If you’ve been on the internet for a while, you’ve likely run into fandoms or even been a part of a few yourself. For me, I grew up on the internet and all that came with it. I became heavily invested in the shows I enjoyed, finding communities online who shared my interest, and finding even more media to consume made by that community. That’s the thing about fandoms, they don’t just enjoy and consume the content produced, but as the reading this week states, they’re producers in their own way. This means fan fiction, fan art, fan merchandise, etc.

I’ve also found that fandoms have a weird way of interacting with the sources of their interest like the actors and writers. It can become obsessive, like learning all about the actors and writers, or not seeing them as their own people an only see their connection to the show. While that has definitely been scary at times I’m sure, fandoms also have their own unique way of affecting the show. Most people watch something, react, then move on with their lives. Some people in fandoms, I mostly noticed when I was younger, is that when they want something changed in a show, whether it be a critique on plot, character writing, etc. they make sure it is heard by those who have the power to take that criticism.

I feel like if your media has a fandom, there’s some major pros and cons. On one hand, you have a massive following absolutely dedicated to what you create. Not only will they consume the show, but they’re also extremely likely to buy the products you sell based off the show and attend events if you hold them. Fandoms also have a tendency to become relatively well known. The fact that the fans are well known would likely lead to exposure to the original content, basically free advertising. I do feel like there are downsides though. Fandoms do like to create media using your characters and world, and even sell their own media based off that. At what point is that ok and not stealing, when does that line get drawn. I know Nintendo has shown issue with this kind of thing at some points. To many people’s disagreement, Nintendo is very strict and heavy with their copyright and it can tend to become a dangerous game if you wish to sell things with their material in it. There’s also a con to a fandom becoming well known, even though that still has pros. Sometimes these communities get toxic and they start turning on themselves and others for any number of reasons. I’ve known people who refuse to even watch a show because of fans they’ve run into of that show. Imagine having this amazing show, but no one will watch because the fans of it are so horrible.

My question for the class is, if you were to have a show, or series of movies, would you want a fandom or not. Why? Do you see them as a valuable benefit, is it just a nice sentiment?

If you take a look at current media, whether it be TV shows, news, popular music, etc. I think we can all agree, there’s definitely not enough representation. Not only are there just not enough people of color, but it’s also just not proportional to the diversity of our general population. Sure there’s some representation here and there, but I’ve seen lots of people say it’s like you opened up a bag full of M&M’s and instead of seeing a nice mix of those blues, reds, browns, etc. You see an entire bag of blues, and a single yellow. And now you’re supposed to feel appreciative of that. It feels like the bare minimum right?

Not only is it downright discouraging to see such a lack of representation on the daily, but it’s also damaging in so many ways. As pointed out in chapter 14, Ethical Issues in Mass Media, a lot of news rooms tend to be mostly white both on and off screen. With this lack of diversity, a lot of current issues that involve BIPOC are either grossly under reported, or misrepresented. When a place like the news is mostly populated by those with privilege, in this case white privilege, it’s not surprising that majority of the topics reported are from a privileged point of view and analysis. Privilege and lack there of shapes people’s experiences as they go through life, and so their way of perceiving and understanding situations is going to be different depending on their life too. White people are going to be more concerned about what directly affects them, and they’re going to share their analysis of it, based on their experience. A person of color might have concerns about issues other than those mostly being reported, and on those that are, they might have an entirely different viewpoint on the situation. That’s why diversity in media is so important. With more diversity, a wider collection of stories, important to a wider audience, could be reported and there would be multiple valuable takes on what’s being presented. I feel like this would also help provide more relevant news for everyone, and in turn, multiple groups of people can use some of the same sources of information. It’s great to have a couple of sources you go to, but a lot of those considered to be the most trustworthy are mainly white, and thus are bound to run into the issues mentioned above. It’s obvious people are going to want to go somewhere they’re better represented and catered to, but it also leads to a sort of dissonance between the sources different people consider to be the most trustworthy.

There’s a long way to go until I feel the news can truly cater to everyone who needs it sadly. But I hope that’s something our generation and the ones after us can change for the better. Other than the lack of representation both on screen and off, I would like to ask if you feel there are other things that need to change in order to create better news?

We’ve all seen ratings on movies and TV shows. Who hasn’t as a 16 year old wanted to see a movie SO bad only to find out it’s rated R and you know your parents won’t take you. And to lead off of that, one of the benefits of turning 18 being that you can finally go and watch whatever you want. It’s a common joke that kids dress up in a giant trench coat to try and sneak into movies they’re not allowed to see. Things like this kinda make it feel like it’s just another one of those things we deal with in life and it is how it is. But should it be? Sure, it’s probably a good idea to keep your young children from seeing borderline hardcore pornography, but when does it begin to feel like it makes the human body controversial?

As you watched the movie This Film is Not Yet Rated, you begin to notice some of the common themes that the MPAA seems to censor. A couple of scenes showing someone being brutally beaten, shot, and bloodied would certainly be the biggest concern, right? Violence can be disturbing and it’s been a longtime argument that younger minds might become desensitized to that or begin to glorify it. But that in fact isn’t true. It seems the MPAA has much more concern around the human body, something very natural. As an art student, even in 9th grade, I came to terms that the body isn’t something to be shunned or seen as horribly inappropriate. I came to appreciate the body as a natural beauty, and something that should be less stigmatized. We sketched a nude model and her curves, how the skin folds, and the flow of how the body stretches and sits. Yet the MPAA is shown to heavily censor scenes where a woman’s pubic hair shows, or where a woman is deriving pleasure from sex. Again, all very natural things. Though, if you were born female, you know women’s bodies are already under constant restriction and criticism, it’s nothing all too new. Women are expected to be rid of their natural body hair or else they’re seen as disgusting, and it’s a common shared experience that women don’t typically get off during sex if it’s with a cisgender male. In a way, the MPAA rating seems to be very sexist in the way it rates movies. A point brought up in the movie is how a lot of things are to be seen through the male perspective, and a woman being natural or enjoying herself seems unnatural or gross. Not even to touch on the apparent censorship of LGBT+ narratives.

We discussed before how movies are supposed to reflect the time and public feeling. Movies are being made to do exactly that, to show that women with pubic hair are natural and they should be able to have pleasure in sex, but it’s being censored. The MPAA seems to be a direct road block in the progression of movies and what current artists in the industry feel is important to touch upon. In a way, it’s trying to keep views stagnant and contain the views of those now coming into the industry. Though I believe ratings and censorship is to an extent, something that should exist, I believe that as it is today is unacceptable and needs to change. Movies need to be able to speak on what they want and express thoughts on the world today.

Do you feel that the way movies are rated needs to change? If so, do you have any idea on how?

With this week’s look into the world of cinema, a lot of significance is placed on how movies interact and influence the world around us. It’s easy to think we have lots of control over how we think and act, but how true is that?

As talked about in the textbook, chapter 8: Movies, movies tend to reflect the time they are made. With this, popular beliefs or sentiments are commonly found tucked into the films. The movie Birth of a Nation by D. W. Griffith is a stellar example of this. Almost unsurprisingly, racism shows it’s face in the almost 3-hour film and is sadly cheered on. If that were to happen today, there would probably be shock or outrage instead of joy. Unfortunately, it’s a product of it’s time when the opinions they cared about would be those who cheer for the film. Eventually, it did spark riots mostly by those who were a victim of that oppressive narrative. But you have to imagine, there were probably those who supported and even defended the film, not seeing what is wrong with it. The common thoughts of the time probably provided them enough justification to ignore those who were hurt, and if I’ve learned anything about racists, opposition to their views only seems to make them retreat into those same views even further.

On the same idea of how movies influence us, Disney comes to mind almost immediately. Though there are definitely adults who enjoy some of their movies to this day, it’s well known that they’re produced for a child audience. Along with being produced for children, it’s almost a given that there’s some type of big lesson for kids to take away at the end of the movie. Now, most kids don’t just see that lesson and then toss it aside, a lot of the times it influences how they act and interact with others. Beauty and the Beast teaches you not to judge others by first glance, The Princess and the Frog teaches you that you need to work hard to get what you want, Aladdin teaches you that if you feel tied down by rules or standards, you need to change them. Through these fantastical stories and songs, children learn important life lessons on how to be good people and respect others and themselves. While a lot of the time things like this are positive, with the wrong intentions it can teach children to be intolerant of others and perhaps shun others for being who they are.

It’s a little scary to think something so simple as a bad movie when you’re little can make you who you are today. That doesn’t always have to mean that you’re a bad person either, but it could mean it shapes your fears or first thoughts about things. Maybe you watched a scary movie with a monster that would hide in the shadows, now to this day you need to have a light on when you sleep or else you’re nervous. Maybe you watched a movie with a killer taxi driver and to this day, you’re a little too hesitant to get in a taxi or an uber. You know the person driving probably isn’t going to try and kill you, but because you saw it at a time in your life when you’re learning how the world works, your brain made that connection. How do you think movies influenced you throughout your life? To this day I can’t sleep with my door open because the amount of movies where someone watches their victim through the crack of the door or something like that. I used to also be scared of attics because of Beetlejuice! I always thought I’d somehow find him up there.

The internet is a fast developing, incredibly vast tool. It would be hard to find someone these days who doesn’t use the internet in their day to day life, even children. Growing up, the internet was my source of entertainment other than crafts or playing outside. I grew up playing on websites like Webkinz and Neopets. Even in kindergarten, I was online and experiencing the benefits of the internet, playing with kids from around the states. Eventually, as I got older I used it even more for education and continued to use it for entertainment, just in different ways such as social media. In my high school experience, we used the internet as a tool every single day. Sometimes we would be given a worksheet we need to do research for in order to answer, sometimes something would come up that nobody quite understood and so everyone would grab their phones to search it up. Our society runs on the internet these days and I can’t imagine what would happen if suddenly that wasn’t something that was so easy for us to access.

That brings up the question on are we too reliant on the internet? We’ve become so accustomed to having it, how much of a downfall would happen if it were to leave. This kind of question scares me to an extent, but then I think about how reliant we are on other things such as lighting, fridges, etc. There was a time when those didn’t exist and we ended up being reliant, but we don’t question if that’s good or bad today like I had questioned the internet. I feel like in the future, we will feel the same about it as we do with electricity. It is basically a constant in our lives that we expect to be there, and usually, if it goes down, we only have to spend a couple of days without it, except for the situation of natural disasters.

Another worrying question about the internet is censorship. As discussed in class, a lot of us never realized but there are people who have to censor for the public what is displayed online. They’re forced to watch and see and read the horrible disgusting things that they have to deem are too bad for everyone else to see. But what exactly are they censoring? Should we be worried? While I believe it’s healthy to have some amount of worry and suspicion of censorship, as it could easily be used to censor things not for our well being but instead for someone’s agenda. I also believe that a healthy amount of censorship is needed. Already you see studies and articles about how people are becoming numb to things because with technology today we are fed every ounce of bad news that could happen in a day, every day. Obviously, that doesn’t mean those things should be censored from our view, more we need to learn as people what our limit is, but it does beg the question of could we really handle the raw, uncensored internet. I don’t think we could. People talk about the dark web/deep web all the time and how scary and mysterious it is, I believe that within itself is a glimpse into an uncensored internet. I for one am grateful for not having to see a lot of what is censored, I don’t know if I would be able to use the internet as easily as I do now if it were not.

(no pictures because wordpress literally wouldn’t let me and I’m too tired to do this)

Like last week, the discussion about television and it’s value in our society continues. This week the idea of TV shows being used for not only entertainment but also as education. We’ve all been through the struggle of having to read Shakespeare and other texts that, let’s be honest, are a bit outdated. As stated in the reading about using Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a post-modern teaching tool, a lot of the texts we are mandated to consume in school are mostly written by and about white straight cisgender men. Using post modern text, more specifically television, provides a more diverse and up to date views and stories. They can include women, people of color, the LGBT+ community, etc. all of which could be included in a text format, but aren’t commonly represented, and even if they are in books, it’s not as evident. Television also provides a way of learning that’s a bit different than reading a book. Even if you aren’t a fan of a show, it’s still somewhat easy to follow along and get the gist. If you don’t like a book you’re reading, it’s easy to get side tracked, not take in any information, or zone out. It also presents more ways to digest the information you’re given. The episode Hush from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great example of how many ways you can take in information.

One advantage of television is how many ways it can relay information. As previously stated, Buffy shows this well. Books are very basic, you read the words on the page, and sometimes, you create an image in your mind to associate with what the text is saying. TV allows you to see the character’s actions, social cues, emotions, etc. You can also listen to what they’re saying, how they’re saying it, when they say it, etc. Lastly, you could also still be reading when watching a show, but even that has much more context and information than just text, you can see how it’s written, where, why, and so on. Overall, TV shows provide much more context and information to the audience, you could see how helpful that would be in a learning environment, especially if you’re trying to analyze situations like most literature classes tend to do. This would also make learning a bit more accessible. Not everyone is able to take information in the same way as a lot of people are, text is a very hard medium of language to get emotion from sometimes, and with out the context of emotion, a lot of situations can be misinterpreted greatly.

Television being present in classrooms also provides the opportunity to provide a more diverse education. It could start conversations about things like social issues such as racism and sexism that otherwise might not have even been thought about. Buffy provides a strong female lead who takes charge but also deals with human issues. Most books used in education don’t have anything like this, representation of all groups is important whether you are a part of that group or not. Television also helped to give a platform to many female comedians who otherwise might not have been able to find the success they did in the industry without it. Some of the comedians, discussing matters that are important to them, were frowned upon because it’s something people thought should not be talked about. This media is important in so many ways regarding diversity and education, and amplifying the voices of people who in other media’s don’t have them.

My question regarding the content this week is about TV being used for education. Do you think more classrooms will implement shows like Buffy into their class content or do you think this will remain as a rarity within schools?

Growing up with TV all my life, I tend to take it for granted. In the present day, TV’s seem to be going out of fashion, or at least cable. A majority of people I know, including myself, usually find ourselves watching shows, videos, or movies on our phones, laptops, or tablets. Occasionally the TV in my suite is used for a movie night here and there, but that’s about it. Whereas I remember when I was little, I would wake up, watch TV. Eating lunch, watch TV. Bored, watch TV. Going to bed, watch TV. I remember when I would run off the school bus to sit down and watch some cartoon on Cartoon Network until it was time for me to do homework. It was a constant in my everyday life, as I’m sure it was in many others, but one day that just stopped being the case. One thing I’m sure I didn’t run into too much when I was younger and watching television was politics. Maybe there were some veiled political comments in my shows that I was too young for, but until later on in life, it wasn’t something I encountered.

As seen in the reading and the documentary we watched this week, Rod Sterling: Submitted for your Approval, television has seemed to flip and flop on the idea of politics being a part of the shown programming. Obviously, around the 70’s shows started to pop up that had a bit more political commentary in them, both direct and not. But then, there’s a change of heart. Once real life becomes “too political” all traces of commentary almost disappear from any entertainment type show. News channels still exist and such, reporting on the pressing current events of their time, but entertainment shows start to change. You can also kind of see this within the Rod Sterling documentary. He discusses the desire to make social and political comments and discussions, but brings up that no one would want to buy that show and allow him to broadcast it. To get someone to purchase his show The Twilight Zone, he had to veil it as something magical and fantasy. Even after being seen as something fantastical, Sterling still had to disguise his views and lessons within fiction of the show. He would never be able to make an episode about racial tensions or lynching, or the evils of man happening in his very present, but changing that into something people can feel distant from at first glance, he was able to broadcast it.

Even with television never being sure it’s opinion on politics in shows, this mass media brought consumers to a higher level of awareness than before, regarding what was happening in the world. Kennedy’s assassination, images from Vietnam, etc. all were shown to a brand new audience and it gave people a much more confrontational form of news that other mass media doesn’t seem to provide. The images from Vietnam sparked protests and then it was clear how different the public’s participation would be in events like this. To this day, television and internet push this kind of awareness on the public, that with out these methods of mass media, might have never come to exist. You can see it today with Black Lives Matter and even recently the reveal of forced sterilization in ICE camps. The everyday person is seeing this news and the horrible brutality and injustice against BIPOC, and can find ways to act on their opinion about this. Throughout the BLM movement, I’ve noticed a lot of debate about television news verses social media/the internet, mostly about who is reporting about what. I wonder if television is possibly about to go through another time of shows with no political presence and only news commenting on that kind of thing. Maybe things have progressed too far for that to be able to happen. The time we’re in now seems to be so similar to the past, yet so unbelievably different.

With all the content this week about music and radio, there’s definitely a lot to talk about. I found it interesting how many juxtaposing views there are throughout all of the developments in this particular media. It seems with every new advancement and change that happens to music, someone is helped and someone is hurt. When the gramophone came out, it made music more accessible to the middle class which is fantastic, but at the time it greatly hurt those who sold sheet music. Again when records came out and then CD’s and so on. Every time there’s greater accessibility, at least one market gets hurt. Looking back on this though, I don’t think anyone would say it shouldn’t have happened. As said in the showing we watched, Downloaded, it seems that those who sell music become too complacent with the current times and feel the repercussions of that once things change. These advancements end up helping so many people in a vast amount of ways in the long run, it’s a shame to know how many of these were most likely hated on or discouraged because of how they force the market to change. Imagine a world where something like the record was never developed because the dent in the previous industry it would cause. It’s almost impossible to try and think of it!

The best example of the shunning developments receive within the music industry is Napster. While it was being created and used people demonized it and focused on how it harms certain people instead of the incredible improvements that came from it and the possibilities it could be used for. Thankfully, it’s been a while since Napster happened and we can now see how it’s influenced the current music industry and how things have changed. It was one of the first ways of truly spreading music, yes it is considered pirating or stealing, seeing as once one person had the music, anyone else using the service would also be able to listen to it. However, it helped many artists in different ways. Some artists saw more fans than they could imagine at distance concerts purely because Napster introduced so many people to their music. Sure the download is free, but people love to find other ways to support musicians such as seeing them live or purchasing merchandise. Instead of viewing Napster as hurting one way and helping in another, I feel it should be seen for how it instead shifted how the market works.

Throughout all the developments in the history of music and radio, music was made more and more available to those who are not seen as elite. Music has always been available to everyone, but as an industry, it had to be forced to allow more people into it’s market. Not only did these advancements allow for at this current time, basically anyone to have access to all music, but it allowed for more diversity in music that gets pushed into the public’s view. The use of the internet especially encouraged more people to gain success with music. No longer did you need to be associated with a label or anything like that to have your music heard. At this point you just need to find a platform to upload your music and most likely, it will amass some kind of traffic. It makes me very happy to know that music has become much less of a corporate structure and has been changed to what it is today. It makes me wonder what the next kind of change in the industry might happen. What are the problems that still exist with the current system of music sharing and what kind of opposition might any fixes face? It’s hard to remember that what the present is like now is bound to change, it’s easy to say “well of course that would get improved upon” to past things like records, but it’s not as easy to have the same view with our present.

When I was doing this week’s reading on newspapers, over all it was pretty interesting to see just how intertwined everything in our daily lives is with the growth and development of newspapers, something I don’t think much about. They helped to spread so much information and ideologies, thinking about it now, who knows how different history might’ve been if it weren’t for that development. Although the change of structures and approach in making papers, such as the penny papers or literary journalism, is admittedly pretty interesting, my attention seems to keep wandering back to a specific subject within the reading.

Yellow journalism is something I glossed over for most of my education, taught to me as only being propaganda about the Spanish-American War. This reading showed me that it was a bit more than just that, and it also helped to create what I’ve been most interested in this week, stunt journalism. More specifically Elizabeth Cochrane’s stunt journalism. I remembered hearing about her particular stunt of making her way into a mental asylum before though I’m not sure where. I’ve always been a true crime fan, and as some might know that tends to leak into other areas of history too, including how mental health was handled in the past and what people might have had to go through. Getting back on track, I feel like it’s very entertaining to learn about a woman like Elizabeth, she’s not how most would imagine a woman of her time. It’s amazing to hear about a woman putting herself into extreme situations for something like journalism. The reading had stated “…stunts such as these were considered lowbrow entertainment and female stunt reporters were often criticized…” but I believe that this kind of journalism could be seen as much more given the right attention. Sure, it’s probably very entertaining to hear about such a removed place you’ve most likely never been, such as a mental asylum, but I feel it could hold educational value. A lot of mental patients at that time most likely weren’t given voices or seen as their opinion holding any value, for Elizabeth to do this, it’s almost like she’s being a voice. Now I haven’t read her piece, and my opinion could possibly change if I did depending on how she wrote, but I feel like her piece could provide a great clear view on what went on in the New York City Lunatic Asylum. I would even guess her article could be used as a primary source.

Thinking about the idea of stunt journalism, I would like to ask the class if maybe they can think of a present example. I believe there’s probably a bit more modern stunt media that we consume, but is there anyone you can think of that holds as much of a shock factor as Elizabeth did in her time?

Hey! My name’s Danny. I’m non-binary and go by they/them pronouns. I’m currently a sophomore in Art and Design right now, taking glass and sculpture studios. When I first got here, I was super interested in 2D animation, but I’ve since shifted interest into tattoos and considering that as a career path.

I was born in Rochester, and I grew up in some smaller areas called Batavia and Le Roy. Alfred feels a bit like home since it’s not very city like and has a smaller population but it’s definitely more populated and active than Le Roy.

Back to art, it’s one of my biggest interests in life. I grew up drawing and creating with different materials and just never stopped. I constantly pick up new interests and after a bit get bored and have to find something to move onto, but art has never disappeared from my interest, so it’s only fitting I find a way to meld my life into it. Most artists use art as a way to translate and express their feelings and while I probably do that in some ways, I mostly use art as a way to escape and cope. I have lots of sensory issues and small things that most people probably wouldn’t even think about can send me into something like a panic attack where it’s the only thing I can focus on. Sometimes art, usually patterns I like to mess around with, helps me to focus on something else and distract from what’s causing me issues.

Overall, art’s provided me with so much, and I have no idea where I’d be without it. I’m super interested in seeing how mass media and art interact and play off of each other and I’m excited to see how I might be able to have that influence what I make while I’m at Alfred and later on in life.