Week 6: Blog Post #9: Media & the Perception of Food

Advertising is a very sly business, on average a total of 5,000+ advertisements and brands are exposed per person (Crazy, right?). Food is one business which is heavily advertised, from organic foods to fast foods, on billboards to magazine pages they are everywhere but how much of this advertising influence ones perception of food? I believe the whole advertising business does. McDonald’s “McPick Two” commercial shows how enjoyable it can be to have two products for the price of Five Dollars. People are eating with their friends, their perfect teeth are shining, it is diverse. The reality is when you buy two McDonald’s meals you will without a doubt feel guilty about the fat intake. Well I certainly do hence why I dislike these advertising schemes. 

Food marketing is a large business and does influence the health of the nation, there are many fast food chains and alternatives to check out, and with advertisements looking so perfect it’s no wonder why food chains are earning big bucks whilst people are earning collective calories. It takes “several hours” to create a burger that is perfect on a poster whereas it takes minutes in real life within an unpleasant environment. People are unaware with what is happening beyond the advertisements and are only seeing what is visible to them. More denotations over connotations. Dominos Pizza released a commercial this year revealing their new “DXP” …except the only thing they were advertising was a delivery car rather than the actual product itself which is the pizza. Food marketing are looking outside of the box and are looking for another avenue to appeal to a wider customer range. Personally I thought that commercial was decent, it had a concept of how pizza deliveries should be however the message still remained which was that they are enticing you to buy their product despite talking about a whole new topic. It is scary to think how these campaigns gather customers to buy food regardless of health and what is worse is that we follow. People are ignoring the health factors and are seeing enjoyment over wellbeing. We need to look at food in a whole new manner.

Week 6: Blog Post #8: Participatory Journalism: The Arabs Springs

Citizen Journalism is a great way of getting people involved and tells the whole world the truth rather than selective viewings the media tend to show on their news outlets. 2011 in Tunisia, the Arab Springs began as rage broke out when Mohammed Bouazizi burnt himself and people reported it rather than the media. People went against the hierarchy and began anti government protests, the government retaliated. Tunisia’s government began to close all social media accounts across all platforms until an anonymous group hacked into government organizations and crashed the stock market too. What was this unidentified group called? Anonymous. The ‘anonymous’ and ‘sidibouzid’ hashtag went viral following their activities. It shows the power of social media, the government did not know what hit them. Egypt also followed suit as the Arab nations began to come together with Tunisia and journalists who were at the scene began to be captured with their articles being removed. Twitter allowed others to keep updates on those who were detained, without social media the world would have been unaware of this. There were no media companies showing what was happening as they all remained silent. People though didn’t care and posted everything they saw, this was the honest truth. This was Citizen Journalism. 

Recently we saw a similar situation occur with the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by the police within 24 hours because of their ethnicity. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter went viral across social media and made people go against the police leading to the shootings of policemen in Dallas. So it sparked a horrible debate of ‘Black Lives’ was being punished and police brutality. All this began due to raw footage of both victims being killed and it was posted on social media becoming viral. This raised many questions such as the topic of gun laws, the police occupation and African Americans being treated a different way. All these topics would not have been talked about if the videos weren’t posted... this is the power of social media and Citizen Journalism.

Blog Post #7 Week 4: Social Media & Identity

It is a terrifying thought to see how much of your actual identity is online. Anyone in the whole world could see your profile on Facebook and know something about you. It doesn’t matter what it is but they have that one thing that they know about you. They may know what football team you like, where you live, what job you have, what school you go to or even how you look like if you decide to add a profile picture. For instance, if I somehow lost all my memory and only remember my social media login and passwords I bet I could retrieve most of my information about myself than I could have imagine. 

I am a person who updates their profile picture on Facebook once a year, writes a status once a month, has no Instagram, has Twitter but what can 144 characters say about myself if I am not a constant Tweeter? Yet despite the limitations I have set in terms of my social media usage, people will have a good idea of who I am on social media. They know where I am from, what I am doing, my like and dislikes, the way I talk, practically everything. My memory could go from zero to hundred by going through social media because that is where home is for constant social media users. Frightening.

Of course I am not that stupid enough to reveal everything online. You cannot trust the internet by all means. I have friends on Facebook but no way do I know 500+ people let alone call them ‘friends’. Personal information is kept offline because the internet is a nasty place that cannot be trusted despite it being a norm to life. I am more open in real life and there is so much more to discover about me than there is online. I am lazy to update my profile on Facebook as I really don’t have the time to do so. I hardly update my likes and dislikes because looking at them right now there is no chance that I follow the same YouTubers on Facebook as I did 5 years ago. Time changes.

Blog Post Week 4 #6: Digital Now

Time flies when you are having fun right? Time is certainly flying but is it actually fun? It is for me but looking at the larger picture it could be a poison that needs an antidote to cure it. What could this cure be? Novelist, Abha Dawesar, talks about how the “abstract digital universe is now a part of our identity”. Without digital media, people’s lifestyle is different. We can focus on life, we can live the moment, we can realise and value our existence. Technology has affected our flow of time, personally I feel as if I have fallen into the ditch of what Dawesar calls ‘digital now’. Without technology I am lost, where else would I receive my news from? There’s no chance that I would go out and buy a newspaper as I would not know which newspaper is the best to read. But with technology I know which websites to get my news from (Besides from Twitter, the BBC is my number one source). I don’t think I could go a day without technology, without it the day would drag on and on. With technology life just feels like a repetitive cycle, ignoring the pure joys of life. It seems scripted rather than improvised.

Although it may be great that I am a ‘digital native’ because having technology is a norm in comparison to my parents’ youth. In fact it is a blessing that we have access to such advanced technologies but I feel as if we are ignoring what is real in life. We are so used to technology that the true feeling of reality is gone. Yes, I am digital native but that didn’t change the way I lived my childhood. I was always out playing football and coming home as the sun sets, that’s not the case for today. Kids of this generation are inside playing NBA 2K16 on the PlayStation rather than playing H.O.R.S.E with their friends outside. Things have changed over the past few weeks when the sensational PokemonGo was released on smart phones making it obligatory for people to go outside and catch Pokemon’s. It has affected people’s lifestyle as some people are accidently getting exercise by playing Pokemon Go (I can’t believe it myself).  It is a real shame that technology has taken over but the sad reality is, without it life is really dull and there is no antidote to cure the addiction.

Links: http://www.ted.com/talks/abha_dawesar_life_in_the_digital_now

http://gizmodo.com/sore-legs-become-pandemic-as-pokemon-go-players-acciden-1783402931

Blog Post Week 3 #5: Film adaptation for a U.S. market

When talking about film industries you think about the Hollywood’s, the Bollywood’s and Nigeria’s Nollywood. Hollywood is seen as the pioneer with other film industries producing remakes of specific films that have been a success. An example of this is Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’ remade in Bollywood as ‘Ghajini’ (a film I highly recommend to watch). This initiative can be flipped with Hollywood copying from other industries. This is seen in John Erick Dowdle’s ‘Quarantine’, the Hollywood remake of the Spanish film ‘REC’. Both films have similar storylines which follow a news reporter who reports from the scene of where the fire fighters are required; both films have a vicious woman who holds the fire team and the reporter along with her cameraman in hostage.

The films reporters are both female (Not shown in the REC trailer) and are both curious to find out what is happening in the situation. It is remarkable and shows a sense of bravery that isn’t often credited in films. However females are seen as the victims as shown in this film too which may cause controversy. Regardless of their gender, whoever the reporter was they would have been caught anyway. In other trailers the reporters start off with enthusiasm, almost as if they are privileged to be reporting the scene. At the end of the trailer the feeling and emotion is the opposite to what was seen at the beginning of the trailer. 

The cameramen is not seen in the trailer, therefore the focus is fully on the situation allowing the audience to feel as if they are there in the scene. This adds to the realism of the film. Another factor of realism is the shakiness of the footage. The audience is following each and every step of the film that they can associate with the characters. The effect adds that authentic sense to it almost as if it isn’t scripted, enticing the audience in and receiving the shock they will encounter throughout the films.

Both trailers make the viewer jump which is one of the prime factors of a horror film. Quarantine does well to illustrate the situation whereas the original REC makes you wonder what on earth is happening. REC seems more natural whereas Quarantine has that scripted feel towards it. Overall both films do a great job in producing great films. It invites more film makers to create remakes and do an equally good job as the original. What this also suggests is that, not only is the US great at producing films but also other industries are as talented. It is common to think that other industries copy Hollywood but that isn’t the case as seen in REC and Quarantine.