Media

Hey!! I have written an essay on media last year, i am going to post it on the blog. i would like the other bloggers to post comments about what i have written in the essay. Thanks.
Argumentative Essay
Media. What is it? According to Malcolm X it is “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” According to Corazon Aquino “The media's power is frail. Without the people's support, it can be shut off with the ease of turning a light switch.” According to Sutharmina’s perspective media is a dreamland that shows our dreams in a television set. It is a mind controller of thoughts, emotion, and feelings that should be in our head. It is a liars land, and thinks that people who see the media are fools, and it is true for most of us; because we believe what we see, with no doubts in our head.
Teenagers are continuing to get more and more fooled by the media. The media uses the illusory image method to make teenagers believe things that are not even true. Another technique that is often used in media, to catch teenagers’ attention is the bending, canting, and appeasement technique. Bending, canting and appeasement technique is used to catch attention of viewers by making the models pose in a sexual pose. One other thing that is used by the media is clowning and exaggeration. Clowning and exaggeration in media is when male models, or singers are portrayed as serious, and when female models are portrayed as silly, childish, or even foolish. Media has a negative impact on teenagers by lowering the teenagers’ self-esteem and by changing their view on things.
The media takes advantages of the bending, canting, and appeasement method to easily catch the attention of the entire generation of teenagers. To begin, models pose in a way and they see the viewer is something that is found attractive by teenagers. The models’ poses are always uncomfortable for them, but however that is what attracts the present generation of teenagers. For example, the model in the Design Essentials advertisement is bending her body to show off what her blouse is supposed to be hiding. The Design Essentials advertisement makes the teenagers to see the advertisement more and more closely by making the model to show what her blouse is hiding. This pose and these kinds of poses are always found “hot” or “sexy” by the teenagers. The pose in the advertisement makes the teenagers to think that they also should be showing what their clothing should be hiding; to do so, some teenagers go against their religion and or their parents because of what the media is portraying of teenagers. Also a music video titled “I Gotta Make it” by Trey Songz has women, that are, wearing a very little clothing and standing in an “attractive” way that they think will be a magnet for the opposite sex. This music video has a negative influence on teenagers; because, it is portraying females as if they have to be wearing a little clothing and should do actions that will be “gorgeous” to the opposite sex. In, other words the music video is altogether telling that females are just there in the world to show of their skin to the world and also only to attract other human beings. The music video portrays females as if they are not worth for anything except for the reasons that were listed above. In addition, another video that is also using females to show the females’ figures and curves is the music titled “Drop it like its Hot”. In this music video, there are many women in it who are just there to show us a closer view of their curves, and figures. These women are used as object of desires; the women don’t have a main part in music video such as singing, they are just there so that the men could look at them. Another, reason why there are a lot of women showing their skin is to catch the attention of teenagers. The media thinks that teenagers only look for anything that has to do with “sexy”, or hot, and or taking of closthing. Is that a right point of view of the teenager? That will be decided by the majority of the teenagers. Also, one more negative influence that the music video has is that all the males are after cloth stripping girls. Following this the females that watches the music video will immediately have a thought created in their mind saying that “males go after girls who are a striper, and if a girl doesn’t show of her skin, than the girl is worth nothing to a men. Furthermore, another model in a magazine advertisement for Jasmine Herbal Essences is naked. No matter what else is in the advertisement such as the beautiful jasmines; what first grabs the attention of teenagers is that the model is naked. This advertisement also sends a message to teenagers saying that they should be always trying to show-of their skin as much as possible especially for females since that is what grabs the attention of the opposite sex. One another advertisement has a model that is posing in a way that they know it will attract teenagers. The model in the advertisement is bending her middle body from her chest to hip, and also bending one of her feet. The smile on the model’s face is appealing. This advertisement makes teenagers to think that you always should be bending some part of your body (recommending chest mostly) to be found sexy and or hot by someone. The media makes the teenagers to think that they all should look “sexy’ and “hot” at all times. To finish of teenagers should start to see the real reasons behind media, and not only is what appealing and attractive to their eyes, since there is more to a book than the front cover.
The illusory image technique in media easily fools teenagers. All the teenagers that look at different forms of media believe whatever is there; they don’t tend to use their brain for clarifications. An advertisement that uses the illusory image a lot is the advertisement for Luster’s Pink Oil Moisturizer. The model’s hair in the advertisement has some words written on it which are “soft, moisturized, beautiful, sexy, and healthy.” This advertisement fools teenagers to believe that if they use this hair product that they are selling than they will have hair that is healthy, soft, moisturized, beautiful and sexy. This advertisement affects the way that the teenagers think that their hair should be. The teenagers will quickly change their view on hair because the media is telling them to, and that is found common or “cool”. However again teenagers are peer-pressured to change they beliefs. Another advertisement that uses the illusory image technique is the advertisement for Neutrogena hair products. The model in the advertisement has very shiny hair. This advertisement also fools teenagers into believing that if they use all the Neutrogena hair products then they will have sun shining hair as the model in the advertisement. However the fooled teenagers should be aware that the reason behind the shine in the hair is the extra light that is shooting on the model’s hair. This advertisement will lower teenagers’ self-esteem because the teenagers will try all the hair products that Neutrogena selling and always their hair won’t get shiny as the models in the advertisement. This will make teenagers to think that their hair is no good for anything and especially at this kind of times teenager tend to compare themselves with others and which will make them think low of themselves even more. The next advertisements that I have as an example is all the ten advertisements. All the ten advertisements have models that are slim. All these advertisements make teenagers to think that if they use any of the hair products the companies are selling then they will become slim like the models in all ten advertisements. To teenagers who have already tried any of the hair product and see the advertisement for the hair product than they will feel very depressed that their body is not slim as the models. Also the ten advertisements will change teenagers’ view on how people’s body should look like. Moreover, during the commercial time of a Tamil network television, I saw a commercial. A commercial that portrays a woman who is over weighted and that can’t do anything by herself, the commercial also had some boys in it that made of how she looked in the back of her. All so ever the commercial portrays that over weighted people are always dependant on something and that if you are over weighted you will be easily a victim to be made of. Subsequently, another example of how media portrays “overweight” people is the television show called “The Simpsons”. During all most all the shows of the Simpsons Homer, an over weighted guy is shown as an irresponsible, useless, careless, person. Homer is always there to be made fun of, he never have a proper job. In addition, most of the movies like The Mean Girls, or television shows like Friends have attractive, slim females in them as main charcters. Media is making as think that what we see in the outside as an appearance is what matters, and that the human organ called a heart is just an extra organ that we carry around. With this in mind teenagers should start to be aware that media is fooling them to believe something that is not true and to start using their brain when they are dealing with the media. Teenagers are never aware of the clowning, and exaggeration that is used in the media. In media the female models are portrayed as silly, childish, or dumb while the male models are posed as if they are in control and serious. First, an advertisement for Infusium hair products has a model that is holding an umbrella when it is not even raining one bit. This advertisement portrays the female model as silly to be holding an umbrella when it is not raining. The advertisement makes female teenagers to think that no matter what, nobody will think that they matured. Also the advertisement will make male teenagers to think that all female teenagers are dumb and that the males are in more power and smarter than females.. Similarly, a music video that is also portraying men as dominance, and females as being controlled by men is the music video titled What you gun’ do?. In the music video, women are caged in a strong glass and males are singing and stepping on the cage as if saying that females are a piece of trash for the society. As mentioned the music video portrays males in a lot more power than females, and also that males can do anything to the females and females would not talk. Another advertisement that makes the female model to look dumb is the advertisement for Luster’s Pink Oil Moisturizer. The model in that advertisement has some words written on her hair. This makes the model’s hair to not look good and the model to look dumb. This advertisement makes the male teenagers to believe that all female models are so desperate to attract the male teenagers. The third advertisement that also uses the clowning and exaggeration in advertising is the Jasmine Herbal Essences. The model in the advertisement is lying on top of beautiful, purple jasmines. This advertisement portrays the model in the advertisement as if she is childish. These kinds of portrayals of females are always used in media, but however the teenagers who are looking at the different forms of media aren’t aware of the portrayals because they are always too busy looking at other stuff in the chosen form of media such as how the models pose. Teenagers should start to question the media because what is portrayed on the advertisements is how media say they should be; so if a model in an advertisement is childish than the teenagers are also childish; but if you want to change that thought of the media than start looking for details in media and start to act against media.
According to Marshall McLuhan’s perspective “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” That is how bad we are taken advantage of, not even a person takes advantages of us, but a tool that once humans made. According to Robert Bresson’s point of view “Cinema, radio, television, magazines are a school of inattention: people look without seeing, listen in without hearing.”

The Illusory image technique makes teenagers to believe something that is not true. Bending, canting, and appeasement are when models pose in a way that attracts the opposite sex or any viewers. Clowning and exaggeration is when portraying female models silly, childish and also when portraying male models serious, and powerful. Media influences teenagers negatively by making them believe something that is not true, by controlling teenagers’ thoughts and feelings, by portraying different genders in a certain way that is not actually true about the genders, by making teenagers to go against their religion and against their parents, and altogether by lowering teenagers self-esteem. This is important for teenagers to know because they are the ones that is getting fooled and controlled by media!! This is a priority for teenagers like you and me because media is creating myths and we believe the myths that are being created by them. Media is making all of us a fool. They think that we are brainless or in other words stupid. Media should not be controlling us, we don’t sometimes even allow our parents to control our lives, and how could we allow media? Is media more important than our own beliefs? Of course it is not. Take actions! Act smart! Have more confidence in you!