MIDTERM PROJECT

http://prezi.com/yn2pmp7nj3ma/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-yn2pmp7nj3ma&rc=ref-33390649 

The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager

This chapter / article;e brought up a lot of key topics that surround teenagers. He mainly focused on how the media plays a dominate role in how our society views the teenage experience. It’s interesting in the article we read about teenagers having babies at such a young age. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that our school systems do not have good sex education courses but yet our society advertises sex on such a high level. Just look at where the largest porn industry is... Our own backyard; the USA! But yet we fail to properly educate our teens. I think this also has something to do with our country’s religious / Puritan history. Below are three videos that I see as more of a cycle in our country. 

The First is from Mean Girls. I know this is a funny representation but I find it to be accurate but on a comical scale. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCvnBrjAhQ

17 Girls Trailer 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNK5gLFR8qQ

Here is a news article from TIMES , this is the real events that happend in 17 Girls. In the article it talks about this Massachusetts scandal and it was interesting to read about the sex education program the high school had. It states that ..."The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1816486,00.html#ixzz2LCzaZoR3

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1817272,00.html

I think that tv shows such as The Secret Life of the American Teenager are influencing young people. This particular tv show gives young people the view that motherhood is not that bad and be easily done. I remember it came out my Jr/ Sr year of high school and I wanted to secretly get pregnant at that age with my boyfriend at the time. This tv show showed me that it was possible and not as difficult as it really is. It's interesting because I went my whole academic career without attending any sex ed classes & I was sexually active at a much younger age than I should have been. I believe that sex education is the key. 

DOWNTON ABBY!!

So....I stayed in my dorm all weekend long due to the storm. Tried driving my car tonight...but that was a epic fail! Anyways, Friday morning I began watching season 1 of Downton Abby. It is Saturday night & I am already half way through Season 3.... Do I like it?....HELL YES!!!  <3

A Tangkle of Discourses

Quotes

"...you still have the time to change things, you know when you’re an
adult you don’t really have time. (Alannah)"

This struck me as very interesting due to the fact that its such a known statement in our society but yet most have not taken the time to really see it's true meaning and how deeply it effects our teenage culture in America. This quote is suggesting , as Raby explains in some detail, that adulthood means time is limited and of the essence while the teen years are suppose to be filled with luxuries and chance for mistakes. If this is so, then there is no wonder to why young people act out and/ or rebel the way they do. We have given our younger generations and perhaps some of our own, to act out of the norm. To say whether or not this is good or bad is not really what we should be asking but rather leaning from it and understanding who our teens are and why they act the way they do.


"Many commentators currently frame teenagers as a social problem for parents
and for the rest of society. Here teens are a risk to others, dif!cult, trouble
makers and potential disrupters of households and social peace."

This quote is a better example of what I was trying to explain with the previous one. As a society we do view teens to be difficult but that's not to say we didn't put that on ourselves. In music videos such as Keshas "We R Who We R"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXvmSaE0JXA  we see this vision of crazy young people rebelling out. This is one artist among many who fuel the flame for young people to believe that young years are meant to be crazy, wild and full of "luxury".

 Youth today are courted as a high-consumer group, and are modelled in the
media as the ideal age, with teenagehood constituting the onset of ‘the best years
of your life’

This is very true!!! & it makes sense. These higher consumer industries work within a world where everything is connected and needs to work together in order to prosper. By targeting a younger group of people who generally have less responsibilities its easier to manipulate them into thinking they want something when they might not know they want it. For example we take a famous artist world wide like Rhianna and we can see that the consumer world uses her as a tool for marketing. Young girls look up to her and want to be likie her so companies will attach their products with her name and soon after money will flow in due to her fans.

Media & Ideology

                In this chapter “Media and Ideology” the author explains the definition of ideology and how it is used in terms of the mass media. In today’s society the media doesn’t just connects us from cost to cost but it extends to all corners of the earth. This is the quickest way to obtain and report on anything and everything. People use this to gather large and small groups together and to voice opinions on all sorts of matters. The authors discusses in great detail about how the media and ideology help those in or out of power construct worldviews. It also talks about how ideology in the mass media can shape our daily thinking.

Quote #1: “…mass media are commercially organized to attract audiences for profit, there is good reason to believe that popularity will be more important to media producers than a commitment to any specific ideology.”

                What we don’t understand in our culture is that the media constructs images into our heads to believe we need certain products. For example advertisements in young women or in high fashion magazines have unrealistic and photo-shop models. This is the fashion industries way of shaping the young mind to believe that the models they have created is what beauty is. To obtain such beauty they advertise products that will “transform” readers into what the models are. Making the reader idolize what the industry has put out.

Quote #2

                “Common sense is the way we describe things that “everybody knows,” or at least should know, because such knowledge represents deeply held cultural beliefs. In fact, when we employ the rhetoric of common sense, it is usually to dismiss alternative approaches that go against our basic assumptions about how things work…the most effective ways of ruling is through the shaping of commonsense assumptions.”

                When I read this in the article it really made me stop and think about what commonsense meant for me. This is such a basic form of thinking that one finds it hard to evaluate because it’s so elementary. However, I thought that’s the point. It’s a silent pattern our society follows from the time we are just little kids. We were taught to think a specific way and some of those things became our “commonsense” but we never take that step back to think, “What’s an alternative way?” I feel it hides our opportunity to explore new ways and be creative.

Quote #3

                “One of the reasons why media images often become so controversial is that they are believed to promote ideas that are objectionable.”

                Like explained in the article movies are a key target for controversial debate because of the silent opinions thrown into them. 

My Name is Katie

This is my first post; just trying to figure how this works :)

I chose this course for a number of reasons but the main one was to explore this new generation of young people and how their lives are connected and revolves around media and technology. I think this is very important because it is shaping the way in which we will view our world forever.

I am a senior at Rhode Island College majoring in Anthropology. I have done a lot of traveling throughout my 21 years of life. I recently just got back from a month long journey in France where I visited my boyfriend and his family whom are native to that country.