Vaccinations
In reference to vacinations there are some that do not vacinate due to the fact the some people in certain areas are uneducated and certain beliefs about their religion. Not vacinating your children have certain risks. By not vacinating you are putting your kids and others at risk when you go out into public spaces. As a single mom I make it my duty to vacinate my boy.
Hadassah
On Monday, I will be taking a plane back to France. As part of an international exchange program, I was offered the opportunity to study here for a semester; this has given me some food for thought.
In the pre social media era before the rise of Facebook, Instagram and 24/7 connectivity, there was a generation of kids called “global nomads”. These were the children of military personnel, diplomats and expatriates, being uprooted from their passport country by their parents, going from school to school, from one culture to the next, with an abrupt sort of regularity. Every year, or every two years – put your things in a cardboard box, we’re moving.
Maybe you’re already familiar with the term, because you were a 3rd culture kid yourself, or because one of your friends grew up that way. I was lucky, or unlucky enough to be one as well.
The global nomad childhood was an alienated one. In the days before social media, there was nowhere near the amount of media and cultural exchange between countries as there is today. Children from Denmark might have known known Harry Potter and The Hulk, but that is where our shared baggage stopped.
So as I returned to the USA after 17 years abroad, I couldn’t help but wonder: is the term still relevant today? Even as we speak, thousands, millions of 8 year olds across the globe might be watching the same youtube videos or playing the same online games; these are shared cultural experiences in a sense, as well as shared consumption behaviors.
This isn’t to say that cultural alienation is a dead concept – quite to the contrary. As the lines are blurred between national and supra-national identity, it becomes even harder to distinguish why these children are so different than me – despite having these shared cultural experiences, the underpinnings of national identity – the national myth, value systems and social stratification – are more present than ever.
As the post-social media generation comes of age, I am curious to see how they will relate to these issues – if at all.
If you’ve enjoyed reading about global nomads, here are some ramblings I’ve written on the subject
Neikyla Reid
Blog 3
Over the past two weeks we’ve been really looking into social media and the effects it has on society. What really stuck in my mind was the video we watched regarding china’s security. In China social media is a huge platform of communication, unlike the US, china currently uses one social app that functions as multiple apps. WeChat is the primary social site in China, it has features like SnapChat, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all in one. The consolidation to a single app makes posting and continuous communication easy in china. Along with this, there are also features on certain apps that allow individuals to earn “points” similar to instagram likes. The difference here is that these points are often viewed as a means of social status which disrupts the process of social interaction. In my personal experience in China, most of the students appeared to be less interested in social media and more interested in school academics. Here in the US there is a constant battle to keep students off of their phones. Students are more interested in social media in the US than their Chinese peers.
There are many benefits of having social media. With social media, we can connect with people no matter how far away they may be. We can stay in touch with our friends and family and have instant communication with them. We also get easy access to news and information which helps keep us informed about current events happening in the world. It also provides us with a pastime where we can just relax and see what everyone is posting.
However, social media also comes with a lot of cons. Everyone that uses social media are exposed to privacy issues and may expose information that we do not want to share. It can also cause a decline in our social skills since we are using instant messaging more and spending less time having face to face conversations. People are also vulnerable to Cyberbullying, especially young people. Cyberbullying can lead to stress, anxiety, and depression for the victims—-Kristin Li
The Media Essentials mentions in chapter 10 of the immersion and addiction of gaming, whether it’s video games, app games, or even virtual reality. The textbook notes the positive development of immersion as technology advances, it becomes diverse and mimics a sense of reality. This is not only used for entertainment, but also for workforce training, military recruiting, for social causes, classroom use, and multimedia journalism (347). Aside from gaming technology seeming so realistic, is even addicting an affecting the youth. The chapter notes a study was done in Singapore that studied students in 3rd-8th grade and had a gaming addiction, were more prone to depression, social phobias, and increased anxiety (348).
This makes me question that even though gaming is getting better at depicting reality, does it do it justice? Is the virtual world creating a fear of the real world? How can we be creating a better world through the advancement of technology, if it only seems to be crippling its users?
Hello All,
In this blog post I will discuss the interesting debate on Saturday Morning Cartoons and advertising to children. This debate is old and might sound juvenile, but I believe it relates to our class on how children’s shows have drastically changed from the 80’s to today simply based on advertisements towards children. In the U.S. as cartoon shows became more focused to children, such cartoon shows became more and more advertisement-based. Most cartoons in the 80’s focused on shows geared towards toys and food. These shows would covertly advertise their products to children, as well as have a segment based on the toys and food. From there, kids would ask their parents for the toys and food they saw on TV. Parents found this advertising practice to be harassing, which later on lead to the creation of the Children’s Television Act which limits and regulates commercials and advertisements during children’s programming. In addition, the U.S. government created a standard for certain channels to show E/I programs. These E/I programs were mostly viewed as educational entertainment for children. These E/I shows still play on TV to some extent, despite the fact that Saturday Morning Cartoons have been discontinued on TV. These E/I shows mainly play on early mornings and afternoons on Saturdays and Sundays. Currently, the FCC is looking to abandon this practice in later years to come. Personally, I understand how the Children’s Television Act is important, and that cartoon shows that mainly focus on advertisements to children is quite distasteful, but I do see this act as outdated. Children’s cartoon shows are more original now, meaning that the shows aren’t based off a toy line and cereal product. Children are also more so watching their favorite shows on streaming sites and have more control on what they want to watch. This issue is really interesting and worth debating.
Advertising and Children Through Kid-Friendly Websites
In class we discussed the history, process and roles of advertising in media. We briefly talked about how advertising effects children, which reminds me of and interesting issue regarding a notable kid-friendly website from the early 2000’s that was known for it’s advertising tactics.
The site I will be talking about is Neopets.com. In the early 2000’s, child-oriented sites focusing, on chatting with other kids, taking care of fantasy pets, and interacting in the social, fantasy world has extremely popular. Neopets was extremely popular to children for it allowed children to play with their non traditional pets, interact with early coding and homepage creation, as well as let kids interact in a complex marketplace and stock market system. However, the site is notorious for its aggressive advertising to children, allowing third party advertisers to overtly and covertly advertise to children.
Example of these advertising approaches was having huge banners on the side of the site. This is commonly used by websites for ads now, but in the 2000’s is was an early advertising approach. The second advertising approach on the site, was having smaller sites and challenges used to promote a product through the in-game world. For example, in the town "Neopets Central" there would be smaller shops and stores devoted to the promoting a product. Most products advertised on the site were food related, being candy and cereal. Neopets would also advertise their own toy-line and stores that sold their stores (mainly advertising the now-defunct store Limited Too for selling their toys). The final method of advertising on Neopets was through a game called "Advert Video". In Advert Video, the child basically sits through various advertisements regarding food and toys, for in-game money.
Many critics have criticize Neopets for it’s aggressive advertising to children. As someone who frequent the site as a child, I remember finding the ads on the site to be annoying, tasteless and redundant. The ads would take away the true fun from the games and make the site more so view children as a commodity. From doing further research as to why Neopets became so ad and commercial focused, I found out that the creators of the site never wanted Neopets to become so commercial centered. Yes they wanted the ads to pay for funding of the site, but they too claim that the process of advertising was far too aggressive. The reason for the aggressive advertising was not them but through a man who is a Scientologist and originally wanted to promote Scientology on the site. Here’s a video explaining the situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI5cu3G5oXk
The Abortion Ban
In recent news, the abortion law has been approved in Alabama. This law indicates that performing an abortion is a felony in all cases. What is even more bizarre is that this law provides no exception for rape and incest. This implies that if a woman has been impregnated through rape or incest, she no longer has the choice to abort her baby, at least in the state of Alabama. It’s extremely ironic that the twenty-two senators that voted against including an exception for rape or incest were all white older males. This just emphasizes the fact that we live in a country that allows males in power to dictate what a female can and cannot do with her body. This passing of Alabama’s new abortion laws has also shown how America prioritizes. How has abortions become illegal before guns?
Feel free to comment on your thoughts.
Social Media Spreads Misinformation
Social media sites has contributed in the spread of misinformation of Vaccinations. However, as of recently these major social media site have taken the responsibility of censoring these health falsifications. One example was implemented by Pinterest. This site has now placed restrictions on users ability to search for anything concerning vaccinations. Therefore if you were to type in the words, “Vaccine”, “Vaccination”, or “Anti-Vax”, nothing will come up. Facebook, on the other hand, has taken the initiative to no longer recommend groups and pages that spread misinformation about vaccines. YouTube has announced that it would reduce the number of videos that could misinform users in harmful ways, that it recommends to viewers. Although it is pleasing to see these major social media sites take action to put an end to the spread of vaccination myths, the real questions are: “Is this the solution?”. Censoring the misinformation on vaccines is only half the job. Social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest should use their platform to spread the correct information. Therefore, personally speaking, this is not the solution.
The “Happy Birthday” Song
Previously in class, we talked about many films and television shows having to pay to play the traditional Happy Birthday song. This is why we may not hear it in the films and television shows we watch because it is expensive to use. The Happy Birthday song is owned by Warner Music Group. For a long time, they have charged a license fee for the use of the song. This amounts to about $2 million a year in fees. I have always wondered why certain film/ TV shows would use a different version of the song, or one that seemed to makeup but this is to avoid fees. This fee doesn’t only apply to television, but also to the public. In public celebrations held at restaurants franchises like Applebees, TGI Friday and others, the restaurant crew usually sings their own original, quirky version of birthday tune while presenting dessert at your table. This is also done to avoid paying royalties to sing the traditional song. In researching this topic, I later learned that as of 2016 it has been approved that the Happy Birthday song will be placed in the public domain. This means that we no longer need to pay to sing this song on television and in public celebrations. I also learned that the company, Warner Music Group, has agreed to pay back $14 million to those who have paid licensing fees to use the song.
KC Miller's Mass Communications 