How the Media Can Manipulate Our Viewpoint

We have access to everyday news through the Internet, television, newspapers, and so on. Most of the news we see everyday is strongly opinionated in order to manipulate the people’s views. The articles we read, the images and clips we view are all the products of authors and companies that have strong opinions on certain political and social events. Although an article we read might look like a completely objective story that just tries to explain us what happened that day, it usually is very subjective and supports a specific point of view. Through media, many people aim to change the societies views on things. The picture below is a great example for “how the Media can manipulate our viewpoint.” On the right side of the picture, CNN shows the good part of the picture, it shows a soldier helping a man in the war. The far left of the image shows the opposite: a U.S soldier threatening to kill the same man. This shows how different news agencies manipulate the image and change our point of view, and we cannot even notice it. They use the effect of media in order to make the society think like they do.  

Fast Five

  If you’re looking for a high-budget entertaining action movie just to spend some good time, Fast Five is definitely not the movie you are looking for. Fast Five is more like a too high-budget extremely loud ridiculous and typical action movie with hot girls and muscle guys who think they are incredibly charismatic. Although the movie takes place in one of the most beautiful cities of the world Rio, the locations of the scenes are limited to ugly rooftops and weird and dark basement-like warehouses. However there is a considerably long scene on a bridge, which is over the water and so on, which should be a good thing I guess. But without hesitation, I can say that the movie has been a waste of my time and my money.

  Another very important point about the movie is the actors. The actors are incredibly successful in one thing. They are very successful in bodybuilding. Which actually doesn’t excel their acting at all. Strange isn’t it? With all those too-large pillow-sized muscles, you’d think there would be more than a thick voice and a stupid face. Or maybe you would not. This is another typical movie that shows off male power, and objectifies women. But this film objectifies not only women, but also men. By showing off their bodies, the actors attract the attention of the viewers. Since the targeted viewers liked the movie, it was somewhat successful, in its own way.

Not my type of movie, I guess.

Mulvey and Rear Window

 Rear Window, a very well known Alfred Hitchcock movie has the characteristics of a theatrical performance. The location of the events is always in the same place. The main character Jeffries has a broken leg and has to rest in his chair, which stops him from moving anywhere else. After a while he gets bored and starts to gaze outside of his window, looking at all the people that live across him. He watches everyone, and learns things about their personal lives. He especially has more pleasure in looking at women figures, which relates to what Mulvey says about men becoming the center of cinema and how this objectified women.

   Another thing in this movie that relates to what Mulvey says in her text is Jeffries’ guilty pleasure of watching people secretly. Even though he knows that it’s a wrong thing to do, he keeps watching because he gets addicted to the suspense and excitement behind it. As he keeps trying to figure out if the men living across killed his wife, Jeffries gets more and more absorbed into the activity of looking. As Mulvey states, Jeffries gets a sadistic pleasure out of voyeurism. Voyeurism is sadistic because even though it makes Jeffries feel guilty, he continues watching people. 

Social Networking and Emergencies

   Social networking has become one of the most important news sources. Every newspaper or magazine has their own Twitter account where they write short topics for the news of the day so that people can choose and read the one they are most interested in. Social media affects ‘the news’ positively.

   Another thing that caught my attention was how people started to make their voice heard through social networking. Since last week’s earthquake in Turkey, Twitter became the main place where people cried for help. Everyone posted things like “please send blankets, clothes and tents”. Eastern Turkey has a very cold climate and nearly 600.000 people whose buildings collapsed are freezing, and citizens of Turkey gather all the help they need with the use of Twitter.  The best part of this is that it is actually working. All companies, and citizens of Turkey sent so much help to eastern Turkey that I’m pretty sure very soon everything will be fine.

   This way, social networking has gained a very important status in our lives. It helps us reach news, and spread it. Social media is the way people communicate even in emergency situations. It’s the place where everyone from anywhere can meet, share views and save our own world.

Mad Men and Barthes

   ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, the first episode of the well-known television series called Mad Men, mainly focuses on showing what this show is about. The most obvious aspect of this television drama is that it goes on in an advertising company of the 60’s. This episode of Mad Men, and probably many episodes to follow, shows the viewers that one of the main purposes of advertising is to sell a product to a specific group of buyers by showing the good sides of it. Although many products have very positive effects on human life, some other products have the exact opposite effect. A commercial about let’s say ‘healthy organic fruits’ very probably does not have anything to hide from the targeted consumers. However a product that has negative sides that can effect people, such as cigarettes, have many facts to conceal.

    In order to sell something as unhealthy as cigarettes, one must cover up all the dangerous aspects of it with the use of advertising. In his essay on myth, Roland Barthes names this technique of covering up the evil as ‘the inoculation.’ Inoculation is one of the ‘rhetorical figures’ that he emphasized in his text. The way advertiser characters in Mad Men try to prevent cigarettes from being considered unhealthy and deathly, is definitely what Barthes calls ‘inoculation.’ Their most important goal in making a cigarette commercial is to conceal the negative sides of it, so that the consumers will continue buying more and more.

Businesses Begging To Be Liked On Facebook

   Think of how private cooperations and companies try to be 'friends' with you, how they depend on your opinions of them, if you 'like' them or not. Being such important companies, with billions of dollars, it is interesting how they beg for attention. These companies, large or small ones, require us consumers to be able to stand on their feet. They are dependent on us on such a degree that they plead for our affection, our money. Of course every business has their own target consumers. They have specific buyers, and they have to make their product appeal to those buyers. How do they beg for attention and succeed in getting it?

   Of course the most logical and easiest way a company finds their consumers is by advertising. Everyone knows when they see a commercial, they are trying to be tricked in to buying the product. However other than advertisement media, these companies also use social networking media to their advantage. In the last decade, social networking has become a very important aspect in our community. The whole world is connected to each other by media, by the Internet. And companies use this to their advantage, they make themselves visible to consumers or prospective consumers they are hoping to get through social networking. Businesses more and more try to get involved with social media in order to increase their sales. One of the best ways to make themselves ‘visible’ to the community is by investing in social media. In order to increase their sales, many companies got ‘Facebook Pages’. This way, they started to announce some improvements, changes in their businesses, or where the buyer could get a discount (!). Even though this is a very logical way to increase sales, it also seems to be too informal. As though all those big old companies are now teenagers again, and they are begging for attention. Phrases such as ‘Add us!’ or ‘Like us on Facebook!’ became so commonly used by these businesses that they somehow lost their respectable appearances. These companies that used to be the ‘fathers’, now seem as if they are back to their adolescence years.

The video below is representing how companies beg for social network, and people’s attentions. This video is a slightly exaggerated way of showing the way it looks when you see the sentence "Like us on Facebook!" written under a companies logo. 

Media Journal #2

FIRST MEDIA JOURNAL 9/9/11

Football Helps Advertisement 

  I happened to watch my first American football game on the 8^th of September, Thursday. To most people this might seem absurd, seeing someone who hasn’t got a clue about football. As a person who lived abroad most of my life, I must say that the Packers game I watched, seemed very American. It openly showed me what a big part of the American culture is interested in, how they are affected by the football games. Every single person I interacted during the day of the Packers game seemed to be aware of, and excited about the game. How could everyone know that there was a game that night? The answer was simple of course. Everyone heard about the big game through media: Through television, magazines, newspapers or Internet, and of course through the people around them.

  However, the part that most caught my attention during the game was the incredible amount of commercials that were shown. The advertising companies seemed to take advantage of the crowd all over the nation who were intensely watching the game that night. There were three minutes of game time and 5 minutes of commercial time, throughout the whole match. They tried to get the most out of commercials buy showing loads of them. The next time I watch a football game on TV, I’m planning on counting every other commercial that I see during the game.

  Showing this much commercials in the game is a logical but irritating way of advertising products. And thinking back of all those commercials I saw, I can’t really remember any of them. Which shows me that having that many commercials doesn’t always work on everybody.

Sim LeCompte

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