Analysis of KARE 11 News

For this activity, I analyzed a KARE 11 10 O’clock news program. The program broke down as following:

                National News: 2 mins 20 sec.

                Local News: 3 mins 48 sec.

                National National: 1 min

                “Coming up next”: 5 sec

                Commercial Break: 3 mins

                Financial interest piece: 3 mins 20 sec

                “Coming up tomorrow”: 8 sec

                Local interest piece: 1 min 45 sec

                Chatting at news desk: 13 sec

                Local weather: 3 min 15 sec

                “Coming up next”: 8 sec

                Commercial break: 3 mins

                Local sports: 5 mins 15 sec

                “Coming up next”: 5 sec

                Commercial break: 4 mins

                National interest piece: 1 min 20 sec

                Chatting at news desk: 20 sec

                Commercial break:  3 mins

This adds up to:

                3: 40 on national news

                3:48 on local news

                13:00 on commercials

                0:26 on “coming up next” segments

                6:25 on national and local interest pieces

                3:15 on weather

                5:15 on sports

                0:33 at chatting at the news desk

The news program started off with a controversial story about a book on pedophilia being sold on Amazon.com. It interviewed a couple “experts” on the topic as well as some citizens to get a variety of opinions on the subject. Next, the program switched to local news, spending a great deal of time describing the Wadena girls’ volleyball team going to state after a tornado went through the town earlier this summer. They interviewed the coach, who lost everything in the tornado and a few of the players. After this, less than a minute was spent on more serious news and stories about the Dayton/Emmer recount, Michelle Bachman, a race for mayor of Austin, MN, and news about Target Field were breezed through. Next came about 1 minute for a couple national headlines such as news on NASA’s Discovery launch the stalled cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean. The program then aired a “coming up next segment” and went to break. When it returned, a news story about 401K’s was shown for about 3 minutes and 30 seconds. It detailed what people should do with the money in their 401K’s and interviewing various experts. Following this, a preview to the next day’s segment on a soldier finding a long lost comrade was shown followed by the anchors talking about it being the anniversary of the sinking of the ship Edmond Fitzgerald. This transitioned into weather and eventually another commercial break. Sports was talked about next, focusing on local high school and professional teams. The program aired another “coming up next” segment that talked about the Jersey Shore and went to commercial. It ended with an interest piece about a girl who caught a giant fish in New Jersey.

              

  Overall, I was very surprised about how little news was actually reported on. The program was mostly consumer interest pieces and ads. It seemed like the main agenda of the program was to keep viewers watching rather than reporting the news. For example, the broadcast started off with a highly controversial national story about a book on pedophilia being sold on Amazon. I feel that this story was placed at the beginning of the broadcast not because it was newsworthy, but rather because it is controversial and will get viewers’ attention. Following this, local news began with a “rags to riches” type story about the Wadena volleyball team. A lot of time was devoted to interviews with the coach, who lost her whole farm in a tornado and how the team pulled together after the tragedy to get to where they are now.  Finally, after these two stories, more important stories were touched on, such as a local woman being charged with child abuse, a woman killed by a hit and run driver in St. Paul, and news about the Minnesota governor race. After this, it switched to national news, highlighting news about NASA and a stalled cruise ship. However, all of this more important news was squished into about 1 minute and barely any of it was elaborated on. By doing this, the program is shying away from spending too much time on news that might bore or upset viewers. It goes through these stories quickly and then moves on to more feel-good or consumer interest stories that would hold the average viewer’s attention more.

To keep viewers watching, the news program also used a great deal of anticipatory transitions, showing what was coming up next on the program to ensure that viewers would not change the channel during the commercial break. These transitions play to consumers interests or concerns, such as the one previewing an upcoming segment on 401K’s that told the viewer the information in the segment was “everything you should know” about the money in “your 401K.” This makes the viewer feel that if he doesn’t watch the segment, he will miss out on extremely important information and thus lose great amounts of money. This segment was also sponsored by a financial institution, US Bank, which might explain the longer amount of time devoted to this segment than other seemingly more important news stories. The program also used a transition like this before it did its last interest piece on a girl from New Jersey who caught a big fish. The segment played to the audience’s interest and addiction to pop culture, telling the viewer that “news from the Jersey Shore” was coming up next, alluding to the popular reality show Jersey Shore.

In order to help teach students about news programs, I would have each student watch a ½ hour news program and record the order and types of news stories shown. Then, each student would look at a local news paper from that same day (ideally, the news paper would be from the same city that the news broadcast was from). Students would scan through the news paper to find news about the same subjects that was in the news broadcast. Students would record the placement of the news stories in the news paper (i.e. front page, back page, etc) and the amount of space devoted to each story. Students would then write an analysis comparing the most prominent stories and amount of time or space devoted to each story in the newspaper and the news broadcast. I would want them to comment on what they conclude to be the most important news to the broadcast and what news is most important to the newspaper and then speculate on why this is so. Why might a news story make a front page headline when it is buried in a news broadcast? Why would a news broadcast begin with a story that appears below the fold of a newspaper? Overall, I want students to think about what news program’s other agendas might be besides reporting the news.

Cooking Shows!!

One of my favorite channels to watch on TV is the Food Network. Most of the time, I have it on as background noise or on mute if I’m doing homework. I think that the thing that appeals to me the most about cooking shows is their predictability and familiarity. There are almost no plot lines to keep up with (or if there are plot lines, their simple ones like, “my sister is coming for dinner and I’m going to make her something wonderful.”) Plus, there are never any plot twists or dramatic moments in a cooking show, nothing to keep me on the edge of my seat. I don’t have to piece together plot lines or delve into the motivation of the character; I can actually relax when I watch them.  If I miss ten minutes of the middle of the show, it doesn’t matter because I can jump right back into the show and not be confused about what’s going on. In addition, I really like watching people cook and seeing what kinds of food people come up with to make. Most of the time, the dishes they make are never something I would make and/or eat, but it’s intriguing to see how people make them and the kinds of techniques they use. 

A lot of the predictability and familiarity of cooking shows stems from the fact that almost all of them use the exact same format and just switch out ingredients and “chefs.” There is always at least one chef (sometimes there is two, but that gets kind of crowded and annoying.) The chef never really seems to be overly qualified to be a cooking show host; some have no culinary education and others have only finished part of culinary school. However, the chef is almost always somewhat attractive and has an engaging, bubbly personality (all of them are always super excited to be making whatever it is they are making.) Most shows have some kind of premise or category they specialize in, for example, 30-minute Meals centers on complete meals that can be made in 30 minutes or less and Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee focuses on making complete meals with store-bought food mixed with fresh ingredients. In addition to the over-arching premise of the show, each individual episode usually has a theme that is carried throughout the episode, such as an episode of Giada at Home where Giada makes three different dishes that she will serve to her aunt who is coming to visit. Despite these different themes, almost every show works with the assumption that its audience is somewhat inexperienced in the kitchen. The show then tries to show its viewers that cooking really is easy and that anyone can do it if they simply follow the recipes, techniques, and tips that the chefs describe.

I think one of the biggest assumptions that cooking shows have about the world is that cooking is solely a woman’s job, or more specifically, it is a stay-at-home mother’s job. The majority of cooking shows have a female host and are set in a mock kitchen. The host tries to relate to a busy or working mother, often giving her tips on how to make a “quick and easy meal that the whole family will love” or how to get your kids to eat healthily. A perfect example of this is Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals where she gives countless easy recipes that can easily be made in the 30 minutes between the time that a working mother gets home and dinner time. Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa also works toward this assumption. Although she doesn’t have kids, her show always focuses on her cooking for her husband or any one of her male friends. In addition to this, cooking shows seem to portray their women hosts as sex objects; their bodies are focused on just as much as the food they make. For example, Giada de Laurentis and Sandra Lee are always perfectly made up for their shows, often wearing low-cut tops or tight-fitting clothes, lending themselves to the idea of a “perfect woman” (not only can she cook, but she’s sexy too!) If there happens to be a male host, he is depicted doing super masculine things, perhaps to off-set the perception that cooking is a woman’s job. For example, on Grill It with Bobby Flay, Flay leaves behind the “feminine” space of the kitchen completely and takes his cooking show outside, focusing on barbequing and grilling, ultimately more masculine forms of cooking. When a male host doesn’t opt to go outside, he instead makes the kitchen as masculine as possible. For example, on Guy’s Big Bite with Guy Fieri, the kitchen is decorated with a variety of essentially masculine things, such as a pool table, car parts, and a drum set. Even his refrigerator is “masculinized”: it is painted and stuck with decals to look like a race car. 

To help teach students about the cooking show genre, I would focus on how the cooking show has evolved from highly trained chefs cooking exotic foods to be more focused on everyday people and common ingredients.  To do this, I would show a clip from an older cooking show (such as this one from The Frugal Gourmet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkjcUc8ekRY&feature=related). I would contrast this with a clip from a modern cooking show (such as Rachel Ray http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHgvkq3aCqQ). Students would then discuss how the cooking shows differ. To get them thinking about this, they could answer questions such as: How is each chef dressed? What kinds of ingredients does each chef use? Who prepares the ingredients? What techniques do each use? Eventually I want students to be able to think about the audiences for each show and how cooking shows have changed their format to cater to their audience. I also want them to think about societal changes have affected the focus of the cooking shows (for example, how has the emergence of working mothers changed the agendas of cooking shows?)

Here's a link to my powerpoint presentation. (You may have to download it. Google Docs isn't letting me view it.)

Ethnography Study of Facebook

Today it seems that everyone has a Facebook account. For many people, Facebook is just as an important communication tool as email or a cell phone. For others, Facebook is nothing more than a useless novelty. Because of this seemingly huge differences in Facebook’s importance for certain people, I wanted to look at how people use Facebook and how the amount that they use it affects the kinds of content they put on it. To do this, I decided to study two of my friends’ uses of Facebook. I picked one friend that uses Facebook a lot and checked it frequently, and picked another friend that barely used Facebook at all.

From studying each of their profiles, I found out how often each friend updated parts of their profile such as their status and profile picture, how often people wrote on their wall, and what types of content they posted on their own profile. Here’s what I found about each friend:

Sarah (Uses Facebook frequently):

                On the day that I did this study, Sarah had just updated her profile picture. She has over 60 profile pictures in her “Profile Pictures” album and seems to rotate them quite often. In most of the pictures she is either alone or with one other person. The majority of the pictures are just her smiling at the camera or laughing, nothing too crazy or wild. She doesn’t list any interests or likes in her “Info” section, but instead lists current employers and her college and high school. She also lists her religious views, hometown, current city, and her birthday as well as her relationship status. She seems to use her Facebook to communicate with people that she has not seen in a long time as most of her wall posts say something to the effect of “hey I haven’t seen you in forever” or “how are you?”. 

                In her interview with me, Sarah said that she uses Facebook at least once a day for a half hour or more. She doesn’t use it as a main form of communication, but instead only uses it if she has something to say to someone really quickly. She is completely opposed to doing anything professional or business –related on Facebook, but instead sees it only as a social tool. For more important things, such as making plans with someone she would use a phone or text. She said that she noticed that some of her friends use Facebook for more personal communication such as telling their boy/girlfriend that they miss him/her, which, according to her, is weird to see, but entertaining at the same time; it’s like spying but on a public forum.  

Sarah also said that in order to create her identity on Facebook, she lists her jobs, hometown, and pictures from her study abroad experience. She doesn’t list her interests or activities because she doesn’t want people to know that much about her. Also, she makes sure that no applications or quiz results get posted on her wall because she doesn’t want people to know how much time she actually spends on Facebook and sees these things as evidence as a lot of time spent playing around on the site. Overall, she said that she tries to make herself look professional as she just graduated from college and is trying to find a job. Finally, she said that she doesn’t really pay too much attention to what people post on her wall, possibly because she doesn’t think of it as that serious form of communication that it would need a response.

Ryan (Rarely uses Facebook):

             

   Ryan had less than 20 pictures in his “Profile Picture” album and seemed to change them infrequently. Most of his pictures were of him with at least one other person, sometimes 4 or 5 other people. In his “Info” section, he listed his hometown, current city, political views, family, and birthday. He also listed his current and previous employers as well as a few likes and interests. His wall consisted mostly of videos or pictures that other people had posted or friends asking him “how are you”-type questions. He very very rarely updates his status or posts anything on his own wall for others to see.

When asked, Ryan said he uses Facebook for about 10 minutes every week just to check the news feed and see what other people are up to. Sometimes when he’s bored, he’ll spend a little more time looking at other people’s videos or photos. He said that he does almost none of his communication through Facebook and only communicates with others on it if they communicate with him first. He feels that people who choose to post a lot on Facebook or do a lot of communicating through Facebook are only trying to draw attention to themselves and portray themselves in a certain way. He sometimes judges them for it and can’t understand why people would want to live their lives so publicly. Ryan said that he puts up pictures and job information and filled out his about me to create an identity. But he said that he doesn’t really use it enough to create much of an identity. Ryan also said that when he got a job a few months ago, he went through his Facebook and deleted a few pictures that he wouldn’t want his co-workers to see. He also put certain friends or family members on a “limited profile” so that they wouldn’t be able to see certain content.

Reflections

Overall, I don’t think that my two friends’ uses of Facebook are all that different, even though they use it in different amounts. They both use it to see what people are up to, communicate in small amounts with others, and to entertain themselves when bored. In addition, they both try to create identities for themselves that portray them as deserving the job they have or want to get. One thing that I found interesting is that both removed content that they thought went against this professional agenda, but did not delete their Faceboook account altogether. They only posted content that was slightly removed from who they really are, such as their jobs and schools, and did not really post more personal things, almost as if they don’t want people to judge them before they get to know them personally. They both also used Facebook for entertainment although they both judged people who put a lot of entertaining content, such as very personal stories, communication, pictures, etc. on Facebook. One thing that could account for these similarities despite the differences in amount of use is that both of my friends are the same age and both have recently graduated from college. It might be interesting to study Facebook users of different ages to see if there is a more profound difference in the types of content posted and their reasons for posting such things.

Reflecting on Facebook

          Facebook for me is both useful and frustrating at the same time. I live almost six hours away from where I grew up which means that it can be difficult to keep in contact with friends and family from back home. However, Facebook helps me keep in touch with them; possibly a little too in touch. There have been times that I know more about what is going on at home than my parents who still live there do. I can know a lot about what is going on in a person’s life without even talking to them, so in a way, Facebook helps me keep in touch with people, but I still lose personal contact with them. In this way, it sets up a sort of false relationship with people. I can know about a person and what they are doing, where they are, etc. without ever talking to them and they don’t even have to know that I know this information about them. I know that I haven’t talked to my best friends from home in a very long time. When I want to know what they’re doing, I just go to their Facebook page or write a short message on their wall. I think that this is part of why Facebook can be so addicting. It gives people the socialization that they need with very little effort. There is no awkward small talk and or uncomfortable pauses. And when people are done “socializing” they simply have to logout with no goodbyes.

             

            What is interesting about using Facebook so much for socialization is that it is constructed socialization with identities that people construct for themselves. You can’t really get to know someone from their Facebook page. If there is something about a person that they don’t want others to know, they simply don’t put it on their page. I know I have not listed some of my interests or beliefs on my Facebook page simply because I don’t want other people to know those things about me. However, even with this construction, Facebook has gotten to the point where it is unusual not to have a Facebook profile. It seems as if you don’t construct a version of yourself for public consumption, you are the unusual one. 

            Despite all of this, I still find Facebook to be incredibly addicting. It is one of the first things I check in the morning when I wake up and it is a huge distraction for me from my homework.  Sometimes I think that getting things done would be so much easier if I deleted my Facebook account, but I still can’t do it. Most of my time in college is documented in some way on Facebook and if I delete it, I would lose it all. Plus, I know that if I wasn’t on Facebook, I would completely lose all contact with a few people, which I would not like to do. So I guess Facebook is something with which I have a true love/hate relationship . . . and I probably love it a little more than I hate it.

           

            I think that Facebook could be used in many ways as an educational tool. Students already know how to use it and enjoy using it. We have talked in a couple classes about how so many educational tools such as Ning or Moodle are trying to use a Facebook format. Why not just use Facebook so students wouldn’t have to learn a new format? I think it would be extremely useful for hosting online discussions or forums or even coordinating class projects and activities. Students could freely discuss different topics in a comfortable setting. However, one downside to using Facebook for educational purposes is that it might be difficult to keep students’ private lives separate from their academic lives. One way around this would be to have students create a Facebook profile specifically for academic use. But overall, I think that using Facebook in the classroom could be an easy way to engage and interest students in classroom discussions and activities.

Teaching about Media Representations of race and class

To teach students about the media representations of class, I would assign students to watch news shows, such as their local evening news, FOX news, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, BBC news, etc. Each student must watch some kind of news for at least ½ hour. While watching, students should keep track or make a list of who the news stories are about and the ethnicity and class of these people: what is the race/class of the people committing crimes, winning an award, making a difference in the community? In class, students will then compare their lists, discuss them, and see if they can find any common themes and any similarities in the ways the people in the news were presented. After this, students will be asked to think about any stereotypes that they are familiar with and compare them to the themes they found in the news. They will be asked to think about and discuss how the stereotypes are supported by the representations of these people in the news and how the news might have been skewed in ways that work to support  or reinforce these stereotypes.

Voicethread on Men's Cologne Ads

For my voicethread I chose to look at the portrayal of women in cologne ads aimed at men and the way the women are turned into objects associated with the cologne. They then use this association as a way to sell the cologne.

Feminist and Psychoanalytical Analysis of Axe Commercial

For this assignment, I chose to view a commercial for Axe body spray. I feel that Axe commercials are notorious for objectifying women and making men think that all they need to be successful is Axe cologne. Because of this, I have chosen to look at the commercial through a feminist lens and a psycho lens.

Feminist Lens:

In this commercial, women are viewed only as an object for a man to acquire; she exists only to please men and her sole purpose in life is to find a man. She feels the urge to have a man to the extent that she literally will hunt him down. This is seen in the body spray commercial where thousands of women are running across land and sea to get to the one man who is spraying himself with Axe. The commercial depicts the woman as barefoot, bounding over wilderness, and having a crazy look in her eyes. All of this works to liken her to a wild animal in search of her prey, a man. The wild animal analogy is extended even more when more women are seen running in the same direction, all stampeding towards the same man. The commercial ends with thousands of women closing in on the one man, who puts his arms in the air triumphantly and smiles. In this way, the commercial portrays women as an object. Her only desire in life is to have a man – preferably one wearing Axe – just as the only desire of a wild animal is to hunt. Thus, in this commercial, women are viewed only in relation to men. Their only purpose in life is to make men happy. This can be seen even in the way women are dressed in the commercial. All the women are wearing string bikinis, showcasing their narrow waists and full, bouncing chests. This makes the women in the commercial objects for men to look at and desire, especially those men who see the commercial.

Psychoanalytic lens:

This commercial’s main tactic for selling Axe body spray is to play to the desires of the audience: young men. It gets the audience’s attention right away with a shot of a scantily-clad beautiful young woman running through the forest. The dramatic music and rapid camera angles and movements raise the audience’s curiosity. The audience’s desire rises as more and more beautiful and scantily-clad women are shown running in slow motion towards some unknown object, playing to the fantasies of many young men. When the focus of all of the women is finally revealed, a young man dousing himself with Axe, the message of the commercial becomes evident: use Axe and thousands of young, beautiful women will find you attractive and want you. One interesting thing to note about the commercial is that all of the women fit the description of an Americanized “ideal” woman: long flowing hair, large breasts, sculpted, thin body, and tanned skin. However, the young man is simply average looking. All of this works to play into the desires of the audience even more. Young men everywhere can identify with the average-looking man, they can see themselves in him. Thus, the message of the commercial becomes, if the average young men in the audience use Axe, the young women that they fantasize about will want them. 

Teaching Activity

In order to teach students about the feminist and psychoanalytical lens, I would show students the Axe clip I analyzed and also this clip for Yoplait yogurt. 

Then, I would have them answer and discuss the following questions:
1. Who do you think the audience for each commercial is?
2. How are women portrayed in the Axe commercial? How are men portrayed?
3. How are women portrayed in the Yoplait commercial? How are men portrayed?
4. What desires of its audience does the Axe commercial use to sell its product?
5. What desires of its audience does the Yoplait commercial use to sell its product?
6. How are relationships between men and women portrayed in each commercial?

In this activity, my goal is for my students to look at each clip and see how differently men and women are portrayed: in the Axe commercial, women are sexualized objects for men whereas in the Yoplait commercial, the woman is intelligent and in control (and losing weight!) while the man ends up looking stupid. I feel that in many commercials today, these are the two dominant portrayals of men and women. In commercials aimed at men that sell clothes, food, cars, etc., women are highly sexualized. In commercials aimed at women that sell household products, make-up, etc., women are portrayed as in control and extremely intelligent while their husbands are clueless and bumbling in the background. Both of these portrayals play into the desires of the intended audience in order to sell the product. Overall, I want students to see how skewed portrayals of both men and women can be used to sell products to certain audiences.