I am Man, Hear Me Roar!!!

Quite simply, the media shapes who we are in the professional world. This is a concrete fact that is not going to change any time soon. Everyday we see images of what we as a man or a woman are supposed to portray in our everyday lives. We see flagrent stereotypes that help fuel the fire in the professional world, making it nearly impossible to move up and advance as one would like it, due to bias created by the media. Through reality tv shows, we often see very bold people that represent the stereotypes we already know. The big, muscular man that is also a loudmouth; the blond ditz who only cares about her hair and makeup. These stereotypes fuel the way that people see stereotypes in the professional world, sad but true. The only way we can break these bonds are by becoming our own people, but even in becoming our own people, we can still be stereotyped. This is a vicious circle I don't see changing anytime soon.

Jack Bauer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A show that I watch on a regular basis is 24. This is my favorite show because it incorporates great action sequences, compelling drama, and a great concept of real time drama. This show is based around the main character Jack Bauer, who is a federal agent that tries to stop terrorist attacks on the United States. Along with him are organizations such as the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), the FBI, and the President of the United States. This show has been running for 6 seasons now, and is currently 7 episodes into the 7th season and airs Monday nights.
"24" is a great example of how TV incorporates the core American values as it is based around some of the most important values: Freedom and Safety. Throughout the show, they are producing messages of great Americans and what they are like in our society, and also shows who is not a great American. Often times this show does not fuel stereotypes as terrorists in this show are often not Middle Eastern, and are instead other races. In season 5, the main bad guy even turned out to be the president. This show tells its viewers that there is a standard to the American society, as there is often a fight for who wins: Good or Bad.
"24" is a great show that I would recommend to anyone looking for good TV on a monday night.

Frosted Flakes are GRRRRRRRRRRRREAT!

Media saturation in our day of age, is often a topic that is looked over and ignored, until this idea is challenged in such a way that was brought up in our class. I for one, never even thought about the amount of media and advertisements that I was being exposed to daily until it was brought up in class. Its funny how I can just turn my head in each direction and see dozens of products, advertisements, and media just in this one moment. I see a water bottle with a logo, a phone developed by Nokia, my cell phone with big "T-Mobile" and "Samsung" logos on the front, a few games and CD's, even a Beenie Baby in the corner of the room. All of the products fuel the media advertisement market of our day, yet if someone is asked how much media they are exposed to each day, most would look over all of these products.
So what about media saturation at a younger and younger age? I remember being a kid in elementary school and what the media saturation consisted of even then. I remember being in school with posters advertising, "reading", but the bigger message on the bottom would be what company paid for, and made these posters. I remember having the cool backpacks with our favorite TV shows or characters on them. But above all else, I remember coming home after school and watching TV. I remember watching, and seeing all the commercials that made me crave all of the products that were advertised. I remember instantly wanting every single thing in those advertisements. At the time, no one really realized that this was the point of the advertisements. We just saw all the cool stuff, and instantly wanted it. Cereal sticks our in my mind for some reason, because how they advertised the products was not based on the nutrition, but on how good it tasted, or how much it was like candy. "Lucky Charms" with the marshmallows, "Cookie Crisp" with the little bite sized cookies (I still hold true today that this was the one greatest cereal of all time), and Frosted Flakes, the ultimate breakfast cereal with the coolest mascot. All of the products fueled my desire to purchase purchase purchase!
So as the video stated, kids today are becoming more like consumers all the time. This partly disgusts me, because everyone knows how impressionable young kids are, but this also seems very useful and clever to me. Who wouldn't want to attract the most impressionable people in the world? I know if I had something to advertise that would be even remotely desirable to kids, I would definitely advertise to them.
I'm sure that we can all take something from this message, and we should be able to pick out both the positives and negatives of media saturation of our age.