dun... dun... DONE.

I go on the internet pretty much everyday and the t.v. is on pretty often, although I don't really watch it that much. So i guess you could say i consume a lot of media. I mean i don't keep up with celebrities and all of that stuff, i just go on social media and YouTube. I don't really know how all the media i consume impacts me because i don't really pay much attention to the media. For example, when i'm watching t.v. it's just like whatever, i don't get really into it. So maybe it effects me in such a way that i don't notice. Ever since we started the media unit and learned the needs advertisers appeal to and the advertisement techniques, if i take a moment to think, i can identify some of the techniques they're using and the appeals. So I've become a lot more aware of the techniques and appeals. 

I would consider myself more media literate because I've actually learned a lot in this media unit. Before, i didn't really notice the stuff that the media does, but in class it was clearly identified. So then i thought "oh yea! that is what they're doing" with their advertising techniques and how they target specific people. All the videos we watched really blew my mind because i had no idea they sent people out o find trendsetting kids in hopes of finally finding something cool to sell. Also, those cool rules, how you can't observe cool unless you're cool, it can't be manufactured, and once cool is found it will self-destruct, they make sense but that's crazy. I didn't know marketers work so hard to sell their stuff, i know if they're stuff gets in the trend then it'll be a big profit, but the videos really showed how they do a lot of things and put a lot of effort into trying to sell their stuff. Furthermore, in the Persuaders they said the secret to all persuasion is to induce the person to persuade themself and that literally makes sooo much sense. They also talked about how they make the consumer feel empowered, even though they're not actually empowered, by letting them by it when they want and whatnot. It really showed how they play tricks on our minds. A couple of the videos also talked about how the media is always showing skinny women and how it's an impossible image that women and girls are comparing themselves to. Then they develop all these insecurities and they begin wanting to change themselves because they're always being shown these skinny women that they think they have to be. But anyways, all the videos we watched talked about how they develop advertisements and the components of them. They also talked about what the media does and what it shows to the public. i think learning all these things about the media has helped me to determine the implicit messages.

My media consumption habits have changed because i can't just see ads as just whatever they put, i kind of automatically think about the appeals and the techniques. Now that i know all this stuff that the media does, i can't just ignore. It's like once you see it , you can't unsee it. I guess i just don't fall for their messages and tricks anymore, or i'm less likely to. It's important to have media literacy so the media can't play tricks on you and get you to spend money while manipulating you. The media shows the ideal thing, like a perfect family or a skinny girl or a muscular guy, and they play on your insecurities hoping you'll buy whatever they're selling because you think it can possibly make you feel better when it won't because it's in no way connect to you being a good parent or being a pretty girl. However, being media literate you'd know the underlying messages and what they're ultimately trying to get you to do so you won't fall for what they're selling. Basically, being media literate will just help you in one way or another. 

From keeping this log, i got to find actual examples in the media in which i identified their advertising techniques and appeals and stuff.. and now i can do that stuff in my head while watching commercials and shows. Also, i was actually pretty interesting to look into the media and find different things that did the things we talked about in class. I liked this class because the class discussions were very interesting and all the stuff we learned actually had to do with real life stuff so it was nice. 

2 Fast 2 Furious.

Miss Represention showed alot about how there is sexism in our society and that it keeps women from holding high position jobs. Some of the things that surprised me the most, were the hyper sexualization of women news casters and politicians and how there's only 16 % of women protagonists in films. I knew that there were more women in like films and stuff but what really ticked me off was when they showed all those different clips of someone talking about a well-known female, saying "What'd you think of those legs", "the dumbo with the big ears", or the other insulting things. My jaw literally dropped when i heard them saying these things. i couldn't believe that they were saying it on air. Miss Representation really showed how bad our society is.

Anyways 2 Fast 2 Furious is an example of a film where the protagonist is not a female character. Also, it's true that the female characters in this film are wearing revealing clothing. Like you can see in the photo that one of the girl's shirt's is really low cut. The other girl, Suki with the pink car, is wearing a crop top that reveals her stomach and she's fit... So i think the target audience is the target audience that they were talking about in Miss Rpresentation, men 18-34 because there's cars; they're making the assumption that most guys like cars, and they show a bunch of girls with revealing clothing in the movie, which shows they're also making the assumption that guys like seeing women's bodies. Just because their target audience is men doesn't mean women won't see it. So i think with the female characters they're sending the message to women that this is what you should look like to get attention from men. I mean i don't think this will immediately cause women to change but if all of the media is subtly sending this message, i think it'll cause people to change. Because if women are seeing the same thing everywhere and these women aren't it they'll feel pressure to change and they might subconsciously begin to change. 

If the media continues to send these messages that women are like objects, that they're nothing without their outside appearance then i think our society may get worse,but Miss Representation showed how bad our society is already so maybe it can't get worse. I doubt the media will change because the media is kinda ran by marketers and marketers top priority is to make money. So they'll do whatever they can to make money and i'm not sure if they care about how the messages they send affect the people in our society.

Something a little different.. kpop!

So yea, kpop. Anyways, this group is called Infinite and i think this music video was made specifically to advertise Samsung galaxy products, i mean at the very end it shows a "Samsung GALAXY Music" screen so i'm pretty sure it's used to promote their products. There's major product placement in this video, i think they show a total of 3 items; i'm guessing, some new Samsung phone, some kind of Samsung tablet, and the Samsung phone-watch thing. The product placement is really obvious in this because they literally zoom in on the phone and show the guy writing on it, dragging and dropping a picture or they show them talking into the watch. Basically, they shows quite a few features of their products. Something a little more subtle is that they're all wearing the watch on their left hand and at the end of the video they do a dance and they end the dance with them moving their left arm across their body and their head is turned down as if they're looking at the watch. 

At first i wasn't really sure what the music video had to do with the song, but after writing what you're about to read, it made sense. I think the plot is that they're all working on different parts for the performance of this song. For example, someone's making up dance moves, putting together the clothes they'll wear, and others are singing their parts. Then they finish and they're all happy and they perform it in that place where they're surrounded by stands and it's all dark. The song is about how this guy wants this girl but she's taken by someone else and so I guess at the end when the guy looks at the girl in the stands, it shows that their performance was his way of confessing his love to her. 
I thought that this was actually pretty clever how they had pretty obvious product placement, but it still made sense as a music video. 

One advertising technique they used was transfer/association because they put their products in Infinite's music video. Infinite is actually a pretty popular kpop group in Asia and they're bound to have some crazy fans. So i think some of those crazy fans just might buy some of these products just cause they're in Infinite's video. Also, i'm pretty sure most of their fans saw this video so there's more people they're advertising to. 

Overall, i thought this video was pretty well made because they showed a bunch of products and their features while still having a story line that went along with the song. i thought the watch thing was really cool. i mean they only showed it once at the end where they talk to each other using it but that's still so cool. It made me want one even though i know i'm not buying one. 

Huluplus.

                           

So i was watching a show on Huluplus and throughout each episode it shows several commercials. Before each commercial they give you like 15 seconds to choose a commercial before they just give you a random one to watch and i thought this was pretty interesting. But the bottom line is that you watch a commercial. One time it gave me the choice of american express: clown or american express: cyclist. This shows that american express has two different commercials for the same thing and that means they have to different ways to appeal to the viewer. So whatever the reason is for picking an ad, the ad you pick will most likely appeal to you more than the other ads because you chose that ad for a reason. So i think giving the viewer a choice of which ad they get to watch, gives the market people kind of an upper hand because the ad you choose will probably appeal to you more than just a random ad that they show. As for the viewer, i guess they can feel more empowered because they get to choose what ad they watch, but they still have to watch an ad so it's not really a win. 

To wrap it all up, i think each ad has a different target audience so when you pick an ad, that makes you more likely to be part of that target audience, so the ad will appeal to you more.

Pay-per-view commercial is sooo annoying

This commercial kept popping up while i was trying to watch a show and i couldn't skip it, so i think i've seen this like 10 times. Every time i heard that yelling/ screaming of "yeaaa" at the very beginning of it, I thought " oh my god, i hate this commercial." The first time I saw it i thought "oh, what is this music." Then I saw that it was UFC on an ad for pay-per-view. Since I didn't find this commercial appealing in anyway, I know I'm not a part of its target audience. I think the target audience would be male maybe in their 20's to 30's because the music is loud and not soothing at all and it broadcasts UFC fighting. Both of these things reinforce aggression which is a masculine thing. As you can see, they have the assumption that males are aggressive and it appeals to them. If, let's say, a guy in his 20's saw this, i think he'd be more interested in it, than me, because the clips they show from the fights, along with the announcers voice, seem very intense and entertaining so i think he'd be more likely to buy pay-per-view for these fights. However, i'm not really sure if this did a very good job of trying to get these people to actually buy pay-per-view. 

With this ad they're trying to get people to get pay-per-view so they can watch, in this case, UFC fights. They show some clips of the fights with the announces voice that makes it sound super intense and, i guess you could say, amazing. The advertising technique that was most prominent to me was transfer/association because they show Weidman and Silva and i suppose these people are really popular among the UFC fighters or, i'm assuming, they were former rivals or something so they're going to have a really big match. 

Overall, i thought this commercial wasn't effective because just showing UFC fighting doesn't make me want to buy pay-per-view. I can't really speak for guys, but i don't think it effects them that much more than me. Also, my friend, who isn't in this critical class yet, said " this does not make me want to buy pay-per-view." This continues to show how ineffective this commercial is.

Let's just have a kid and a gun..

I remember my 7th period teacher showing our class this last year and we briefly discussed it but i don't remember details. When I first glanced at it I saw the girls with the gun and thought "what the heck is going on here." Then I saw read the text at the top that says "one child is holding something that's banned in America to protect them. Guess which one." Then the text at the bottoms goes on to say "we won't sell Kinder chocolate eggs in the interest of child safety. Why not assault weapons?" Obviously, the assault rifle is more dangerous than the chocolate egg and they're sending the message that since assault weapons are clearly more dangerous why are they not banned and a chocolate egg IS banned? Something else i noticed was the lighting of the ad, towards the edges it gets sort of brownish or darker and there's just some light in the middle of the picture, focused on the kids. So it draws more attentions to them and directs you towards the message that they're trying to send.  

The most prominent need they're appealing to is the need to nurture because they put kids in the picture and kids with guns is just outrageous. By they I mean the organization called "Moms Demand Action", who're fighting for, I think, better gun control or banning assault rifles. So the need to nurture plays a big role in this advertising. The target audience is parents, maybe more specifically moms because they're using kids in the ad and they're specifically saying how assault weapons are dangerous towards kids. 

Overall, i think this ad does a good job at promoting what the organization believes in and it's pretty effective because they use kids and i guess they could be making the assumption that everyone loves kids and they think they're so precious, so if they put dangerous assault rifles and kids together, it'll make the message all the more effective.

Only Slightly disturbing..

These are cigarette packs in Australia and as you can see there are pretty disturbing images on them. Also, while the image is big on the box and the brand is small and just at the bottom. With this, i think the company is way more concerned about the well being of the society than their profits. I feel like when you buy it, it's sort of saying this is what you're buying: cancer and disease. And every time you take out the pack to get a cigarette, it reminds you that this could happen to you. I'm pretty sure these are pictures of relatively extreme circumstances but it sends a good message. I really like how they show you real images of what could happen to you if you continue smoking because it helps to encourage the public to stop smoking and to not smoke. If you compare these to the ones in America, that're just like white with the brand name 'Marlboro' or they just feature the brand name, these are way better. These bring you reality and actually show you the effects of smoking. In addition, i think this could be sending the message that this company, in a way, warns you about the effects of smoking so it shows they care about you and that could, possibly, make them seem better.

I think this would appeal to smokers or people who buy the cigarettes because if you smoke cigarettes, these images can't not affect you because they're what could happen to you. And everyone has to care about themselves, it's human nature. 

Overall, i think this way of advertising is very effective, not necessarily, in a positive way to help the company make profit, but i think it helps the public because it shows what smoking could lead to, discouraging you from smoking.