[ culturologist.com ]

Following up on Nas’s video on FOX, comes these two clips on a America’s Next Top Model contestant born a man, now a woman,

check it out:

MyDeath Space Video

So, see what you think about the new Little Gordon ads, depicting a mini-me Gordon Ramsey.  Media can exaggerate an already-existing trait and extend it.  The use of a little kid makes it safe and “harmeless.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcZqwR9tbJE&feature=related

There are several, watch them all.

I will miss you all for those 3 weeks, but use the time to watch watchers.  What is it that people, kids specifically, are talking about?  What do they watch?  What influences them?  What bores them?  Try to blog about your experiences.  Make sure you do the watching on the syllabus, you can respond to those as well.

Don’t worry about the future assignments, stick to what you are doing now…the class is mind-expanding, not mind-numbing.

Shirley

It had to happen, the Conservatives have created a song “I have a crush on Stephen Harper,” taken from the Obama song.

Canadians now enter cyberspace with a pale imitation of Obama girl.  We could do this better and smarter, will we?

I am on tonight around 11:15 on CTV…Shirley

Check it out:  http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/live/index/php/963405.phtml?play=1

New song by NAS, talks about the Fox channel in “Sly Fox” and the fact that media is “misleading ya…” interesting to see and hear hip hop culture which usually has the pulse of youth and music…warning listeners to beware of the media and hype….

Media literacy comes in all forms

Remember that line from Twilight Zone: The Movie? I was reading blogs and news items on the net today and came across this video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html

It is beyond my comprehension that this woman has been nominated to fill McCain’s shoes if he drops dead in the next 4 years. The Republicans are screaming the media is left wing, the Democrats are screaming it is right wing…but the reality is that a world power, to have this type of person represent it…wow.

This does affect Canada and the rest of the world. This woman exemplifies smoke and mirrors politics at its best. The media obsessed on her daughter’s pregnancy…this is not the obsession it should have.

The woman has a bachelor’s degree, has never traveled, and is declaring that she answers not to her family, herself, or even to her job as governor of Alaska…but to jesus. This frightens me…the turn to fundamentalism of any time is a turn back to pre-modern times.

Looking at all the signifiers of media from the Canadian venue…mostly American…reporters covering the DNC, now the non-RNC, Hurricane Gustav…wondering where Canada comes in?  As much as the Southerners affect the lives of Canadians, I am concerned that we continue to loose the maple leaf within the larger behemoth which has led much of the world into war, economic depression, and anger.

And looking up…will it come to pass that a Black man will become President of the US?  I am not convinced that the Americans are indeed openminded enough to truly consider this leap into the postmodern era, and that somehow, the senile old man the Republicans have trotted out will actually win–accompanied by the pitchy voiced, screaming, gun-toting, anti-feminist candidate from the far North.

Images, signs, sounds…all mediated for us by biased news media–a media who determins just “what we should need to know” and “how we should know it.”  The hegemonic forces of the North American (mostly US) news envelope us into an audience compliance which is seriously disturbing…Followed along by the “entertainment” images of Hannah Montana modelling just how little girls should be, and the Jonas Brothers and their faux-chastity vibes.  Do kids have any chance of making up their own minds?

What do you think?