Talking Points #2: Raby

 Who are these Teenagers? History and  Discourse

Reflection,

To tell you the truth i was completely lost while reading this article. But once we talked about it more in class, it made much more sense to me.

Raby does a great job in explaining the five main discourses at rick, becoming, social problems, pleasurable consumption, and the storm. The storm discourse I feel is something that always come into play. Parents and everyone believe that once kids become teenagers they go through this "storm" where they don't listen to anyone around them, very mischievous, rude, annoying, believing that they are right in everything. That eventually they will get over this stage and grow up.

I feel that adults and the media need to let teens breathe a bit, and stop portraying them as criminals. Yes I understand they have these raging hormones but let them experience the world. They need to get out of their heads that teens are the worst in the world.

Teenage Girls in the Media

Teenage Girls in the Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7enGwTlfPJM

When starting this project I wrongly assumed that it was much easier! Then I actually started and had no idea on what I was about to get into, but thanks to some of the complicated but very helpful software I kind of got the hand of it. My topic for this project at first was Male teen athletes, but i did some research and it was very hard to find, you would think not. So I decided to switch it to Teenage Girls; my proposal being that teen girls are viewed as dramatic, backstabbing, fighting liars but at the end they still believe in the happy ever after.

Finding sources for this was very easy and as soon as i googled teen girls images I received images of girls fighting and competing against one another and some with the dramatic look on it. But you also get images of teenage girls half naked or in the "sexy maid" Halloween costume. When you move it too everything about teen girls you get websites about teen girls being hot, and them getting breast implants. Showing you that the media looks at teen girls as "hot" and that they always want to make some kind of change to their bodies. Then you have bogus websites that talk about the truth of teen girls that mention that these teen girls need to be controlled or they will end up half naked and in pregnancy pacts. The worse thing when talking about Pregnancy they blame everything on the women and it is looked at in the wrong way, but when its the guy who is in the media he is rewarded. Then there is the whole half naked situation a guy is rewarded when he is half naked on the cover of a magazine but as soon as a woman does she is criticized in the media. Which all relates to Raby's At Risk and Becoming Stage.

When you are watching either a tv show, a music video or a movie the women is portrayed is either easy, loud, dramatic and is fighting with some girl because of some odd unknown reason like Save the Last Dance and Mean Girls. Mean Girls did a great job showing the stereotypes of the teenage girl. 
 I wonder if a guy when he thinks about the average women does he think about her on how she is, or does he relate it back to what he has seen in the media?

Talking Point #4

Teenagers as Producers.
Hyperlinks.

As i was searching youtube and google I realized that it is much rarer to find Teenagers as Producers compared to Teenagers vs. Consumers.

In " A tangele of Discourses" "Palladino (1996) argues that teen marketers believed that they could target teenagers as consumers and guide them along the 'right path'. But the effect was a series of mixed messages about teens, such as preparation for the future, having fun now, and defining self through appearance"
(Raby p13)

The teen marketers are in fact sending the wrong messages, but there are still a few teens that try to avoid the media. And try to campain for a good cause

These group of teens are talking about the importance of summer education and Project Morry. While watching the video you see that if they are able to have summer education, it prevents different things. For example one of the girls said that having summer education prevents child abuse over the summer because during the summer they are home all day and have nothing to do but watch tv. But if they are included into summer education they will have something to do over the summer. They also mentioned that going to school is a "stress reliever" because you can talk to your friends about what is going on at home.


This video does show a postive outcome as "Teenagers as Producers" but the sad thing is that you don't really see anything else like this.

Digital Natives vs. Digital Immigrants

Prensky, " Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants:

Quotes;

In this article Prensky talks about the difference between people raised with technology and those who are just getting used to the idea of technology. According to Prensky if you were always around technology you are a " Digital Native" meaning "They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age.... students today are all "native speakers" of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet" Prensky pg 1. This is important to the text because this quote shows you that the "new" generation is changing and we are all being shaped around what we all know.. technology.
In this world we just don't have the generation that grew up technology Prensky calls this group
"Digital Immigrants" "learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past" This group goes to our grandparents who are completely confused on what to do when it comes to computers. Prensky was saying that " Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through the years of interaction and practice" this may be true but there are many people from this category that  do want to understand the life that we know live in.
Other than showing us the difference between the two, he also goes into detail on how to combine the two to keep students know a days more engaged in the classroom. This is a piece that i truly believe that every professor should learn. Personally speaking if the professor is not keeping me somehow engaged in a classroom I'm not mentally there. But some do not believe in this change  "It's just dumb (and lazy) of educators – not to mention ineffective – to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Natives‟ “language” is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea."Prensky pg 6 But on the other hand there are some professors that do believe that they need to change their teaching methods a bit with the world around them but not forgetting the Legacy "So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change. It‟s high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run – and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them." Prensky pg 6.
So maybe we will live in a world that the " Digital Immigrants" will change their ways to accomodate "Digital Natives"

Christensen Talking Point #1

Christensen, " Unpacking the Myths that Bind Us"

Reflection

I truly enjoyed reading  Christensen's article. This article makes you realize that these gender separations and the racism are always there and hopefully will one day disappear . While reading this article it made me realize that even as a child the media is already shaping what we know and learn" When we read children's books, we aren't just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated."

What i enjoyed most of this article was that Christensen showed her high school students how the media shapes the world we live in.  By her doing showing them many stated that when they have children they will not allow them to watch cartoons. I feel that this would be a lesson that every high school should be teaching. What was amazing was that since her students knew the situation they tried to get the rest of their community to be involved in what the media is doing.

Overall the article was an easy read. I enjoyed reading it and I learned about the media.

Who am I?

My name is Kayla Lubo.  I'll be 21 in August! Yeah . Summer is okay, doesn't really feel like summer. I need to go to the beach soon.  This is my first time taking summer classes, kind of interesting. When I'm not in class I'm either home or working, and occasionally hanging out with my friends. I was going to study abroad but i am not going to do that anymore.

First Blog

ahh this is weird..