Violence in Media

When you flip the channel on your t.v what do you usually see? Most of the time you would see someone in a fight, someone instigating a fight, or something watching a fight. Violence in television shows and movies has increased greatly from what it used to be before. In the olden days movies and shows had one purpose; either show romance, or comedy. Even though movies and television shows still contain romance and comedy it however, comes in the form of also have violence in them, or as the younger generation calls it "action". There may be the rare occasion in which a movie or a show doesn't contain violence but that however is getting harder to find these days. But, that is not the major problem, sure movies are rated pg 13, 18+ and R rated for a reason but how come we see violence in shows for little kids these days?

When we see violence or "action" in movies and shows that are old enough for teenagers 13+ watch we may let it slip but when it comes to shows that our little brothers, sisters, cousins , nephews/nieces, grand-daughters/sons watch it becomes an issue. Shows and movies showing this type of "action" can really take start to control a little kids mind and maybe is giving them signals that no , being nice to solve problems is not the key, but being violent is. The shows that clearly portray violence in shows for little kids include; Tom and Jerry, Power Rangers, Pokemon much more. Shows also like South Park, Futurama, and The Simpsons also show a great amount of violence. Even though kids from the age of 5-12 should not be watching shows like South Park and so on they also show a wrong path. Here is a clip from Tom & Jerry fighting:

In this particular scene Tom tries to eat Jerry and because Jerry keeps escaping Tom decides he will try to his  him with a rolling pin, along with his claws, and a cookie cutter. The example there showing here is that its okay to fight with one another and hit each other with different types of objects which for a five year old would not be a good idea to watch. The younger you are the , the less understanding you have of certain things that you don't if they are right or wrong. Also in the show Tom and Jerry they show Tom constantly bullying Jerry which now does not seem like a good show for kids to be watching right? Studies also say watching shows like Tom and Jerry , Scooby Doo , Pokemon and so on make a child more aggressive and children tend to act how they see cartoon characters acting as they would if they saw actors or actresses on the screen.

Is violence in cartoon shows one of the main reasons that bullying/gossiping and rumor spreading is happening? Not only is that all happening it gets to such an extreme that some can't take it anymore and sadly, decide to end their life. Many people tend to ask the question " what can we do about it?'. There are some ways parents can prevent from their children to watch these kinds of shows by setting a privacy lock, let your children watch t.v only at certain times when you know what shows are going to be on, and also you could sit by them reading a book or on the computer to see what kinds of shows they are watching. The privacy lock has benefited many parents because you can block from your children, siblings and etc from watching shows that have ratings over pg 13 and over if they are younger. This way whenever they want to watch that certain show you would need to enter a password. These are some ways we can prevent from little kids from being exposed to media violence not only in cartoons but reality shows, sitcoms, movies and video games.

Violence in media has affected many peoples lives and it has obviously not been for the best, with keeping our siblings, kids etc away from media violence we may be saving someones respect, dignity, and even life. Just keep in the mind the more we are exposed to things like these the more we tend to act like what everyone on t.v is doing. Even though we know that most of the time it is acting, kids that are smaller will not know that they are acting and may think that they are doing something for real and that's how they should do things to deal with their problems.

My Sister's Keeper (media that has affected my outlook on life)

There have been many t.v shows, movies, and books that affected my outlook on life, however, the one movie that is based from a book that stood out to me was My Sister's Keeper. As I said above this movie is based on a novel written by Jodi Picoult that is based on a true story. This book tells the story of a 13-year-old girl named Anna who litigates her parents when she asked to donate a kidney for her sister Kate who is dying from leukemia. However, Anna is doing this because she was conceived as a savior sibling whose umbilical cord blood would save Kate. But, a few years later Kate relapses and is once again diagnosed with cancer, in order to save her Anna is said to give her kidney to her sister but she does not want to. Because of this Anna hired a lawyer and began a law suit against her parents. In the end Anna wins, but, sadly as her and her lawyer were getting back home they were in a car crash which led Anna to be brain dead and her parents decided it was best to pull the plug. Her kidney then went to her sister Kate who ended up surviving and 6 years later becomes a dance instructor.

The description of My Sister`s Keeper I gave above was about the book that Hodi Picoult wrote. The outcome of the movie in the end is a little different. In the movie Anna still decides that she wants to go to court and file a law suit against her mother, and her mother represents herself as she was a lawyer before. However, in the movie Kate did not want Anna`s kidney because she did not want her to go through another surgery just because of her. Before the case was even decided Kate dies in her sleep with her mother by her side, and later find out that Anna did in fact win the case. In the book Kate lives and her sister Anna dies due to the accident she was in when she was going to the hospital with her lawyer. Here is a trailer of the movie:

What this movie and book made me realize was that life is short enjoy it don`t look at the cons of life look at the pro`s. Sure there will be time where you absolutely hate life and everyone but then there are the moments that you remember for life, the moments that make life such a beautiful thing, then there are things that make you look forward for whats coming next. Live life like its your last day , try to fulfill the things you want to do, don`t sit there and think that I can`t do this or this because its ridiculous or because I`m stupid. If everyone in the world started doing that we may not have half the things that here in the world today.We many be without computers, phones, t.v`s you name it anything. Those are the people that decided to follow their dreams and live there life like it was their last day. Because of them we are doing what we are doing.

Reading the book and watching the movie not only has changed the way I look at life it has changed the way of how other people look at life which includes my family and friends. Before watching the movie and reading the book we were always the one to go with the flow, whatever happens happens. We never thought of once full filling the dreams and goals we wanted but full fill the ones everyone else wanted to. Seeing the story in the movie and books we realized we`re here to do what we want to do when we want to do it. If we keep going by the ways of what people tell us we will get no where in life, well no where we want to be. Full fill your dreams and goals and live to love the world not hate cause you just never know what curve ball life could throw at you.

Sources of news- Where I get mine from

There are many different online magazines, news sites, and newspapers that can give me all the information of any type of news I want to know around the world, country, or in my community. However, as technology progresses there are many other websites where you can get your news from like, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook and search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Twitter,Facebook and Myspace all spread news by following or adding companies, people, or groups.You can also get news from listening to the radio, watching t.v, and having a newspaper and magazine in hand. Even though it is getting easier for us to access news quickly I still like  having the choice of tuning into t.v and having a newspaper or magazine in hand. This allows you to have the full story with all the details in your hand with pictures along with it.

I personally like reading the newspaper instead of listening to the radio , reading a magazine , and watching the news because it gives you in depth information and details along with pictures and many other different or related articles. The first sentence few sentences of the article sum up what they story is about, what happened, where it happened, how it happened and so on. So this way you will not have to read the whole story to find out what happened. However, if you were to watch the news you have to sit through the whole broadcast waiting for the one story you wanted to hear and you sometimes end up sitting through the whole broadcast and hear the one story you wanted to. But, they only may end up giving minimal information because they may not have time.

Another great thing about the newspaper is that if you can not tune into the t.v or cant buy the magazine you want everyday you can get a subscription from any newspaper company you would like. You would get the newspaper delivered to your house every morning and have it in time for you to leave to work or have it in time for when you come back from work. The subscriptions for the newspaper are considered cheap compared to buying a newspaper everyday or buying a magazine everyday because you get a deal. Most newspaper companies charge anywhere from between 15-20 for a month too 200-220 for a year. This is cheaper than buying one everyday because if a newspaper is a dollar you would be spending 365 dollars a year where if you have subscription you could spend from 200-220 dollars.

Today , whatever way you try to get your daily news you will end up paying money. Getting your news from the television will cost you either for cable or any kind of satellite, getting your news from a website will also cost you money because in order to go on the website you need to have internet. Having a magazine or newspaper subscription will also cost you daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. What I'm trying to say is that no matter how you try to get your daily news you will always have to pay money even though the news should be free to everyone. The point that I'm trying to raise here is that getting your news shouldn't take so much money, you are citizens of this country, and residents of this city you should have a right to know whats happening in the city, country and province for free.

Ugly vs Beautiful; How society judge women and teens by their looks

Today, in the 21st century it may be considered completely normal to judge a woman buy just looking at their picture or seeing them walking down the street, these are people that we may not even know but yet we decide to judge a book by its cover. In today's society women aren't looked at the same way they used to be many or even a few years ago and this would be because of the modeling, fashion, weight-loss and makeup industries. These are the industries that have made women so self conscious of themselves that they go to extreme measures to look like the models on t.v and pictures. Is this what society has done to us? that we can't even feel comfortable with who we are and how we look? Today being beautiful is considered being a size 0 , with a perfect face that has no pimples, no wrinkles, and every feature on the face has to be perfect. But, hold on it doesn't stop there, the body has to be perfect with a bust and a butt that is visible enough if not there's always plastic surgery right?, a stomach that is completely flat , and thighs, legs and arms that are worked on so much that there is no sign of droopy skin or cellulite. Is this what society thinks is beautiful? Is fake the new beauty?


Women who don't have the perfect bust size, the right kind of butt, the stomach that isn't completely flat and visible of not fat and legs, arms and thighs that aren't perfectly toned are ugly? A face that has wrinkles, a few blemishes and acne (which I may add every person has at least a little of) aren't beautiful? There are many models and women around the world that are made fun of because they are a little bit more curvier than the average model and woman everyone wants to see. They are being judged by how they look and not by their personality, which is extremely sad. Some women are so obsessed with being perfect they wouldn't have a problem going through with 10 plastic surgeries in one day. A celebrity that would be an example of this would be Heidi Montag. Heidi went through 10 plastics surgeries in one day to correct many things on her body as you can see in this picture: 

Heidi said she was always made fun of when she was younger and because of that she had insecurities. However, those insecurities began to worsen when she moved L.A and people started to make fun of her chin by saying it looked like Jay Leno's she said they would circle her chin on her blogs and make fun of it. As she went on to in The Hills she would hate how her ears looked because they stuck out and she called herself dumbo. She wanted to look and feel more confident otherwise she felt like an ugly duckling. This right here is a clear example of what society makes people think about themselves and what they think is beautiful. They think unless you look like barbie you aren't pretty or beautiful . 

If everyone thinks beauty is whats on the outside, does your personality not matter anymore? Will you continuously be judged by your appearance and not for who you really are? Is this what society has to come to, to make us feel bad about the real us? and feel good when we change the way our body looks? This is all because of the shows like America`s Next Top Model , and television commercials of Victoria`s Secret Models and for the matter of fact any kind of commercial. There are over 5 million women around the world that get plastic surgery to correct how they look because they don`t feel confident, however this number is not exact because the amount changes every year. But just by looking at this number could you ever imagine that there are so many women around the world that are so self-conscious that they go to extreme measures like Heidi and in the end do not even look like who they used to be.

With all the media putting us down about our looks and saying beauty is how you look not skin deep and how the media almost always want a size 0 model and make thousands and millions of women feel ugly is not right. Because of this Dove had started a campaign that is called The Real Beauty. They first started out in September of 2004 and help women and teens all around the world feel confident in who they are and not who they want to be. They also held a summit with women and teens from all over the world coming together and talking about how they feel around their friends, family and society. Dove did a study on 1, 200 girls from the ages between 10-17 years old and found out the 72% said that they feel tremendous pressure to be beautiful, and only 11% are comfortable with using the word beautiful to describe themselves. They also found out the women from the ages between 50-64 say that its about time society needs to change the way they think of aging. With more campaigns like dove there could be a lot women and teens that would feel confident in how they look and feel and feel beautiful without all the pressure of the society to change and go to drastic measures to feel beautiful.

In my opinion I think I would rather be considered ugly than be considered beautiful with changing my body because beauty is not always about how you look. You could be beautiful but still have an ugly personality because you may be so full of your self. I would rather be ``ugly`` as society puts it and have a beautiful personality. If more women and teens thought like this there would be no need to get and get plastic surgery or try to loose weight when you are at the recommended weight you should be at. Be proud of who you are because there is only one of you , you are unique and beautiful no matter what society thinks.

Too Hot for TV

Since the time television has been around there have been many cases where a shows and commercials have been banned because of the content they show. They may not be appropriate because the shows or commercials may be to racy , have explicit sexual content, and may deal with bias politics.Major networks such as ABC, Fox, CBC, CTV and so on have banned many shows and commercials since they have been around. Some of shows or commercials are only aired for the first minute, first hour, first day or not even aired at all. Some of the shows or commercials get banned before they are even on t.v because the network rejected them because of the reasons above or many more. Here is an exmaple of a commercial that was rejected before it even aired on t.v by not one, but two networks in 2010:  

                                Lane Bryant Lingerie Ad Banned By Fox&ABC

This commercial here is being modeled by a plus sized model for a lingerie company with the name of Lane Bryant who sell lingerie for women from the sizes of 14-32. The commercial here talks about how beauty is skin deep, how a smile is the best makeup, and how its what underneath that counts. In a sense the commercial is saying that you should be proud of who you are, and be the natural you, but are also selling their lingerie. We can say that because the voice over says mama always said that beauty is skin deep, a smile is the best makeup and its what underneath that counts but then says Somehow, I don't think mama had this in mind,which shows that they are talking about their lingerie. 

However, this commercial was banned by ABC and Fox because Fox says this commercial was too racy, too risqué to be shown during the ad slot for American Idol, and ABC said that the models cleavage was to excessive for it to be shown on television during the ad's for Dancing with the Stars. The company commented back by saying this is complete discrimination against plus sized women and the commercial being to racy and risuqé is just a cover up. Looking at the commercials of Victoria Secret and saying this commercial for lingerie is racy does not make any sense whatsoever. Could they not be saying anything to the Victoria Secret models because they are "normal" sized women? Lane Bryant also added by saying that Fox put a Victoria Secret commercial in the time slot instead of this commercial is said to be double standard which to I would agree. This commercial went from being banned because of it being too racy and risqué according to the networks but also raising another issue of discrimination. 

In my opinion I do not agree with the decision the networks made. I think this commercial should have aired because there is no difference from the Victoria Secrets commercials than there is with the Lane Bryant's commercials. Just because the model is not a size 0 does not mean she isn't beautiful, in the world there are women of all different size and shapes there should not be discrimination based on how you look. If the networks thought that the commercial was too racy maybe they should have put the commercial in a different time slot because during this time there are families watching American Idol and Dancing with the stars. They should have done this instead of banning the commercial all together because this would have showed respect rather than discrimination. However,there will always be commercials and shows that will cause controversies and eventually will be banned for whatever reason the networks come up with , even if it is not the real reason.

Have cellphones changed our lives for the worst or for the best?

There are around  6,840,507,000 billion people in the world and out of that number there are more than 3.4 billion people who use cellphones on an everyday basis for basic communication needs. Recently, many people have decided that they would like to cut their expensive land lines and just get cellphone plans that are much more affordable. Typically, land-lines cost from 15-45 whereas you can get cellphone plans that include data, unlimited texting and calling for only about 40. Land-lines where you want to have internet included may cost anywhere from 80-100 dollars. With the cellphone plans you can tether your data to any computer for easier use. Looking at all this information I understand why many people are now switching to cellphone plans rather than having land-lines. The Canadian Wireless Industry says that as many as 2 million people by the end of 2011 will be only using cellphones and cutting of their land-lines. Looking at that number many may be surprised but as times change so do people right? Lets face it, cellphones are changing in the way we function in our everyday lives and those may be for the best or in the end maybe for the worst.

When cellphones were first introduced they looked some what like this
Looks like the cordless phones we use now a days right?




But now lets take a look at the modern day cellphone that many of us use which look like this:   


Taking a look at both those cellphones we have clearly come a very long ways from where we started. New technology is what makes the society change, if we go back to when the cellphone was first invented in 1973 you can see all you can do on the phone is call someone. But even then the there weren't many wireless towers and you probably wouldn't be able to call across the country depending on if they had adapted to the new technology. But, looking at the new modern phones you can see that they have a keyboard for sending an SMS, a track pad or touch screen to go the different places on your phone and much more. There are way too many new features on cellphones that are hard to explain because of how complex they are. The main point I would like to address here is that the technology we discover every year that changes something on electronics is the thing that is leading us to major changes in our lives, society and in the world.


How many of know teenagers that use their land-line to call their friends, or even now go on the computer to talk to their friends? Not many right? Just a year ago MSN was still popular among teenagers because not a lot of them had cellphones. That is because cellphone  plans were still a bit expensive along with the phones. But, when plans and phones began getting cheaper near the end of the year everyone all of a sudden "needed" a cellphone. It wasn't because they wanted it, it was because they "needed" it. Anyways back to msn, everyone I knew would make plans about when to go on msn and have group conversations and talk about what happened during the day or what happened at home. However, fast forwarding a year no one does that anymore because they all have phones where they can do group calling, have group texts and on blackberries have group conversations using BBM. As we can see here, times have changed drastically in only just one year because of new technology. 


Do you remember when you use to sit around at home waiting for your best-friend, or business partner/boss to call you on your house phone and you wouldn't let anyone else use or even pick up the phone? Well now with cellphones no one has to worry about privacy or waiting for calls because you can carry your cellphone around with you anywhere you go and call anyone you want whenever you want. Even though many studies show that cellphones cause cancer because of the radiation waves that are transmitted it hasn't stopped people from using cellphones. Since studies have come out more people have become aware but haven't stopped using cellphones because without them most people believe that they will not be able to function properly and efficiently as they would when they did have a mobile phone. Is this telling us that without cellphones we all wont be able to function properly and efficiently without cellphones? is it also showing us that we have become obsessed with our cellphones? 


In recent news stories there have been parents saying that their children use their phones at the dinner table while they are eating. They say that they wont interact with the parents and tell them how their day went at school but are absorbed in using their cellphones and replying to their friends. This here would be a great example in showing how children are becoming obsessed with their phones. It gets so out of hand sometimes that parents take away their child's cellphone. I must admit that I am one of those children that uses their cellphone at the dinner table. However, I do put my cellphone away when I do not think it is necessary to reply to a certain text message. There are limits at how much a person should use their cellphone for example; if you're in the same house as your sibling only one room away yet you text them what you want to say instead of getting up and going to talk to them. This is an example of pure laziness shown in today's society. Back in the day when people couldn't communicate with cellphones or land-lines they would go and visit the person they wanted to talk to but that has all changed. Now a days it is all about the cellphone.


All of the factors above have changed our lives drastically, it may not have affected you directly but maybe the members in your family, or your friends. Cellphones have changed the way people communicate with each other which automatically changes the behavior of society. They have also changed the social skills of many people. Many communicate through text messages but when they see each other in person they may not even acknowledge each other. In the end, I would like to say that cellphones have changed our lives but I think it has been for the worst, not for the good. Most of us have become self absorbed, anti-social human beings because of one piece of technology that most think that is their "life". Take a second and think about how in the next few years technology could make us even worse than this. Do you think it could be possible? I now leave you with this question. Thank you all for reading my blog, I shall be writing another one soon :)

My Personal Trends!

A few days ago in our media class we did a little survey on trends and how they affect our lives. Mr.Powles took those results and put them into pie graphs that showed us stastics on the differnet answers we chose. This survey was about how my media class acts towards trends in the school or trends in general. There was a short answer question that asked us what trends we see in Orchard Park Secondary High school and with those answers Mr.Powles came up with a list of the trends. There were atleast 45 trends on that list and most of them were followed by the students in my class. Looking at the list I made my own, I figured that I follow 11of the trends that were on the list. Some of those would be ; Love pink, yoga pants, uggs, Adidas, and some singers like lil wayne and drake, these are only a few that I follow. This would be 24.4% of the trend which infact does sound a little extreme , even to me. It may seem  that I may be considered a trend follower but it also has to do with some personal choice. The majority of the trends I do follow I had discovered before most of the people in the school and my family but I those are the styles I may have gotten from the t.v or the internet. However, some of the clothing styles that I liked I did start following from my school and friends. Therefore, I consider my self as follower more than a trend setter because it is hard to set a trend in such a big school like Orchard Park where there are so many different types of students who have differnet tastes in style and music. I think a person would have to follow atleast 1 of the trends to be considered trendy. This is because following one trend could mean you could spend a good amount of money on one outfit each  season instead of spending a lot of money each month.

One of the trends that I follow that I really love would be my Ugg boots because of how comfy and warm they keep your feet during the winter. The Ugg boots I have are the boots that I do not even let my sister borrow because I don’t want her to ruin them while she I was walking around at McMaster. Even though Uggs are just boots they are the trend that I hold on to tightly because they were expensive and are my first pair. These boots were originally from Australia and New Zealand. These boots were manufactured by Blue Mountain Ugg booots and Mortels that was a sheepskin factory in the late 1950’s. Soon surfers discovered ugg boots in the 1960s and had started to wear them when they came out of the water to keep their  feet warm. However, they were also used in the summer to keep peoples feet cooler in the summer. Ugg boots began to get popular in the 1990’s and early 2000s where celebrities like Kate Hudson , Sarah Jessica Parker and many more wore them. Soon the name of the boots became UGG Australia and they had sales of up to 600 million dollars U.S in 2008. Yet, even though these boots were made for the warm summer of Australia Uggs are now being worn in the winter to keep your feet warm. A complete opposite of the weather they were made for. Here is a picture of the very popular classic Ugg boots

The person who I believe influenced my style would be my eldest sister because she is a type of person who likes to stay on top of fashion trends and likes to listen to new and different types of music. My sister was able to make such a big impact on my sense of style and the type of music I listen to because my sister and I are always together, we share each others clothes and music and we also love to go shopping together. I think being together made us closer and me adopt the same sort of style and music style she has because we always share our clothing and the music we listen to. Most of the time before school I show my sister the outfit I'm wearing and if she doesn't like it I will change because I think she knows what works together and what doesn't. That is another reason she made an impact on my personal taste because I always want her opinion on what I'm wearing.
My personal trends have influences from many different people and places which in the end makes me who I am. No matter how much you say that my personal trends are strictly my own style it has to come from somewhere, there has to be a reason to why you dress this way and my reason would be my friends, family, and my school. Yes, some things you may start hearing or dressing in a certain way before everyone else, but that style has to come from somewhere too whether it's from the t.v or the internet you will always have something that makes listen to music and dress a certain way. I hope you liked reading my blog on my personal trends and I will be back shortly with another blog entry :)
Thank you ! :)