Some pictures of Uganda and Burkina Faso the idea hehind my group PSA as final project!

Mass-Media: cancerous to Africa

Western Media has devoted a great deal of its resources and energy toward painting the continent of Africa in a negative light. Africa's incalculable natural wealth, which is barely available to its populations, and her ecosystem, are endangered by the Western consumption. It goes unnoticed or is ignored by consumers that Europe, Japan, and North America and the U.S. consumes about 60% of the world's resources but has only a fraction (4.1 %) of the world's population. To westerner’s journalists Africa as a continent is reduced to nothing but place of disease, savagery, animism, war, famine, poverty, and genocides... the media favorite topics. There is much poverty in Africa and corruption but you can find the same problems everywhere. Don’t get me wrong. These are problems in Africa but there are other good news such as education and economy achievements and progresses. The media has a moral obligation to inform people more effectively. Continual denigration of Africa had fulfilled its purpose of harming not only Africans but also the western world. Africans are deprived of private investors and tourism and the westerners are not only lacking a better knowledge of Africa but are also missing on its greatest assets such as ancient civilizations and traditions.

OUTFOXED

While watching “Outfoxed” a documentary that expose the Fox News “fair and Balance” news into byes, misleading their viewers with agenda in support of republicans. For over four years, Fox News is channel that I turn on every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to bed. I am usually interested in journalist’s opinions besides just telling a story: therefore Fox news was a place where I got that. I noticed things like broadcasters calling the U.S “the world” as if no other place exist but didn’t think much of it because the viewers need to be responsible in what to believe and what not believe. Growing up in Burkina Faso, West Africa, most news we received were called “ons dis” meaning the real story plus someone else opinion. When I moved to the U.S. I realized very early on how Media is a big part of the American culture. People are easily misled because of the amount of trust and faith they have in the Media. I still and will always consider news as “on dis”, a story plus someone else opinion.

Cell Phone Jail...?

How many times have you walked by an individual and smiled and said "hello", only to find that the person is in "another world". Or how many times have you been in a restaurant and had someone sitting at a nearby table disturbing the peace by doing business on his/her cell phone? Or how many times have you seen a couple at a "romantic" dinner for two, except both are on their cell phones. Where do we "draw the line"? Before coming to United States seven years ago, I resisted buying a mobile phone. I had never used one, unable, or perhaps unwilling get one - mentally or physically I somehow knew what it was like to have one life depend on it before I even got one. Being in a country where cell phone is one form of technology, which Americans of all ages seem to handle as naturally as their wallets it was harder not t have a cell phone than to actually have one. Embarrassed of barrowing? Walking home from the mall because I couldn’t locate my friend? Missing my parents calls form Africa? Emergencies? Because all my friends had one? I don’t remember the reasons but I finally got one in 2001. At first it wasn’t bad...then my monthly bill, which suppose to be $45 a month became $72 for because of taxes and extras. I depend on my cell phone to wake up in the morning and to remind me of my appointments. After a year using my cell phone, I was always ready to even barrow money pay for it. The company wanted me to sign another contact and I did. As long as my cell phone was on, I was happy. I never misplaced it or forget at home. When spring turn off my phone once because they haven’t received a check I send in the mail, I remember trying to get an explanation with the company over the phone, I was so upset that I even started crying when they refused t put my phone back on till they get the check. I lost control of myself. Because of the lost check, I end up with $108 bill for a period of 3 months. In wondering how end up paying $108 a month instead of the $45 a month I first sign up for. I decided to end it and free myself from the cell phone jail I put myself in. But it was harder that I thought. I was ask to pay $150 to cancel the contract if not they menace to keep charging me till end of my contract. These “so-simple” cellular phone plans that the companies advocate are often quite misleading to consumers…I learn my lesson.

Posted comment on Yiruo Blog

"Voice of Image---Digital Truth

'The Real World' MTV

You know the drill: It's what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real. Which members will hook up? Which ones will hate each other? And where will they go clubbing? It has become a guilty pleasure for me to watch every season of The MTV reality shows since 2001. I like it because it has a simple but effective formula: put together seven sexy strangers in beautiful apartment where they are free from any parental authority and videotape their daily lives. Tensions abound between strangers, fights break out between contestants, and lessons are learned when each contestant tapes a confessional. It amaze me how people, usually strangers like and respect each other till they live together. By watching the real world, I wanted to see in detail what are the causes of human conflict? How long it took for each real personality to come out from these individual who live together? Basically, the same theory can apply into marriage and even into the broad subject of ethnic conflicts “You just don’t know someone until you live with that person”. Also another aspect of the show that is interesting is the fact that usually the members of the group picked to live together are completely from different background, therefore a lot issues such as discrimination, homosexuality, racism are openly discussed. To me, The Real World always feels like it’s a look of what is going on in youth culture. It is somewhat a rewarding experiment to anyone who has a little knowledge of the opposing sex or another race.

Digital Truth:The Line between improuvemt and Alteration

Growing up in the Fulani tribe, I was bombarded with manipulating photographs of young girls smiling during their wedding even though they were force into it at the fist place. Today, as a result, the ethics of manipulation - the line between "improving" an image and altering it are more vital to preserving public trust. In photojournalism the rules are clear. To alter the content of a photograph "in any way that deceives the public" is wrong, says the digital manipulation code of ethics of the National Press Photographers Association. For example, in April 2003, not long after the start of the war in Iraq, an iconic image of Saddam Hussein's statue being toppled in front of a crowd of cheering Iraqis was flashed around the news media and came to symbolize the justness of the war. Shortly after, a series of photographs started to circulate on the Web showing the same shot and several others but with a wider angle. "You could see there was no crowd," says Mr. Gross, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication. "What looked in the first reports like this joyous crowd of Iraqis was in fact a very small number in a roped-off area." That fit with reports that this was a staged event with an artificially collected group, he says. What revealed the reality was the exaggerated in image. The bottom line is that there is no true objectivity. Every photograph is a stage from the beginning to the end. When we pose or smile for a camera, it’s just not natural.

How much is too much!

The Ad and The Ego

I will never look at an ad the same way again after screening The Ad and the Ego, a documentary that examination the US culture of Media consumption and advertisement. The Ad and the Ego goes beyond simple advertisements to reveal the economic and political interest behind an ad. In our "today’s world" of advance technology and devastating pollution, individuals, political candidates and their parties, organizations and groups, and to my surprise even the government also advertise. The armed force uses ads to recruit volunteers. Special interest groups promote a cause or try to influence people's thoughts and actions. Politicians use ads to try to win votes. This film makes the critical connections between the rise of consumerism, environmental degradation and our blind commitment to economic growth at any cost. The documentary demonstrate how living in an advertisement environment creates a psychology of need, massaging our anxieties, doubts, and discontents, creating a boundless hunger for more things. In my everyday life, I come into contact with many different kinds of advertising. Printed ads are found in newspapers and magazines. Poster ads are placed in buses, subways, and trains. Signs along downtown Boston streets. Billboards dot the landscape along highways. Commercials interrupt radio and television programming. I will stop everything I am doing to turn and watch a TV. Commercial usually remind me of things I don’t have but that I need to get. I don’t think they necessary make me buy things I don’t need but I do think that ads are hunting people conscious. I consider myself, a Wise consumer. I always try to be "very conscious of the ads I see." It is impossible to avoid ads but it possible to take them out of context and see the true motivation behind them. It is amazing how this documentary somehow brings you to face reality behind today’s civilized and advance world.

Super Size Me

America is the fattest country in the world with 100 million overweight people and 400,000 individuals dying each year from obesity related ailments. Now even children are eating too much and exercising too little.
In Super Size Me, along with using himself, Spurlock examines issues of food, obesity, and advertising. Spurlock interviews lawyers, nutritionists, people struggling with their weight, and fast food employees as well as other people associated with the topic. My favorite was a man who looked as though he had just stepped out from a Christmas shop. This man is hooked on Big Macs. He eats at least two every single day. He is so well known at his favorite McDonald’s that all he has to do is hold up his hand with the appropriate number of fingers raised, and the staff knows how many Big Macs he wants. Super Size Me reveals that this man’s cholesterol is about 140. Apparently, some people can eat a steady diet of Big Macs and still be healthy. But not Morgan Spurlock. And not, I suspect, most people.
It is hardly shocking to learn that a steady diet of fast food is not healthy, and that, long term, such a diet has an adverse effect on a person. But in one month’s time? And when that person was in very good health? I was certainly shocked, and so were Spurlock’s doctors. They never dreamed that his health would deteriorate so fast. The movie showed that McDonald’s, along with other types of fast food, can directly effect a person’s health. This repetitive eating of these foods can cause cholesterol issues, liver issues, chest pains, obesity, and seem to be acting as a drug. It definitely made me think twice every time I am walk by Macdonald...

Media consumption essay

Free!

At first, I was very reluctant to keep a log of my consumption of Media through a 24 hours period. Why? Because I at the end I will be faced with the reality that I spend the majority of my time not reading anymore but watching TV.
Growing up in Burkina face, an underdeveloped country located in West Africa, news just flowed from ear to ear and the only media I was exposed to, TV, had only one channel that was broadcasted from 12 pm till 10pm. And even that, my parents did allow to watch until I turned 13 years old. Then I only watched an average of five hours of TV. I spend my time doing other things like playing soccer with my friends, doing my school work and reading with my mother. But I always wander what life woulb be like if I had 24 hours TV, with multiple channels and all to myself. It didn't take me long to found out.
When my moved to Boston seven years ago I didn't speak a word of English but I happy about having a TV with over 200 channels. I right away spend hours watching TV and I ven believe that it help me learn english faster. But even if I didn't want to admitted it, watching TV is the only thing that makes me happy and I became depressed with nothing left to do everything my cable is shut off. By writing a log about my time spend on media I found very disturbing information that I didn't include in my log. Every week I spend about 22 hours watching TV, 20 hours online chatting and listening to music. If I ever turn 70 I will have spend about 7 years of my life watching TV and chatting online. I was so frighten by the results of my log that I called my cable company to shut off my cable. As of today 10/7/05 I spend about 11 hours of my time watching TV and 13 hours online doing mostly school work. Media play a big role in Americans lives and I live in America. It is impossible not be influence by media but it is possible to limit the bad affects and take advantage of the goods.