Robert's Extra Credit Blog

No, I had never written a blog before I attended this class. The positive aspects of using a blog for this class was that, it was a faster way to turn in our assignments without having to print them out and worry about all that mess. I had never blogged before, but I did not really find any difficulties using the system and summiting my blogs. One of the Blog prompts I had the most trouble with was the Hegemony prompt because I didn’t really understand the concept when I was writing the Blog at the beginning of the semester. The blogs that I found more interesting were the ones we had to write about films, because we could choose the movie we wanted to talk about and the information was easier to present that way. Yes, I would definitely recommend using a blog in other courses around campus because it is easier to summit your assignments and a different way to show you understand the material. I actually have no problem with the Blog the way it is but something that might help could be some comments from other student to maybe improve your blogging skills for future blogs and assignments. Yes, you can use my blog in a paper or report.

Robert's Globalization Blog

Globalization is the process of diminishing cultural barriers and interacting more and more with each other. From culture to culture, ideas or goods can be shared and interacted due to technology. Media is now reaching across borders and is helping to integrate cultures.  

Due to new technology, Globalization has increased in the last years as well as Glocalization. Glocalization is used to describe a product or service that is developed and distributed globally. Just like Globalization, Glocalization interacts culture with culture in different ways.

A good example of Glocalization is McDonalds. McDonalds is all over the world, but they do not have the same menu for every single one of their locations. In order to be successful McDonalds makes some changes to satisfy the culture where it is located. Some example are :  there are no Big Macs in India due to the fact that Hindu people do not eat beef, McDonalds serves beer in Germany, and in Chile you can dress your burger with avocado paste instead of ketchup. Glocalization allows McDonalds to do this in order to expand and diffuse cultures.

Robert's advertising blog

We see hundreds of advertising commercials every day on television, and every single one of them is trying to get us to buy their product. A recent commercial that I saw and caught my attention was the Life Alert Commercial. An elderly alert system, for when senior citizens fall or need rapid emergency assistance.  During the commercial, they show elderly people falling and accident statistics with the intent to scare their safety and catch their attention.

I feel that elderly people are very vulnerable to this type of commercials.  They hear about senior citizens falling and then they see them on TV on these commercials, they start fearing for themselves. They are using their safety appeal in order get their attention on their product. They see an elderly women fall to the ground and fight desperately to get up and call the medics, but due to her fall she cannot get up and just lay on the floor until someone has to find her. This clearly directed to senior citizens who live alone.

How can they not be scared with images like these shown to them on a daily bases. That if they do not have Life Alert the worst can happen if no one is there to help during a fall or accident.I feel that the commercial is scary and grabs their attention.

Robert's Three Act Structure

One of my favorite movies and really enjoy watching is Never Back Down. Director Jeff Wadlow, uses Hollywood’s three Act Structure to develop the film. A film about a young man that moves to another city and finds himself in a totally new environment. The movie starts out with a football game and we learn a little bit about the Main Character’s past Jake (Sean Faris), we learn he has a past he cannot deal with and most of the characters are introduced. The main plot of Act 1, comes when the protagonist is embarrassed and humiliated in front of the whole school by losing a fight and getting really bad beaten up.

The second act starts as the main character gets an offer to start training at a local Mix Martial Arts club. The second act gets developed as he starts liking the gym and training with Rocca, his MMA coach. He is enjoying the art of Mix Martial Arts not because he wants to get back at the guy that beat him up as he originally intended, but because he is becoming very good friends with his coach. The big decision in Act 2 is when he decides he is not going to enter a MMA tournament and the Ryan(the antagonist) finds out.

The Third act, where the climax occurs is when Max, Jakes best friend, is brutally beaten up by Ryan in order to make Jake participate in the tournament. Jake fights his way through the tournament because he knows that Ryan will make it to the finals. As Jake prepares to fight in the semifinals, he learns Ryan has been disqualified and decides to forfeit and walk out. Ryan is furious about the forfeit and confronts him in the parking lot; a fight for the ages breaks out. Jake ends up winning the fight and the respect of Ryan.

Blog 6 Shots

Filmmakers use different kinds of shots to help the audience understand and realize what is going on.  They use three different shots; long shot, medium shot, and close up. The long shot lets you know what is going on, where are we, what kind of setting we are in. The medium shot helps us understand where we are supposed to be focusing to, what were supposed be looking at. Finally, the close up shot, this shot shows us specific detail that the filmmaker wants us to know. Here are several shots from one of my favorite movie Never Back Down.

In this shot we see a building, we really don't know what  it is but our attention is focused on it because it is the only thing in the shot.

In this shot, the director takes us into this warehouse and we see that it is actually a training facility. We also see the main actors interacting and using the facility. this setting is important because the protagonist is able to learn and fight through the use of this gym.

In this last shot, we have a close up of the main actor. We see bruising on his face and we can tell he is pretty upset. 

Robert's Hollywood Blob

The Classical Hollywood Era, a time period of the dominance of vertical integration. Hollywood dominated the movie business through vertical integration. They were able to control every aspect of production, from producers to actors. They developed a trend of placing actors with a type of genre for audience to identify.

Through actors, Hollywood started developing genres that would identify them. Therefore every time you went to go see a certain actor, you had an idea of what kind of movie you were going to go see, and vice- versa. If you liked a certain type of movies you would probably see a familiar actor in most of those films.

The best example for this type of practice is, John Wayne. If we knew John Wayne was going to be in the movie, we knew the movie was probably going to be a western type movie. If you like westerns, you probably also like John Wayne and therefor you would keep on watching his movies and Hollywood films.

Blog # 4

All in the family, a show that portrayed a family dealing with different issues that metaphorically showed how society felt about certain ideas at that time. The episode we watched in class, about the “gay” issue in society made me think and   while I was watching this episode, I started recalling other shows that are similarly based. One that popped up was “That 70’s shows”, how in some episodes they try to deal with issues that maybe society is questioning. They both try to maybe change the way the public thinks and reacts to certain situations and make them a little more common.                                          In the other hand “That 70’s Show” shows the point of view of teenagers and how they deal with their thoughts and perceptions, while “All in the Family” is more conventional with the mom and dad and their views on what’s “right” and “wrong”. “That 70’s Shows” introduces the idea that people’s perception changes over time and how society may start seeing some ideas as common, that may had been controversial in the past. It also starts telling us how teenagers might start thinking differently than their parents.                                                                                                                                                                I am not a fan of “All in the Family” but from what I saw from the episode from class, they try to deal with issues in blunt kind of manner. While in “That 70’s Show” is more of everyone starts respecting how anyone feels about a given subject. They are both great shows for society but they present the information in their own way.

Robert's Radio Blog

         After the Navy returned and radios were given back to the people, attitudes started to change towards this device; people were astonished by what this invention could do and gladly accepted it into their homes. Everyone was excited to own one of these devices and an outburst broke out, people were looking to expand their business, to try and make some money, and others just enjoyed listening through this new medium. The public accepted the radio without much objection and the Radio Era took off.                                                                                                                                                                                                   Everyone was enthusiastic about this new medium and everyone wanted to be a part of it. The public demanded and the businesses and networks gave them. Businesses started advertising their products and their goods, and the public accepted them as part of the radio. Entertainment shows started popping up and people excitedly listen to them. Networks started forming and the radio industry grew even more and society totally changed in the way that families now would gather around and come together to listen to certain shows on the radio. Radio gave the public a new attraction and entertainment, something new to do.                                                                                                                                                   The radio gave America a new source of entertainment. The radio industry realized that the public wanted to listen to music, sitcoms, and drama series.  This gave way to many radio shows that like comic series and many more. Super heroes started appearing and children had someone to look up to. These type of entertainment shows became a huge success and the public was what kept them on air.

Social learning

Social learning explains why society acts a certain way; why teenage boys in this era are way bigger and muscular than in previews decades.  Media today depicts the protagonist of films and models in commercials as these muscular men that everyone wants to be. In effect, young viewers do want to look this way and try to achieve these looks at any cost.

In class, Professor Straubhaar gave an example of the GI Joe action figure, how the toy started to change over the years. How the makers started to make the action figures resemble a big muscular man.  The example shows us how from a small age we start seeing muscular figures in movies, commercials, and toys. Therefore in recent times, the rate of teenagers taking steroids and supplements has sky rocketed. Media tries to appeal to us by showing us images of muscular guys always having a good time and surrounded by attractive looking girls.   

       Another example is the proactive commercial and one of their slogans, “Clear skin is sexy skin”; so according to this commercial if you do not have perfect skin, you are unattractive. This commercial airs daily on our televisions, therefore people start believing these statements causing them to take action and try to imitate the celebrities in the commercials. If results are not achieved, people may fall into depression because in their mind they are unacceptable due to the repetition of all this perfect “people” that the media portrays every day to society.

Hegemony Blog 2

     Now a days, the media tells you and retells you that you are not good enough; everything they portray suggests that you need to look and act a certain way in order to “fit” into society. From a very young age we start seeing messages through media on how supposedly everyone looks like, in magazines and advertisements on television all the women and men have the same physique making you believe that everyone should look in a certain way.                                                                                                                       Hegemony leads us to think that maybe something is wrong with us and we need to make a change. It can influence you in many different ways, that maybe we don’t think about and is having an effect on us. Media can pretty    control what they want the people to do; they can broadcast certain advertisements or shows over and over until people start taking them as natural and part of the society.                                                                              Media can influence you in many different ways and is up to the viewers and consumers to accept. Everyone is different, and we should not be expected to act or look the same way.  

With this picture we see how the media is making fun of this man for not fitting the qualities of what a "man" should look like. He does not look tough, muscular, or intimidating; therefor the media starts attacking him by making jokes and sarcastic comments. Man are man, and we are all different; we should not have standards from which we should live by.

In this picture we see a little boy flexing and acting tough. This just shows us that from a very young  age, boys are expected to act tough and manly. He is just a few years old and he is already acting how he should according to what we hear and see on television. 

The Aggies women basketball team, are a perfect example of using women as an object in order to get attention or publicity. In this picture, the girls look like the last thing they do is play basketball; they are dressed and posed provocatively instead of showing pictures of their basketball skills.

My first RTF 305 blog post

I decided to take this course because I am still undecided in what I want to major in. I wanted to see how this course is like, and maybe keep on this RTF path. I have always been interested in communication and media, because media to me is a way to express myself. I hope that after taking this class, I will make up my mind if I want to continue this path.