Danah Boyd review!

This is research into critical theory as well as as a review on Danah Boyd's website which is very useful as it has lots of tips on how to use media which, we all know, can be very temperamental sometimes!

Critical theory is, in Marxist theory, a way of social theorising aimed at discovering, and suggesting answers to, social problems, rather than just understanding them.

'The study of the effects and techniques of advertising forms a cornerstone of media studies' - wikipedia.org

Basically, it's saying that we are socially trying to discover and suggest answers to social problems rather than actually understanding what the problem is about. For example, talking about a piece of media and suggesting answers to the problem that that media is having rather than understanding it and not doing anything about it.

Danah Boyd's website shows this is many forms. She shows lots of different ways of dealing with media and therefore when talking about critical theory, is a very useful place to go to as this can help overcome any problems that I might face in the process of media coursework. 

In the process of making my practical piece, I shall use this website in case of any problems I might come across as this website has pretty much everything on it concerning media and how it could go wrong!

Technological Determinism

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that a society's drives the development of it's social structure and cultural values. Most of the interpretations of technological determinism share two general ideas and these are the following.

1. That the development of of technology itself follows a predictable, traceable path largely beyond cultural or political influences.
2. That technology in turn has 'effects' on societies that are inherent, rather than socially conditioned or produced because that society organises itself to support and further develop a technology once it has been introduced.

An example of the first point that has been shared would be technology such as the internet. This could be because it can follow a predictable, traceable path that everyone can get onto and therefore trace where everything is and may not be caused by cultural or political influences, however...they can be caused by this.

An example of the second point would be technological equipment such as the computer because a society organises itself to work with these pieces of equipment and therefore we can organise ourselves, as a society, to support and further develop this technology once it has already been introduced.

Quick post on the first presentation.

So, my first presentation has to be done before we break up for summer holidays and I have many ideas like the posts I have written about explain, but I still need to finish off my presentation on prezi.

The 3 artefacts I have decided to use are the Empire magazine because it has a lot of information in there and therefore it could help out a lot when talking about intertextuality, borrowed interest and some more things which we have been asked to write about. The next artefact I have decided to use are the movies and books because I feel like I can talk about how the books have helped make the movies so successful and help guide the writers into what to write in the movie script. The third artefact I have decided to use is the www.pottermore.com website because I think that this could also help me in the presentation.

Whilst I'm making my presentation on prezi, I shall probably add some more things about Harry Potter that could be considered as another artefact but these things will only lead into the main artefacts that I have decided to talk about. For example, I could find some other types of Harry Potter websites that talk about the Harry Potter films/books or the theme park in Disney Land resort Florida. 

So, today I shall continue making my prezi for the first presentation to show in front of the class before we break up for summer holidays.

Misogyny and evidence.

Misogyny can best be explained as the hatred or dislike of women. Misogyny is the antonym of Philogyny which means the love or admiration towards women. This word derives from the ancient Greek meaning hate and women hence why misogyny means what it means. Feminist theories put forward that misogyny is both a cause and result of patriarchal social structures. Patriarchal relates to a system that is run by males rather than females, in feminists theories, misogyny is a negative attitude towards women as a group and therefore, do not need to determine a misogynist's attitude towards each individual woman.

For example, misogyny can be best be exampled by using a job offer. If there is a man and a woman going for the same job and the employer hires the man because he decides that he dislikes women for reasons unknown, this would show misogyny because the employer has decided to to employ the woman because of her gender and the fact that he dislikes this gender.

A false example could be that a man and a woman go for the same job and the employer decides to decline to woman's application because she is a woman. This doesn't show misogyny but it shows that the employer is being sexist because the reason could have been that he/she doesn't want to employ the woman because the should be at home or maybe because they will end up getting pregnant and therefore wont be able to work for the employer for a long period of time.

The images below illustrate what I have explained.

This shows a dislike to women as he is grabbing her face and trying to get her to listen to him. This can also be shown by the fact that he is towering over the female character shows that he wants to be the more superior character and is probably being the more superior person in the shot.

This is showing sexism because they're having a conversation about what women should be doing and where they should be. This image is suggesting that women should be in the kitchen making lunch rather than doing sports such as weightlifting or another manly sport.

So, to summarise my post, this says that misogyny is the hatred or dislike towards women and sexism is when you are discriminating against women and holding views about where they should be.

Feminism and evidence.

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal rights and opportunities for women. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism is about equal right and opportunities for women and men, some feminists can argue that men's liberation is a main part of feminism and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.

When we watch programmes or a film or see anything in a magazine or a newspaper we must see some sort of advert in them or something in the moving image/images that we think can be sexist or stereotype women or men in either a good way or a bad way. There are many different feminists who believe different things depending on the religion they are or the culture in which they live in. Therefore, women's roles might vary depending on what religion they are.

For example, women living in Britain in the 1940's were supposed to stay at home and look after the children and keep them fed so this consisted of being a house wife as well as having to work to keep their children fed. However, before the 1940's (pre-war times), women were expected to live in the house and look after the house whilst the husband or the man of the house went out to work. Although, post-war time all this changed and feminists all over the world believed that women should have equal opportunities. This meant women being able to have a job as that it what all the women had to do to keep everyone fed in the household. Below is an image showing the women of pre-war times and post-war times.

This is an example of a house wife. This would have been before the war when the husband would be at work, the children would be at school and the house jobs would rely on the house wife finishing them off.

This is an example of a working wife. This would have been after the war because at this time women have finally realised that they do not have equal rights or opportunities and therefore the high percentage of jobs were being occupied by women.

In our lesson on the 28th of June, we talked about feminism and how the pictures that we had in front of us to write connotations on showed feminism in either a positive way or in a negative way. This helped my understanding of feminism become much better and therefore, I shall use it more often when discussing interesting topics with the class.

'Stereotyping' + 'Representation' = Research into what we did in our lesson on Tuesday.

Below is a prezi I have made that explains the ideas of stereotype/stereotyping and representation that I believe are correct.