Question of the Day

I had an interesting thought come to mind today. What if we lived in a world where we had no mirrors? What about if there weren't pictures of ourselves or pictures of other people? Would people be happier, or more dissatisfied? 

I know that I have been erratic in posting but I promise to post soon about two different thoughts that I have been reading about lately. 1. Does media objectify and denigrate men as much as it does to women and in what ways? 2. The prevalence of sexual objectification in media: Is it appropriate, and does it have negative or positive effects on society? 

Please post your ideas for the question of the day.

Media's portrayal of Women

I do not mean to demean or denigrate the media at our present time, but it seems to me that news media, music, and film media are some of the most influential forces in our society and in many cases it denigrates me more than I could ever demean it. I have had lengthy discussions with one of my housemates about media's contemporary portrayal of females; of beautiful thin models and of a woman cooking in the kitchen or cleaning up after a man. Both image and the niche of females in society is defined and insinuated through modern media.

I recently came across the following video that I think really shows some of the issues women face from media in our society:
Dove Evolution

I think that this portrayal of women is a lie and that society as a whole has to realize that it is NOT healthy, NOT beautiful, and NOT realistic for girls to look like the models that we see in fashion magazines or in movies. Airbrushing and photo shop hide true beauty of what a real woman looks like. I hope that women everywhere will find confidence and happiness in how they look not because they are a certain size, but based on their individual worth and value.

I think in our society we generalize what men and women can do. Recent marketing statements for paper towels, show a man bringing in a big fish that he caught and the woman cleaning up after him. The stigma in our current society that women can only do a certain thing is extremely limiting and insulting.

I think that it is important that as ordinary people we do not let the media's negative representation of women make women doubt their natural beauty. Women need to recognize their inner strength and beauty.

I realize that men as well as women face this kind of negative stigma from the media, but I thought this was too big of an issue to treat separately. Please post your own opinions and observations about the media and how it has affected you!

One last video about this subject also comes from a Dove video. Dove has been running an ad campaign to combat negative media stigma and to help women focus on inner and true beauty. The women in this video are beautiful and it is amazing to see how they view themselves and how others view them.

Dove's real Beauty Campaign

The Role of Media in Our Current Society

For two years, I lived in the Fiji islands. Being somewhat remote and third world, Fiji did not have the technology that was blossoming and taking hold in the rest of the world. We had very small incidence of it when we saw tourists and other travelers with iPads and iPhones (which I used to think was useless and unlikely to flourish). When my time in Fiji came to an end, it was like coming home to a completely new culture and society. Part of my culture shock undoubtedly came from the difference in culture from Fiji to America, but there were definitely some things that I noticed that I do not believe were part of our society before my time in Fiji.

The first thing that was somewhat shocking to me was the use of social media to lead public opinion and the amount of time that people generally spend on social media networks. I will admit that I was quickly pulled into the using of such media as facebook and gmail. I noticed though that many posts were politically charged and opinionated where as facebook was more of a friendship and networking site in the past. I feel like it is definitely a two-edged sword to have so much opinion and politics floating around in a website that attracts a lot of public attention. A positive aspect of it is the fact that it makes opinions and points of view more accessible to the general public thus promoting freedom of speech and opinion. However, a negative aspect is that many people seem to take things they read on social media as pure solid fact, and absolute truth, rather than as opinion or politically slanted material.

The second thing that was shocking to me was the extreme polarity in news media, especially in respect to politics. While nothing is new in that, I realized that a lot of people believed everything they heard on the news as fact. It seems like the general populace used to realize that news stations generally portrayed a more liberal bias and slant to news and others the conservative side. Newspapers obviously was using news stories for its political agenda to advocate gun control. I am not saying those shootings did not happen, and I am not saying that the issues should go one way or the other. I think that we have to carefully research political and social topics gathering sources from many different biases and use our personal experience to develop our opinion and political view. It seems to me foolish to rely solely on one source for opinion and fact with out evaluating the credibility of sources and the bias of the media.

I personally believe that the media has had a very negative impact on general society lately. It seems that the media focuses solely on things that are going wrong and completely neglects, or minimizes solutions and positive outcomes. While there is certainly not enough room in any newspaper or time on any television show to portray all news, I believe that the general populace is best served when news is served with little bias, and when stories are chosen to bolster hope and motivate the populace rather than to defame and slander public leaders and cause anxiety among the general people. I do not advocate the media hiding corruption or misleading the public to think everything is alright when it is not, but I believe that positive media could bolster the discouraged public and help people come to solutions and come to understanding. In the end, I think one of the primary goals of media should not be entertainment, but should be the promotion of understanding and portrayal of truth.

I hope that we will all seek for the truth when we form opinion on public issues and when making judgements of political leaders. I hope to that we can respect other people's opinions that are different than ours. I feel like a lot can be learned from those who think differently from us, even if we do not ever agree with them.

Introduction

My name is Paul Hill. I am from a small suburban town near Salt Lake City. I am currently studying music and pre-medicine at the University of Utah. I am a member of the LDS church, the predominant faith in the area. I recently returned from a religious mission to the Fiji Islands. Politically, I identify myself as a moderate, believing in some ideas liberal and some conservative, but I am personally fed up with the polarity of both sides in American politics and the lack of cooperation. I share this brief personal introduction to give insight to those who might read my blog.

This blog is in no way a statement of fact or an attempt to persuade others to agree with me. I am posting because I feel like by writing my thoughts and opinions I can discover more about the world and I hope that others will post in an attempt for us all to understand one another.

I have come to the realization that Facebook and other social media sites have become a place for emotionally charged arguments and barrages of opinions. As an outlet for my opinion, I decided to start this blog.

I welcome all thoughts and opinions, however, I reserve the right to block anything that I feel is offensive or that reflects badly on others.

Happy posting! Future topics include the role of media in our current society, religious and moral tolerance, and language: an avenue of expression. I hope you find it enlightening, entertaining, or something.