The Things I Love

Remix Three

http://www.zshare.net/video/589334598f03f0e1/

The purpose of my remix was nothing more than a parody remix. 

I was intending on using several clips from different game shows but this Wheel of Fortune clip was 

too hard to pass up.My audience was to anyone who watches Wheel of Fortune or does drugs. I do niether, 

so I can't really imagine where the remix video would circulate. I personally don't know if the contestant

Raymond was on drugs or not, but it seems like he is so my intentions were to make it look like he was.

I watched the video on centerforsocialmedia.com and saw that parody as an option. So I completed a remix using

a parody approach.

I believe that my remix follows the fair use guidelines because I am a student, using the remix for a 

specific educational course and I am not intending on making any profit. I edited some of the footage and 

even added some of my own creation to the video.I also believe I reproduced the video with an opinion 

because clearly, Wheel of fortune most likely doesn't believe Raymond was on drugs or a drug addict.

The Gerderlect and Feminism Theories

The genderlect theory by Deborah Tannen attempts to explain how men and women communicate differently. Often this can be the cause of men and women arguing and not understanding each other. The theory states that men want to feel independent and respected, while women feel it’s more important to be friendly and liked by everyone. These two separate motives lead them to communicate differently with a different goal in mind.

The theory is practical and it is important to know. In relationships, you should know how men and women react to a certain subject, so that you can communicate effectively and fairly. A look into the theory of feminism, attempts to show how women communicate. They will be soft-spoken when they want something, make eye-contact when they notice a ‘cute guy,’ or blink a lot when they are in shock.

Understanding the feminism theory is important in order communicating with women. While we can learn how women act through the feminism theory, we can look at how they interact with men using the genderlect theory. The genderlect theory helps explain how differently we communicate, and how this affects our conversation.



This clip from the show “Friends,” is a good example of the differences between men and women. The men are very brief, to-the-point, and relaxed in this clip, while the women are overly excited and ask a ton of questions. This shows how women want to know everything and be very close with the friends, while men are interested, but don’t ask many questions.

Feminist Communication Theory

Lana Rakow and Laura Wackwitz state that “feminist communication theory can be distinguished from other theory by virtue of three criteria;” gender, communication, and social change. The theory drives to explain and understand both communication and gender with their respects to socially constructed assumptions. Unlike other communication theories Rakow and Wackwitz propose that feminist communication is structured by four properties; it is explanatory, political, polyvocal, and transformative. These strengths enable scholars to examine past and present experience from multiple perspectives, and implement female voice and representation to transfer thoughts and inspire action in engendered environments. The scholars define voice as the opportunity to both speak and be heard. Whereas representation explores the political and material consequences of attempting to represent groups, or positions other than one’s own. Rakow and Wackwitz analyze the term further by establishing two ways to use representation; the first is the meaning ascribed to people and things (realism). The second is the whole; one person speaking for an individual or the group (social and political). Rakow and Wackwitz explain that representation is created from the meaning of reality; the identity perceptions, behaviors, and experiences that are interpreted and socially constructed. With regards to women in media, “meanings generated by representations are for end goals of economic productivity or political persuasion, with material and ideological consequences.” It’s the relationship between representation, spectator, and social formation that make meaning, not the actual image. In all mediums, whether visual, narrative, or text; “woman is the bearer, not the maker, of meaning.” Women are commodities; their only real existence in media is the role they play.

The clip above is actually an advertisement for Trojan that was banned from a few major TV networks; but for what reason, it doesn’t say. Do you think it’s because pigs representing men, doesn’t exactly fly? Or, do you think it’s because females are degraded with the flash of a condom, and their weakness for sex is just a tad exaggerated? Maybe it’s something entirely outside of gender; perhaps it was banned for advertising premarital sex? What do you think?

Hall & Zinn

Hall makes it clear in his cultural studies that people make meanings, and over time these meanings are created from the communication within a culture. Those in power are the originators of meaning; they reinforce the ideologies of a society. Ideologies, as Hall defines, are “those images, concepts, and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence.” As Americans, we have complied with the democratic values of freedom and equality, and we have allowed the politicians, preachers, and corporations to govern the past, present, and future.

Mass media is crucial in the survival of cultural myths and ideologies; its influential resources generate the belief that people in power share similar interests with the rest of society. What we know is what the media tells us, and what the media tells us what the people in power want us to know. Truth is ultimately lost in the transition between media and society, and the result is a distorted cultural image. Hall calls for a resistance; we are the audience and we need to decide for ourselves what is true and what is false, we need to determine what’s really there and also what’s missing.

The above clip is a brief insight of historian and author Howard Sinn, and his revolutionary novel, A Peoples History of the United States. Sinn takes readers back to the very beginning with the myth of Christopher Columbus, and finishes with the current war in Iraq. Each chapter is a supplemental guide to the history of the United States, the actually truths of our culture and all that has been erased over time by those in power. Like Hall, Sinn sees what most do not, and although this clip can’t even begin to explain the depths of America’s democratic dissolutions, it should certainly make you think about who you are, what you know, and where you have been placed. Do you think you have been misinformed; or do you think you know all there is to know, both sides of the story? Below is an excerpt from Zinn’s book, however I would highly recommend reading the rest your self:

“They [Arawak men and women] brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and may other things, which they exchanged for glass beads and hawks bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by edge, and cut themselves in ignorance… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” Christopher Columbus wrote of this in his log when he first reached the Bahamas, however he reported back to Spain that he had reached Asia. He asked for more ships and more men and in return he would bring back “as much gold as they need… and as many slaves as they ask. Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities.” In the next two years, the Spaniards killed half of the 250,000 Indians in Haiti, and in thirty-five years, only 500 were left.

Zinn writes that “the treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)- the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress- is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders” … “The pretense is that there really is such a thing as the ‘United States,’ fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a ‘national interest’ represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decision of the court, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.”
It’s just something to think about.

Encoding and Decoding Text

Stuart Hall is famous mainly for his cultural studies that take a look at the way humans interact with the media. One of his major ideas is that people don't only read and accept text, rather they encode and decode the text to decide whether they agree or disagree with an idea or argument that the author has made.

An interesting point that Hall makes, is that some people will agree with an argument made, while another person from a different lifestyle or culture will disagree on the exact same argument. This is all based on their beliefs and norms in their life.

Hall uses this idea to interpret how we react to the different types of media in our life. Hall explains that even when the author writes a text, the idea received by the reader/viewer, will be decoded at least a little bit different than the author intended.

An example could be seen with this video of the Liverpool soccer team. The video says that Liverpool is the greatest team in the world, but if you live in America, than you would not agree with the title. Of course, naturally, we tend to be biased towards the country we are from.

Media ecology

The clip above is taken from the film “Manda Bala- Send a Bullet,” a Latin American documentary from filmmaker Jason Kohn. Released in 2007, the film focuses on the harsh realities of class warfare in Brazil, a nation where “the rich steal from the poor, and the poor steal from the rich.” As a harbor for natural resources and undeveloped land, the nation has become a competitor in both the import and export industries; with a centralized market between Europe and the United States, the nation has attracted international commerce. Afflicted cities subsist in the outline of corruption and violence, a poverty-stricken population of millions among the wealthy elite. In Kohn’s documentary, he interviews the undisclosed “Mr. M.” who is a computer specialist in Sao Paolo, a city with the highest kidnapping rate as a result of unbalanced wealth.
Mr. M begins his interview by saying “I have to somehow manage to get home from here. So it’s a risk.” In a society driven by survival alone, shaped by self-gain and monetary value, the people of Sao Paolo are part of the McLuhan’s theory of media ecology. Although Griffin’s text acknowledges that, “there is no easy formula for a cause and effect relationship,” it’s very clear that Sao Paolo’s latest developments in technology are congruent with their symbolic environment.
Mr. M. is one of many in McLuhan’s “global village; “a worldwide electronic community where everyone knows everyone’s business and all are somewhat testy.”
Industrialization and the prosperous electronic technology of the twentieth century has ushered in a new way of living for the wealthy and poor. Mr. M. as well as many others see no end to the advancements of an electronic era. Bullet proof cars, courses in survival, the cosmetic reconstruction of an earlobe severed during a kidnapping- these are all technologies that have embedded the corruption and increased the inequalities within Sao Paolo. The newest communication device created for wealthy is a subcutaneous implant- a personal location device that is injected under the skin. McLuhan’s theory states that social environments are created from the use of different communication technologies. Although no environment is the same, technology has impacted the construction of society on a global scale. In Sao Paolo, kidnapping is a routine; technologies such as the subcutaneous implant will continue to enhance the individual’s value of survival in a society plagued by class warfare and corruption.