5/15/13

Classmates' blogs

I have visited 5 blogs of my classmates and I offer you some information about them below:




This blog is by Jordan Julien and it is concerned with us - the users being dependent on social media/networks. It caught my attention right away as I found this topic really useful and interesting. 
The blog is organized very well, greatly structured and has great postings. In each of the parts she mentions well arranged and accurate arguments, which help to support her overall point. Also, I like the fact that the blog contains some additional videos and pictures, which enrich the blog. 






The second blog is done by Mansura Mehdiyeva and it is about sport in the media. I found the blog very entertaining, giving different points of view on the main topic. Mansura also offered several topics, all recent and very interesting to read. Further, I like that Mansura offered solutions to her postings and supported them with her own arguments as well as with different sources. On the blog you can also find information how media emphasizes certain sportsmen/women - how they get all the attention while others are being ignored.



The next blog is another very interesting one and it is created by Valeriya Alpeeva. It deals with social media and Public Relations and the relationship between these two aspects. The blog is organized very well, without any disturbing effects and enriched with videos and images. Valeriya mentions some very useful information about the social media nowadays and how PR uses these to promote products, etc. 
The articles on the blog are entertaining, giving enough information about the topic. Valeriya also mentions some steps a company should take and emphasizes the importance of communication through social media to clients. Also, I like the Jimmy Choo article very much! It serves as a great example of how effective a PR campaign can be. 





 I really like this blog and it is one of my favorites. It's created by Nino Zalkaliani and connected to the film industry and its great impact and power. Nino emphasizes the point of how movies and their content influence young children and teenagers and I believe it is important to learn about it more. The blog offers some very good articles, where parents can find information to enrich their knowledge about the impact movies have on their children. As parents are often not aware of the possible factors that can influence their chidlren in a negative way, this is a good way to enlighten them. 
The blog is well done and entertaining!


http://booksinchildhood.blogspot.cz/

The last website is done by Csilla Száraz, concerning the issue of books in childhood and the importance of them. The blog is done very nicely, well organized and enriched by various statistics, which is a great supporting evidence. While I was reading through the articles Csilla offered, I found a lot of information, which I have never thought about. The fact that children focus on other activities such as watching TV or playing video games rather than reading a book is probably due to the technological advances and having media tools everywhere around us. Further, children often think of books as boring and not entertaining at all.
Parents play a significant role as well. If they are not interested in books; do not encourage their children to read and do not give them motivation to read, the children most probably won't feel the need to read either.
Overall, the blog was fun to read and includes a lot of interesting information!

5/5/13

Webpages for you to visit

In this section I have prepared 4 web pages for you to visit to enrich you with more information about my topic:

First:

http://www.obesityaction.org/educational-resources/resource-articles-2/weight-bias/fattertainment-obesity-in-the-media

This webpages has a lot of useful information about how obesity is portrayed in the media and it will also provide you with several movie titles, which are critical towards obese/overweight people.
The webpage also adresses topics such as reasons why is criticizing of overweight in the media so common and what is the effect of "fattertainment" on our society.

Second:

http://www.weightlosshelpdirectory.com/media-infuences.html

The webpage explains in detail how are the children influenced by the various media and what dangers are there that parents should know about. Also, it explains that children under certain age have no knowledge about the economic aspect of television/media and that therefore they have difficulty to distinguish between what is an advertisement and what is a TV show. Further, the website gives some simple tips for parents to minimize media advertising's great impact.


Third:

http://www.raderprograms.com/causes-statistics/media-eating-disorders.html

This website will provide you with a great amount of statistics/surveys and an interesting introduction. The article is mostly connected to young girls and I personally found the majority of information shocking.



And the last (additional) one: 

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/abercrombie-fitch-ceo-explains-why-he-hates-fat-chicks/

The website above is not directly connected to the impact of the media on weight problems, but it is surely connected to overweight adolescents; to the portrayal of the obese people in our society and to how the body image created by the media affects the fashion industry. I am offering this website to you only to inform you about this recent article. 

Additional posting II.


I am posting this video just because I find it entertaining and mainly, it points out how it really is with the media images nowadays. It is emphasizing the fact that magazines perfect the looks of models, creating the ideal body image and set standarts in the media. The video is also showing that we are willing to change the way we are rather than showing our real selves. Enjoy 




Additional posting I.

In order to support my point in the essay about the portrayal of overweight characters in cartoons and movies for children/adolescents, here are two short videos 

The first video is an excerpt from the cartoon Lilo and Stitch, where the main characters gain weight. At first this video seemed as an innocent example to me, but then again, it captures them as funny, hardly moving and constantly in need to eat:






The next video is an excerpt from the film Harry Potter, where the overweight character Dudley is being potrayed as an object of laughter - representation of ''fattertainment": 








Current Event II.

For the second current event I have chosen another recent article about the newest Dove beauty campaign. 

Here is the link:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/37333/dove-beauty-campaign-not-enough-to-combat-body-image-issues


Although the article is not directly connected to children and boys, it is linked to adolescent girls and their perception of the ideal body image affected by the media. I personally find this article and campaign interesting so I wanted to share it with you although it does not include children and young boys.

This article is written by a 20 year old college student who describes her experience with watching the video for this recent campaign by Dove and she further expresses her opinions on the image issues. While you will read through this article you will find some interesting information and also personal comments on the issue and the campaign.

The idea of this campaign is that you are more beautiful than you think, which is strongly (and emotionally) demonstrated in the video I posted below and you can also find it on the website above.  


In the article you will also find different kinds of information, such as three out of four American adolescent girls feel depressed, shameful and guilty for the way they look after spending couple of minutes reading through a fashion magazine that features models, who weigh around 23% less than an average American female. The effects of the images given by the media are the following: 65% of girls and women claim different eating behaviors and 53% of 13 year old girls are upset with their appearance.

The intentions of this campaign are obviously not only pure, although the advertisement itself is different than the others, implementing the women-friendly strategy. Sadly, these kinds of advertisements do not reduce the hate of women towards their bodies. Further, I am sure that many women would agree with the author’s statement  “I would rather hear real women speak and actually appear to feel good about themselves than witness plastic-looking, dead-eyed models or worst of all, straight up violent misogyny.” 


Works Cited:

Zeilinger, Julie. "Dove Beauty Campaign Not Enough to Combat Body Image Issues." PolicyMic. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2013. <http://www.policymic.com/articles/37333/dove-beauty-campaign-not-enough-to-combat-body-image-issues>.

Current Event I.

For the first current event I have chosen a recent article called “Not All Screens Are Equal When It Comes to Obesity Risk: TV May Have Greatest Effect” written by Bonnie Rochman.
The article focuses on how TV contributes to overweight in comparison to other forms of media such as video games.

Here is the link to the website:


A study by Pediatrics found some surprising differences among televisions, computers and other tools such as smartphones and iPads and their relationship to obesity of children.
The result of the study was that only television and especially, paying the most attention to its programs are associated with heavier children.

In another study of young adolescents several shocking results were found, 14-year-old boys who claimed to pay the most of their attention to what was actually screened on television weighed 14.2 lb., which is more than boys who claimed paying the least attention. Moreover, for girls, the weight was 13.5 lb.

The next study was conducted by Boston Children’s Hospital and it took a look at what kinds of media 91 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 use the most and how they use them. Researchers also recorded the height and weight of the respondents and calculated their BMI – body mass index. The result they found was that the adolescents spent more than three hours daily watching television, which is more time than they spent with any other tool/screen. Also, the teenagers who paid the most attention to the programs on TV had the highest BMI. On the other hand, paying the same attention to computer or video games was not connected to weight gain.

This article also supports the point I made in the essay, that the product placement plays an important role in television programs. Children and adolescents are constantly surrounded with advertising for unhealthy food and beverages - they are attracted to pay attention to what is on the screen,  while their hands are free to allow them to munch. 

Educational Article II.

You can find the second educational article here:



The article is called “Eating Disorders: How Social Media Helps Spread Anorexia And Bulimia In Young People” published by The Huffington Post and written by Christopher York.


This article emphasizes how important it is for children and adolescents to feel good about themselves again and that it is essential to provide enough healthy alternatives to the support that many adolescents and children find through social media.

Similarly to the first article, this one reports statistics too, where other alarming numbers can be found. The statistics claim that the hospital admissions for eating disorders rose by 16% from last year. 
This article further explains how social media affect young generations in shaping their beliefs about the ‘ideal’ body image. It examines social media such as Pinterest and Facebook, claiming that Pinterest recently banned the possibility to search for words such as “thinspiration” because they may lead the users to develop eating disorders.

The author of the article states “Research has shown that eating disorders can be transmitted "like a virus" through social networks, whilst pro-anorexic websites provide tips, advice and an online community for unhealthy weight management.” 


Works Cited:

York, Christopher. "Eating Disorders: How Social Media Helps Spread Anorexia And Bulimia In Young People." The Huffington Post. N.p., 13 Oct. 2012. Web. 05 May 2013. <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/12/social-media-anorexia-bulimia-young-people_n_1962730.html>.