Simple study for Sociology:

Measure targets of ads and create your own categories.  I am using the following as examples:

Male target, promote traditional masculinity (successful man, gets the girl, makes money)
Male target, male victim or buffoon
Female target, female victim or traditional role of caretaker/submissive/dominant in domestic issues/parenting.
Female target, dominant in business, relationship, situations without the home or children.

Interestingly, a commercial can show a strong female and a weak/submissive male, but who is the target audience?  Who will be the dominant in a commercial with a submissive male, and no dominant female? 

You can break commercials into race/cutlure, also.  How often are Asians or Hispanics the main target?  What role do they play in the commercial?  We must get through the initial defensiveness and understand that the companies that pay for commercials coordinate every aspect of the commercial.  Clothing, setting, makeup, hair color, etc, are all chosen for a purpose.  Nothing is overlooked, for it all sends a message.  That message must be controlled and the cost of marketing guarantees that they won't risk sending the wrong message. 


Build your own schematic/rubric to study television and look for their hidden messages.  Good luck and enjoy.

Link following up on Power and Authority

Following up on our study of the LAPD, power, and authority, I came across this link.  This is the site I cite often in class, so no surprise.  What can you interpret from the graphs, though?  The author of the post sums it  up for you.  If one were to leave the provacative title off, and just look at the graphs, would it cause the same reaction?  Something to build on. . .


Racial Profiling link

Guess who's hiring. . .

Driving home from a pack meeting tonight, I flipped on the radio.  An attractive, young (early 20s), female voice came on the radio.  "I serve my country by traveling the world but I can't tell my friends and family where I am going or what I am doing."  The voice catches your ear, and then you hear an interesting job pitch.  Apparently, the CIA is hiring and they believe the best target audience for their work is listening to the radio.  Interesting.  About seven years ago, they made a lot attention by going out to college campus to recruit at job fairs at major name schools.  Now, they are aiming for the masses.  Having seen the commercials for Columbiana, it is intriguing that they chose the voice over that they did.  Who is the target audience?  And what does it say for our national secuity system when we are seeking help on broadcast radio?  What genre of music was the station?  Country.  104.3.  Interesting. 

Libya

Congrats to the rebels. You've taken power.  Now, the hard part comes. . .

ABC and the New Television Season

As I sit and home tonight, working on my teacher goals, I do it in front of the television.  Always curious about popular culture, I gave Take the Money and Run.  On it, a pair of regular folks gets $100,000 to hide for 48 hours.  If they succeed, with two detectives on their tail, they win the money.  If they detectives find the money, the cops get the money.  In this episode, it is two male domestic partners.  What makes this episode so interesting is the very real reactions of the two characters who seemingly prepared in advance for the event.  When the jail doors shut, everything changed for them.  Watching the the supposed stronger character fall to pieces  and (spoiler alert!) quit the game early, we learn a lot about te role of prison and solitary.  This ties nicely with the Stanford Prison Experiment. 

Combat Hospital is set in Afghanistan, with mixed Canadian, Australian and American military medical personnel.  The scenery is very good, the emphasis on the stresses of combat and hospital trauma.  What set Tuesday night's episode (August 23) apart was a nice discussion of the role of a woman in the world.  Two Western women spoke of the concept of wearing the burka and protecting oneself from the thoughts of men.  It povides an important opening for a discussion of gender relations and agency that is overdue.  Let's have it. .  .

AIDS and the Black Community

Greater Than AIDS TAKE ACTION: Action is Greater Than Apathy from Greater Than on Vimeo.


I saw a commercial for "Greater Than" over the break. It caught my eye, as it seems to speak to a specific culture.  See if you can see what I saw.  The NBA version, and the Facebook videos are closer to what I saw, but I was unable to link in the Facebook.  The NBA is below. 

NBA Cares from Greater Than on Vimeo.


It is interesting to see commercials aimed at specific cultures and ethnicities in a positive manner.  McDonald's has begun to target black families.  I was unable to find the commercial.  How often do you se commercials that portray non whites in a positive, pro-family view?  Be aware of the commercials and who the target audience is while you watch them. Companies are spending LARGE amounts of money to target specific audiences, and create commercials that are as specific to groups as they can.  Then, they find a show on televisionthat fits the demographic they are targeting.  How does Facebook make money?  They gather information about you based on your interests, profile, likes, etc.  They sell that information to interested parties.  And, those companies build more targeted commercials to sell to you better.  Interesting, huh?

The Modern American prison cell.  Compare to Finnish.

Zimbardo's experiment played out, with a touch of Milgram.  People of Iraq tend to fear dogs, and are fairly modest.  Nudity and barking canines are non normative.  For an authority figure to play actively against the normative behavior of a group, does this constitute torture in and of itself? 

Lynndie England is the young woman in the following photos.  Male nudity before a woman that is not a family relation (wife) is not allowed in the culture.  Also, naked male to male contact is not acceptable.  These photos were widely circulated at the time, and provide a good stepping off point for the discussion of power and authority.