In 1989, English football had its worst ever tragedy. In an FA Cup semifinal match between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool Football Club held at Hillsborough in Sheffield, there was a miscommunication and horrific mistake made by the police about the opening of the gates to let fans in and since the stadium was standing room only, eventually the poor policing led to a human crush at the metal fence at the bottom of the stand, resulting in the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans. 96 people went to a football match and never returned.
The fallout after the disaster was immense. It's important to note that in the late 80s, football hooliganism and violence at matches was just now on its way out, so some people were quick to make the conclusion that it was the fault of the fans that day. Many publications took this idea and ran with it, condemning the morality of the Liverpool fans and blaming them for the deaths of the 96.
The most notorious of these reports came from Rupert Murdoch's The Sun which released an absolutely vicious series of accusations against the Liverpool fans labeled "THE TRUTH" which went on to enumerate how the fans were all incredibly intoxicated and urinated on the bodies of the dead while also punching and kicking rescue workers who were trying to help. None of this was at all true and it only served to spread misinformation about the disaster and to make the victims' families suffer even more.
Immediately the Liverpool market shut down almost all circulation of The Sun and it still to this very day sells incredibly few copies in Liverpool, despite multiple times of the paper trying to issue an apology but being rebuffed by the ongoing boycott. It just goes to show how quickly a public can turn on you and how they may never trust you again. Journalistic integrity may not mean a lot to these people but I'm sure sales do and they're regretting having ever published any of that.
Something I learned firsthand in my time in Liverpool was that its people are not ones who forget or forgive easily. There's an enormous memorial with all of the names of the Hillsborough victims as well as an eternal flame lit in their memory. It's a beautifully somber reminder of how Liverpool cherish their fans. And as I walk into the stadium that Sunday I notice something else: a tatted-up Scouser with a giant logo of The Sun on the back of his neck marked with a big red circle and a line going through it. It's amazing to see just how horrible a publication could be towards a group of people they knew almost nothing about and to see just how much of an impact that can make on a community and the media that they consume. It's not every day that you see a publication completely at odds with an entire community.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Football Coverage in the British Media
For most of my life up until around 2010 I would've said I was a sports fan, but I never truly fell in love with a sport until the World Cup in South Africa. Here was something almost completely new to me, not the childish kick-arounds that I had watched for years in the American suburbs but instead a fast-paced, dramatic and thrilling contest that was unique in how global its appeal was.
The following fall I began to consume every little bit I could about the sport and the leagues that went on during the rest of the year, eventually growing very attached to the English Premier League and more specifically a club in southwest London called Chelsea.
The Premier League is a unique beast in world football: it has the highest quality players culled from all over the globe and is one of the most hotly contested leagues anywhere in the world. Luckily all this competition ends up leading to a lot of drama on and off the pitch, and reading the British press and the tabloids can be both an entertaining ad sometimes even frustrating experience for football fans.
Firstly how they treat the transfer of players to different clubs is one of the most dramatic and exciting story lines the tabloids can get their hands on, so often times the less-respected papers will publish almost ludicrous rumors in order to spark either controversy or simply drive up sales/page views. Once you get used to not trusting all of the British publications you start forming a hierarchy of trustworthiness if you want to know if something's actually going to happen in the transfer market. There's probably no equivalent to something like this in the States, where pretty much any speculation is never too far-fetched and usually based in at least some truth. there are far fewer outlets to get your hardcore sports news in America, with ESPN being the bastion of trustworthiness in the sports media. There's really no such mogul in the UK, leaving reporting and speculation able to run wild. And while it sometimes can be frustrating to know what you're reading may not be true, it's still a wonderful form of entertainment to even speculate.
One thing that really struck me about reading press surrounding the England national team and their manager was and still is quite pessimistic and negative when they aren't in the World Cup. The tabloids skewer tactics by the manager, mock the inconsistency of their players and have a general pessimistic attitude about their prospects as a team.
The thing is, they're not wrong. England is probably one of the teams that underperforms the most when you look at the caliber of the players they have. Their manager does seem to be tactically inefficient and almost lost when England need a "plan B." But it's difficult for me to imagine this kind of negative mentality surrounding any national team in America. I'd say there was almost negative surrounding the US men's national team at this World Cup (although admittedly we had a fantastic run in the tournament) but I think it'd be completely out of place if American journalists constantly hounded our coach and players and made them look foolish all the time.
Now admittedly the English probably expect more out of their team since they did win a World Cup in 1966 and they are the inventors of the sport to begin with, but it's as if when they make the tiniest mistake the press throws them into the lions' den.
So basically the English tabloids treats sport like it treats many other things: with little regard for trustworthiness or information, but stacked high with entertainment value and also venom for the people they don't care for. Luis Suarez's (the infamous biter at the World Cup) agent even claimed the English press was a big reason Luis wanted to leave for Barcelona, even though that may not be entirely true. But the fact is that the sport of soccer is easily suited to the atmosphere of the English press. It's the world's most dramatic and games, goals, sending offs and even bitings can often spread around the world now that the Internet is able to spread them so quickly. Tabloids could have only dreamt about all the crazy things that would happen at this year's World Cup and it seems to me that the drama of the sport and the sensationalism of the newspapers are meant for each other.
The following fall I began to consume every little bit I could about the sport and the leagues that went on during the rest of the year, eventually growing very attached to the English Premier League and more specifically a club in southwest London called Chelsea.
The Premier League is a unique beast in world football: it has the highest quality players culled from all over the globe and is one of the most hotly contested leagues anywhere in the world. Luckily all this competition ends up leading to a lot of drama on and off the pitch, and reading the British press and the tabloids can be both an entertaining ad sometimes even frustrating experience for football fans.
Firstly how they treat the transfer of players to different clubs is one of the most dramatic and exciting story lines the tabloids can get their hands on, so often times the less-respected papers will publish almost ludicrous rumors in order to spark either controversy or simply drive up sales/page views. Once you get used to not trusting all of the British publications you start forming a hierarchy of trustworthiness if you want to know if something's actually going to happen in the transfer market. There's probably no equivalent to something like this in the States, where pretty much any speculation is never too far-fetched and usually based in at least some truth. there are far fewer outlets to get your hardcore sports news in America, with ESPN being the bastion of trustworthiness in the sports media. There's really no such mogul in the UK, leaving reporting and speculation able to run wild. And while it sometimes can be frustrating to know what you're reading may not be true, it's still a wonderful form of entertainment to even speculate.
One thing that really struck me about reading press surrounding the England national team and their manager was and still is quite pessimistic and negative when they aren't in the World Cup. The tabloids skewer tactics by the manager, mock the inconsistency of their players and have a general pessimistic attitude about their prospects as a team.
The thing is, they're not wrong. England is probably one of the teams that underperforms the most when you look at the caliber of the players they have. Their manager does seem to be tactically inefficient and almost lost when England need a "plan B." But it's difficult for me to imagine this kind of negative mentality surrounding any national team in America. I'd say there was almost negative surrounding the US men's national team at this World Cup (although admittedly we had a fantastic run in the tournament) but I think it'd be completely out of place if American journalists constantly hounded our coach and players and made them look foolish all the time.
Now admittedly the English probably expect more out of their team since they did win a World Cup in 1966 and they are the inventors of the sport to begin with, but it's as if when they make the tiniest mistake the press throws them into the lions' den.
So basically the English tabloids treats sport like it treats many other things: with little regard for trustworthiness or information, but stacked high with entertainment value and also venom for the people they don't care for. Luis Suarez's (the infamous biter at the World Cup) agent even claimed the English press was a big reason Luis wanted to leave for Barcelona, even though that may not be entirely true. But the fact is that the sport of soccer is easily suited to the atmosphere of the English press. It's the world's most dramatic and games, goals, sending offs and even bitings can often spread around the world now that the Internet is able to spread them so quickly. Tabloids could have only dreamt about all the crazy things that would happen at this year's World Cup and it seems to me that the drama of the sport and the sensationalism of the newspapers are meant for each other.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Americanization of Amsterdam
Last weekend on my way to Amsterdam, I met a few guys about our age on the ferry was talking with them about a music festival that was happening in town that they were attending and I was thinking about going to. We somehow got onto the topic of music and throughout the whole conversation, they wanted to talk about American bands more than the European ones I was trying to ask them about. I think I knew more than they did. I figured that might be a fluke, until I had a similar experience the next day with a different group of girls from Amsterdam. All of a sudden I noticed how abundant American references were within the culture. A girl at our restaurant was wearing a Boston T-shirt, but couldn't tell us what state the city was in when someone asked. McDonald's ads were everywhere, but I could find almost none for other restaurants (especially anything local). The American flag was thrown across tons of fashion items in nearly every store we went into, and when we looked at the newspapers, there was a hugely disproportionate focus on American news (especially entertainment related stories). When I told a guy on one of our tours that I was in a sorority, he started asking me really specific questions about the ABC Family show Greek and the movie The House Bunny... questions I couldn't even answer. I overheard a group of definitely non-American friends talking about how they wanted to throw an America themed party for 4th of July next year. For such a short weekend, it seemed like I was immersed in huge group of Americans and merely placed within the geographic context another city, with probably even more examples of American culture pervading the lifestyle than I can readily remember. It was almost a reverse culture shock, as it seems natural to have the British-American culture sharing dynamic, but very unusual to have such a huge presence in a place like the Netherlands. It was incredibly interesting to see how prevalent and popular we were in their culture, considering the total lack of influence they have on our entertainment, our news, our fashion, and our lives.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
The White Devil
Yesterday, my Shakespeare and performance class took a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Webster's The White Devil. I didn't know anything about the play, but I over heard some people saying they looked it up and it was called a "revenge drama" and that it contained a lot of violence and sex. I thought it was ironic that we were seeing a play that featured these topics since we just covered them in class.
As a special treat, we were able to go to the director's talk before the play. The director was a young, thin, blonde with short hair and a welcoming smile. Her and the interviewer discussed as much of the play as they could without giving too much away to those who had not yet seen it. It was very fascinating to hear about how the director chose to place it in an abstract modern-era, just as it would have been in Webster's time. She touched on her choice to incorporate video into the play, but what was most interesting was when she discussed how she handled the violence in the play.
The play itself is incredibly violent especially to women which she said she felt with in a variety of ways. One was that she actually changed the gender of one of the characters from a female to a male. Surprisingly enough, this character was the most misogynistic. The director said she wanted a woman to play this role because she felt like it highlighted the way society abused women verbally because we hear the words more when a woman is saying them.
In terms of the physical violence, she wanted to remind the viewer that it was just reconstruction of violence not real violence because it is a play and you are so drawn into it she did not want the viewer to be horrified when someone was stabbed or shot. She achieved this reminder that it is all a show by having one of the actors dress on stage and put a fake blood bag in their garments in front of the audience.
Another interesting thing about the performance was that it involves a child. The director said it was quite difficult to maneuver having young boy around so much verbal and physical violence. She said she tried to cut down on how much he saw while on stage, and while he was off stage he was kept in a separate area and could only be brought out at specific times when it was appropriate. I liked that the director took such measures to ensure that she kept the little boy away from violence as much as possible. I feel like this does not happen nearly as much with someone's own parents at home, so is it up to the parents to shield children from violence? Or is it a job for society?
As a special treat, we were able to go to the director's talk before the play. The director was a young, thin, blonde with short hair and a welcoming smile. Her and the interviewer discussed as much of the play as they could without giving too much away to those who had not yet seen it. It was very fascinating to hear about how the director chose to place it in an abstract modern-era, just as it would have been in Webster's time. She touched on her choice to incorporate video into the play, but what was most interesting was when she discussed how she handled the violence in the play.
The play itself is incredibly violent especially to women which she said she felt with in a variety of ways. One was that she actually changed the gender of one of the characters from a female to a male. Surprisingly enough, this character was the most misogynistic. The director said she wanted a woman to play this role because she felt like it highlighted the way society abused women verbally because we hear the words more when a woman is saying them.
In terms of the physical violence, she wanted to remind the viewer that it was just reconstruction of violence not real violence because it is a play and you are so drawn into it she did not want the viewer to be horrified when someone was stabbed or shot. She achieved this reminder that it is all a show by having one of the actors dress on stage and put a fake blood bag in their garments in front of the audience.
Another interesting thing about the performance was that it involves a child. The director said it was quite difficult to maneuver having young boy around so much verbal and physical violence. She said she tried to cut down on how much he saw while on stage, and while he was off stage he was kept in a separate area and could only be brought out at specific times when it was appropriate. I liked that the director took such measures to ensure that she kept the little boy away from violence as much as possible. I feel like this does not happen nearly as much with someone's own parents at home, so is it up to the parents to shield children from violence? Or is it a job for society?
Stereotypes in British Media
On my way back from Amsterdam, I picked up a free copy of the Sunday Mirror at the airport to glance at on the ride back to oxford. One thing that stood out to me was the way women were portrayed in the paper. Every single picture of a women either featured her in a revealing outfit, comforting her male partner, or holding a child. Alarmed by this depiction of women, I did some research to find out if the Sunday Mirror was an abnormal representation of the media in the UK. Unfortunately, this publication fits right in with the norm.
An article I read on the Guardian stated that "78 percent of all front-page articles" were written by men, and "84 percent of those mentioned or quoted in lead pieces" were also men (2012). Of course, if an industry is dominated by men, it will possess an masculine view. Even the BBC director general stated that the BBC has "faced pressure over its treatment of women on screen. The corporation now realizes how damaging it can be to the male and female public when women are portrayed in sexists ways. There need to be more female writers in the United Kingdom in order for the newspaper article to represent women in the way they crave to be represented in(2012).
article: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/14/sexist-stereotypes-front-pages-newspapers
"Go Fun Yourself", etc.
Like some of the other posters on this blog, to me one of the most interestingly obvious contrasts between the attitudes of Brits and Americans as a whole towards certain media is the reception of suggestive content. Overt sexuality and profanity still isn't accepted as a cultural norm (unlike Amsterdam, where I spent a weekend getting unintentionally exposed to LOTS of things I had never seen floating around unassumingly in broad daylight), but it seems like the use of "subtle" innuendos is a lot less subtle and a lot less controlled than it would be back in the States.
On one daytrip into London, I happened to look out the window as a double decker bus drove by. A seemingly innocuous ad for some type of ice cream was plastered across the side... at least it seemed innocuous until I read the huge text emblazoned underneath the brand name. I'm not 100 percent sure what the promotion with the ice cream itself was (I think they were calling attention to a new chocolate cone or something along those lines) but I definitely remember the tagline- "On top is still great, but now the bottom is even better". Obviously they were making comments about the normal part of the ice cream and the new type of cone, but there were definitely identifiable provocative undertones. When I looked it up later it was apparently part of Wall's Ice Cream's "Goodbye Serious" ad campaign.
On another trip, I saw a set of billboards with matching car advertisements for Toyota in different colors. The design was really cute and simplistic, which ended up contrastingly greatly with the way I first read the tagline. On second glance I realized that the signs said "go fun yourself" instead of what I originally read, but it was kind of shocking to me how nearly explicit and how direct of a reference it was. There was no question as to what thought the wordplay was meant to elicit, and I couldn't obvious and visible the ads were to the public.
The content displayed to the masses here in Britain, especially that I've seen in advertising, seems to be the kind that would cause huge amounts of controversy in the US, especially with parents. Here, however, it's mere presence makes it seem as if it's to be taken as nothing but good-natured humor. Maybe adults assume the references will go over the heads of children, or maybe they're less protective in the ways that American adults are. Either way, although they may have made my mouth drop, I won't be forgetting these ads anytime soon, so I guess they've done their jobs.
On one daytrip into London, I happened to look out the window as a double decker bus drove by. A seemingly innocuous ad for some type of ice cream was plastered across the side... at least it seemed innocuous until I read the huge text emblazoned underneath the brand name. I'm not 100 percent sure what the promotion with the ice cream itself was (I think they were calling attention to a new chocolate cone or something along those lines) but I definitely remember the tagline- "On top is still great, but now the bottom is even better". Obviously they were making comments about the normal part of the ice cream and the new type of cone, but there were definitely identifiable provocative undertones. When I looked it up later it was apparently part of Wall's Ice Cream's "Goodbye Serious" ad campaign.
On another trip, I saw a set of billboards with matching car advertisements for Toyota in different colors. The design was really cute and simplistic, which ended up contrastingly greatly with the way I first read the tagline. On second glance I realized that the signs said "go fun yourself" instead of what I originally read, but it was kind of shocking to me how nearly explicit and how direct of a reference it was. There was no question as to what thought the wordplay was meant to elicit, and I couldn't obvious and visible the ads were to the public.
The content displayed to the masses here in Britain, especially that I've seen in advertising, seems to be the kind that would cause huge amounts of controversy in the US, especially with parents. Here, however, it's mere presence makes it seem as if it's to be taken as nothing but good-natured humor. Maybe adults assume the references will go over the heads of children, or maybe they're less protective in the ways that American adults are. Either way, although they may have made my mouth drop, I won't be forgetting these ads anytime soon, so I guess they've done their jobs.
"That Song Says WHAT Over Here?"
In my previous blog post I discussed language barriers due to slang phrases and various uses of words. I'd like to continue with cultural differences but this time with overall media content.
America as a whole tends to have the stigma of being liberal and rather loose, while the British are stereotyped as posh, snobby and refined. In actuality, the roles are reversed when it comes to the content put out by the media. In addition to large amounts of PDA, Europeans are also more accepting of cursing and other language we would find inappropriate. While in the bus driving toward our excursion on Thursday the BBC radio station was playing. When a song by a British group that is also popular in the US came on, I was surprised to hear one of the essential words in the chorus changed from the ones I was familiar with. The song always had sexual implications, but this change made it blatantly obvious. It was also played during the morning commune when children are likely to hear it before school, so it was not child censored like most stations in the US. It's interesting to see that they don't worry about exposing kids to particular media or seem to think that the messages they contain will alter their thoughts.
Let's not forget about the British tabloids. Even the reputable newspapers are riddled with gossip column-type stories. As an outsider, it can be difficult to distinguish between fact and smut. Back home we have it clearly defined which print medium you go to when you want factual information and when you want gossip. The two never intertwine like they do in many newspapers here. Also the appearances of newspapers themselves can be misleading. Back home we associate flakey paper and bold prints with tabloids, sometimes with bright colors and even odd fonts. Some of the newspapers here that are modeled in a similar way are actually the reputable ones to believe where the crisp, uniformed looking ones are the one to give you gossip. Just goes to show you can’t always judge a book by its cover!
Actually I find it odd that I’m talking about newspapers. Back home, aside from working on art projects, newspapers are fairly obsolete in my life. It’s a sad fact, but a true one. I’ve grown up in a generation that is all about technology. With google, twitter, and other social media sites, I have become accustomed to always having information at my fingertips and multiple sources to verify stories. Living in England this summer it’s been very, very different. At Trinity I don’t even have a television easily available to me unless I fight to use the one in the beer cellar, which is usually full of other students during the time of the evening news. Yes, we technically have wifi on campus, but I’ll be blunt – it’s of poor quality and is unreliable. (Three cheers for Ethernet chords!) To find information you really have to take the time to sit down, find a good connection, and patiently search for it. And often times when you want to know things or catch glimpses of a story it’s while you’re out and walking the streets. I think I’ve really taken this access for granted and find myself feeling out of touch when I do catch new information.
The whole experience of being unattached to my iPhone has been great in a lot of ways. I feel like I know my friends here a lot better than I would at this point if I was able to be constantly on social media or even texting friends back home. Because, shocker, we actually have to talk to each other. And it’s actually quite exciting to not feel tied down to a constant stream of emails or people wanting to get in touch with you. However, while I've enjoyed this newfound sense of liberation, I'm definitely excited to get my data plan back for the ease of staying informed.
Maybe It's Okay to Fight Fire with Fire
We have spent a lot of class time discussing the effects and
responses to violence in media. Many of us seem to feel that the violence
should be limited and/or regulated. This is particularly in light of the
concern that we as a society are becoming desensitized to violence, because we
are bombarded with it daily on television, in movies, and in the news. I have
to come to the defense of the news, though, by pointing out that we have to
remain informed, and the news must provide us that service, no matter how scary
its content is.
A previous blog post discussed the lesser amounts of local
news coverage here in England and the role local news coverage plays in the
creation of Mean World Syndrome through its constant coverage of local crime,
distorting viewers’ perception of the world as a more violent place than it is.
I actually believe, though, that this lack of local coverage could potentially
be a major loss.
Through research for my second application paper, I came
across a study that looked into whether using a public health model to frame
violent news content would bring a purpose to news channels’ coverage beyond
just informing. Using a public health model would just mean adding context to
the issue at hand, the way news covers diseases and medical issues. Through
this framing method, viewers are presented with more than just a horrifying
school shooting, but also with what needs to be done to prevent such aggression
from happening again.
When local violence is covered in this way, the community
majorly benefits. Keeping that in mind, I feel that having less local news
coverage in England could be a problem. I am pessimistically doubtful that
crime and violence is less prevalent throughout England than it is in America.
If so, presenting communities not only with the violence that is taking place
within it, but also with what needs to be done to stop it, is a role news
channels should be playing, here and everywhere. Because they can focus on
smaller areas, rather than an entire country as the BBC does, local news
channels would be best at this.
Ebola Virus and Media Coverage
Today, my sister got back from a mission trip in Ghana, Africa.
When the news of the Ebola outbreak was spreading last week, she had
been there for about four days. I was immediately concerned and with my
parents being the only ones talking to her, I had no idea what the
current situation was in the community she was in. I had personally
never heard of the seriousness of Ebola, so I searched all over the
internet for information and statistics on the disease.
Since it is easily spread by blood and body fluids, with some people even claiming it can be spread by a cough, I was naturally worried for her health. After reassuring myself it was very unlikely for the disease to spread to Ghana, I was very interested to see how the media portrayed the outbreak around the world.
Most of the immediate information I receive regarding updates related to the virus come from Twitter. I follow WSBTV, so when the American patients were returning to the US last week and yesterday morning, I could follow their arrivals very easily. The backlash about bringing the Americans to Emory has also been present all over Facebook. Because I "like" the 11 Alive news page, many of the top stories appearing on my timeline have to do with the care of these patients. On these articles, there have been harsh comments from people around the US responding negatively to their transfer home. Although I haven't been able to watch CNN live, on their US online homepage, there is whole section specifically dedicated to the virus. Whereas, when I went to the BBC homepage, the Ebola outbreak isn't mentioned once.
Noticing this difference, I asked my sister today what the reports were like in Africa regarding the virus. She said that they only knew about the virus from parents calling their children on her mission trip checking up on them and mentioning the disease. They would have had no idea that something like that was spreading if it hadn't been from news from the US. She also told me: "The only time I remember hearing about it was at an Internet cafe when these guys were on their Facebook and seeing people with pictures of it on there".
When I asked her whether it was on local news or in their newspapers she told me she hadn't noticed it. Also, she said that when she was waiting at the airport it was the first time she actually saw live reporting about it, but it was through a CNN coverage. When I went online to try to find some examples of Ghanaian media content, two of their TV stations, TV3 and GBC Ghana (government run news), the Ebola outbreak wasn't mentioned at all in bold letters like it was on CNN.
Although this is just my sister's account of what she noticed while being over there, I think it does show the importance we place on media content in comparison to how other countries do. With our advanced research and the capabilities of the CDC, I think the emphasis on learning more about Ebola makes sense, but it also is drastically scaring some of the American public when it shouldn't be.
Since it is easily spread by blood and body fluids, with some people even claiming it can be spread by a cough, I was naturally worried for her health. After reassuring myself it was very unlikely for the disease to spread to Ghana, I was very interested to see how the media portrayed the outbreak around the world.
Most of the immediate information I receive regarding updates related to the virus come from Twitter. I follow WSBTV, so when the American patients were returning to the US last week and yesterday morning, I could follow their arrivals very easily. The backlash about bringing the Americans to Emory has also been present all over Facebook. Because I "like" the 11 Alive news page, many of the top stories appearing on my timeline have to do with the care of these patients. On these articles, there have been harsh comments from people around the US responding negatively to their transfer home. Although I haven't been able to watch CNN live, on their US online homepage, there is whole section specifically dedicated to the virus. Whereas, when I went to the BBC homepage, the Ebola outbreak isn't mentioned once.
Noticing this difference, I asked my sister today what the reports were like in Africa regarding the virus. She said that they only knew about the virus from parents calling their children on her mission trip checking up on them and mentioning the disease. They would have had no idea that something like that was spreading if it hadn't been from news from the US. She also told me: "The only time I remember hearing about it was at an Internet cafe when these guys were on their Facebook and seeing people with pictures of it on there".
When I asked her whether it was on local news or in their newspapers she told me she hadn't noticed it. Also, she said that when she was waiting at the airport it was the first time she actually saw live reporting about it, but it was through a CNN coverage. When I went online to try to find some examples of Ghanaian media content, two of their TV stations, TV3 and GBC Ghana (government run news), the Ebola outbreak wasn't mentioned at all in bold letters like it was on CNN.
Although this is just my sister's account of what she noticed while being over there, I think it does show the importance we place on media content in comparison to how other countries do. With our advanced research and the capabilities of the CDC, I think the emphasis on learning more about Ebola makes sense, but it also is drastically scaring some of the American public when it shouldn't be.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Jaw Dropping or Line Crossing?
I had to stop and snap a picture because I couldn't believe what it said. As an advertising major, I'm always pretty conscious of the advertisements around me, while other people may just walk by them without noticing. But I was definitely not the only one giving this specific ad some attention. You can even see the guy in the reflection of the display window stopping to read the advertisement.
We have learned about violence and sexual content in the media, and I'm not sure this really fits into either of those categories. But I couldn't help asking myself, was it really necessary? Yes, using this (misspelled) profane word in ads draws attention, but at what cost? In my opinion, using language like this in an advertisement really casts a shadow on the brand and has the potential to drastically decrease the size of your consumer base. Even though the actual word wasn't used, everyone knows what is implied by the ad. And if a child walked by and read the word aloud, it would still sound like the profanity that it is.
With so many media outlets for people to be exposed to advertisements in today's world, it is important for advertisers to create material that continues to push the envelope and draw the attention of the public. But where do we differentiate between jaw dropping and line crossing in today's advertising?
The Luxury of Choice
Visiting the
British Broadcasting Company is something I have been anticipating since the
moment I sent in my UGA at Oxford Study Abroad program application – last
December. Needless to say, by the time we finally arrived that Thursday a
couple of weeks ago, I was rather, rather excited.
During the tour,
as we were looking out at the gigantic (awesome) newsroom, the tour guide
compared the BBC to America’s CNN. This made me think of other news
organizations we have in America – and there are quite a few – and imagine what
their news operations look like. We have CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC News…and the
list goes on.
We’ve discussed
in class, and it’s been mentioned in previous blog posts, what the pros and
cons are of having a government-sponsored news organization like BBC, as well
as what the BBC’s equivalent would be in America.
But I have a
different question – where do British people go for their TV news, besides BBC?
The British, for sure, love their BBC. Who wouldn’t – it’s awesome. But are
there many other big-name news channels here?
Another topic
that has come up in class has been the dangers of choosing a blatantly sided news
source simply because it caters to and reaffirms one’s views. My dad, an über conservative, drives me crazy by refusing
to get his news from any place other than Fox News. Clearly, this can be a
problem, when one so rarely sees another side of the story and equally rarely
changes their views on issues because of it.
But. We at least have
that luxury – to be informed the way we would like to be. The liberals have
their MSNBC, the republicans their Fox, and then CNN is there to provide middle
ground. We’ve got plenty of options when it comes to choosing a news provider
in America. The UK, however, seems to have a much limited list of choices.
The question I’m left
with is:
Which country’s news
consumer, in the end, is better off?
Scottish Independence: A Case Study in Framing
When you visit the website of any UK newspaper, there's a good chance you'll see some sort of category for news stories on the movement for Scottish independence. I'd heard a little about it just from being in Oxford surrounded by British media, but my general sense was that the discussion didn't have a lot of bearing on the future -- or at least the immediate future. Scotland and England united in the early eighteenth century, and it didn't seem likely to change. Every once in a while we talk about Puerto Rican independence in the U.S., but nothing's really changed.
But when I was in Edinburgh this weekend with Ashlyn and Brittany, we met up with a friend of Ashlyn's, who is Scottish. Brittany asked him an offhand question about the queen, and he said, completely deadpan, "I hate the queen."
It had something to do with football club alliances, which I won't pretend to understand. But talking to him got me thinking about the relationship between Scotland and England. After doing a little research, I stumbled on the website for -- what else? -- The Guardian. Their online paper has a whole section for Scottish independence with news articles and a roundup column every week. The tone of the weekly column is, unsurprisingly, pretty irreverent. The columnist swears, cracks jokes, and overall doesn't seem to give a lot of weight to the issue. In fact, in the most recent column, she references and embeds a video of a Scottish parody news segment claiming that recently translated portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that Jesus himself was a unionist.
Now, as the columnist mentions, the men who appear in the video have actually made a film about Scottish independence. So clearly they aren't taking themselves too seriously, but they do have some serious views on the issue. When I looked at Scottish news sources, I found the topic of independence handled a little differently. Here is the blurb under the "independence referendum" category of the Scottish Daily Record website:
These examples are specific. I haven't searched every news website in England and Scotland. But I think this small, informal bit of content analysis might indicate a bigger-picture issue. I'm not saying that English media is totally unionist or that all Scottish media is separatist. But if a Scottish newspaper treated independence the way The Guardian does, I don't know how much I'd think my vote in the referendum is going to matter. How important is Scottish independence, and how much of a say do Scots have? I think it depends whose media you ask.
But when I was in Edinburgh this weekend with Ashlyn and Brittany, we met up with a friend of Ashlyn's, who is Scottish. Brittany asked him an offhand question about the queen, and he said, completely deadpan, "I hate the queen."
It had something to do with football club alliances, which I won't pretend to understand. But talking to him got me thinking about the relationship between Scotland and England. After doing a little research, I stumbled on the website for -- what else? -- The Guardian. Their online paper has a whole section for Scottish independence with news articles and a roundup column every week. The tone of the weekly column is, unsurprisingly, pretty irreverent. The columnist swears, cracks jokes, and overall doesn't seem to give a lot of weight to the issue. In fact, in the most recent column, she references and embeds a video of a Scottish parody news segment claiming that recently translated portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal that Jesus himself was a unionist.
Now, as the columnist mentions, the men who appear in the video have actually made a film about Scottish independence. So clearly they aren't taking themselves too seriously, but they do have some serious views on the issue. When I looked at Scottish news sources, I found the topic of independence handled a little differently. Here is the blurb under the "independence referendum" category of the Scottish Daily Record website:
Scots will be asked to decide on the future of our country in this year's independence referendum on September 18. The historic question will be: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" If Scots say yes, First Minister Alex Salmond will begin negotiations which could see Scotland becoming an independent country by March 2016.In comparison, the weekly roundup column mentioned above was the first item displayed under The Guardian's Scottish independence category. There's apparently a referendum coming up next month in Scotland. Would I know that from reading The Guardian? Well ... maybe. Or maybe I would hear about Scottish independence and think about the weekly blog that told me nothing major is happening.
These examples are specific. I haven't searched every news website in England and Scotland. But I think this small, informal bit of content analysis might indicate a bigger-picture issue. I'm not saying that English media is totally unionist or that all Scottish media is separatist. But if a Scottish newspaper treated independence the way The Guardian does, I don't know how much I'd think my vote in the referendum is going to matter. How important is Scottish independence, and how much of a say do Scots have? I think it depends whose media you ask.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
If it Bleeds, it Leads
After spending several weeks in Oxford, I have noticed one
thing in particular about British news coverage: there is very little local
news broadcasted on airways. From what I can tell, most citizens get quick
updates on national and international coverage on BBC and move on with their
day. Coming from America, where almost every city has its own local station, I
found that rather odd. But is it really such a loss?
A quick scroll through Atlanta’s WSBTV’s webpage revealed
that there have been four critical car crashes and five violent crimes
committed in Atlanta in the past two days. When you consider the entire Atlanta
metropolitan area, those odds aren’t terrible, but when the stories are
concentrated on a single news page, they can be a little overwhelming. This
seemed like a prime example of how Atlanta news cultivates its viewers to have
a strong Mean World Syndrome. According to a 2013 Pew study, 71 percent of
Americas who report using broadcast news as their main form of news-gathering rely
primarily on local news channels. If Americans do in fact rely heavily on local
news broadcasts, they may be getting a skewed since of the world from the high
volume of violent crime coverage.
As it turns out, Oxfordshire does in fact have a local news outlet. A scroll through their news page revealed that only two violent crimes
have been reported in the past two days. I couldn’t find a similar study about
British news-gathering habits, but local news outlets do not seem as prominent
among citizens here as they are in America. That fact combined with the lower
number of violent news stories suggest that British media cultivates its
viewers less than their American counterparts to see the country as a violent
place. It is possible that Oxfordshire simply has less violent crime on which
to report, but the differences in coverage are still rather staggering.
Are we more cultivated to believe in Mean World Syndrome than
British consumers? Can we blame it all on local news stations?
Are we cultivated to show PDA?
During my travels I have noticed that people in Europe (or
at least the places I’ve gone – around the UK and Belgium) show more public
displays of affection (PDA) compared to people in the States. I think that
relationships in the States are similar in their levels of happiness as
European relationships, so why is there more PDA in Europe?
Combing class discussion from the topics of Cultivation
Theory and Media Effects from Sexual Content, I came up with a possible answer.
Cultivation Theory suggests that the more media a person is exposed to, the
more they cultivate similar views of the world as shown to them on television.
Sexual content in media, whether on television, print ads, or online – ranges
from mildly suggestive to sexually explicit. Because new forms of media are
becoming more widely availed and used by younger viewers, there are social
concerns about the amount of sexual content shown.
As previous blogs have pointed out, ads and television
programs in the UK and Europe have more content that leans towards the sexually
explicit side of the scale than we are used to seeing in America. Personally, I
have noticed that magazine covers in the UK are more revealing than covers in
the US.
In London last weekend, I was handed a tabloid before I went
into the tube station. I noticed that most people on the train were reading
tabloids, so I started reading the one I was handed. After turning the first
page, I saw an advertisement that was sexually explicit. I immediately closed
the tabloid and threw it away when I got off the train. I don’t remember the
name of the tabloid or what the specific advertisement was for, but I do
remember the sexually explicit image and how wrong I thought it was.
It would be extremely easy for any young person to pick up
one of the tabloid and be subjected to these sexually explicit images, and I’m
sure they do. Young people in Europe are constantly exposed to sexually
explicit images, which might cultivate them to show more PDA and act in
sexually explicit ways.
Although this is only a correlation (and not causation), I
think that there is some merit in these observations. I have wonder if young
people would be showing as many public displays of affections if they grew up
in the States, and were not consuming media with so much sexual content?
BBC Interview Tactics
Those who know me well often always relate me to my extreme (but never embarrassing) obsession with Carrie Underwood. It's hard to explain on paper, but it's borderline unhealthy. Anyways, while on our excursion at BBC I was dying to get to Wifi and re-watch one of her interviews she did while promoting her Blown Away tour on the BBC Breakfast show. At first, there was no deeper meaning into what I was doing; I simply wanted to see if she had been in the same room where she gave her interview. However, after watching the interview tactics the British interviewers Charlie Sayt and Susanna Reid used against her, I was surprised with how blunt and gossip oriented they were.
The main piece of the interview that caught me off guard was when they asked her to speak directly about other celebrities. Underwood mentioned how the entourage that travels with her on trips and other appearances is much smaller than other performers; they took this and ran with it. Sayt and Reit asked specifically if Eminem or Beyonce had a huge entourage that they bring to different award shows. I thought it was very odd that they would even say someone else's name, much less ask her to call someone out. You can tell how uncomfortable Underwood got with the question and wanted to avoid giving an answer.
I feel like in the US, interviewers remain more cautious and don't always want to put people against each other for a news story. I can't think of one instance where Underwood has been asked on Good Morning America or the Today Show about someone else's image. I feel like the US sees her as sort of "America's sweetheart" so questions like this just wouldn't be acceptable.
Although this is a very small segment of the entire interview, you can get a sense of just how acceptable celebrity gossip and tabloid rumors are in the UK. No matter what, the British News wants to get an appealing story to make money. In the case of Underwood, her celebrity status uisn't as well known as it is back in the states, so coming up with an angle like this most likely made the interview more interesting to BBC's viewers.
London is also where Underwood gave her stance on gay marriage. She does not like to talk about politics and in every interview where she has been asked for her particular views, she stays pretty neutral. However, during the same trip while having an interview with the London newspaper The Independent, Underwood finally gave the world a glimpse into her social beliefs saying, "As a married person myself, I don't know what it;s like to be told I can't marry somebody I love. I can't imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly the people that we want to love."
I remember when this interview was published thinking how bizarre it was that she gave her thoughts about this topic, considering it is such a debate these days. Once back in America, she told the Associated Press, "I was asked a difficult question in the last five minutes of an interview and I answered it the best way I knew how."
I think here, she is admitting to how the London press tries to get the most news worthy an juicy stories out of their interviews, not considering the artist at hand, just like in the BBC interview. I don't belive Underwood would have ever been asked this question in an American interview, and if she would have been, I think she could have easily declined to comment and the conversation would have moved on. However, fro the tactics seen used by BBC, The independent probably would have continued asking questions until they got what they wanted out of her.
Here is the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he1BG03Do_A
The main piece of the interview that caught me off guard was when they asked her to speak directly about other celebrities. Underwood mentioned how the entourage that travels with her on trips and other appearances is much smaller than other performers; they took this and ran with it. Sayt and Reit asked specifically if Eminem or Beyonce had a huge entourage that they bring to different award shows. I thought it was very odd that they would even say someone else's name, much less ask her to call someone out. You can tell how uncomfortable Underwood got with the question and wanted to avoid giving an answer.
I feel like in the US, interviewers remain more cautious and don't always want to put people against each other for a news story. I can't think of one instance where Underwood has been asked on Good Morning America or the Today Show about someone else's image. I feel like the US sees her as sort of "America's sweetheart" so questions like this just wouldn't be acceptable.
Although this is a very small segment of the entire interview, you can get a sense of just how acceptable celebrity gossip and tabloid rumors are in the UK. No matter what, the British News wants to get an appealing story to make money. In the case of Underwood, her celebrity status uisn't as well known as it is back in the states, so coming up with an angle like this most likely made the interview more interesting to BBC's viewers.
London is also where Underwood gave her stance on gay marriage. She does not like to talk about politics and in every interview where she has been asked for her particular views, she stays pretty neutral. However, during the same trip while having an interview with the London newspaper The Independent, Underwood finally gave the world a glimpse into her social beliefs saying, "As a married person myself, I don't know what it;s like to be told I can't marry somebody I love. I can't imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly the people that we want to love."
I remember when this interview was published thinking how bizarre it was that she gave her thoughts about this topic, considering it is such a debate these days. Once back in America, she told the Associated Press, "I was asked a difficult question in the last five minutes of an interview and I answered it the best way I knew how."
I think here, she is admitting to how the London press tries to get the most news worthy an juicy stories out of their interviews, not considering the artist at hand, just like in the BBC interview. I don't belive Underwood would have ever been asked this question in an American interview, and if she would have been, I think she could have easily declined to comment and the conversation would have moved on. However, fro the tactics seen used by BBC, The independent probably would have continued asking questions until they got what they wanted out of her.
Here is the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he1BG03Do_A
The Radio Star
During my various visits to pubs or while traveling to and from London--I've gotten the chance to listen to UK radio stations. Primarily the channel know as BBC Radio 1.
BBCR1--as it's abbreviated--is kind of like a mix of Q100 meets Atlanta's Alternative 105.7 meets NPR.
Across the course of maybe fifteen minutes, you can hear Justin Timberlake's "Not a Big Thing" and the Foo Fighter's "These Days." Jack White's "Lazaretto" and David Guetta. One story will be celebrity gossip about Stella McCartney and the prank a Radio DJ pulled about asking her to send him a pair of the tight short shorts she made for the Great Britain Olympic team. The next topic will be a "News Beat Update" on the bombings in Gaza and the plea for cease fire.
It blows my mind how such a large spectrum of content is played all on the same station. I understand that since the BBC is behind the agenda, of course serious news would be involved. But could you imagine being in Georgia listening to Ke$ha only to then transition to the DJ discussing the Ukrainian plane crash? The two just wouldn't mix in the United States.
Today in class we discussed how the younger generation is opposed to politics and actually becoming informed via news media. Yet here in the UK, they play songs or discuss topics from millenial pop culture while educating them on world crises. Why doesn't this happen back at home? I know there's an obsession with ratings and advertising desirability, but why not do a little of both? I honestly don't have an answer.
Someone in our class made a comment about how informed and mature younger kids seem around Oxford. I completely agree with them. Here you can listening to all the sensational news while also having current event updates. You're expected to know both and you literally have more channels for them.
The more time I spend abroad, the more time I sort of can't blame the international community for seeing Americans as they do. Just because they have so many more opportunities for, for lack of a better word--enlightenment? They have historical structures and prestigious universities all around that have unbelievable requirements that we as students could never imagine having to complete for more than six weeks. On multiple occasions I've heard students gawk at how intelligent residents or professors are here--so I can't help but wonder how different things could be if the simplest of changes were made.
In class we all admitted to realizing that American culture is a little bit more conservative then the one here. People are more open about things like sexuality or the consumption of alcohol. I'm not bashing our country by any means, but just lacking to understand some aspects of my own industry. When will being informed be as popular as entertained? When will we adapt?
BBCR1--as it's abbreviated--is kind of like a mix of Q100 meets Atlanta's Alternative 105.7 meets NPR.
Across the course of maybe fifteen minutes, you can hear Justin Timberlake's "Not a Big Thing" and the Foo Fighter's "These Days." Jack White's "Lazaretto" and David Guetta. One story will be celebrity gossip about Stella McCartney and the prank a Radio DJ pulled about asking her to send him a pair of the tight short shorts she made for the Great Britain Olympic team. The next topic will be a "News Beat Update" on the bombings in Gaza and the plea for cease fire.
It blows my mind how such a large spectrum of content is played all on the same station. I understand that since the BBC is behind the agenda, of course serious news would be involved. But could you imagine being in Georgia listening to Ke$ha only to then transition to the DJ discussing the Ukrainian plane crash? The two just wouldn't mix in the United States.
Today in class we discussed how the younger generation is opposed to politics and actually becoming informed via news media. Yet here in the UK, they play songs or discuss topics from millenial pop culture while educating them on world crises. Why doesn't this happen back at home? I know there's an obsession with ratings and advertising desirability, but why not do a little of both? I honestly don't have an answer.
Someone in our class made a comment about how informed and mature younger kids seem around Oxford. I completely agree with them. Here you can listening to all the sensational news while also having current event updates. You're expected to know both and you literally have more channels for them.
The more time I spend abroad, the more time I sort of can't blame the international community for seeing Americans as they do. Just because they have so many more opportunities for, for lack of a better word--enlightenment? They have historical structures and prestigious universities all around that have unbelievable requirements that we as students could never imagine having to complete for more than six weeks. On multiple occasions I've heard students gawk at how intelligent residents or professors are here--so I can't help but wonder how different things could be if the simplest of changes were made.
In class we all admitted to realizing that American culture is a little bit more conservative then the one here. People are more open about things like sexuality or the consumption of alcohol. I'm not bashing our country by any means, but just lacking to understand some aspects of my own industry. When will being informed be as popular as entertained? When will we adapt?
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
**WARNING** This post contains graphic content - Viewer discretion is advised.
Over the past couple of days in class, we have been discussing the effects of media violence and the reactions to disturbing or frightening media content. I found these lectures incredibly relevant when I stumbled across a CNN article.
I was scrolling through Buzzfeed when I came across an article about the attacks in Gaza. I decided a quick skim was in order to stay up-to-date on the topic. While reading, I followed the first hyperlink I saw, as I do with all Buzzfeed articles (I like to know where they source their information from). The link to me to a CNN article about the lack of cease-fire in Gaza. As with all CNN articles these days, a video immediately began playing on the page, and without warning I was watching the corpse of a young boy be carried through a crowd.
It actually took me a minute to process what I was seeing. I had been given no warning nor even a choice to watch the scene. It was horrifying. I continued to watch the segment as it featured children talking about the boy, the explosions, the names of the dead and visual descriptions of dead bodies in the street. It also showed clips of pools of blood and what appeared to be small pieces of flesh, but what I found most disturbing was the amount of times I watched corpses of children ben hauled around. One scene in particular stood out: it shows the feet of corpse of a child being lowered on a table; the sheet the child is wrapped up in is covered in blood. I still cannot get the image out of my head.
Outraged and hoping this was not a global trend, I went on BBC.com to get a sense of how the British media was handling this issue. There were some very notable difference in how BBC handled their graphic content. First, a video did not immediately begin to play when I opened the page (much to my relief). Secondly, there was a warning, not once, but twice before he video began. The first warning is small text floating next to the play button, and the second warning comes when the video starts and includes a screen of text and an announcer stating "the following report contains some disturbing images."
I was so delighted at the warning that I continued to watch the video. Boy, was that a mistake. I had assumed that the disturbing images would be similar to what I had seen in the CNN video (dead bodies, blood, etc.). I was dead wrong (no pun intended). The first video opens with a child screaming and crying in pain. She was being held down as her head was bandaged. I couldn't watch anymore. While the content on CNN was in fact horrifying, this struck deep within me. I was so disturbed by the first few seconds of the video that I didn't even watch the other videos on the page, warning label or not.
Trying to distract myself from what I saw, I tried to find other similar articles on CNN and BBC to compare how each entity handled graphic content. I settled on a two stories about a suicide bombing in Nigeria. Besides the obvious differences in the actual text of the articles I noticed one really, really big difference: BBC had an incredibly graphic image and CNN did not. Unlike in the last BBC article, this photo came without warning. Splashed at the top of the page was a photo of a woman looking on the crime scene of the explosion. Beyond the yellow police tape, we can see blood, and what appears to be flesh, in an explosion pattern on the ground.
I was speechless. I just sat there staring at my computer thinking, "They are not showing me where the suicide bomber exploded.No, they can't be... OMG they did. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!" To escape this image, I jumped over to CNN to find its take on reporting this tragedy When I came across the article I was shocked, but not for the same reasons I was shocked at the BBC article. CNN's article completely lacked a photo. I pondered this for a moment because it is very unlike CNN, or any large news agency for that matter, to post an article without an accompanying photo. I thought that maybe they could not find one, but that would be highly unlikely. So, the only conclusion I could draw was that CNN intentionally left a photo out of the article, but why?
I find myself asking why a lot.
"Why would you use that clip of a dead child's body?"
"Why would you show an innocent child writhing in pain?"
"Why do you show use images of other's spilled blood?"
"WHY do you supply images of human flesh laying in the street?"
"Why don't you have more warnings?"
"Why are your warnings not specific enough?
"Why? Why? Why?"
Since this has been a topic of discussion in class this week, I found that these articles were extremely relevant and may have not been taken as seriously if I saw them at another point in time. So, I pose a two-part question to you: Why is the news media pushing these graphic images, and is it the duty of the news media to warn the viewers of the specifics of their disturbing content?
Sexual Ads in Public Areas
I spent this previous weekend in the magical city of Paris, France. Since most of Paris's main attractions are spread apart throughout the city, my group took the metro everywhere. The metro is a prime location for advertising, and I was exposed to a lot of it while I was there. One observation I made while exploring the city was that French advertisement is meant to excite and seduce. I was alarmed to see these sexual ads in a public place. So many families with young children use the metro as a main form of transportation, and I find it disturbing that so many children are exposed to this content while using the metro. One ad that stood out to me displayed an almost naked woman and red lipstick prints in it. It was an ad for an "adult" club. Of course, there are ads in America that feature raunchy material, but they are usually located in places that children do not usually have access to. If ads do happen to be in public places that have a high traffic flow, like billboards on the interstate that advertise "adult" clubs and "exotic" dancing, there are not pictures of women being objectified plastered on the billboards. There are only words describing the facility. Do you think media should be regulated in public places or do you think that exposing children to sexual ads early on in life helps them become more comfortable with the subject?
The Moulin Rouge Nightmare
Talking about sexual content the other day in class made me think about an experience I had in Paris this past weekend. A couple friends and I were spending some time in Montmartre and decided to visit the Moulin Rouge. We were told it was only a few blocks down the road, so we decided to walk. At first, everything was fine. Perfectly normal Parisian street lined with perfectly normal Parisian gift shops. We passed a little magazine stand in the middle of the road. Everything seemed fine to me until I realized that the magazines were covered with naked women.
Taken a little by surprise, we kept walking. After about a block, we began to pass all kinds of sex shops. Huge neon lights stuck out from tiny buildings, advertising all sorts of sexual acts and toys that could be purchased inside. Posters of naked women, lingerie-clad mannequins, and sexual advertisements covered all the windows of the stores. I felt like I was in a mini Las Vegas. It seemed like the red light district of Paris.
The sidewalk we were walking on was lined with benches, all crowded with men (literally, there was not a single woman). The number of whistles, catcalls, and vulgar things that were shouted at us in that short three-block walk to the Moulin Rouge was astounding. We decided going through the trouble of taking the metro just one stop to return us to where we started was worth not having to walk back the way we came.
In my mind, I wondered to myself if these men would behave the same way in a different context. Did being surrounded by sexualized advertisements, magazines, and other various forms of media make them behave in a way that was that degrading towards women? Or was this their normal behavior and they just put themselves in this context to make it seem more justifiable? In my personal opinion, I think it's a little of both. But it still begs the question of how much of an influence the media's content, especially sexual content, can have on the way we think and behave in society.
Sexual content in Ireland
Seeing as we discussed sexual content in class the other day it made me think about my trip to Dublin this past weekend. My companions and I stopped in a convenience store so that we could pick up a few things before heading to our hostel. I was standing by the front of the store looking over the magazines when something in the upper left corner caught my eye.
It was porn.
And when I say porn, I mean more than your average Playboy magazine, it was just straight on nudity, in the middle of a little convenience store in Dublin. I was shocked, I even called one of my friends over to make sure what I was seeing is actually real. I know that sex can sell but to see that in the middle of the day was to say the least a huge alarm.
Even though they are more liberal about many things over here than we are in the states, I still can't believe that they wouldn't at least censor these magazines slightly as they do with the magazines that are openly sold in the states, simply because they are in public where children have access to them rather easily. There should be more barriers so that children's wandering eyes don't find something that could be mentally disturbing.
I feel like what sexual material is being thrown out there, whether it be here or in the states, should undergo more censorship. If I were a parent living in Ireland or here in the UK and my children were seeing those kinds of things very blatantly on the magazine shelves, I would be extremely distraught from that exposure.
It was porn.
And when I say porn, I mean more than your average Playboy magazine, it was just straight on nudity, in the middle of a little convenience store in Dublin. I was shocked, I even called one of my friends over to make sure what I was seeing is actually real. I know that sex can sell but to see that in the middle of the day was to say the least a huge alarm.
Even though they are more liberal about many things over here than we are in the states, I still can't believe that they wouldn't at least censor these magazines slightly as they do with the magazines that are openly sold in the states, simply because they are in public where children have access to them rather easily. There should be more barriers so that children's wandering eyes don't find something that could be mentally disturbing.
I feel like what sexual material is being thrown out there, whether it be here or in the states, should undergo more censorship. If I were a parent living in Ireland or here in the UK and my children were seeing those kinds of things very blatantly on the magazine shelves, I would be extremely distraught from that exposure.
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