Final Post

1. "Media products are often ideological in the sense that they consistently promote certain messages over others" (Media, 274). This quote represents my first revelation. Media is used in similar ways through out different cultures. We can see this through social networking, entertainment, and other web applications, such as global modules. We see this again in FEED, when titus and his friends travel to the moon. On the mood they use the medium of the feed in the same way to receive advertisements and information. "The hotels were jumping on each other, and there was bumff from like the casinos and mud slides and the gift shopsand places where you could rent extra arms. I was trying to talk to Link, but I couldn't because i was getting bannered so hard." (Feed, 8). We can also see that even though the Feed world is very different then our own, they still use the media to promote and entertain.




2. Independent media is important to have democracy in the media and provide consumers with unbiased news. Much of the news in the United States biased for different reasons. "Politicians routinely criticize the press for its supposed lack of objectivity, charging journalists with taking sides, being too opinionated, or having a routine bias" (Media, 131). This can limit our knowledge and our ability to form our own opinions about political and world issues. Amy Goodman from "Democracy Now" describes footage of the Iraq war as being something out of an action movie. This illustrates how the desire to have support from the public for the war has pushed the news stations to report in favor of the war. In FEED the media reports from the feed in favor of the president when it says, "When the president called the Prime Minister of the Global Alliance and 'big shithead', what he was trying to convey was, uh-this is an American idiom used to praise people" (Feed, 119)




3. Most media has characters that represent "normalization". Normalization creates images of certain stereotypes and situations that the public adopts as being the norm. "Media texts can be seen as key sites where basic social norms are articulated" (Media, 163). An example of normalization in the media is the reoccurring characters in sitcoms such as "Friends" and "King of Queens". We continually see people that we consider typical in these types of shows. The feed world exhibits normalization when the tv show characters make lesions the cool thing and they are no longer seen as gross and unwanted. "It was all going pretty good until Quendy arrived. When she got there, it was like- silence.. because her whole skin was cut up with these artificial lesions" (Feed, 191). Quendy later describes her lesions as being the "big spit"



4. Public Relations is a driving force in the news. We learned from "Toxic Sludge is Good For You" that up to 50% of what we see in the news is pre created VNRs. "News stories can essentially be repackaged and reused for a magazine format...the evening news and the newsmagazines also promote each other routinely and build on each others reputation and audience" (Media, 61). Although this quote is discussing the relationship between the news and magazines, it also describes the relations ship between PR and the news. We see public relations in FEED when Violet and Titus are out of a drive and they see a Dynacom Inc. banner at the bottom of a lake. We flew over a lake. The bottom had been covered with a huge blue as that was lit up and magnified by the water, which had a picture of a smiling brain and broadcasted 'Dynacom Inc' when you looked at it" (Feed, 145). The company is using PR tactics of aligning its self with something environmental, such as a lake, to take attention from the harm they are doing to the environment.



5. Media ideology creates hegemony and assumptions about groups of people. The ideology is controlled by the elites and the insiders. "Ideology is basically a system of meaning that helps define and explain the world and that makes value judgments about that world" (Media, 160). Because elites control what goes into the media, they directly effect what we see and the hegemony, or the reality that is created. In Feed the elites that owned the schools made the public believe that school was for learning how to shop, and shopping being important to learn became a reality for them. "School TM is not so bad now, not like back when my grandparents were kids, when the schools were run by the government, which was completely like, Nazi, to have the government running the schools? ...Now that school TM is run by the corporations, it's pretty brag, because it teaches us how the world can be used, like mainly how to use our feeds" (Feed, 109).




6. Social inequality can be highlighted by the media. From seeing both "Beyond Beats and Rhymes"and "Killing us Softly" the degrading of women in the media was made apparent. Race and sexual orientation are also highlighted in the media. Media Society discusses the inequality of gays and lesbians when it says "For decades lesbians and gays have been either ignored or ridiculed in nearly all media accounts" (Media, 224). Social inequality is also shown in FEED with Violet not receiving medical attention because he parents could not afford to buy her a need model. "I got my feed later...than some kids. But the problem is, if you get the feed after you're fully formed, it doesn't fit as snugly. I mean the feedware is more susceptible to malfunction" (Feed, 170). Violet got her feed so late because he family was of a different socioeconomic standing.



7. The media uses different techniques to persuade consumers. Some persuasion techniques include using symbols, bribery, beautiful people, humor, and testimonial, among many others. All media contains numerous persuasion elements in the content. "The social significance of mass communication is that it differs substantially from unmediated face to face" (Media, 304). Because there is no actual interaction during most consumption of media these technique are used to reach the audience. In media the commercials aired show this. " ...attracted to its powerful T44 fermion lift with vertical rise of fifty feet per second?" (Feed, 15). This is using a rhetorical question to get the consumer thinking about the product.



8. The media industry has large conglomerates that control many aspects of the media. "In particular, media conglomerates seeking the benefits of what industry insiders refer to as 'synergy' are likely to favor products that can be best exploited by other components of the conglomerate" (Media, 44). We see this in Feed when the characters are trying to get free coke. Coke owns feed time and the product. "One Saturday a few days after we saw the riot from the news in our dreams, there was this promotion, where if you talked about the great taste of coca cola to your friends like a thousand times, you got a free six pack" (Feed, 158).



9. How much regulation is appropriate in the media is debatable. Conservatives want little regulation while liberals are in support of regulation so that big industry does not have too much power. In the everyday political world. calls for the media regulation come from both liberals and conservatives" (Media, 98). The group that causes the malfunction in Feed does not want to media of the feed to have so much control over people. "But the braggest thing about the feed. the thing that made it really big, is that is knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are" (Feed, 48). This is similar to conglomerates having all the control and some wanting the regulation of the media to stop conglomerates.



10. The most personal thing that i realized this semester is how much how i was brought up and how my family uses media has influenced my experiences with media today, from writing my media memoir. An example of this is that i associate watching movies with being with my family so it is something that i enjoy doing to relax. This has to do with how i interpret media and the media experience. "The meanings of the media messages are not fixed" (Media, 267). Titus has a different expereince in Feed then Violet because he has grown up with parents with a feed and she has not so it is more typical to him. "Your life...It must be kind of Strange?"
"Meaning what?"
"Just...it's not the thigns that most of us...do? (Feed, 138).