Crazy Old Aunts

This ad is for the Lung Cancer Alliance, and it's point is to make people realize that just because someone has lung cancer does not mean they "deserve" it. The advertisers portray this in what seems like an opposite fashion. They say "Crazy old aunts deserve to die" so clearly but the real message of the ad is in the smaller text that a reader has to take the time to actually focus on to see. The advertisers use the large text to catch a readers attention so that they don't flip to the next page. 

The ad uses name calling, one of the topics we covered in class recently, as a way to grab one's attention. The name calling here is calling the woman a "crazy old aunt." The ad also uses the topic we covered about a subject in an ad being captured. It's not very noticeable even though it's in the forefront, but the woman is behind the text. This confines her.

Analysis using Frith's Methodology:

The Surface Meaning: There is an elderly woman who seems to be wealthy as the main part of the ad. The woman is holding a small glass of some sort of liquid and she is wearing a fair amount of what looks like expensive jewelry as well as having a fur draped over her shoulder. There is text placed over her and the background is a neutral grey-blue.

The Advertiser's Intended Meaning: The large text in front of the woman, "Crazy old aunts deserve to die," is intended for shock value to make the reader curious and have them read the smaller text which is the real meat of the ad.

The Cultural Meaning: The ad plays on the idea that many people have that one crazy old aunt who is wealthy and confident and lives in New York and travels the world and looks down on everyone but especially likes their one niece/nephew (the intended position of the reader).

By the way, if you can't read the small text, here's what it says: "Many people believe that if you have lung cancer you did something to deserve it. It sounds absurd, but it's true. Lung cancer doesn't discriminate and neither should you. Help put an end to the stigma and the disease at NoOneDeservesToDie.org."

Multicultural Test Run

In Omerta, a mafia style international text-based MMORPG, players have been deciding to not let Turkish players join their in-game "families". This is according to Melinda Jacobs' article "Multiculturalism and Cultural Issues in Online Gaming Communities".

Jacobs' article looks at why many players don't want Turkish players in their in-game "families". She says that through surveys, players said that many of the Turkish players (though not all) didn't follow the rules laid out by the individual in-game "families" and often acted on their own, causing problems for the other players. Therefore, players stopped inviting Turkish players into their "families" because of the potential risk.

The author broke down what exactly made this discrimination against Turkish players. She looked at if this was racism or nationalism against the Turkish players, but ruled these out because the refusal of inviting Turkish players was based on their actions/potential actions rather than their race or nationality. She decided that this was culturalism, which she defines as "discrimination against the actions/nature of a person which are influenced and created by a culture's ethnocentric approach, traditional mindset, and beliefs in a specific culture/nationality." (Jacobs)

The Turkish people are a very proud people according to Jacobs, and this is part of what causes the problems in-game with the other players (along with the fact that their English skills are not very good according to one of the players surveyed). Jacobs says that the Turkish players will take something said the wrong way and act out in order to defend their pride. Defending their pride is a part of their culture, so in an online setting where acts to save that pride are not particularly smiled upon, problems occur.

The author concludes that the closest analogy of how this problem would best be worked out is this: Europeans when they visit America must abide by the rules about alcohol such as the drinking age even though in most of Europe the drinking age is between 16 and 18. In the same way, in the online game setting, players must abide by the rules of the people in charge, even if those rules are culturally different from their own.

Jacobs finishes the article off by saying that these international games online are like test runs for the ever increasing multicultural and global world we live in and that it is important to see these problems and learn to fix them now so that we can avoid conflict in the future.

Altruistic Gamers

This week, I read "Sharing Tips with Strangers: Exploring Gift Culture in Computer Gaming", a study done by Chuen-Tsai Sun (Ph.D.), Holin Lin (Ph.D.), and Chheng Hong Ho (M.A.).

This study looked at the altruistic behavior of gamers when it comes to sharing tips about games and in the case of MMORPGs, sharing equipment in-game or helping another player establish themselves in the game. The main point of study was on tips provided on message boards and from one person to another. The authors made the point that one players expertise can often get them respect and status among other players, and sharing that expertise about a game can spread their influence.

The authors noted that in online games like MMORPGs, players acts of kindness and also expertise/tip giving could be seen by others immediately, so they could therefore be recognized for their acts immediately whereas console gamers often played alone, so they were more likely to share tips online or make walk-throughs as a means of recognition. I thought this was interesting because I think that this may be true. I see help and tips for console games many places online, but there are very few (if any) tips and walk-throughs for MMORPGs- at least, I haven't ever seen any.

The authors concluded by saying that it is arguable that one is never playing a game totally alone because there are scoreboards and tips and walk-throughs which are also a big part of gaming communities.

Gaming leads to Leadership

The article "Exploring game experiences and game leadership in massively multiplayer online role-playing games" talks about how in-game leadership in MMORPGs can affect real life leadership. The authors, YeiBeech Jang and SeoungHo Ryu, surveyed 820 South Korean MMORPGers and did a study on the data they gathered.

They found that the people who played the games in groups were more likely to take leadership roles than those who preferred to play the game alone. They also found that those people who took leadership roles in-game were more likely to take leadership roles in real life.

On top of that, they found that among those who took leadership roles in-game, there was no significant difference in gender. Both men and women were equally likely to take a leadership role. The authors noted that "this [was] an interesting finding. Despite many people's stereotypes of males as dominant leaders and females as obedient followers in Asian cultures, this result acclaims that cyber worlds offer more chances of experiencing leadership regardless of gender." (YeiBeech Jang, SeoungHo Ryu)

At the end of the article, the authors made the point that MMORPGs could be used in the classroom to teach students leadership skills. Also, companies could use them as a cheaper alternative to the leadership trainings that many companies pay a lot of money to have their employees go through.

Of course there are flaws, as with everything, but the authors made some pretty good points about how leadership in-game can positively affect one's leadership in real life.

VW Happy - Superbowl Commercial

Surface Meaning:
The ad is set in an office building and begins with some people riding in an elevator and commenting that they hate Mondays. Then, One guy with an interesting accent begins responding positively to everything from massive amounts of work to office coffee, and he even has a positive attitude when the boss says things are "Looking pretty dismal." Then it cuts to a red VW bug driving down the road and pulling up at a building where a man is waiting and informs the occupants that they are late, to which the one in the back seat replies cheerfully as does the boss who it turns out is sitting in the passengers seat. the three men in the car laugh as the man who was waiting for them begins to back away as if unsure what to think of these happenings.

Advertiser's Intended Meaning:
The intended meaning is that if you drive this car (the VW bug), you will be unbelievably happy and cheerful no matter what the situation (even if you're stuck in the cage of "the daily grind").

Cultural/Ideological Meaning:

• The Jamaican accent- Jamaica is generally associated with being very laid back, care free, and happy. Dave (the main guy in this ad) has this accent because it sets him apart from the other workers. While everyone else is fretting, Dave is very content, and that is shown in the ad through his accent- an accent that later one of his co-workers, and even his boss pick up from riding in the Vw bug.
• Office workers- The ad uses a lot of "office worker troubles" like "I hate Mondays," office coffee (which I've heard is pretty yucky...), and stacks of folders on the desks with everyone in there own personalized gray box. The ad plays on these ideas of office work that society has kind of declared as what office work is actually like. (The monotonous gray boxes sound especially terrifying if you ask me.)
• The red VW bug- They chose RED! Red is a warm color, usually associated with happiness, excitement, and energy- all things that Dave enjoys supposedly because he owns his red VW bug.

Media Studies and Critical Theory Comm 403

What in the world is media studies? And is it even important? Is it relevant to the rest of the wold? What point is there in studying it anyways?

Maybe I went a little overboard on the questions, but really, some of them are pretty good questions. Not a lot of people know or understand what media studies is and what it's even here for. So, hopefully I'll be able to explain what Media Studies is and how it is relevant to the media production and consumption marketplace. I will be looking at the relevance from a critical theory perspective.

So the main question to begin with is: What exactly is media studies? Are we talking something like surfing Facebook or checking Twitter every 10 seconds? 'Cause most people have that down already. Well, yes and no to that. The definition of media studies that I find easiest to understand is this:

Media Studies

- the study of the mass media, esp. as an academic subject.

That definition doesn't cover everything, but it does get the basics. So, about the yes and no of the Twitter and Facebook statements above- I say yes because social media is becoming more and more of a part of mass media in a way; but I say no because media studies deals more on an academic level. Media studies also looks at the history of media and what effects it has had.

So, what is this critical theory stuff that I mentioned then? Critical theory "provides a better understanding [of] present social conditions." (Application of Critical Theory) Critical theory looks at society from all sorts of fields- psychology, history, economy, and sociology just to name a few. The main goal is to look at society and see how it can improve- and try to help it improve.

OK, so now that I've explained media studies and critical theory to the best of my ability, it's time to move on to the main point: How is this relevant to the media production and consumption marketplace? Well, media studies looks at the impact of mass media, and critical theory looks at how the society can improve, so the point of relevance is looking at mass media and seeing how using it can help society improve somehow. Looking at mass media can help to shape the media and change it.

So, to answer the questions at the beginning, or at least a few of them, media studies looks at the impact on the society  from mass media and it is important for shaping the media. Without taking the time to look at what works, media would be ineffective. 

The Most Important Part

Why do online games include features like a chat-box or messages? You'd think that if you're playing an awesome game, or if you're in a tight situation in game, you wouldn't want to stop and type to some random people from who knows where.

But, clearly it must be an important feature of the game, otherwise the developers would have left it out. If it wasn't an essential part of the game or the game's experience, why would it be included?

And why are there groups for people who all play the same game? Why do people go out of their way to find people who play the same game as they do?Is it really that important?

I think that, yes, it is that important. That is why this semester, I'm going to be researching the importance of the community in online gaming.