with all the attention that he and his team are getting in the playoffs. But isn’t this part of his job? How can he complain about interacting with the media if it’s part of the job description. Granted the reporters at press conferences have a knack for asking annoying questions, but shouldn’t they be ready for that?

I’m just curious what other people think? Should coaches be fined if they don’t interact with the media, or do you think they should be allowed to show their feelings like normal human beings?

Other pressures on men

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:37:34 -0500

The last article I posted about the insecurities of men about their appearance got me thinking that there are quite a few expectations put on men about the way they act. We are expected to be tough, obviously, and we are expected to be effective problem solvers. We aren’t allowed to ‘take shit’ from anyone.

I would still say men have it a little easier than women as far as social pressure is concerned but there are definitely expectations from men that are a little silly. Men are still expected to be the bread winner in the family. There is a mechanic at my dad’s work whose wife is a very successful real estate agent. I’m just guessing here but I would say she probably earns two to three times his salary, and he certainly hears about it from the other guys at work. Why does it matter if his wife earns more money in her profession than he does? He’s employed full time in a position of skilled labor, he’s a great dad and husband, and he and his wife enjoy their life. So who cares? He certainly doesn’t.

Men's insecurities about their looks

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 15:26:38 -0500

Men's insecurities about their looks:

I came across this article on the Yahoo homepage and it reminded me a lot of what we talked about in class. The article discusses a couple of the things men tend to obsess over in relation to their looks.

These are pretty obvious and probably universal for the most part. Guys are expected to have a certain about of strength and muscle or else they look ‘wimpy’. And they are expected not to be overweight (although I think women still feel more pressure to be slim.

Stars embodying their social and ideological values

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:20:45 -0500

Under this section of the book they shared an interesting quote from Steven Cohan. To paraphrase it, he says that people judge you based on your taste in entertainment. This is absolutely true in my opinion. Cohan’s example was that people will assume a man who owns a Judy Garland CD must be homosexual. Of course we know this isn’t true but we still judge people on a daily basis in matters like that. We call our male friends ‘gay’ if they watch a TV show that’s ‘for women’. We assume anyone watching Fox News is some kind of Nazi. In doing this we forget that there are many ways to read a text. Maybe the person watching Fox News is pretty liberal, but is watching one of their financial shows. Or maybe the guy watching ‘America’s Next Top Model’ is just wants to see the model’s bodies.

Stereotypes on TV

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:01:55 -0500

Reading about stereotypes in these chapters made me think back to the video “Tough Guise”. While I was watching that in class, all I could think of was how often Latino people really are portrayed as either fiery and overly-passionate or tough but troubled.

It seems like every detective show from the 90’s had a cop on it that was a Latino ex-gangmember who ‘went straight’ and now has the unique ability to relate to troubled Hispanic youths. These cliches are awful in many ways, but I don’t think the people who write for television shows are racist. I think they are lazy. We see these stereotypes so much that we begin to identify with them and they become natural. Anyone who has workshopped in a creative writing class knows how often the characters in people’s writing are total cliches. It’s just hard not to think of racial groups in stereotypical terms when that’s what you see everyday in the media.

Racial Representation in TV Commercials

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:52:53 -0500

In my opinion, we live in an odd time as far as race relations are concerned. Almost every commercial that you see these days for a large company features a group of people, each from a different ethnicity. I guess the idea is to represent a variety of genders and racial backgrounds.

That’s great, except it seems so contrived. Commercials love to show guys hanging out in groups of three or four with one or two white guys, a black guy and either a Hispanic guy or an Asian person. Doesn’t it seem odd? And aren’t advertisers just using racially diverse groups to market their products to more people?

I don’t really have a point to make here, I guess, but it just seems so odd to me…

Self-Destruction in sports

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:00:16 -0500

I thought that what the book said on 387 was pretty interesting. The examples they gave of the punishment cyclists put themselves through is applicable to many sports. We definitely celebrate people who can push their body beyond the normal threshold of pain to overcome an opponent. Almost any endurance sport is really just a opportunity to see people overcome pain.

But the authors basically say that it’s just a male thing. They say, “male sport is understood in terms of power, strength, and competition”. I think it’s unfair to point only at men in this regard. Women’s sports are the same way. In my opinion, the reason we are drawn to any sporting event, male or female, is to see people test themselves against an opponent. It is acceptable now for women to be shown as powerful athletes and I think they are celebrated for their physical achievement and pain tolerance as much as men are.

Political Ads on Public TV/Radio

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:26:22 -0500

Political Ads on Public TV/Radio:

Recently it was ruled that public broadcasters are allowed to carry political campaign ads. According to this article some of the consequences of this will be fairly negative. The author says that people have been turning to public broadcasting in recent years to avoid negative political advertising. I don’t know if that is true. I don’t know anyone who is an avid viewer/listener of public broadcasting. The most I have seen of PBS is antiques roadshow a few times. I have listened to NPR in the past, but it wasn’t because I needed a safe haven from political advertising. The article also says that this could hurt commercial TV stations who rely on money from political advertising during election season.

As far as I am concerned, I don’t see a huge problem with this as long as they give equal opportunity for all political parties to advertise and don’t show a preference for a certain group. Maybe I’m missing something. What do you guys think?

BEWARE: Knockoff Books on Amazon

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:11:34 -0500

BEWARE: Knockoff Books on Amazon:

This article talks about knock-off titles on Amazon. Basically people self-publish books with similar titles as bestsellers and people buy them thinking they are getting the real thing. This reminded me a lot of the way three or four small budget, straight-to-DVD movies will come out in anticipation of a big blockbuster. I remember when the Tom Cruise version of “War of the Worlds” came out there were a few other small budget movies that came out at the same time.

I guess we could ask if this is an ethical practice, but they aren’t breaking any laws by putting out a similar product as far as I understand. I assume it’s the same thing as going to the store and seeing ‘Cocoa-Roos’ next to the ‘Cocoa-Puffs’. Purposely trying to mislead someone on Amazon is pretty shifty, but I guess it just shows how careful you have to be as a consumer these days.

Cable companies have to be the worst companies ever

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:51:16 -0500

Cable companies have to be the worst companies ever :

You rarely hear anything good about cable companies and this short article is no different. It talks about a man who moved from an area that offered only Time Warner cable to an area that offered only Comcast cable. So Time Warner shouldn’t be concerned with what this customer is doing unless he moves back into an area that he services..

Except they (Time Warner) actually sent him a letter to his new address recommending he switch to Comcast! WHY?? The two companies are not owned by the same corporation. They have no interest in what he does. The only thing I can think is that they are trying to persuade customers not to switch to satellite. But who has to pay for these mailings? Obviously Time Warner customers have to foot that bill. Mediacom customers have to do the same thing every time they send me a piece of mail or pay an employee to call me and try to sell me home phone service. It’s a joke and these are just a couple reasons people hate the cable company.

Comedy in Chapter 19

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:27:41 -0500

The book asks how long it was after 9/11 before you heard a joke about the events, and did it seems okay to you? I remember watching Saturday Night Live not long after it happened and I remember the comedy was very different from what is usually on the show. I remember there was a Will Ferrell skit where he played President Bush as usual, only instead of portraying him as kind of stupid, Ferrell made him kind seem tough and the comedy was actually pretty patriotic. After Ferrell would say something the audience would cheer.

It seemed really positive to me at the time. They got some of the firefighters on stage at the beginning of the episode and they had the mayor on there too, I think. It was actually kind of nice to see all this on SNL and then have some comedy too.

Reality Television

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:11:30 -0500

I was reading chapter 18 and it mentioned reality television. I remember Dr. Larson talking to our introduction to media class a few years ago and telling us that ‘reality’ TV was moving toward being scripted and that most of it would be scripted in the next couple of years. When I look at shows on TRU-TV I can see she was right. In fact I think most reality shows have writers now. The only shows I can think of that might not be scripted are shows like intervention or hoarders. These shows are pretty formulaic, though, which kind of makes them less real to me in some sense. The more you edit video interviews of people (which it seems like they do quite a bit on these two shows) the less real it seems in my opinion.

Short URL: http://con.st/10028713 huzzah! Public Shaming Does The Job: Bank Of America Gives Army Vet His $25K Back

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:39:00 -0500

Short URL: http://con.st/10028713 huzzah! Public Shaming Does The Job: Bank Of America Gives Army Vet His $25K Back:

This article talks about a soldier who’s debit card information was stolen overseas. His card was used to rack up $25,000 worth of fraudulent charges. Bank of America refused to cover the charges at first and it took two years to get the money back. Only after the story went public and there was a backlash on the web in support of the soldier did B of A decide they should do the right thing.

This demonstrates the power of the internet to expose the practices of greedy companies. It makes me feel a little more confident as a consumer to know that every once in a while a company is forced to do the right thing by a public shaming. Maybe more corporations will try harder to do the right thing in the first place to avoid these messy PR accidents.

Time Magazines top Twitter Feeds

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 10:14:00 -0500

Time Magazines top Twitter Feeds:

If you need people to follow on twitter, this article has a couple good feeds. I use twitter to follow athletes and sports bloggers mostly, but I do follow a few comedians and people like that. This list looks like mostly political satirists and people that talk about media. There were a couple cool accounts like Neil deGrasse Tyson, that looked interesting. And then there was Dolly Parton for some reason. I haven’t heard of the majority of these people.

Google Glasses?

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 09:55:55 -0500

Google Glasses?:

The story says that these glasses won’t be available for a long time. This is probably good news since people can’t even drive a car without texting. Imagine how annoying it will be when people get these things. Bluetooth headsets are bad enough, but this will probably be much much worse.

This article also said that tech bloggers in general aren’t that excited about these things, but that individuals on twitter were going nuts over them. I like the concept and I can see why people are excited, but I think it’s going to be a long time before we actually see a practical application of this technology, based on what I have read.

Facebook responds to claims of companies asking job applicants for social media passwords

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:10:45 -0500

Facebook responds to claims of companies asking job applicants for social media passwords:

By now I’m sure everyone has heard about the article that was printed in the Chicago tribune last week. It said that a shocking number of companies, particularly in the public sector, are asking job applicants for the PASSWORDS to their social media sites.

On their blog, Facebook condemned this practice and called it ‘alarming’. I think most people would agree. I would never give a potential employer the password to my account. I wouldn’t even give them the link to my profile. I say things on facebook and twitter that I don’t really mean. I say stupid things on there regularly to try to make my friends laugh. Who would submit to giving an employer their password anyway? If I wanted the job bad enough, I would simply delete the account and tell them I didn’t have one.

Furthermore, if I was a manager or a human resources employee (I guess this is who would look at your account…) I would never log onto someone’s facebook and read their messages.

Mockumentaries

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:31:26 -0500

In chapter 18 the book talks about documentaries and mockumentaries. I’ve loved the mockumentary genre since I saw “Best in show” a few years ago. I wasn’t sure how it would work on television with “The office” and shows like that, but I became a fan pretty quickly. One of HBO’s newest shows, “Life’s Too Short” was created by Ricky Gervais also and it uses the same documentary style as The Office.

I caught the last part of an interview with Gervais and writer Stephen Merchant. They were asked why they went back to the documentary style and they said the main advantage was that the audience feels like they are in the action. The characters can talk straight to the camera and during those intimate shots the audience is forced to feel what the characters are feeling. I kept this in mind when watching the show and it’s totally true. When an actor is in an embarrassing situation and looks at the camera you really are forced to feel it with them. I never noticed it before but I can see how that would be an advantage for a TV series.