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In this course I am very interested in learning about social media. In more depth, I want to learn about how our mental health is affected by the most popular platforms such as instagram, snapchat and facebook. This is interesting to me because I feel as though I am constantly on my phone wasting my time using these previously mentioned platforms. Although, I am somehow still unable to stop using them. The topic that interests me the most is semiotics. I scratched the surface of semiotics in Coms 201 and found it very interesting how we have denotative and connotative meanings for thousands of signs and symbols. I am excited to go into more depth and expand my knowledge regarding semiotics and the rest of the topics covered in this course.

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Engstrom’s main argument is that there is a use of hegemony within bridal companies such as the Knot and these bridal companies are reinforcing ideas of a perfect wedding and femininity among the brides. My main takeaway from this article is that the Knot forces the idea of a perfect wedding to the female audience, disallowing any alternatives that would not line up with the Knot’s important elements and features. Through the use of media synergy the Knot use a range of platforms such as their television show, their website, magazines and advertisements,  to constantly reminds its audience that alternative wedding styles are unnatural and cheap. The Knot also reinforces femininity in the way the beautiful bride must act and dress in a wedding. She must follow all the roles of a “regular” bridal script and deviation will not lead up to the ideal wedding. The brides are portrayed as beautiful consumers who associate’s happiness with consumption and perfection with femininity.

Political economy is an important approach for her research because in “Unraveling the Knot” it refers to the media study of power relations involving the bridal companies and consumption. Political economy examines the bridal industry and their connection with other economic sectors within a capitalistic system and how media and consumption influence existing so called “norms” of society.

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The main argument that Ross makes in the article is that the greatest danger to American democracy is mass-culture in film, news, media, and television. The reason being is mass culture enforces conformity and mute’s intellectual freedom. People start listening to the same messages being repeated on multiple channels of media and start to become deceived to the point where they believe what they are hearing is true. They give up the freedom of individual thought and fall into the trap of believing the media. The world is getting greedy and does not want to stop this cycle, due to the profits being made by the major media companies. For instance, since fake news is one of Facebooks greatest sources of revenue, Facebook does not want to delete this news even though it is brainwashing thousands of people.

““Of the clouds and shadows that hung-over Clinton in the press, the darkest, perhaps, was the prospect of boredom." This quote is referring to how Clinton will not generate as much news and attention as Donald trump. The news stations and media will make thousands by simply broadcasting Trump and if they discontinue this trend then they will loose revenue and followers. People enjoy watching and reading about drama and Hilary Clinton will not satisfy this need, but Trump certainly will.

This relates to the argument related to Frankfurt school because the school was scared that mass culture will be the end of Americans intellectual freedom. The media now has a desire to keep Trump in the presidential chair because he generates tones of revenue. As a result, the media will give trump more screen time and with the immense power of the media, it may sway the vote of the election. This cycle operates in dictatorial fashion and will negatively affect the world and peoples thoughts.

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The political activism of K-Pop fans demonstrates how they are not passive listeners but are actively engaged with the media and choose how they want to respond to media culture. They are usually seen as crazy fan girls who do not have an active voice towards important matters. Although, after the black lives matter movement and many other political contributions, K-pop fans are breaking out of their societal view and are now being recognized as a competent group. Who knew that K-pop fans would be politically active and would be making a real contribution towards serious matters!

Another example of fan political activism is the Harry Potter Alliance. This group challenges dominant power structures that oppress marginalized groups. Similar to the harry potter movies, this alliance is separated into for houses (such as Gryffindor) and the house that raises the most money wins. The Harry Potter Alliance raised $123, 000 to support Haiti after its earthquake in 2010.

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The media image that I chose is a picture of trump hosting a White House event against guidance of public health officials. The signifier is trump dressed in a nice suit looking tanned doing a speech out front of the white house with USA flags to the left and right of him. He is also taking of his mask with a smug look on his face. The signified in this image is freedom, patriarchy, carelessness and power.

The signs of this image are first that trump is taking off his mask to show everyone that he does not care what other officials suggest and he is trying to perpetuate freedom by not following the rules. The flags to his left and right suggest patriarchy and is trying to unite the country as one. Trump looking tanned and wearing an expensive suit standing in front of the white house suggests that he has power and can do whatever he chooses to do. Overall this image is trying to say something like “if Trump, the powerful president does not follow the rules neither do you”.

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“Reality television governs less through the dissemination of ideology than through the enactment of participatory games and lifestyle tutorials that guide, test and supposedly enhance subjects capacity to play an active role in shaping uncertain outcomes – to govern themselves through freedom, not control” (472) This quote is trying to explain the concept of governmentality. Which is, governing people through positive means such as the willing participation of the governed rather than a disciplinary/sovereign form of power. In other words, reality television gets messages across and allows citizens to freely choose to participate rather than being controlled and forced to do certain actions against their will. One example that illustrates this above quote is shark tank.

Shark Tank is a reality television show that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas to the “sharks”, who are investors that hear the speech and analyse the product or service of the entrepreneurs to potentially give these ideas a lump sum of money for a percentage of equity of their company. Television viewers are encouraged to start thinking of their own entrepreneurial ideas that could have a positive impact on the world. While Shark Tank is a reality entertainment show, it also promotes everyday citizens to be creative and to start taking an active role in thinking outside of the box to solve everyday problems. Shark tank is getting their message across, and as a result, there are more people freely participating in entrepreneurship.

Social media can be a form of governmentality because instead of forcing people to do certain actions, the social media platforms encourage and influence participation through advertisements and through the posts of well-known individuals. For example, on Instagram I always get advertisements and posts suggesting workouts and physical exercises. These posts tick away at my brain and encourage me to voluntarily participate in a healthier lifestyle. Also, celebrities have a similar effect with their posts to influence others to make a positive change. In all, social media can be a form of governmentality by encouraging positive change and voluntary actions through the repetition of advertisements and through the power of well known individuals.

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I think the most compelling thing that I learned in this course is the concept hegemony. I never really put much thought into how the media constructs our thoughts but after learning about hegemony I started doubting why we all think the way we do. I started to think about socially constructed examples such as marriage, the law, and norms and I realized how the dominant media group controls the media to make their ideas viewed as “common sense”. I found this compelling because it challenged what I originally knew about media. The concept of hegemony made me realize how manipulative the media can be and I will now be more open minded when reading/ listening to media texts. I will no longer believe everything I see on tv and I will start to second guess what the media now tells me.

The reading I found to be the most important of the course is the Nov 23 - Nov 27: Critical approaches to Digital life readings. I found that both Jackson, Bailey and Foucault Welles – “From #Ferguson to #FalconHeights: The Networked Case for Black Lives” and The Daily Podcast “How Facebook is undermining black lives matter” are becoming increasingly important matters in this day in age. Social media is the key driving force for all kinds of promotions. These two readings taught me how much power the big social media companies have over people’s opinions. For example, simple coding to assure that Trump pops up on the majority of peoples feeds over Biden could sway an entire election. It is dangerous how much power the founders of these companies have. For example, Mark Z. had control over the Facebook feed during the black lives matter movement and there was a large amount of anti-black lives matter posts showing up on everyone’s feed. This goes to show that if Mark Z. has an opinion over a political matter, he could sway millions of people a certain direction using simple coding and algorithms.

After taking this course, I will approach media with more of an analysis approach. I have already noticed myself analyzing certain texts using my knowledge on semiotics, discourse, hegemony and political economy. Instead of simply listening to media, I will now be looking into the deeper meanings of what is going on behind the scenes. I have learned a lot in this course and my new knowledge of media has changed the way I view social media platforms and television.

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Hooks main argument in this chapter is that cultural appropriation is a problem since the hegemonic whiteness is maintaining the status quo by adopting differences of ethnicity and race. The “white” dominant culture is adopting specific components of ethnicity from the other minority cultures. The quote that I feel is the most powerful is “within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. This quote demonstrates how popular culture is adopting and eating other ethnicities.

The saying “eat the other” means cultural appropriation consumes other cultures and reinforces ideas of the “other”. Ideas may consist of individuals being exotic, traditional, or barbaric. Once the dominant culture “eats the other” the eaten components of the minority cultures become commodified. Commodification cancels political resistance and politics and may also take away from their history and power. The history and power is forgotten and the spotlight is replaced by individuals consuming different cultural identities, and in doing so, maintaining power.

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The two concepts that I found the most important in this reading is popular feminism and popular misogyny. Feminism can be interpreted in many ways, in contrast popular misogyny can be very subtle and can sometimes go unnoticed. These two concepts are on opposite sides of the spectrum and help us understand the representation of gender in media culture.

Over media, Feminism has been represented as a sort of product that people either hate or love. Instead of showing the “historically complex series of movements and activism”, media is showing interviews with celebrities, which do not go into much depth to cover the real core values and issues of feminism. This media encourages feminism to be either right or wrong, instead of focusing on a way of thought that portrays a deeper investigation into feminist concerns and issues.

Popular misogyny also creates a false reality for women and feminism. Popular misogyny may be hard to notice because if it isn’t blatantly an anti-feminism group such as Men’sActivism.org, it is generally hidden in media texts. For example, some media culture represents women as “objects” unable to work and who’s only job is to provide for their man. There are even skits and movies on how the world would crumble if women became more in power and obtained equal job status to men. This creates a false reality about gender and the myogenystic producers are trying to subconsciously trick (especially younger non educated youth) that women are not equal to men.

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After watching this documentary, I learned how the media has corrupted the thoughts of their audience on the subject of trans people. Throughout history media has associated trans people with characters such as murderers, psychopaths, perverts and roles where their is something horribly wrong with them. Hollywood has taught people how to react to trans people and it is usually a reaction of either fear or humor. The media makes it seem as though there would be no other reason to dress up as the opposite sex.

I found it compelling that since only 80% of individuals do not know/ are not friends with a trans person, when they see one in person, they reference them to the horrible characters in media. There were many stories told in the documentary where a trans individuals would walk in to a public place such as the subway and everyone would start laughing. The media creates a wrong representation for trans people due to the horrible associations to the characters in media and this association creates conflicts in real life. Also, a lot of people do not understand trans people, so it was a key moment in history when filmography started associating trans people to positive/ real characters. This gave the opportunity for trans children and their parents to have a greater understanding of what they are or who their child is.

Hegemony and mass culture is present since the dominant ruling social group of the media present its own interests of trans people and the general interests of a society gains the same view as a whole in order to gain consensus. Discourse is also present in the trans community. The discourse circulated constructs trans people to be dangerous and humorous/ a joke.

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Social media was the key driving force for the black lives matter movement. Social media gives a voice to the voiceless and allows movements such as black lives matter to blow up and spread globally around the world. It gives individuals the opportunity to spread awareness of the violence and brutality that is going. The global spread of information shows everyone that this movement is not some sort of propaganda and that real change must be done. The black lives matter movement would not have been as big as it is due to the widespread diffusion of hashtags to make connections between murders.

Although social media had a positive influence on the subject of black lives matter, it also has its downsides. Statistically, black lives matter is supported by the majority of the population but on Facebook, it makes it seem as though this is not correct. Oddly enough, Facebooks feed is filled with movements such as all lives matter and anti-BLM material. Facebook’s feed is suggesting that BLM is something darker and more dangerous than it actual is. Mark Z. says he is supporting BLM but he controls the feed and the feed says otherwise.

My biggest take away from this week’s content is how much power social media companies have over people’s opinions. It is crazy how one anti-BLM post or one pro trump post can sway thousands of people in one direction. I feel as though there should be stricter rules and regulations over what can be trending over media feeds.