The Final Blog.

My boyfriend referred me to take this class, as he had taken it three years before. Excited for an “easy A” as he called it, I expected there to be little homework and simple quizzes. Little did I know that the reason the class was considered such an “easy A” was because the work was actually enjoyable. It’s safe to say this media class was the most interesting class I’ve taken at De Anza so far. For once, I actually looked forward to weekly homework assignments and found myself engaged in lecture rather than just barely managing to stay awake. I enjoyed hearing how my peers have been affected by media, instead of only reading the book and seeing what it says the media effects on society are.

My favorite part of the course was viewing Bowling for Columbine for the first time, a movie that I now consider one of my all time favorites. After watching in class, I went home and downloaded it to my computer, forcing my boyfriend to watch it and discuss it with me, something I have NEVER done before with something I’ve viewed in a classroom setting. I never realized the cowardice of those in American society before that moment.

Another thing I really enjoyed were the classroom discussions. I’m not a very talkative person, so discussions were never something I enjoyed in school, but, being an opinionated heavy media user, I felt like I could actually contribute something. The discussion that sticks out in my mind most would be when we talked about the most influential books. I felt foolish for not realizing books such as Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss were as influential as all the books I chose.

The last thing that I will always remember about this class is garfieldminusgarfield.net. In the textbook, it mentioned the site, saying it was a critique on social disorders, showing Garfield's owner Jon all by himself saying the most pitiful things ("I don't need a date" he says in the first panel, while sulking in the next two).

All in all, this has been my favorite class, and I would definitely recommend it to others just as it was recommended to me.

Week Ten: Media Ethics/Law

In 2009, sixth grader Natalie Jones chose to do a report on Harvey Milk, the first elected openly gay official. The day before she was supposed to present this to the class, she was called into the principal's office and was told she wasn't allowed to, saying it was due to sexual education. This is considered censorship of her right to free speech as stated by the First Amendment. This also violated the California Education Code because they misused a school policy to justify the censorship. It's hard to believe that California, home of the Castro, still harbors such blatant homophobes that will do anything to keep gays segregated (even if it is through silencing a 12 year old from reading her 12 page report on a homosexual man who made history).

Link to the report can be found here.

Advertising

In Old Spices' new body wash ad campaign, the brand uses a suave, chiseled black man whose confidence in his sexuality makes him the perfect spokesman for this product (the slogan for which is simply "Smell like a man, man.")

Some of the propaganda techniques this ad uses:

+ Beautiful people ("Look at your man, now back to me...sadly, he isn't me...if he switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he's me.")
+ Glittering generalities ("Anything is possible when your man smells like old spice and not a lady,")
+ Name Calling with the repetitious accusations of the woman viewer's man smelling like a lady
+ Stereotyping by creating a man that a woman could only dream of (sexy AND ready to shower his lady in lavish gifts)
+ Disinformation ("It's an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again! The tickets are now diamonds!")