Media
What is love, what is sorrow, what is real emotion? These questions are hard to answer in today’s media saturated world where every thing we feel is influenced by media. In his essay, “This is Emo” Chuck Klosterman argues that American’s don’t know what real feelings are and that we want everything to be like the movies. In so many ways, his argument is true. The media makes us feel one way or another by showing us or not showing us certain things. Movies, especially “chick flicks” give a skewed vision of love, while news programs give a skewed vision of what the world is really like. Movies are entertainment, but do they do more than that?
A majority of the movies that come on to the market have love as a common theme. The love in these movies is “Cinderella” love, a kind of love that doesn’t really exist. People, especially Americans, cannot understand why the love they experience isn’t like the type in the movies. Real love isn’t exciting, it doesn’t always end in a happy ending, and it’s different for everyone. Movies portray love as this romantic exciting, journey where there is no fighting, no lulls in the relationship, no wondering whether the person you are with is the right person for you. A few days ago I saw a Movie called, “Just Like Heaven.” This movie was about a woman, Elizabeth played by Reese Witherspoon, who goes into a coma after being involved in a horrific car accident. While in the coma Elizabeth’s spirit goes out and searches for her soul mate, Mark Ruffalo. Elizabeth discovers that the only way she is ever going to wake up is if she finishes some unfinished business and fall in love. After some tense moments Mark falls in love with Elizabeth and she awakes from her coma and happily ever after. Love isn’t like this, but wouldn’t it be great if it were. Love is difficult and it usually doesn’t just happen. It takes commitment and loyalty. Too often moviegoers see these movies and think that when they fall in love it’s going to be just like this. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but it wont. Movies are fictional, not be confused with real life.
In 1997, millions of people gathered into movie theaters to watch one of the most tragic movies of all time: Titanic. Undoubtedly knowing what they will get, the people were willing to go and watch over three hours of a painful story that would end up with over a thousand people dying. Hardly no-one, however, would have been willing to witness the sinking ship in the North Atlantic Ocean – not even safely on the rescue boats. This inconsistency between the experiences looked for in real life and on the screen is commonly referred to as the paradox of tragedy (Smuts, 39). What drives us to seek negative feelings on the screen?
With names like “Rom Com” and “Chick Flick,” romantic comedies are often put in a silly or empty-headed light. Yet, these films continue to be made and people (women and men alike) keep seeing them because, “(audiences have) seen it in a hundred variations and know exactly how it ends... happily ever after.” (Mizejewski 17) And while people may know that real love doesn’t always end happily, the idea is too good to resist; audiences want to vicariously experience falling in love with the “perfect person” over and over again. Romantic Comedy has been a prominent film genre from the transition into “talkie” films to present day due to the fact that it is a genre that
Love is such a small word that holds such a strong meaning. Many people in their lives, at some point, contemplate about love, dream about it, and even lose sleep over it. Why is it that so many people imagine what love is? This one word, with many meanings, is so problematic to explain and yet it is impossible to live without. The movies in the romance section of this course, each depict a type of love many of us might go through. The first two films, Water for Elephants and How Do You Know, explore the concept of finding love. Whereas, the film Groundhog Day emphasizes the notion one has to become a loving person before one can love. Lastly, The Painted Veil and Stuck Between Stations explores the idea of creating love and seeing goodness in one another. Therefore, all of these films have a specific structure leading us to the notion that love seems to be the center of all things, both in giving and receiving, and can ultimately have many different meanings.
Movies and television influence Americans’ and people all around the world by altering their views on current events, and what people think is the norm, especially when it comes to love. This raises the question; are people growing up in this generation forming true meaningful relationships or just superficial “acquaintances”? With the rapid decline of marriage in the United States it seems inevitable that true love is declining as well; or it is possible that love is simply evolving to something
It has become common for the modern day society to rely on different sources for their news. Because of the internet and technological advances over the years, our access to the news has greatly increased. However, along with this comes the familiar issue of media distortion. In the beginning of the year, I decided to study the power of media in depth—specifically media bias and its influence on public opinion on current events. I chose the media as my subject not only because it affects all aspects of our lives, but also because many people can identify themselves with it, like me. Throughout my research, I analyzed diverse but relevant articles in order to improve my understanding of the effects of media.
Questionable behavior among young adults has always existed. Since time began the previous generation has always been suspect of their progeny. I’m sure somewhere during the Pleistocene Epoch one hominid noticed another, slightly more erect, hominid using a stone tool for the first time and muttered their version of “kids these days.” Few would disagree that young adulthood is a time to explore life’s options, and take chances while relatively unburdened by the usual responsibilities one acquires with age and status. It must also be stated that while pondering the state of the youth today many older adults conveniently downplay their own adventures and youthful misdeeds. In recent years though, how has our social climate changed? Are we more revealing as a society? What role does the media play in changing social attitudes? How much influence does it have on our young men and women? Current sensationalistic news programs, reality television series, and gratuitous sex and violence in popular music and videos can have an impact on the behavior of young adults.
Within past decades media has become a powerful complex mechanism, which is one of the dominant parts of a rising promotional culture. Its influence has become noticeable all over the globe. This mechanism can affect almost every single human decision at conscious and/or unconscious level, and it does not matter whether it concerns cultural, social, economic or political areas. It is believed, that ‘the media's the most powerful entity on earth. <...> Because they control the minds of the masses.‘ (Keeble,2010:99) However, this writing will concentrate on the analysis of only one specific area, i.e. politics, and its interaction within the media. The topic of this essay is politics, its connection and cooperation with the media in a contemporary capitalist Western world. This writing will define to what degree politics is mediatized and how ‘institutional politics has been affected by promotional needs.’ (Davis,2013:11) Therefore, it will be examined how media and politics work together, and what impact has a rise of promotional culture, which according to Aeron Davis, ‘directs media and public attention to public figures.’ (Davis,2013:202) In order to give a complete picture, the concepts of ‘promotional culture’ and ‘mediatization’ will be explained, and the liaison between media and politics will be defined. It will be questioned if media and politics affect one another, or whether politicians manage media, or maybe media controls politics in the promotional contemporary culture. Consequently, three major aspects proving that politics is fully mediatized, an example of Lithuanian well-known celebrity, and the government election of 2008 will be given and investigated. To make th...
What is it that makes the love in romantic comedies `movie love' and not `real love'? Essentially, all that separates the romantic comedy's depiction of romantic relationships from that of other genres is its guaranteed happy ending. As with the relationship between comedy and tragedy in general, the central plots of romantic melodrama and romantic comedy in fact often have very few dissimilarities other than tone (for example, the tropes of the undesirable existing / intended partner and the unfortunate miscommunication are absolute staples of both genres); their endings, however, remain polar opposites. I would argue that it is, in fact, only the happy ending (and the certainty on...
In Today's society, media is in everyday life. Media is what keeps everyone's eyes glued to the television most of the time. People use media to catch up with world news or even to watch celebrities go crazy on television. Most people think that America is the fattest country simply because we sit around and watch television all day everyday. Media can be good, but it can also be used for bad which is something we see all the time especially with the paparazzi. I personally think that the media is very important, especially more than it was in the past. Media is in our life through reality shows, news, and even movies.
Media is one of the main sources of learning for young people. With this influence young people learn concepts and behaviors about love. The problem with this is the way romance is portrayed in these romance films have a negative impact on viewers. A majority of people agree that romance films hinder the viewpoint of a real relationship. This result hurts a person’s
Romance movies have this weird love that goes on in them. Some characteristics include; sex scenes, lovey dovey affection, hate (sometimes) that ends up in love, marriages, divorces, new found love, and really anything that can happen between a man and female, female and female, man and man, whichever someone prefers. Romance movies are often seen as “chick flicks” while some may agree, others disagree. The ONLY reason they are considered “chick flicks” is because it’s a romance and theirs sappy love. There is no real evidence of it being labeled as a “chicks only flick”, men actually prefer to watch some of those movies. It doesn’t make them weak, homosexual acting, a pansy, or anything else men might call other men. Romance movies and novels are highly bought in stores. Who knows? It may be bought by your future husband or wife. And, since this paper is describing the differences, parents might look at this and decide whether or not to show the kids these types of
After watching “The Notebook” for the six hundredth time, with tears streaming down her face, a girl can finally declare it as being her favorite movie, and maybe even deem it as the best production ever created. The cliché motives of the woman always seem to involve love and a knight in shining armor. Naturally, every woman dreams about Mr. Right, and falling head over heels in love. This is why females are so vulnerable to passionate films. “My heart melted when I saw him kiss her like that.” Stereotyped as the hopeless romantics, girls live to love and be loved. Girls want relationships. Girls enjoy corny love movies. This is somewhat of an escape route for the girls, knowing that in reality, the average guy isn’t interested in a relationship, or falling in love. But for the sake of women, in the hours of our mourning, why not take advantage of the blockbusters while their...
A sign system is representation through communication which in turn leads to a shared meaning or understanding. We hold mental representations that classify and organise the world (whether fact or fiction), people, objects and events into meaningful categories so that we can meaningfully comprehend the world. The media use sign systems through newspapers, magazines, television,internet, and the radio etc. The conceptual map of meaning and language are the basis of representation. The conceptual map of meaning, are concepts organised, arranged and classified into complex relations to one another. The conceptual map of meaning although allows you to distinguish your own individual interpretation of the world, at the same time as holding similar views to that of other people in your culture. As the meaning is produced and constructed and in turn learned by a particular group of people. Therefore sharing conventions and codes of their language and culture. Signs can only convey meaning if we possess codes which allow us to translate our concepts into language. These codes are the result of social conventions which lead to the shared maps of meaning. These shared meanings are learnt unconsciously as we become members of a culture.If we have a concept of something in our minds we can say we know the meaning of this concept. However we cannot express or communicate this meaning without the second system of representation, language. Language is the only way in which meanings can be effectively exchanged between people, as people within the same culture are able to interpret the sign of language in the same manner.
Are you a hopeless romantic, waiting around for the right girl or guy to come around and make sense of your world? Well, maybe you’ve been watching too many romance movies. Hollywood presents love as a feeling, one that most teenagers confuse with infatuation and lust. Movies like The Notebook create a false view of what love looks like and many teenagers lose the opportunity to find love because they are waiting for someone to sweep them off their feet and kiss them in the rain while the background music slowly plays; but there are movies out there that do give us a pretty realistic view of what love looks like without having to showcase any nudity or sexual scenes. I wish to contrast the differences between the movie The Notebook and Fireproof along with their affects on teenagers. Most teenagers have learned to handle heated situations in the manor in which they have seen presented in movies. Dr. O’Hara, a researcher at the University of Missouri, studied the behavior patterns of 1,200 teens for six years and he found that the teens that watched suggestive movies tended to be more sexually active and have a more casual view on sex than those that were not exposed to as much media (Hagelin 2). What if Hollywood made more movies that focused on wholesome values and principles? In this paper I challenge the parents of teenagers to take off the blindfolds and help their teens to find a balance between these fantasies that Hollywood presents and reality, and I believe that Hollywood could play a role in reshaping the mindsets of teenagers.
Today media has evolved since the beginning of the country. Newspaper was the main source of new but in the 21st century news media comes in three type, print media, broadcast, and new media. This has allowed media to increase the efficiency of getting their information out to the public. During critical times in a year such as election season, the media determines what issue either domestic or global, is worthy to cover. This ability which the news media obtains, gives them the power to influence the Public Opinion which influence on what they believe what action the President and Congress should be included in the country’s political agenda. Elections results are also critically affected by what is said throughout the media since public opinions are centered on what the media says.