Thursday, November 12, 2009

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Reaction Paper

Julie Ast
Sanja Trpkovic
Understanding Media Studies
October 19, 2009
Regis and Kelly sit together on stage for their popular morning show, “Live With Regis and Kelly”. Regis looks incongruous in a formal suit next to Kelly who is wearing a more relaxed dress. As his younger counterpart, she typically imbues the show with her fun personality and quirky jokes. Regis, the older more established broadcaster, has a more grounded and authoritative presence. While women and men have different functions in broadcast journalism, which is exemplified by their clothing and style choices, women are becoming more prominent television anchors and are adopting men’s conservative garb. Clothing sends a message on television and typically more masculine wear such as suits makes the wearer seem more serious. Men have built-in credibility because they have historically presented the news.
Women have always dressed differently than men on television. While men stick to suits in dark colors, women have more options. Business attire for women can mean skirts, blouses, v-necks or dresses where men typically wear a suit and tie. Sabine Tan, in the article titled, “The Semiotic Function of Clothing and Gender Roles on Broadcast Business News,” takes a social semiotic view of the clothing that newscasters wear. She says that,“ Female presenters’ clothing choices tend to afford them more individuality and personality,” while male clothing gives off “ a sense of professionalism and authenticity.”(Tan 2) Each gender’s attire is supposed to evoke a different meaning related to their function in news broadcasting. Women are meant to, “ attract viewers attention.” Their clothing contains an interpersonal meaning where their primary job is to connect with the audience. Men in news,
“ grant viewers assurance of quality and authentic news reporting without drawing attention away from the news itself.” Their main goal is to suggest experiential meaning, presenting the newsworthy event itself.
The dichotomy in men and women’s appearances on screen has been utilized by pairing them together for television broadcasts. Recently though, women have held prominent reporting positions on their own. Katie Couric currently anchors
“CBS Evening News” and Diane Sawyer will be the future solo anchor for ABC’s “World News.” A couple of months ago Couric chopped off her shoulder-length locks to a shorter pixie. While it is hard to speculate how Sawyers style will change, Couric moved toward a less feminine hair cut, perhaps to increase her credibility as a serious reporter. Since men’s clothing and attire promotes “assurance of quality” as was stated in the above article, she used her new haircut to convey an increased sense of authority and trustworthiness.
Women broadcast reporters’ clothing choice has always been a major focus of the public who view them on television. When being interviewed for Harper’s Bazaar, Ann Curry, an anchor on NBC’s “Today Show” has said, "Sometimes, viewers criticize things I would never have expected, like whether I'm wearing enough teal."(Levin 205) Other anchors do not agree that women should be judged for the type of clothing they wear. Soledad Obrien, an American Morning co- anchor said in the same article that, “"You don't have to sacrifice looking intelligent because you are wearing a nice outfit. You can wear fabulous high heels, and it doesn't mean you aren't well read, you haven't done your homework and you aren't going to grill somebody." (Levin 206)
The most important function of newscasters’ might not be their clothing, but their face. According to a study that tracked the difference between gaze patterns of different genders, both male and females look at the faces before any other body part. The study used a remote eye tracker to determine where both sexes eyes went on thirty pictures, half men and half women. People are attracted to faces because, “faces convey important information not only about the identity, gender, and racial affiliation of others, but also about their emotions and behavioral intentions. ” (Hewig 68-71) If audiences first look at faces, one can assume that the relative trustworthiness of a newscaster’s face, not their clothing, is the most important aspect of their performance. The person watching television first scans the face to determine if she trusts the reporter, then looks at their clothing and further assesses their purpose.
The conclusion can be made then that men are viewed as authoritative, while women project a different message due to their faces. Their clothing, which is considered secondary to their perception, reinforces this conclusion. Perhaps men are considered more trustworthy due to the history of television as historically being a male dominated field. Until recently the major players in news broadcasting on television networks were men. Brian Williams is currently the anchor for “NBC Nightly News.” “CBS Evening News” anchors were all men until 2006 when Couric took over the position and Charles Gibson has just announced his resignation from “ World News” on ABC. The audience recognizes the male as the gender who historically delivers the news. As their eyes drift down to his body and recognize his clothing, this perception would be qualified with his more conservative clothing.
As women become more involved in the field and gain more prominent positions in broadcasting, they sometimes wear men’s clothing to gain the audience’s respect. But, viewers focus mainly on the face of the reporter and the male face has been the conduit of news for the past couple decades. It will take some time to get rid discard this entrenched belief so that audiences can trust women as much as they trust men. For now women and men serve different purposes on the news. As the broadcast climate changes men and women’s role will start to mesh and their clothing won’t need to be focused on, because their faces will do all the talking.














Work Cited
Hewig, Johannes, Ralph Trippe, Holger Hecht, Thomas Straube, and Miltner Wolfang. "Gender Differences for Specific Body Regions When Looking at Men and Women ." Springer Science+Business Media. (2008): 67-78. Print.

Tan, Sabine, and Monica See. "THE SEMIOTIC FUNCTION OF CLOTHING AND GENDER ROLES ON BROADCAST BUSINESS NEWS." Business Communication Quarterly. 72.3 (2009): 368-372. Print.
Levin, Jenny. " Title: Making fashion news: top anchors Ann Curry, Soledad O'Brien and Elizabeth Vargas command the airwaves with their poise, intelligence and classic style. As Bazaar spotlights their glamorous side, they reveal their secrets of dressing for success and why hair really matters.:." Harper's Bazaar February, 2005: 204-210. Print.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Abstracts

Julie Ast
Sanja Trpkovic
Understanding Media Studies
October 11, 2009
Abstracts

Television as a “Safe Space” for Children: The Views of Producers Around the World

This article recognizes that a lot of television and media are not appropriate for children. This is built on the observation that media contains ideas that are harmful to children that contain violence, are lacking in diversity and are very sexualized. By integrating the feedback of professional producers with academic media approaches, it is possible though to make appropriate media for children. In interviewing 135 media professionals in 65 countries, the article isolates the characteristics that make television affective for children. The article is structured so that different positive qualities of media and their affects are discussed separately. Television that instills “courage”, “inclusion”, “family”, remains “true to life” and is “ in children’s voices” is deemed helpful for children who use it as a place to learn proper behavior. Isolating these characteristics will help producers make more positive child media in the future.

Lemish, Dafna. "Television as a "Safe Place" for Children: the Views of Producers Around the World." Communication Research Trends 28.I3 (2009): 17-21. Print.

Drama Counts: Uncovering Channel 4’s History with Quantitative Research Methods

This article uses quantitative research to disprove the assumption that British television channels rely more heavily on American programs during their conception than when they are more established. It discusses how quantitative research is important to understanding television programming, then relates it to Channel 4, a British television station. By tracking how many American programs are on British television stations for the first week of every month, it compiles a database with over 37,000 lines of data. This database proves that Channel 4, imported more American series in 2000, particularly NBC comedies, than in 1982. While this work focuses on Channel 4, it does not make the same conclusions for all British television, leaving its applications pretty thin.

Weissman, Elke(2009) 'Drama Counts: Uncovering Channel 4's history with quantitative research methods' , New Review of Film and Television Studies, 7:2 189-207

The Semiotic Function of Clothing and Gender Roles on Broadcast Business News
In broadcast television, the clothing choice of both male and female reporters differs: each gender’s style on camera sends a different message. The author bases this conclusion on the fact that every semiotic system has experiential, interpersonal, and textual meaning. Men wear more muted formal suits where they are viewed with “ professionalism” “ authority” and “ homogeneity.” Women wear dresses and the color red to become “part of the news”, where updates are frequently done in red. Their clothing gives them more “individuality” and “personality.” The different clothing choices, where men dress more formally than women, are attributed to men’s historical role in business and women’s more casual position at home. The article’s argument is supported by quotes from scholars and observations from television reporting. It points out that clothing can have an important function in conveying information and that each gender subscribes to a different clothing trend.

Tan, Sabine, and Monica See. "THE SEMIOTIC FUNCTION OF CLOTHING AND GENDER ROLES ON BROADCAST BUSINESS NEWS." Business Communication Quarterly. 72.3 (2009): 368-372. Pr






Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Robbery





















































Intellectual Autobiography

Julie Ast
Sanja Trpkovic
Understanding Media Studies
3 October 2009

Intellectual Autobiography

The media industry has always captured my attention. When I first arrived in New York City to attend college, I was drawn to my school’s journalism department. I enjoyed interviewing and gathering information for stories and presenting the material in a well-written manner. New York City, as the home to major media conglomerates, was the perfect setting to experience the media industry. Through internships in public relations and writing for my college newspaper, I worked on creating cogent, creative and sometimes persuasive copy. Although I focused mainly on print media and publishing during my undergraduate studies, upon graduating I decided to try out a different media medium as a sales assistant at NBC Universal. My intellectual and academic history seemingly clashed with my new choice of profession. Ultimately, the polarity between the two gave me a harmonious vision of communications that helped direct me toward defining my niche in the field.
On the surface, I took the largest leap by switching from a print to a television medium, but in reality working on the business side of the media industry was the most challenging. I still focused on media content, but instead of creating it, I helped sell it by promoting programming to advertisers. Although Marshal McLuhan wrote in his book titled, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, “that the medium is the message,” I found that what aspect of the message I was working on, whether selling or creating, carried the most meaning.
After working at NBC Universal I decided to return to creating media, but this time for a television medium. Viewing television from an advertising perspective helped convey that television content is strongly influenced by advertisers who financially support the company. This dispelled my belief that television is purely creative since advertisers are a large part of determining the focus of production.
A colleague at NBC was instrumental in leading me into the field of production. A producer on “The Today Show” explained to me that writing pieces and finding original segments to produce was the main focus of his job. Working on a idea from its conception to its completion as a visual story on television appealed to me. I began to look into jobs and graduate schools that would allow me to become involved in the field.
As I was researching production, I became interested in reality television. The relatively new genre was under a lot of scrutiny for how “real” the shows were. I learned that producers have more creative input on reality programs than on scripted series, where writers determine the plot. After talking to friends who worked in the business, I learnt that many reality shows were really virtually scripted by producers. I had an inkling that this was true, but not to the extent that my colleagues described. One of these friends mentioned that on her reality show more difficult but still talented contestants were the first to be kicked off the competition at the behest of producers.
At this point in my studies, I want to look into what qualities make reality television so popular and how producers play the role of writers in unscripted series. Some articles of note that I found discuss how reality televisions shows do not live up to their monikers and are only quasi real. An article on MSNBC.com titled, “Just How Real are Reality TV Shows,” reports that producers might form a rough plotline for contestants to follow. From a career standpoint, producers in reality television have different responsibilities than their scripted counterpoints. The New York Times in,“ Television Fledgling Keeps it Real,” discusses the logistical difference between being a production assistant on a scripted series and on a reality program, where shooting schedules are shorter and producers create the show by editing footage into a storyline.
In order to learn how to edit footage and produce segments, I decided that going to graduate school would invigorate my creative vision while honing my technical skills. Before choosing The New School, I looked at a communications program at New York University. The program mainly taught media theory and 50% of the students went on to receive PhDs. On the opposite end of the spectrum I considered a television production program at Boston University, which focused on technical production, but didn’t offer any media theory classes. The New School’s focus on the dichotomy between the intellectual and the practical pursuit of media ultimately made me decide to enroll in the program.
Although understanding media critics and being familiar with media theorists is important, I’m interested in how understanding media theory will influence my creative and professional production of media. Telling a story through visual elements has a certain vivacity that print publications lack. I am excited to learn the technical production tools taught in the film forum tract. I’m really enjoying my media design class and am looking forward to expanding and pursuing more within film studies.
I am currently working as a production assistant on a reality competition show hoping to work my way up to having a larger hand in the production of the show. I can also see myself working on smaller more independent productions where my creative vision can be more fully realized, but I’m excited about experiencing a larger production now. Being on set has allowed me to observe the interactions between the crew, talent and directors. On a smaller production, I might have a larger say in the creative development of the show, but watching more experienced media professionals and being part of the crew is a learning process on its own.
When I started to write this paper, I reread my admission essay to remind myself how I looked at the program when applying and if those feelings have changed. My initial essay talked about my former experience and how The New School could help me develop my theoretical and practical media knowledge. Already, I have made some headway on those goals. My Media Ideas class has introduced me to Marshal McLuhan and the competing Frankfurt School. In Media Design our class is working on Photoshop and In Design followed by photography and film in the coming weeks. It is impossible to say where I will be in five to ten years. I hope to work my way up at a production company and learn how to make well thought out sellable media productions. I am positive that I will grow and learn in the field and be able to create my own media.