my first video!!!!

Final Project Help

Hey Everyone-
Here are some programs to check out.  I found some how to videos that may help get you started.  See you tomorrow!

Camtasia

Snapz Pro X

Imovie

Jing

Ideas for the final projects

White Female 1950s teenager

              bad girl/ good girl

Female Rape victims

Muslim Female teens 

             assumed oppression

Female teen drug addicts

Athletes (male/ female)

            The macho masculine male

African American teenage females 

             the angry black girl

Sites to find Glee episodes for free

Sorry about putting this up so late, I hope I didn't prevent any of you from watching. These episodes can be found for sale on Itunes and Amazon. You can also subscribe to Hulu prime and watch them there. The site I use to watch the episodes for Glee is Megavideo the two links are listed below as well as a link to sidereel which provides a list of links for each episode.

Pilot

Never Been Kissed

Sidereel

queer Teen Representations in the Media

 1. Coming out to you friends and family will ALWAYS be hard!

ABC's Greek- Grant and Blaine

2. The world is heterosexual that means if you are queer you are not NORMAL!

3. Acceptance of gay teens by peers= a social problem?

News Broadcast with Bill O'Relly

4. Females engage in "lesbian behavior" for male pleasure or as a learning experience to benefit males only!

Cruel Intentions

Wild Things

Free Mind, Free People 2011 Conference

Today we had two guest speakers in our class.  they spoke about a conference being held in Providence called Free Mind, Free People.  This is a conference about liberating education from the dominant ideology.  The conference will be held from July 7-10th starting @ 9 each morning! check it out!!

My Media Artifact Summer 2011

The media artifact I will present on Thursday will be about an article written for CBS News called Media May Prompt Teenage Sex. Please read the article before coming into class so our 15 minutes can be used productively :)

Anita Hill Voicemail

An ABC blog post quotes both the voicemail left for Anita Hill by Virginia Thomas and both of their responses after the voicemail was left.

Girls Negotiating Adolescence

"Adolescents become as an entire social group that cannot effectively know themselves, whose legitimate grievances may therefore be silenced, and who need protection from their own instability. This position in turn legitimates attempts to govern and/or contain this stage of life that is perceived to be ungovernable."

The reading by Rebecca Raby took me a while to untangle and process, but I think I have a grasp on what she is trying to say. She introduces the five discourses that inter-tangle creating a web that traps teenagers, and segregating them from the rest of society. The reading introduces five discourses "the storm", becoming, at risk, social problem, and pleasurable consumption that surround the concept of adolescence. While introducing these five discourses she also introduces her study of Toronto-area teenager girls (from 13-19 years in age) and their grandmothers. She uses the study to explore the idea of these five discourses and how they mold societies idea of adolescence.

"The storm"- this was Raby's first discourse and the one I found most confusing to rap my head around (lets call this my do not understand section). From what I could understand the "storm" describes when teenagers begin to explore their bodies and their personalities. Adolescence is seen as a time to figure out who you are and who you want to be. This is the time that children are often seen as "easily influenced" by outside sources including peers, adults, and the media. Adolescence is also the time where a person starts to explore their sexuality.

Becoming- this describes how adolescence are in a stage where they are readying themselves for the real world and to become adults. Apparently teenagers have yet to become anything and are only in this stage to ready themselves to become something else. Raby points out that although teenagers are only in the process of becoming they can become "at risk" or a "social problem."

At Risk- teenagers are presented many models from society that dictate what the average teenager should or shouldn’t do, wear, feel, and say. These media artifacts often present images of teenagers who are easily influenced, sexually and physically frustrated, and in need of a quick fix or high. These models not only present a model for teenagers to imitate but also present a false image of teenagers to the general public as an age group that needs saving or monitoring.

Social problem- society views teenagers as a social problem that needs to be solved or eliminated. This is displayed in the way teenagers are treated in schools with cops, video surveillance, and metal detectors present in many high schools, town curfews, and dress codes. The dress codes are often used as a way to squash inappropriate behavior, but dress is one of the few outlets teenagers are given to express them and begin to form their own personal identity. We expect them to "become" but society squashes any attempt at it, which often causes discontent and rebellion, which in turn can lead to social problems (seems they're doing some of this to themselves).

Pleasurable consumption- recently the media has shifted its target from adults to teenagers. Raby describes how the teenagers are often viewed as having power over the family finances and a disposable income. The idea of consumption has become one of the only outlets given to teenagers to form their identity and also one of the only places the teenager has power.

I believe the big points from this article are that these discourses established by society are not only hypocritical, but are also a prophecy. Teenagers are expected to act out and then are punished for something that is expected of them. How can a teenager be in the process of becoming, yet already be placed in a category or label? These labels thrusted upon the adolescence of our society become self full-filling prophecies. It is also apparent that we must give teenagers a way to express themselves that is not directly correlated with the financial situation of their family. Society has put to much importance on consumption as a vehicle for self-expression. Teenagers whose families cannot afford this lifestyle are often thrusted into the "social problem" category trying to afford to live up to societies expectations. Another big point is the fact that when looked at individually the discourses are not as strong in their assertions and often contradict each other. Raby makes the point how can adolescences be "becoming" and have already become a social problem? How can a teenager assert their individuality while being smothered by rules and regulations made to snuff out anything that may be considered "at risk" behavior? These discourses tangle together to make it impossible for teenagers not to be alienated, segregated, and stereotyped by the rest of society.

A Media Artifact Reference

To give you an idea of how media artifacts works I have put up the one I did last year with my partners for the class along with the questions we asked. You can use this as a reference when your creating your own media artifacts this semester.

video:

Questions:

1. How is this progressing or digressing the feminist movement?

2. When the general public views this video how are they educated about feminists?

3. How does this educate us about men?

4. What does this tell teenagers who haven’t been exposed to women studies or media analysis courses?

5. How does this educate us about the LGTB community?

6. What is this trying to sell us?

7. “Women’s bodies are not present in “Telephone” for male pleasure, they do not progress a male storyline, nor are women defeated for male purposes of sex or domestication. Women are not “othered.”-Electric Emily, Jukebox Heroines.
Do you agree with this blogger?

a chance to dissect some media!!!!

Sugar Rush is a show that aired on Channel Four, a United Kingdom's TV station targeted at teenagers.  This is the station that aired the original Skins and the show Misfits, all which re-present teenage life in the U.K.  The pilot episode of Sugar Rush aired in 2005 and the show ran for 2 seasons and was awarded an Emmy before being cancelled in 2007.

This is the first ten minutes of the pilot episode: 



Use the readings from class, the discourses in the syllabus, Christensen, and SCWAMP to analysis this text and answer the questions:
How does this perpetuate the dominant ideology?
How does this dismantle the dominant ideology?
Think about Raby (if you have read it yet)- how does this [re]present teenagers?
How is this different from the [re]presentations of teenagers in the United States?
I am super interested to see how the class feels about this text!

welcome

my very first post!!!! yay!