I Am SO Glad I Don't Live In Jersey - Media Meditation #8

As I sit here trying to come up with a topic for my 8th and final media meditation, I start to thinking about what media I am currently consuming. I've already written about Facebook and Craig's List (two tabs I have open at the moment) so that's a bust. What about that background noise, the television. When I'm home I usually have the television on constantly just so I don't feel so alone in my 1 bedroom apartment. When I'm trying to work on homework I put on something I'm not terribly interested in so that I won't tune out my homework in favor of the TV.

Tonight's selection is "True Life: I Have a Summer Share" with the description: "Young people fuse together to rent weekend share houses on the Jersey Shore." Here's a little taste below for your viewing pleasure:



At this point, you are most likely agreeing whole heartily with this blog post's title.

Now, let's analyze their first tactic for picking up girls, waving them down on the side of the road with a "Let's Get Naked" sign. While these men were quite smart in attempting to reach the reptilian brain going for the natural instinct of sexual needs and the instinct to reproduce. However, they failed to realize that the reptilian brain contains the "fight or flight" function, and looking at them, I'd say the reaction is to run, and fast.

Another aspect of this tactic is the use of the neocortex. By holding a sign with writing on it, women driving by would need to use high levels of brain function to drive safely AND process the words on their sign at the same time. Taking this high level of brain function into consideration, these men were not aiming for their target market. They were hoping for attractive women who would be sexually promiscuous with them. Women with the high level of brain function needed to perform this task are certainly not the type to get with these guys. If they really wanted to attract their target market they should have had a much less sophisticated appeal.

Of course, who I am to judge? As I learned in our Media and Society text, social construction of reality is when a reality exists and we negotiate the meaning of that reality (pg. 7). These are just "Leah's Thoughts" and that doesn't mean everyone will agree with me. Especially this guy:

"Are You 'Friends' With Jonathan?" - Media Mediation #7

Below is a screen shot of my limited friends list, a list of my friends that I have set limits on as to what they can see on my Facebook. The list was too long to get to fit on the entire screen, but all but 1 person on that list are family members.




The day my mom got a Facebook was the same day Facebook officially became uncool for me. I love my mom to death and she is my best friend, but trying to explain how Facebook works to someone who has never used it before is very frustrating. She would (and still does) constantly ask me questions like "What is tagging?", "What is a wall?", "Have you ever used this chat thing before?" and other questions that to Facebook users would ignite a "Duh" or I-can't-believe-you-don't-know response. She tells me every time she has a new "friend" or if she chats with her sister (my aunt). She'll word it as, "I chatted with Aunt Mary this morning!" So? I understand it is exciting for her learning this new technology, but boy does it bring the cool factor way down. It's like a 21-year-old rocking out to their favorite new song and then seeing a 12-year-old girl doing the same thing while wearing a Hannah Montana shirt. My favorite mom-moment was when I was sitting next to her while she was on her computer and she was talking about all her "friends" on Facebook and very excitedly asked, "Are you "friends" with Jonathan??" (Jonathan is my cousin). I responded, "Yes, in fact, I have been friends with Jonathan long before Facebook was even invented!"

What is a "friend" anyway? Were we not friends with these people before Facebook? Actually, most of them probably not. The majority of my Facebook "friends" I wouldn't call friends in real-life at all, just acquaintances.

Therefore, this post will be dedicated to pointing out some of Facebook's persuasion techniques:

Beginning with, big lie! Sure you have 1,000-something Facebook "friends" but those people aren't your friends. How many of them would come running if you were stuck in a jam. How many of them would help you move? That's the real test of a friend!

Next, symbols, Facebook allows the user to have a little tagline or phrase underneath their default photo on their page. Many people use this to say a quick bit about themselves usually through a famous quote or song lyric which is supposed to symbolize who they are as a person.

Flattery is absolutely a factor due to the default photo option. You know every person picks the most attractive or flattering version of themselves to be the default photo. It's the first photo you see when you go to your page, you want it to make a good impression.

Then we go on to hyperbole, since Facebook began as a college social networking site, many of the status updates, wall posts, and photos upload are those promoting a "cool" lifestyle. Photos of themselves out drinking and partying with friends. They put the "coolest" version of themselves up for their peers to see. This is clearly a hyperbole of their life, exaggerating their social lifes making it seem like that's all there is. They may have posted, "Out with the girls tonight!" when in reality they are at home studying for a test the next day.

Do I even really need to explain bandwagon? Come on, everyone's doing it.

Again (sorry for the repetition -- get it? get it? Persuasion techniques, ha!) we see the best version of the person with beautiful people. Although they may not be beautiful (who am I to judge? Social construction of reality, people!) they can certainly look that way by being the gatekeeper of their photos.

Group dynamics comes in to play with the networking aspect. Through groups, and other ways, people can feel like they are part of something.

To Whom It May Concern - Media Meditation #6

I'm not the biggest fan of mass texts, but on the other hand, if you're left out of a mass text what does that say? You're not good enough to even text when it's going to a large group of people? It's a double-edged sword and everyone has a different opinion about it.

That's why I was a little bit nervous when I needed to send out a mass email. I had gotten so many replies from my Craig's List posting that I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I had been able to respond to the first few emails personally, but more and more just kept coming in. So many people had different questions and wondered when they could come see the place. I'm graduating in 2.5 weeks and am already so overwhelmed with schoolwork I wondered how I was going to fit showings in to 30 different people as well. I scheduled 3 showings, all with friends of friends so I didn't have to worry about sketchy Craig's List people/strangers. I started thinking, what happens if the first person who comes decides they want it on the spot and I've already scheduled showings with these 30 other people and now I have to go back and cancel them all? I decided my best option would be to send out a mass email answering everyone question that had been asked. I also explained my process for scheduling showings. They would need to send an email back saying they were still interested and I would schedule showings in the order they came in, if they first few people before them hadn't decided they wanted the apartment yet.

I was worried that I was sounding rude and controlling, I made sure I apologized in the email for it being a mass email but that it was in the interest of not wasting their time. After a few hours I received 5 emails back from people saying they were still interested. Some even said they appreciated just getting a response even if it was a mass. If they emailed me with the "I'm Still Interested!" message, I emailed them back personally and thanked them for their patience and gave them an expected date to hear back from me.

This is an example of the personal shift -- from mass to personal; or rather in my case, from personal to mass back to personal. These people emailed me with a personal message, intended just for me. I emailed them all back at once with a mass message intended for all receipients and was not tailored to any one person. If they responded to the mass email, I emailed yet again but this time going back to personal by addressing their particular questions or concerns individually.

From the Media and Society text, "...a sociological perspective -- what he called the 'sociological imagination' -- enables us to see the connections between 'private troubles' and 'public issues.' Such a perspective suggests that we can understand the condition of the individual only by situating that person in the larger context of society" (pg. 18). The people who did not respond to my mass email may have decided that I was rude and controlling. However, maybe the people who did respond decided they understood my perspective. They understood the larger situation of feeling overwhelmed with a large number of responses and not quite knowing how to handle the situation.

Below is another example of a mass message -- a mass text. Although the successfulness of the following mass message is unknown, it's safe to say mine was probably more well received.

Dear CNN, I Hate Your New Homepage. Love, Leah - Media Meditation #5

A few weeks ago, the "New" CNN was born. I don't know what mother CNN was on when she was pregnant, but the "New" CNN did not come out pretty. I unfortunately did not foresee this change coming so I do not have a screen shot of what the old CNN looked like. The old CNN had the most important story on the left side of the screen first with a photo and then the first paragraph and the viewer would click to read more. On the right were links to other news stories. Below is a screen shot of the "New" CNN:



The most important story is still located on the left, however, it used to be the only photo so it would stand out. Now, it competes with a video of a feature story and an advertisement. If you look closely you can even see that the advertisement on the right is bigger than the most important news story! I was furious the first time I saw the "New" CNN. I would see television commercials touting how great the "New" CNN is, yeah, right. Now, instead of my eye being drawn to the big story of the moment, I'm seeing fluffy feature pieces and advertisements for getting an online degree.

This is an example of both an aesthetic shift and an economic shift -- hyper commercialism. This is an aesthetic shift because they were trying to make their website more attractive to visitors by appealing to the limbic brain with more pictures and videos. This new makeover (or under?) blurs the lines between news and entertainment. The economic shift shows the hyper commercialism blatant in the fact that the advertisement is larger than the most important news story! CNN clearly gets more advertising dollars because their advertisers get more room and impression than they did on the old CNN. The Media and Society book says, "It appears that, rather than transporting information, the internet has become a 'virtual mall,' with corporations trying new ways to sell us all sorts of products." (pg. 13) Even our news source is trying to sell to us!

OMG R U 4 Reeelzzz?! - Media Meditation #4

Before I go on with this blog post, I'd like to give a disclaimer: I am in no way claiming innocence with this very serious issue. I have been a grammar and punctuation offender plenty of times in the past. However, I like to think that I know the time and the place to use text-talk or disregard proper sentence mechanics in the interest of time or based on who is the intended receiver of my message.

I digress.

As I've blogged about before, I have lots of experience using Craig's List. While I am using it to rent out my apartment, I am also using it to sell my furniture. I have multiple pieces of furniture for sale and have been getting a few responses. One in particular stood out:

"Hi I like to c the stuff so if u can ? can u give me call plzz I can b reach at 802-***-**** thans ."

No, I did not edit that (besides blocking out the phone number). Someone actually emailed me that and expected a response.

This may be a stretch, but I think this is an epistemological shift -- from word to image. Although it is not an actual image, but still words, they much more represent an image than anything close to words. Since when was "c", "u", "plzz", "b" and "thans" added to the dictionary? When I read this, or tried to read this, I was flabbergasted. I thought and expected that people know when there should be a certain level of professionalism. The way this person (I don't even know if they were male or female since they didn't sign a name) wrote to me, I didn't see words but rather an image of a very unmature and ignorant person for writing in such a manner to a complete stranger through email.

This is another good example of social construction of reality. The reality is the way this person writes. What I can only assume to be their construction of this reality is that they think it's cool, young, and hip. This construction came through their socialization, maybe their friends type that way. My construction of this reality is that it's incredibly unprofessional and inappropriate. My construction came through my socialization of applying for jobs and writing cover letters, etc.

Data Plan Overload! - Media Mediation #3

From my past blog entry, you know all about my apartment renting troubles. Most recently I have listed my apartment on Craig's List. I really wasn't expecting a ton of responses, and I thought it would be a long and difficult road. I am still in the process, however, my expectations thus far have been exceeded. I received 30+ emails from people inquiring about the apartment. Normally, this would have been fantastic, however, I had just gotten a new phone and my very first data plan.


From the Motorola website, "The Motorola Karma QA1 combines texting and social media. IM-style texting provides conversational-style communication. The slide-out keyboard keeps the phone compact."

I had previously owned a Blackberry but since I'm cheap and still on Mommy and Daddy's plan, I never had a data plan. My Blackberry had an unfortunate accident and broke. My top priority in a new phone was a full keyboard. All the phones with full keyboards were smart phones. I decided I had better make the switch over from paperweight mode to full functioning smart phone and buy a data plan.

This is also happened to be the day before I made my Craig's List posting. I had the email function up and working but only received one or two junk emails, but was excited to be connected even away from a computer. When my listing went live, my phone was blowing up nonstop! I received a new email almost every 10 minutes and was feeling incredibly overwhelmed with how I was going to respond to all of them and make appointments for showings with that many people. If the emails hadn't been coming to my phone, I wouldn't have been notified everytime I got a new messages, but rather I'd see them when I asked to see them, by signing into my email from a computer.

This is an example of the technological shift -- from analog to digital. I took photos of my apartment with my digital camera, uploaded them to Craig's List with a description, people then viewed my Craig's List post and emailed me, I then received that email on my cell phone. The Media and Society text explains that, "The communication media are the different technological processes that facilitate communications between (and are in the 'middle' of) the sender of the message and the receiver of that message" (pg. 7). Not only did this facilitate the communcation, but it was dead in the middle of it, without it, the apartment renting process would have been extremely difficult.

My Grocery Store is on Facebook...Seriously?! - Media Meditation #2

Again, seriously?!

If my mom wasn't already using Facebook (you'll hear more about that in another post), I'd say that this is the moment Facebook just became uncool. My grocery store, Superfresh, has a Facebook page. Not only do they have a Facebook page but they have 552 fans! I am shocked that 552 people actually care enough about their grocery store to be a fan of them on Facebook.



This is a prime example of an economic shift -- hyper commercialism and corporate consolidation. The mom and pop grocery stores are slowly dying down and being replaced by the Superfresh's of the world -- case in point, they are a large enough of a corporation to pay someone to be in charge of updating the Superfresh Facebook page.

Corporations are now devoting much of their advertising budgets to social media like Facebook. This creates a hyper commercialised online environment. Almost every webpage you go to, there's an ad. If it's not as blatant as a banner advertisement, maybe it's that 3 of your friends became fans of Superfresh and 2 of them "liked" their photo.

Facebook is exactly where corporate consolidation and corporations come into play. "In particular, integrated media conglomerates seeking the benefits of what industry insiders refer to as "synergy" are likely to favor products that can best be exploited by other components of the conglomerate." (pg. 44 of Media and Society) Facebook is the perfect product for corporations to use to exploit their target market, getting "inside" information on who they are, what they do, what they like, and use it to market to them.

Are You Sure You're Not Sketchy? - Media Meditation #1

Unfortunately, this Thanksgiving, while I was thankful for my loving family and my good health, many not so great things happened which I was not at all thankful for. A few weeks ago I put my apartment on the market to try and find a renter to take over the rest of my lease. I had finally found a new tenant and was very excited. I began selling my furniture and I moved about 1/2 of my stuff back home. Two weeks after this new renter decided she wanted the place, she called me, on Thanksgiving day, to tell me that a friend of hers showed her another apartment that was $200 less than mine and she was going to go with that one. Seriously?!

After much frustration of losing 2 weeks and having to start the search all over again, I listed the apartment on Craig's List and on my Facebook. Shortly after posting on both I had already received a few emails. There was one scammer email which I deleted and another one that seemed a little sketchy. It said:

"Hi,
I am very interested in your 1 bedroom available.
From what I can see in the photos, and based on your description, I could sign a lease as soon as possible.
Can I take a look at it in person?

Thanks so much,
dS"

He didn't even sign with his name! The name listed with the email address was Deke Smith. What kind of name is Deke?! I pushed the email aside since it seemed a little sketchy and decided that I would only respond if I started getting desperate. My Media and Society text tells me that "socialization is the process whereby we learn and internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of our culture and, in so doing, develop a sense of self" (pg. 13). Through socialization, I have come to expect certain norms, for example, signing your name at the end of an email, especially to a stranger.

Within an hour I received a text from my friend, Pat. He said he had a friend would who was interested in my apartment and would love to see it when I got back in town. Great! I was hoping the Facebook posting would lead to a friend or a friend of a friend renting the place, to void out as much sketchiness as possible. I set up a time through Pat with his friend to see the place. I think at the last minute to ask what their name is so I know who to expect at our set time, he says Deke.

Ding, ding, ding!

I put two and two together and realized this was the same Deke who had emailed me. Apparently my assumption that Pat had seen my Facebook posting and thought of his friend in need was completely wrong. Rather, Deke saw my Craig's List posting with the link to more photos on Facebook. On Facebook he looked to see what friends we had in common and there was Pat. He then contacted Pat to get in touch with me to get him a faster in than Craig's List would have. Boy, was he right!

This is an excellent example of the personal shift -- from mass to personal. My Craig's List posting was meant for the world to see. It was just a worm tossed out in the ocean hoping to catch a fish, not targeted (besides that it was listed in Burlington, Vermont). My Facebook posting was just for friends to see, except for the photo album which I linked to the Craig's list posting. However, unless you are my Facebook friend, you can't see any of my other information. This stranger, Deke, was able to use what little information he had about me tossed out into the internet ocean to find a mutual friend, Pat. That's where the shift to personal occurred, Deke then targeted Pat to target me.

It absolutely worked. At first I thought Deke's email came off as a little sketchy. With what I know now, I have a friend vouching for him and he's got the first appointment for an apartment showing out of the other 30 something Craig's List responses I received.

And, to top it off, I also found out from Facebook that he's a Champlain graduate. So I know he's definitely good stuff.

Katrina's Hidden Race War

1. “A shocking report in The Nation magazine exposes how white vigilante groups patrolled the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, shooting at least eleven African-American men.”

2. “While the media portrayed African Americans as looters and thugs, it is now clear that the most serious crimes were committed by gun-toting white males.”

3. “Nathan Roper, another vigilante, says he was unhappy that outsiders were disturbing his corner of New Orleans and that he was annoyed by the National Guard’s decision to use the Algiers Point ferry landing as an evacuation zone. ‘I’m telling you, it was forty, fifty people at a time getting off these boats,’ says Roper. The militia, according to Roper, was armed with handguns, rifles, and shotguns.”

4. “While white vigilantes killed an estimated total of eleven African American victims, local police have never conducted investigations. So far, the crimes have gone unpunished.”

5. “Democracy Now! footage shoes that dead bodies were left, sometimes for weeks, to rot in full view of Homeland Security, State troopers, Army personnel, private security guards, and police who “secured” the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina.”

Truly Censored?

LEXIS NEXIS provided nothing on this story. I did an archival search of the mainstream news networks (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc) and also found nothing.

The Nation

Democracy Now!

The Huffington Post

Institute for Southern Studies

News One: For Black America

Color of Change

Black Rose Alliance