Final Wrap-Up

Fall semester has been an interesting one for me. All of my classes were very eye-opening in completely different ways. I took Organizational Communication which really helped me decide what I could see myself doing with my degree when I am done. Public Relations was a good class but made me realize that career path isn't for me. Public Speaking was a crucial class for me to take in order to brush up on my public speaking skills and it really did help. And finally, this class. This class was the most eye-opening in terms of my awareness of gender, race and class in the media. I was always aware of it to an extent; especially race. But gender and class are two things that you don't usually look too much at when it's presented in the media. I think I reached the goals listed in the syllabus as best as I could for what I had to work with. Being in soccer and traveling a lot definitely didn't help and cost me some valuable class time. I still think there is  a lot I could learn and I plan to take another class pertaining to messages within media texts and outlet.


Gender. Race. Class. Three different words with their own definitions all tie together in so many ways. That is the major thing I've taken away from this class is that you can't have one without the other. They all are connected and create different aspects of your life. 

Real Housewives & Race

I watch a lot of pointless, mindless television shows at night when I’m shutting down for the day. I don’t have any particular favorite show to watch so generally I flip around and watch whatever looks interesting. One of my guilty pleasures is the “Real Housewives of...” series on Bravo. There are shows from all around the country; Beverly Hills, New York, Orange County, D.C., Miami and Atlanta. These women live luxurious lives and spend all of their husband’s hard earned money. The reason I enjoy watching the shows is seeing how these women live and the drama they tend to create between one another. I’ve watched most of the seasons except two; Miami and Atlanta. Two things these shows have in common are they have mainly Latino and African-American housewives. 


I had a conversation with my mom recently because she too is an Real Housewives fan. She admitted to not watching Atlanta either because she wasn’t as interested with it. When we both agreed that neither of us enjoyed watching it, it made us feel bad and really question why we don’t watch it. I asked if it’s because it’s a group of African-American women and if it bothered her! She replied truthfully and said yes. It isn't a racist thing at all with my mom but she is the age of these women and she said she couldn't identify with that culture. That is respectable and probably pretty common among a lot of mothers/housewives who watch the show. 


I took some days off from writing and I came back with a new outlook on the housewives of Atlanta. I was doing homework and ended up watching a good portion of the episode last night. I really enjoyed it and was pleasantly surprised. The race thing is something that will never fully go away. 

Pornography Paper

Pornography and its Influence on Important Social Relationships

The pornography has estimated annual revenue of $10 to $14 billion dollars which is more than the NBA, NFL and MLB combined (Picker & Sun, 2008). Through frequent production and vast consumption, it is one industry that truly stands above the rest.  Despite that, we believe the porn industry does more harm than good to the average viewer.  Frequently viewing pornography often distorts peoples’ ideas and concepts of sexuality, as well as causes them to objectify certain relations among other things.  Not only does this affect an individual’s mind, emotions and physical well-being, it threatens some of the most important relations a person can have.  Relationships with significant others, family members, children, and members of a community are all weakened by this.  We will discuss the negative effects pornography can have on a person and their reception of this media based on Kellner’s multiperspectival approaches to studying media (Dines & Humez, 1995). Also, how it affects their relationships to create a better understanding of it in regards to gender, race, class, and sexual orientation.

Because of mainstream media and the Internet, pornography is no longer an off-limits topic.  While you can watch conversations about pornography on a Friday night comedy show, the introduction of the Internet has made pornography more easily accessible than ever before.  All ages are now being exposed to different types of pornography and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to escape from it. Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy said, "The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors. To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind” (Singel, 2004).

Being exposed to pornography at a younger age has very harmful effects on the child and their views on human sexuality. Children usually get exposed by their own parents whether it is on accident or on purpose. The most crucial point in a child’s life is when they grow to be an adolescent and are going through a transformation phase with their sexuality. When pornography is brought into the picture, this makes it especially difficult for the adolescent to form their own opinion on human sexuality. This phase in their lives is when distortion is most dangerous because they are vulnerable and are learning how to handle sexuality to stay within their beliefs and morals. Viewing pornography at this age causes adolescents to have lower self-esteem, low self-confidence, negative views on marriage and spouses and also causes them to support sexual experimentation (Fagan, 2009). Not only could it alter their perceptions of sexual orientation, but their outlooks on race as well. Most adult films are very stereotypical in regards to race. For example; certain titles which pertain to the women’s race in the film doesn’t give off a great image to adolescents. All of these feelings and emotions they can experience, roll over to when they are an adult. The use of pornography has dramatically affected marriage and families in the recent years. These problems stem from being exposed at a crucial transformation stage in a person’s life.

Pornography use undermines marriage and all that it’s about. It has been reported by husbands that after viewing porn, they are less attracted to their wives and their sexual relationship with their spouse. This type of rejection causes many harmful effects on not only the marriage itself but it inflicts harmful, deep wounds on the wives. They experience feelings of betrayal, loss, and anger toward their husbands (Fagan, 2009). They then start to look at the women that have taken their “spot” in the husband’s lives and realize they are not measured up to any of these fantasy women. In their minds they can’t rationalize that these women are just on the screen and not realistic because to them, they are causing just as much harm as if they were there.

It’s been reported that the use of internet porn is just as damaging on relationships as actual infidelity. The men start to view marriage in all negative ways instead of the positive ways that it should be viewed in. Marriage has actually been referred to as a “sexual confine” which causes men serious anger and resentment to their wives and their marriage. Most times when it hits this stage, the marriage has failed and forced into divorce. One study reported that 68 percent of divorces were due to one spouse meeting someone over the internet, 56 percent showed one spouse being obsessed with internet pornographic material, 47 percent spending too much time on the computer, and 33 percent spent too much time in online chat rooms (Fagan, 2009). Another study done back in the 80’s done by Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant showed participants feeling less satisfaction with their intimate partner, specifically with their partner’s affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance (Zillmann, 1989).

The most important relationship is the relationship with one’s self. Pornography use causes serious problems on a person’s mind, body and heart. Their minds tend to have distorted feelings on sex and become more sexually aggressive toward their partners.  Pornography is a form of a drug due to its addictive nature. “Psychologist Dr. Victor Cline's findings suggest that memories of experiences that occurred at times of emotional arousal (which could include sexual arousal) are imprinted on the brain by epinephrine, an adrenal gland hormone, and are difficult to erase” (Hughes, 1998). The hormone being released creates a pathway to the pleasure centers of the brain which causes the person to desire that feeling more. This puts their body in danger because of the way they risk themselves of getting an STD. Among putting their bodies into danger, their heart starts to go on an emotional rollercoaster which can lead people into serious psychological depression. There is no sexual satisfaction with their current sexual relationships and causes their relationships with others to fall apart due to their lack of emotional connection.

The problems with people and pornography often start out at a young age.  With the invention of the Internet, more and more adolescents are unintentionally being exposed to pornographic images as they surf the web.  While it’s reported that adolescents first feel disgusted and embarrassed, the feeling tends to gravitate towards enjoyment after multiple views (Fagan, 2009). This is where the relationship between pornography and gender come in.  Boys tend to seek pornography initially because they are curious or want sexual arousal, while girls tend first to go to non-pornographic but sexually oriented sites for sexual health or relationship-related information.  This is something that directly correlates to adolescents and sexual intercourse.  Young teens who watched the highest level of sexual content on television doubled the likelihood they would initiate intercourse themselves.  When adolescents grow up, there still is a difference between men and women and the reasons for viewing it.  Men view and are six times more likely to view pornography than women (Witty, 2003). Men think viewing pornography is acceptable while in a relationship, while women see it is a type of infidelity.  In regards to pornography, most men and women will never be able to see it eye to eye.

As discussed, the emotional and physical hurt that pornography causes does not only affect the viewer but important relationships the viewer has with those around him.  Porn has been said to be the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today” (Singel, 2004). The earlier people are exposed, the more concerning it is for their minds. Pornography alters a person’s views on gender, race and sexual orientation undoubtedly.

 The most important thing to protect against the effects of pornography is to maintain and encourage affection and sense of attachment in a family setting.  The father and mother must hold a well-balanced relationship first and foremost while the second is to have a healthy, loving relationship between parents and their children.  Monitoring technology will really help to increase protection against adolescents viewing pornography.  The best defense against the negative effects of pornography is obvious; for a person to not view it.  In today’s society, this is often something some people cannot simply do.  Therefore, the next best thing is to maintain a sense of closeness and have a strong family bond so the relationships in a person’s life stay unaffected.

References:

Fagan, Patrick.(December 2009).  The effects of pornography on                                    individuals, marriage, family, and community.

Picker, Miguel & Sun, Chyng. (2008). The price of pleasure.

Whitty, Monica Therese. (2003). “Pushing the wrong buttons: men’s and                       women’s attitudes toward online and offline infidelity,”                                      CyberPsychology & behavior 6.

Dines, G., & Humez, J. M. (1995). Gender, race and class in media. (pp.                          229-318). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

 Singel, Ryan. (2004). Internet porn: Worse than crack? Wired.

Retrieved from                                                                                 http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/11/65772

Zillmann, Dolf (1989). Effects of Prolonged Consumption of Pornography                              in Zillmann, Dolf & Bryant, Jennings (Eds.), Pornography: Research                      advances and policy considerations (pg.127-149). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Carol, Avedon. (1995). The harm of porn: Just another excuse to censor. The Law. Retrieved from    http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/FAC/harm.htm

What Doesn't Kill You, Makes You Stronger

Yesterday’s class was one of my favorites from this semester. It was really interesting to see the different people I’ve seen around campus come and give us insight into the LGBTQ community. Honestly before this class discussion I was aware of WHAT LGBTQ was but not what it was all about. The reason I really enjoyed the guest speakers was because my cousin recently just came out and he is 26 years old. He was always the lady’s man in high school and has the best, funniest personality. The whole situation was a very confusing time for all of us. We are a really close family and spend a lot of time together so this came as a shock, for me anyways. He moved away to Hawaii when he was 23 and we didn’t see him much during the 2 years he lived there. He decided to move very quickly and just picked up and left. He wasn’t the same person when he would come home for holidays. He was very quiet and wore a grimace on his face most of the time we would see him. This wasn’t the kid I grew up with. I got a call from my mom during one of my finals last winter. I didn’t think anything of it and I called her back afterward. It turned out my cousin had overdosed and was at the hospital in Hawaii. My mind started racing as to how this happened. It didn’t occur to me at the time that it was his suicide attempt. 

My cousin recovered thankfully and knew he had some explaining to do. He came out that he was bi-sexual in the spring and I’ve never seen my cousin happier. He had been dealing with these demons for his entire life and it finally got to him. He broke. Hearing the other stories from yesterday really made me sad for those people who feel fearful to say who they truly are. I do believe it is getting easier as the years go on, but it is still a life-changing event in that person’s life. You can see it being more widely accepted just by watching some of the most recent popular shows. My favorite for example; Modern Family. Two men raising a baby together would’ve been a controversy even just 5 years ago.

I think it’s so good for people to be exposed to this lifestyle because it isn’t going anywhere and why should it? People are going to watch television with these types of situations and either accepts it or ignores and keeps living their own life. I’ve grown so much from the experience with my cousin and realized a lot of things. I’m thankful to have him and can only hope things will keep changing for the best in the LGBTQ community. One thing that stuck with me the most from the guest speakers was when Ana said, “it may not get better, but you get stronger.” I think that is really great advice for someone struggling. You get stronger and you make it better.

Werking Klass=Dum?

The working class is not only underrepresented; the few men who are portrayed are buffoons" (Butsch in Dines & Humez, pp. 404). 

One thing I’ve known from a very young age is that my family is not rich by any means. We are part of the working class. My dad took over his dad’s business and has been running it for the past 20 years. He is one of the hardest working men I’ve ever met and has worked for everything he has and has provided for us. I look at my dad with admiration not pity. I say pity because the working-class isn’t looked at in a positive light most times. The working class is stereotyped by the middle to upper-class as “dumb, inarticulate and mindlessly loyal to old-fashioned values” (Ehrenreich in Dines & Humez, pp.40). Ehrenreich also went on to say that “working class” is considered “not only industrial workers in hard hats, but ALL those people who are NOT professionals, managers, or entrepreneurs” (in Dines & Humez, pp.40). And there is no good defense for the working-class because of how they’re portrayed on television.

One classic example of a stereotypical working-class man is “Family Guy”. Peter Griffin is a man with a job in a factory and a family to feed. Peter is portrayed as an idiot who acts like a child 99% of the time. How these stereotypes were developed, I don’t know. According to Ehrenreich, the working class makes up 60-70% of the U.S. population. And I find it pretty hard to believe that we have that many idiots running around and keeping our lives running smoothly. Just because people work for their money doesn’t make them any less intelligent than someone who sits behind a desk all day crunching numbers and looking at data.

You’d think since the majority of the U.S. is working-class, then why would we want these types of shows on television making fun? Interestingly enough, this is the type of shows people want to see. It’s humorous and there for a good laugh. The types of people watching this mostly ARE the working-class and know it’s in good nature. It’s all about how you want to take it and understand it. Take it for what it’s worth. Which is a good laugh at the end of a long day of work.

Stereotypes in the Virtual Reality World

      Media messages have a major influence on someone’s attitudes, beliefs, or sense of themselves. Video games are a cultural phenomenon in our society within the last two decades. More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the U.S. will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one (McGonigal, 2011). This is a significant amount of time being spent gaming and gaming isn’t just a mindless activity. There is a lot going on in the brain during this time. Studies have found that playing video games can improve children’s visual attention skills, their spatial skills, their iconic skills and their computer literacy skills (Children Now, 2002). These are all skills that are very necessary to a person’s development but can also be learned through other activities with less negative effects. These problems range from violence, isolation or even altered views on gender, race, class and violence. Video games and their messages have a big influence on the people who play them. Stereotypes being a reoccurring problem within these games can really affect how a person, mainly children, forms or transforms their view of others and themselves. “Video games are not children’s toys or insignificant forms of entertainment. Rather, they are a powerful medium of education, propaganda, and therapy” (Leonard, 2003).

      Gender politics and female-based stereotypes are one of the most dominant issues in video games today (Berger, 2002). Most importantly, women are extremely underrepresented in most games accounting for only 17 percent (Leonard, 2003). The basic stereotypes exist where the male engages in physical violence while the females are either in trouble, sex objects or just “participants”. “Participants” basically means that they obey commands of the player, but do not necessarily have personalities or abilities of their own (Children Now, 2002). The females are hyper-sexualized and the males are hyper-muscularized meaning the women are normally dressed very provocatively with bigger than average features. Men are shown as very tall and extremely muscular (Hunteman, 2001). This is a body type which would be near impossible to achieve without the help of supplements of some sort. These types of images can cause young males to have self-image issues as well as affect their expectations of and attitudes towards females. These are the values being shown which are influencing a young man’s thoughts on what a man really is and looks like.

      Females are rarely heroines in these games but only an adjunct to the plot. Normally are put into the sex object role or damsel in distress. The fact of the matter is females are no real use to the games at all. It gives off the message that men are in control while women sit back and look pretty. This is not how the real world works. Women are now running for president and have high-ranking jobs with all the same responsibilities as a man in the same position. With the exception of Lara Croft, girls are not any significant part to the games. Although Lara Croft is an independent woman who has all of these masculine qualities, those qualities are being overshadowed by her revealing clothing and obnoxiously sized breasts. These are some of the unhealthy effects that harm someone’s behavior, relationships with others and send strong negative messages about violence, gender and race.

      Racial stereotypes are found in all forms of media; i.e. television, movies, music, books, video games. The diversity of race in most video games is lacking significantly. There are plenty of studies based directly on racial stereotypes within the video game industry because it’s that obvious. According to a study done by Children Now, over half of the characters are white. It showed that 52% of characters are white while 37% are African-American, 5% are Latino and 3% were other. There are certain racial groups who are not represented at all. These results reflect the stereotype we have as a culture saying that white is normal and black or other races are exotic. Most times in these games the minorities are victims of abuse or criminals. Children playing these types of games are the most vulnerable consumer group and make up a relatively large part of the consumers. This is dangerous because they are the next generation of adults and it ends up becoming a vicious cycle that no one can get out of. One example of racial stereotyping is in the Resident Evil 5 trailer. The trailer showed a white soldier shooting black zombies which caused a lot of controversy within the minority crowd. It represented African-Americans as inhumane

      The African-American character comes second in terms of how often they are in the games. “The relationship between the black community and the video game industry is one of exploitation. Companies and players benefit through the consumption of inner-city communities, while poverty, unemployment, and police brutality run rampant” (Leonard, 2003). This statement really shows the lack of compassion we as a culture have for minority groups. Most times African-Americans are portrayed as angry, aggressive, homeless, etc… These traits are shown in the sports games for example. According to a study done by Children Now, over 80% of black characters are competitors within sports-oriented games and are more likely to display aggressive behavior during the game. This is a common stereotype of African-Americans saying that they are more aggressive than another race.

      Video games are a powerful tool of hegemony, surfacing ideological approval through a variety of white supremacist projects (Leonard, 2003).These classic stereotypes are a good example of how hegemony is so dominant in our culture. Things are the way they are and can’t be changed because that’s just how things are. Children playing these games are being influenced early on and it tends to be hard to change those stereotypes and thoughts. Our ideologies of gender, race, and class make inequalities appear natural when they are not at all (Dines & Humez, 2008). 

References

Berger, Arthur.  (2002). Video games: A popular culture phenomenon. New Brunswick:       Transaction Publishers

Children Now. (2002). Fair play? Violence, gender and race in video games. Retrieved       November 18, 2011 from www.childrennow.org/media/video-games/2001

Dines, G. & Humez, J.M. (Eds.) (2008). Gender, race and class in media (Third Edition)       Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage

Entertainment Software Association. (2011). Sales, demographic and usage data: Essential facts about the computer and video game industry. Retrieved November 18, 2011 from       http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf

Hunteman, N. (Producer & Director). (2000). Game over: Gender, race and violence in video games [Motion Picture]. United States: Media Education Foundation

Leonard, D. (2003). Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education. Live in your world,       play in ours: Race, video games and consuming the other, 3, 1-9.

McGonigal, Jane. (2011). Reality is broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world. Penguin Press.

University of Southern California (2009). Video Game Minority Report: Lots Of Players, Few Characters. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 20, 2011, from       http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090729140931.htm