Coming of Age with the Internet by McMillian and Morrison

When I was reading this article, I understood how much we all depend on the internet, and how much we need it, and at some points don't need it in our lives.  The internet helps us discover all kinds of things. We learn something new whenever we are on the internet. Could be a news story, going on the website Stumble Upon,  and finding some interesting facts about all kinds of things. One of the people that McMillian and Morrison said this about the internet. "The internet has changed my life. I now almost exclusively buy organic foods. I no longer eat red meat because of information I retrieved off of the American Medical Association's Website and from sites authored by various environmental organizations. The web introduced me to my favorite intellectual, Noam Chomsky, who forever altered my perception of the world.(Brian)." What McMillian and Morrison are saying in this article, is that even the internet can change your way of life, because you learn new things. Also with the internet, you have to be very careful too, and know who you are talking to. There have been many predators online, so you have to be very careful on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. Here's a good website on internet safety. Here is also the website Stumble Upon, so many people use this website, and you can find out a lot of interesting information on all kinds of things.

A Tangle of Discourses by Rebecca C. Raby

When I was reading the article A Tangle of Discourses by Rebecca C. Raby, the point of her article was the difference between generations among different women when they are teenagers, and while some are currently teenagers. She interviewed grandmothers and granddaughters and  asked them their opinions of teenagers. If teenagers are good or bad? Raby discusses how adolescents  go through many different changes, which effects how their behavior is towards their parents and others. That is the main point in her article. When Raby was interviewing the teenage girls, she would ask them all kinds of questions about the pressures that they go through, also through their own changes.

I found this song Teenagers by My Chemical Romance. This song explains how some older people may feel about teenagers, just like the grandmothers that Raby interviewed.

I guess our elders can be annoyed with teenagers sometimes, because a lot of the advertisements and media are towards teenagers. That's not necessarily a good thing either. 

I found this great article on teenagers, and how we learn a lot from our teenage years. When Raby was interviewing the grandmothers in her article, one of the grandmothers said that her and the teenagers around now, are from different generations, so teenagers do things differently.

This article also refers back to when we were looking up things for Media Literacy, and how teenagers are influenced by media.

I hope all of our elders don't think that badly of teenagers. We are just from completely generations.

Media Literacy Part 2

Another thing I would like to say about Media Literacy is that in all of the commercials,  they are always advertising make up, and things to make you look thinner. They are never sending any positive messages. When young girls see this, they question whether  they are thin enough, or pretty enough. When I was looking at makeup commercials, I found this commercial with Drew Barrymore, and they things that she is saying isn't good. " Department Store look" what the heck is that? She is also saying you'll look beautiful with the makeup on. Take beautiful back with tons of makeup, thats an awful message.

Heres another commercial for clothing, and its Miley Cyrus new clothing line being sold at Walmart.

There's going to be so many young girls who will want to buy Miley's clothes, because she is such a huge media influence. They want to dress like her. 

Most of the commercials that are on TV have celebrities  on them. They help sell the product, which makes the company get the big bucks. The celebrities are what influence the media. They can either send good messages, or bad, and right now the media is sending a lot of bad messages.

Media Literacy

Here's a website where I found a lot of good information on Media Literacy.

Here's this really good Dove commercial  that I found, and it shows how media affects us.

Heres the music video that Kayla was talking about in class. Stupid Girls by Pink. The song is about how the media is showing bad messages towards young women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4yQFZK9YM

Unpacking the Myths that Bind Us by Linda Christensen

When I was reading this article, the authors main idea was how child cartoons affect us. She was bringing up Disney movies, Popeye cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, all of these things that we grew up watching, and then finding out the meaning behind these cartoons. A lot of these cartoons don't have the best message for children and give them the wrong ideas. Linda Christensen said:

Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most in-flu

 

entail genre "read." Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor,

 

hear or watch these stories again and again. Often from the warmth of their

 

mother's or father's lap. The messages. or "secret education," linked with

 

the security of their homes, underscore the power these texts deliver. As

 

Tatum's research suggests, the stereotypes and world view embedded in the

 

stories become accepted knowledge.