Category: BCM 110

I will admit, I am really bad with keeping up with the news. Like really bad. I do not have a regular news network I subscribe to, a newspaper I read, or any traditional news source. I get all of my news from various social media platforms.

You know those eye catching posts you see on Facebook? The ones that start playing a video before you can even scroll past it. Yeah those are how I get most of my news.

I am pretty willing to listen to any news source, like I said, I don’t regularly subscribe to one in particular. With all the talk of media ownership, it makes me think. Are these posts curated for me? Do I see and watch news sources based off what Facebook thinks I will like the most and have watched in the past? Maybe I need to do some more research and be more purposeful with the news I watch. (I probably should have come to this conclusion long ago.)

To answer the question: if I had to say one person or being owned the media I use to access the news, it would definitely be Facebook.

I do think this matters. Knowing that Facebook has algorithms just like any other social media platform, I am not actually choosing the media and news I am consuming but instead, I am being passive and only consuming what is most convenient. I have put a lot of my trust into these sources but I need to realize that these short clips and attention grabbing posts only reach the surface. I need to learn to dig deeper into a trusted source and be more active in my news consumption.

With this being said, I feel like I am not the only person who thinks they are doing themselves in injustice by not having a trusted news source. What are your recommendations for picking? It can’t be as simple as listening to or reading a sample from each and going with the one that sounds the best. What kind of research have you done? Do you take action when you disagree with a source? I feel as though comments and phone in’s to the media are never legitimate. They are filtered to allow only the content the source wants to use.

Brb, time to do my research and watch the news!

I went back and forth over which image to choose for this post, searching ‘controversial’ and ‘complex’ ads on Google I came across an advertisement by Dove that has been taken down due to being viewed as racist. It was watching this ad that I chose to above photo of a previous ad from Dove in 2011.

On the surface, we can see three women who have used Dove products, they look happy, healthy, and vibrant. We also see a before and after image of using Dove products, the before is old, crinkly, and undesirable, the after looks healthy and like the object of ones desire. The goal of the ad is to convince you that you want to achieve skin like this.

When we get down to the nitty gritty and you realize how the women have been positioned, you kind of take a step back and think

Did they really do that?

Of all the staff that this ad must have come in contact with, they still chose to run it?

It portrays a dark, medium, and fair skinned woman in the same order as before and after. This sets it up to appear that the dark skinned woman is less desirable, the medium is neutral, and finally the fair skinned “white” woman is the picture of beauty that we want to obtain.

This paints the idea that dark skin is “dirty” and this has been a problem in the cosmetic industry for years. Most skincare products are targeted towards light skinned women, in fact many makeup lines don’t even care shades that are dark enough for some women’s skin tone. This is as if saying that dark skinned women (and men) do not deserve or need the same high quality products as all other women they are marketing towards. As a caucasian female, this is not something that I have personally had to experience, for myself every cosmetic line has plenty of shades that I can find one to match. I take this for granted. “Skin” colored does not mean caucasian, there is no boundary to what color skin is defined as. Any boundaries we have are purely a social construct that beauty brands are enabling.

What do you think about this ad? Did Dove make the wrong call?

(She’ll be fine on her own, she’ll be fine on her own)

Buttercup. One of Hippo Campus’ most recognizable songs, and I got to see it performed live as the encore to one of the best shows I have ever been to. Fangirling? Why yes I am.

Last week I attended the Hippo Campus concert at Manning Bar in Sydney with five of my friends and about 100 other indie rock loving souls. It was a small venue which made the intimacy of the concert so cool. I chose to become part of an audience, a group of individuals who share a common interest – Hippo Campus – and gathered to consume some great tunes together.

Why was I there? For the booze.

I’m kidding.

How could I pass up the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, live, in a small venue, in Australia, during my study abroad? For a girl from small town Iowa it couldn’t get any better than this. (What a cliche, am I right?) Seeing music live beats listening to it online any day. Okay, most of the time. Hippo Campus really exceeded my expectations.

Something really cool I experienced was how ‘here’ the audience was. Yes, people would sneak a shot of the band or record part of their favorite song, but in a society where I am so use to seeing people watch a performance it was cool to see that there was fairly minimal phone use. I was pleasantly surprised by this.

I had to think for a minute, was there any negatives? Then I remembered. By the time we arrived the opening band had already lost the crowds attention, everyone was standing around awkwardly and on their phones, having conversations, and not getting involved with the band’s music or giving it a chance. This immediately gave off the vibe that no one was enjoying the music.

This really shows how much the audience contributes to the success of a performance. All these people gathered because they either know the band or are interested in consuming the music they are about to play. It was just as easy for everyone to get super hyped for Hippo Campus as it was for everyone to ignore the first band.

Thanks for checking out my first blog post pals!

Carson

Enjoy Hippo Campus/Tame Impala/Saint Motel/Glass Animals and other Indie Rock vibes? Drop your recommendations in the comments!