More News - This Really Happened-

This is from the AP: COSTUME INCIDENT COULD COST MYERS POST. Myers, director of Immigration and customs Enforcement, and two other agency managers gave "the most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin.

Where do they get their news?

We are doing focus groups in our qualitative class on the topic pertaining to where certain classifications of people get their news. One student said she did a focus group with newspaper reporters. She described them as being cynical. They were also expressed that they get a lot of news from a lot of places and feel saturated. I'm not a reporter-yet... but I already feel saturated with so much stuff people just throw on the NET and here I am comparing and contrasting trying to figure out who is doing the factual reporting - if anything like that exists. So what's my point - how much saturation does it take for humans to be ate up with consumption (flaky news and entertainment) before they retire or expire literally and figuratively? Is there a pill we can take for this so we won't get too bloated and uncomfortable and at the same time don't feel any side effects?

Just to let you know - Santa Claus is a fat dude who is a bad role model for children who are overweight. If you are planning on doing the Santa claus thing this season (extra employment at the mall) don't say HO, HO, HO, but say HA, HA, HA (that was posted in the news online) and if you are worried about recalled toys from China - just think of all the toys we've had in our lifetime before 2007 that had tons of lead paint that weren't even from China. And as far as the bad hamburger meat, does anyone out there knows that the U.S. has more cases of e-coli going around that most underdeveloped nations? Why? Because people in underdeveloped nations eat fresh meat (when they have it) and don't eat ground beef that is processed in unsanitary processing plants. Like the local bovine personality says on TV - "Eat more chikin!"

Do yo think you may be a nerd?

Find out if you are a nerd. Take a test. Go to www.nerdtest.com. Don't worry, you won't be graded.

A Lesson in Semiotics

My qualitative classs required that we search journal articles reflecting semiotic analysis.

I located an article "The male heart and the female mind: A study in the gendering of antideprressants and cardiovascular drugs in advertisements in Irish medical publication" by Phillip Curry and Marita O'Brien . They showed how messages directed to an audience are created to influence consumers - in this case how signs were used to influence the consumers of medications. Signs are associated with meaning and are associated with "codes" we pick up. Distinct images are used by advertisers in medical publications to identify patients at risk of or suffering from depression and cardiovascular disease. Content analysis in advertisments displaying humans showed that 91.17 percent of the users of cardiovascular medication were male and 85.7 percent using anti-dperessants were female. This showed the difference was highly significant and there was an extremely strong relationship between gender of user and the category of the drug advertised. Women in anti-dpressant medication ads are shows as being passive, sad and helpless. Men in cardio-vascular medication ads are shown in control, engaging in activities such as dancing and jogging - think of our own American ad with the inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart and the doctor jogging with his son. The images focused on activity rather than on the individual. Also signifiers, such as clothing - outdoor clothing for men engaging in outdoor activity imply a continuation of a healthy lifestyle whereas women are depicted as aging and becoming depressed, becasue of it, and are shown wearing grey and sitting on a floor holding their knees. In Ireland men have a higher suicide rate than women, yet men are shown less in ads for anti-depressants. it is interesting to note that in the Republic of Ireland the legislation controls drug advertisements and those advertisements are only permitted in medical publications. Think of how we are bombarded in the US with pharmaceutical advertisements in every magazine from Newsweek to Family Circle.

I attended the Holocaust testimonial of William and Rosalie on November 7 at UNT. For those of you who missed it, William and Rosalie are Holocaust survivors and gave their testimony that was subsequently written into a book that was published through the Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction conference . Rosalie spoke about Oskar Schindler , the German Catholic entrepreneur who saved hundreds of Jews who were destined to go to death camps during WWII by convincing the Nazis that he would make the Jews productive by using them as forced labor working in his factories. Those Jewish survivors and their families will never forget Shindler and what he did to keep them alive by using this ploy. Oskar Shindler is buried in a Catholic Cemetery outside the Old City of Jerusalem in Israel. Jews customarily place stones on the gravesites of those they wish to remember and honor. In this picture, Shindler's gravesite is shown covered with stones. I paid tribute to Shindler in January of 2006 and took this photo. The enamelware made in Shindler's factories are on exhibit at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. A facsimile of Shindler's list is also on display.

Jacquielyn Floyd's Article

I had to force myself to read Floyd's article. It is like forcing myself to watch TV. So what exactly is Floyd's point? I guess I have handled too many murder investigations in my life as a cop and when I become a reporter I'm going to be ahead of the silly games regular reporters play. Floyd says, "It is just means that every so often we all get it wrong." I would suggest that she speak for herself. I'd like to hear what the other students think about this.

Metrosexuals

In our text book, Soldow cited Simpson (2002) that metrosexuals easily fit the gay stereotype of being interested in and concerned about fashion, style and grooming and, "As such, they are attractive to both heterosexual women and homosexual men and report not being threatened by the attractiveness to the latter. Metrosexuals are urban, heterosexual males who are often mistaken for being gay although they are not disturbed by the inaccurate assumption (p. 326).

The Tumi (luggage) ad in the New Yorker, Sept. 24, 2007, issue depicts what appears to be a metrosexual. Ermenegildo Zegna also shows two males posing in winter jackets - they too are depicted as metrosexuals. Then you have a "Hear the world" ad with Placido Domingo. I just like the way he sings - His message raises awareness of the importance of hearing and the support for projects helping hearing impaired people. The message is clear cut. As for metrosexuals - they look "beautiful" and that's what the advertising people succeeded in doing for everyone who cares about fashion, luggage or whatever.

I am reading a book on reserve at the Willis titled "Qualitative Researching with Text, Image and Sound," edited by Martin W. Bauer and George Gaskell. It addresses a lot of what we are covering.

What do parents really think?

I wonder how the parents of every student in our class would respond to the sentence "Pornography pivots on sex and works in specific ways that target particular audiences by cultivating control and desire and the promise of sexual power through the viewing of available bodies," as stated by Reichert & Lambiase, (2006) if they were sitting in Curry Hall 203 tomorrow. Why do we, parents and young adults alike, succumb to the influences of advertising? We still buy the lipstick, the belts and the booze until we really get rattled and stop. One day in my Readings in Mass Communication 5050 class I made the statement that advertising majors should be in the business school and I still feel that way.

Why We Should Read and Why We Protest

Karen Thomas, freelance writer and UNT professor, generated some interesting comments and prompted some interesting observations last week.

She emphasized more reading for students. Reading about the Jena protest and how it developed would have to be mandatory reading for journalists, but the general public would have to try to read as much as possible to fully understand how history and police practices can make something unjust.

I observed in the Jena video how imbalanced the representation of whites and black was. Where were all the whites? Why were not more opinions solicited from white protesters? Did I miss something?

All police reports involving assaults require photographed injuries of the complainants. It would be interesting to know just how serious the complainant's face in this case was injured. One news story said his face was bloody and swollen.

Tanesa Lee from Dallas said she went to Jenna for her family and hopes that something like this will nevert happen again. I just wonder how many more cases like these are out there and what it takes to get people moving and protesting.

In response to that one student's question about protesting and whether it is legal. Just make sure you follow the law. For example, universities have some of the most stringent rules on protesting - at some places you have a tiny patch of grass to stand on to unleash your concerns. If you don't make an application for a permit you can be in deep trouble. Have all your bases covered.

Chicanismo: An Affirmation of Race and Class by Ignacio Garcia

Last week's class discussion was one of the more exciting lectures and class responses I've recently witnessed.

I wish I would have had the following information from Ignacio Garcia's explanation on Chicanismo. Read "Chicanismo: The forging of a militant ethos among Mexican Americans (Tuscon, University of Arizona Press, 1997).

The Chicano movement gained its strength from the working-class sector of the community. Chicanos hang focus on racial origins and class position as a cohesion to that struggle (Garcia, 1997). This is so visible in environment at the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. It is important to remember that UTEP is a commuter university and the students would not be ranked as coming from a high socio- economic income level. Most work, most go to school part-time, most have tight-knit families and are tied in to the strong Mexican patriarchal culture. I often reflect on what my brother Hector said about the Chicano movement in the 60s when he was a journalism student at UTEP. He said he was too busy studying, working and trying to raise a family to be involved in the Chicano movement. Meanwhile, my husband, a retired El Paso police lieutenant, was busing arresting protesters during the same time. My husband is white, my brother looks white, but is Mexican-American. And me - well, I have darker skin.

Chicanos are for the most part mestizos. How Chicanismo evolved and how it is interpreted by scholars and the Chicano's themselves is controversial. It is about race and class. Poet Ricardo Sanchez says, "Ser Chicano es vivir como humano (to be a Chicano is to live like a human).

How Mexican-Americans view themselves in America is tied to their present economic and social status. I would almost venture to say it is similar to a lesser or greater degree to the Irish-Americans, German-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans.

10-97 and What it Means

10-97 is a police radio code meaning that an officer has arrived at a crime scene. This is an important transmission when it comes to being first on the scene and assessing a situation for himself or herself and others who will arrive later. Assessing news stories, ads, and magazine covers should be a standard operating procedure for any consumer who is on the scene, but how many young adults today would care about what Taco Bell's Dinky is doing and what power do we have as a consumer to change market driven images such as Dinky and keeping those marketing ideas from surfacing again? How many parents, regardless of socio-economic status and ethnicity told their children that Dinky is offensive or cute? Gabriel Chavez complained because he was the former president of the chapter of the League for United Latin American Citizens. The Mexicans didn't like the connotations of the ad, but how many whites complained? Who at Taco bell designed the ad? What was his or her ethnicity? Did he or she have a college degree? Did he or she take an ethics class in college? If he or she did, what were they thinking during that class? Was the CEO of Taco Bell a Mexican , white or of some other ethnicity?

The Media - How We Grow Up With IT and What it Does

The era in which we were born and reared by our parents influences us on how we perceive ourselves and how we integrate ourselves in society. The media is part of that development. The mere fact that I am not a North Texan by birth will have a profound influence on how I view immigrant issues since I lived on the border with Mexico all my life. I also attended a private Catholic school - all girls. The Catholic nuns aggressively influenced us to pursue non-traditonal roles in academia and the work force. That was in the 70s. At Loretto Academy in El Paso we were sent out into the world to be critical thinkers at age 17 and 18. We were taught not to automatically reinforce the status quo.

Being a critical thinker and having an analytical mind enables us to scrutinize what we want and what the media feeds us, however, when it comes to consumption we can become suckers by the media's influence. Even if family has a direct influence on how we think about the media , we still face challenges within our external social circles.

Social theorist Georg Simmel analyzed the manner in which consumption may be used to cultivated "sham individuality." He cites fashion as an example. According to Simmel, sophisticated and blase consumption allows the consumer to differentiate him or herself. In my interpretation, advertising and the media contributes to "sham individuality" every time a consumer reinforces his or her beliefs on how a beautiful body is developed, maintained and perceived by race and class in American society. In a recent article by Christine Kearney, "NY fashion runways lack black and Asian Models,", Kearney quotes fashion art director Frank de Jesus that a white girl with blond hair is still the ideal of beauty. If Clairol says blond hair is is an attribute of beauty the consumer buys the dye, changes her or his image and thus fall to the influence of advertising and reinforces the status quo.

Why I Read What I Read

My reading habits have evolved over many years and were directly influenced by my mother. I remember flipping the pages of National Geographic on the living room floor and visualizing how I would write about a lost tribe treking in the steamy Amazon. But I became a cop and my interests shifted to reading police magazines like Law and Order and Police Chief to keep up with police policy, investigative techniques, and dreaming about getting a Sig Sauer so I could have a competitive edge over the shooting scores of my fellow officers (although the gun doesn't make the man nor the woman). I was self-employed in construction later and subscribed to Handy Man magazine to learn how a woman could build a better bathroom. Now I am an academic - an aspiring journalist. I have to read as much as I can. I subscribe to U.S. News and World Report, Texas Monthly (that was for a writing class- not my favorite), The New Yorker, Selecciones - Reader's Digest in Spanish to practice the language and improve my writing and The Columbia Journalism Review. I subscribe to the Denton Record Chronicle to learn about the local folks (I'm new to the area), the Star-Telgram and the Dallas Morning News (dropped it, but need to re-start it). I log on everyday to various news sites (American and foreign) and I watch CNN News Robin and Company , and chill with the weather guy Van Dillon who is more professional and not as goofy as Robin in the morning at 5:15 a.m. I watch Brian Williams on the NBC evening news.If I could, I'd subscribe to Al-Jazeera to top this off. NO - the reporters with Al-Jazeera aren't terrorists.

This is much toooooo long - but that is why I read and what I read and view because as a journalist I need to be up on the news and scrutinize what is put out in print, on the web, radio and TV. And about those I-Reporters who post shaky video.....hmmmmm. That's another story. That's all folks.