mediaareplural

[mediaareplural]

Representation in Media

Greetings all!  I’d like to take a moment to discuss representation in media.  Now, you may be asking yourself, what does ‘representation’ mean?  Well, when I say ‘representation’ I am referring to how certain groups of people are represented in media.  In Understanding the Media, Devereux reminds the reader that “...while media content does not equate with social reality, it is essential that we critically examine how media content represents, or more accurately, as Hall (1974) notes, ‘re-presents’, the realities (and inequalities) involved in social, economic, and political relationships.”  There are five types of stereotypes used to represent people in media. Gendered stereotypes one of the most used stereotypes in media.  In our society, we have constructed a binary stereotype system that contrasts masculinity and femininity.  In general, the masculine stereotype is related to power, significance, and strength while the feminine stereotype is related to passiveness, limited control, and powerlessness.  One great example of this gendered stereotype is the old 1950′s and 60′s tv show, ‘Leave it to Beaver’.  In this show, June Cleaver is always shown as the submissive housewife who obeys everything her husband tells her.  Ward Cleaver is the perfect husband and father who always comes home from work to eat the dinner that his wife has cooked for him.  This tv show was meant to display what the perfect American family should look like.  Another stereotype used in media is the active/passive stereotype.  This stereotype depicts men as being active, playing sports, using tools, or driving vehicles.  Women tend to be depicted as more passive, doing cooking or cleaning, or doing things with children.   Often in ads for Swiffer, Dawn, or Febreze a woman is seen using the product, subtly implying the passive stereotype.  The third stereotype that can be seen in media is the public/private stereotype.  Although this stereotype is being challenged in many new media content, women are sometimes still represented as being caregivers while men are seen as the family providers.  The logical/emotional stereotype depicts men to be much more logical than emotional, and women to be the opposite.  Besides the gender split, media also tend to relay to their audiences that being emotional is a flaw.  One great example of this is in Star Trek.  Spock is a logical character who appears to be void of any emotion. His logic and lack of emotion seems to save the day on multiple occasions, implying that being emotional is a drawback and should be avoided in order to succeed.  The final stereotype that is often represented in media is the sexual subject/sexual object stereotype.  This stereotype, as well as all the others I have already mentioned, is overwhelmingly heteronormative.  It depicts men as sexually powerful and “in charge” and women as available and sexually submissive.  This stereotype is also used in media to depict women as sexual objects and not as people at all.  Ellen Degeneres points out this ridiculous stereotype in a hilarious segment on her tv show, perfectly parodying what this stereotype is really doing.  Media representations sadly so not usually depict reality, yet media content creators continue to use them as a way to convey a message or to sell a product.

[mediaareplural]

Media Ownership

Hey there pals!  Let’s take a moment to talk about media ownership and why it is important.  Media ownership is overwhelmingly a private practice that is mainly maintained by media conglomerates.  In Understanding the Media, Devereux explains that “[g]iven the increasingly privatized nature of media ownership and the predominance of multimedia conglomerates focused primarily on profit-making, it is essential that we ask: whose version of the world do we hear about in media content?”  All media conglomerates have their own ideologies so we can never be receiving a completely non-biased approach to any media content we consume.  All media content has some type of message it is conveying, whether it is intentional or not.  Because of this privatized media ownership, I can say with 100% certainty that some views and opinions are being completely ignored and will never be covered in the media content we consume due to their unprofitable nature.  We can break down the different patterns of media ownership into four parts: concentration, conglomeration, integration, and multinationalism.  The pattern of concentration refers to the media and entertainment industry and how it is all basically owned by a few companies.  This oligopoly on the entertainment industry makes it nearly impossible for other companies to have competing media content.  A good example of a media and entertainment oligopoly would be the oligopoly on online media streaming.  Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and YouTube are the four main online streaming services and are basically the only websites that offer streaming services.  The second pattern found with media ownership is conglomeration.  A conglomeration is the practice of accumulating multiple media businesses.  Conglomerations can be dangerous because they could very easily lead to monopolies.  One perfect example of this entertainment conglomeration is Disney.  Disney creates their own media content and owns many other entertainment businesses such as Pixar, ABC, and ESPN, just to name a few.  They have also bought many entertainment franchises including the Star Wars franchise and the Marvel franchise.  But, recently we have found out that Disney is not content with everything they own considering they just closed a $52 billion deal with 21st Century Fox.  The third pattern that can be seen in media ownership is integration.  Integration refers to the concept of companies having branches that are strategically interrelated.  A great example of integration would be Netflix (again).  Not only does Netflix stream content from various producers, but they now produce their own content as well.  Netflix has branches in streaming as well as production and distribution.  Multinationalism is the final pattern of media ownership.  This pattern is described as the presence of a corporation in multiple countries.  Disney is a great example of multinationalism as well.  Disney operates in multiple countries around the world including India and China.  Since we have varying regulatory policies on media, Disney needed to partner with national media companies in order to operate within the various countries.  It is important to understand how media ownership works so we can understand that our view on the world is most likely incredibly filtered.

Photo cred: https://www.freepress.net/diversity-media-ownership

[mediaareplural]

Artificial Intelligence and the Future

I’m going to be honest with you, the rapidly increasing creations of artificial intelligence terrifies me to my very core.  The idea that people have created computers that can replicate how humans think disturbs me and makes me think that we are not too terribly far away from certain science fiction stories.  In Media/ Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences, the authors remind their readers that “[g]iven the technological sophistication of our media, its importance in communications, and its widespread utilization by broad segments of the population, we should not be surprised that discussions of media technology often emphasize the awesome power of the newest media to affect society.” Usually, when we see articles and videos about artificial intelligence, they discuss how amazing the advancements are and how the technology will improve society in the future. Unfortunately, I always feel an overwhelming sense of dread about what the future holds for humanity.  We appear to be advancing so fast that we could be forgetting potential problems that would arise with the integration of artificial intelligence in society.  One example of this rapid advancement is the AI robot named Sophia.  Sophia is the first robot to be awarded citizenship to a country, and she is quite honestly one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen.  The robot can interpret visual and audible information which allows it to carry on a conversation with a person.  My concern is that since we have created something that can think on its own, it has the potential of deciding that humans are no longer essential beings on the earth.  Although I am terrified of what artificial intelligence could be, there are some positive outcomes of integrating this technology into our society. Specifically in the medical field, artificial intelligence could be an incredibly useful tool for us.  We could use AI robots to help diagnose conditions or help treat patients who have a disease that other humans should avoid contact with. This leads to other concerns including the thought that artificial intelligence could replace all jobs that humans currently have.  This job takeover has already begun to an extent with self-driving cars. Self-driving vehicles could replace all taxi drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers, and even bus drivers, which would create a massive shift in the job market and make thousands of people unemployed. The scary part is that this job takeover would not stop there.  Even through the use of self-checkouts at grocery stores, we are essentially creating a space in which artificial intelligence could take over, replacing even more thousands of job losses.  Just stop and imagine a world in which computers and AI robots run all businesses and companies.  Where does that leave humans?  What would we do if we didn’t have jobs?  How would we make money?  Humans would have no purpose in life and would be essentially useless to the world once technology runs everything.  Artificial intelligence would be able to upgrade and advance itself.  If this hypothetical world becomes a reality, the only way we would be able to remain a species would be to advance ourselves. We would have to find a way to transfer our consciousness into a technological body, and I am not ready to confront that existential wormhole.

[mediaareplural]

Net Neutrality and the Public Sphere

On December 14th the FCC officially voted to repeal net neutrality, and since the fight to keep it is not over, I’d like to take some time to discuss what it is.  Net Neutrality is the concept that the Internet service providers (ISPs) need to treat all information and websites the same.  ISP’s aren’t allowed to discriminate against content, users, or websites for any reason.  It is important that we preserve net neutrality because it protects our right to freely surf the web and access whatever website or content we wish to view.  It also preserves our right to the public sphere that the Internet provides us with.  According to Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture a public sphere is defined as “a space - a physical place, social setting, or media arena - in which citizens come together to debate and discuss the pressing issues of their society.”  People exercise their first amendment right of free speech through public spheres, which is why they are so important.  This means if we lose net neutrality, we would lose the ability to have public spheres on the Internet.  Not everyone would have equal access to the public spheres provided by the Internet.  People use public spheres to have discussions and debates, both mature and immature, about various social issues, so to take that away from Internet users would be a violation of our first amendment rights.  Twitter is a great example of a website that creates a public sphere because it is free for all to use.  People are allowed to voice their opinions and view the opinions of others freely on this website.  Jürgen Habermas, a German theorist, “saw the public sphere as a group of ‘private’ persons who could assemble to discuss matters of common ‘public’ interest in ways that mediated the power of the state.”  People who use Twitter often write opinions about current political and social issues one of which, funnily enough, is the FCC vote on net neutrality.  There have been people who believe that a public sphere could never actually exist, though.  Walter Lippmann, a social commentator from the 1920′s, thought “that the public sphere was nothing more than a ‘phantom’ - that it was not possible for average citizens to keep abreast of political issues and events and give them due consideration given the chaotic pace of industrial society.”  To an extent, I agree with him.  I do believe public spheres exist on the Internet, something Lippmann could not have predicted way back in the 1920′s, but there is something to be said about it being impossible to keep up with political issues.  Especially in today’s political climate, it seems to be nearly impossible to keep up with every political concern that arises.  I constantly find myself learning about political issues days after the issue first came about.  It is incredibly difficult to be aware of all political issues, but losing net neutrality would make this even more impossible than it already is.  ISP’s would be able to slow or block your access to certain content or websites, potentially muting certain political issues.

Photo cred: https://phone2action.com/blog/2017/future-net-neutrality-potential-advocacy-opportunities/

[mediaareplural]

The Commodity Self

Howdy hey and welcome back! Let’s take a moment to discuss what it means to have a commodity self.  A person’s identity is constructed partially through social interactions and how others view them in social situations.  Children learn their social standing in the world through social interactions with their family members and their peers.  One main way an individual defines themselves is through the media they consume.  In Practices of Looking: An Introductioin to Visual Culture, the authors mention theorist Louis Althusser and how he describes this phenomenon as interpellation, which is “the way that images and media texts seem to call out to us, catching our attention.”  For example, some people are compelled to sit down and watch a reality tv show, while others may be more interested in watching the local news or reading an autobiography.  People begin to define themselves by the media they are drawn to, and start to seek out social groups based on the media they are interested in.  Since one of the natural human needs is for belonging, it only makes sense that people would search for others who are drawn to the same media that they are.  As I am at the ripe age of nineteen, I have been exposed to a massive amount of media commodities in my lifetime, which have shaped my identity.  Growing up during the major technological changes of the 2000’s made it easy for me to adapt to learning how to use new technologies that baffled older generations. I learned how to use cassette tapes and VHS tapes at the age of two, and expanded that knowledge to DVDs and Blu-rays as the years went on.  Now, I have many technological commodities of my own such as a cell phone, laptop, Nintendo 3DS, and a Kindle, along with an extensive DVD collection.  In Practices of Looking: An Introductioin to Visual Culture, the authors explain that “we construct our identities, at least in part, through the consumer products that inhabit our lives,” which explains why I partially define myself by the technologies that I have access to. Throughout high school, I felt as though I was an outcast because I did not have a smartphone.  During my freshman year, smartphones were only owned by people whose families were wealthy enough to afford them, but that quickly changed.  By my senior year of high school, I was one of the few people in my class who did not have a smartphone.  Because of this, I stood out like a sore thumb and no longer fit into the social groups I used to be in.  This proves that owning certain commodities define our identities, whether or not we are in control of what commodities we have access to.  The websites and apps I use also determine my commodity self. Being on the younger end of the millennial spectrum, I easily fit into multiple demographics.  On one hand, I am an adult who uses e-mail for professional communication and watches Netflix practically every day.  But on the other hand, I am still a teenager who uses apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on a daily basis.  The use of these various sites puts me in different demographics, thereby splitting my commodity self and uniting it simultaneously. Media theorist Stuart Ewen describes the commodity self as “the idea that our selves, indeed our subjectivities, are mediated and constructed in part through our consumption and use of commodities.”  People my age, myself included, mediate ourselves based on what app we are using. For example, who I am on Instagram is a different persona than the one I portray on Twitter.  Not only do I use the apps for different purposes and to reach different audiences, but the layout of each app is unique, so it is nearly impossible to use them in exactly the same way.  I use Instagram as a photo sharing social media platform, allowing my friends a tiny window into my life.  Twitter is what I use when I want to comment on social injustice, relatable situations, or simply to share a quick anecdote.  People can easily change who they want to be with the different commodities they wish to use.  Another form of commodities that I use to define my commodity self is the various content that I consume.  For example, I am interpellated by YouTube videos, movies, and television shows. The types of movies I am drawn to are Marvel movies, Disney movies, action, thrillers, and dramas.  Some television shows that I watch that define myself by are Criminal Minds, Parks and Recreation, Doctor Who, and Stranger Things, among others.  Part of the reason I define myself by these commodities is because there are either characters that I relate to personally or there are characters that I empathize with. Movies and television shows are important to me because I find the reality within them, and connect that to my life.  I even quote various television shows and movies on a daily basis, which has become a personality trait of mine.  With every television program or movie I watch, I go in as one person and come out a different one; I become someone with a better perspective on life and have a new understanding of the world around me.  One of the main ways people learn about new commodities is through the advertisement of them to the public.  As the authors of Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture point out, people are often drawn to advertisements because they “present an abstract world, often a fantastic one, that is situated not in the present but in an imagined future.”  This can be clearly seen in the way Marvel movies are advertised.  There are many factors that go into the advertising of something as broad as a franchise of movies, one of which is the ideology of gender norms. Sturken and Cartwright mention that “societies function by naturalizing ideologies, making the complex production of meaning take place so smoothly that it is experienced as a ‘natural’ system of value or belief. For example, it is widely accepted, yet rapidly changing, that boys like superheroes and girls like princesses. Therefore, the advertising pushes the ideas of violence and action to try to attract a male audience. Even in the composition of shots in particular movies, it can be clearly seen that certain angles are used to portray women in a specific light during the course of the film.  One example of this can be found in the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  In the scene linked above, Black Widow is fighting her way onto a cargo ship where she and Captain America must save some hostages.  As an audience, we get to watch as she fights all the bad guys on the ship, empowering women in the process.  But then, all that female empowerment is shattered when Black Widow knocks a guy out with a pole, and we are given a clear view of her behind, perfectly centered in the frame, for an uncomfortable amount of time.  As previously discussed, these movies are advertised with men in mind, and scenes like this should not come as a surprise. However, the use of gender norms to advertise superhero movies is rapidly changing, so it is disappointing to see that degrading images such as this one can still be found in films that should be intended for everyone.  Another ideological framing that has rapidly changed in the advertising of Marvel movies is the representation of diverse races and cultures.  In the 2012 film The Avengers, the audience can easily recognize that all members of the main cast, aside from S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury, are white.  All other cultures were vastly underrepresented in this film, which was unfortunate to see.  However, in Marvel’s newer films, such as Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War, move diverse characters are being introduced into the film franchise.  In fact, in February of next year, Marvel is releasing Black Panther, which has an almost entirely black cast.  Not only does this ideological shift in advertising tell people that Marvel is accepting of all cultures and ethnicities, but they are also widening their consumer net by including characters in the universe that more demographics can relate to.  Sometimes fans need to negotiate the meanings of commodities they associate themselves with, so as to enjoy the product that is being presented to them without having their mind clouded with other aspects of that commodity.  I am a fan of Disney’s animated movies, and have been since I was a child.  Both the old and new movies mean a lot to me because they remind me of my childhood and take me away from the realities of life for a period of time.  Over time, I have adapted my understanding of the movies and the significance they hold in real-world situations.  Anthropologist Claude Lèvi-Strauss describes this phenomenon with the French term bricolage, which is “a mode of adaptation in which things (mostly commodities) are put to uses for which they were not intended and in ways that dislocate them from their normal or expected context.”  For example, the film Atlantis: The Lost Empire had a very different meaning to me as a child than it does to me now.  As a kid, I always thought the movie was about going on an adventure and Milo and Kida meeting and falling in love.  Now that I am an adult, though, I recognize the film’s themes that question capitalism and the ethics of archaeology. This film calls its audience’s attention to the reality of what the characters are doing and how some people have hidden agendas in situations that can occur in the real world.  Bricolage plays an important part in negotiating the meanings of commodities.  Another way I have had to negotiate the content of animated Disney movies is by looking past all of the work that goes into making an animated film.  While sitting on my couch, curled up in a blanket enjoying The Little Mermaid or Zootopia, I never take a step back to consider the long, painstaking work that has gone towards the end result of the film I am watching.  Animators spend countless hours drawing each frame of a scene or digitally adjusting each movement, depending on if the film is hand-drawn or computer-generated, and most likely spend days working on a five second span of one scene.  The amount of energy and time that Disney employees put into a movie surmounts the run time of the final version of the film. But, to me and many other general audience members, these films are just a great way to relax.  I negotiate the meaning of Disney films because I want them to have the same meaning they had when I was a naïve child, and thus I have to ignore and repress the idea that people most likely cried over the difficulty of making the animation flow smoothly.  It is much easier for me, as a member of the audience, to remove myself from the harsh realities of life and the truth about the difficulties people face.  Also, while appreciating the animated content in front of me, I never stop to think about the horrific original fairy tale the film is based on.  Most of the stories Disney produces are based on old fairy tales from a variety of countries, but they have to be modified in order to make the films safe for children to watch.  For example, in the original Cinderella fairy tale, Cinderella’s step-sisters attempt to try on the glass slipper but their feet are too big, so they saw off their toes in an attempt to force their feet into the slipper and marry the prince. Later in the story, during Cinderella’s wedding, the step-sisters get their eyes pecked out by ravens.  Disney clearly needed to skirt around these images in order to keep their G-rating. Even though I have this knowledge as an adult, I generally do not think about how the story is meant to go, according to the Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Andersen, while watching the Disney version of the story.  I negotiate the meaning of these films because it is easier to enjoy the safe version of a beloved story I know well than it is to realize the harsh and violent realities of the source material.

[mediaareplural]

How Electronic Media Affect Social Life

Hello fellow media critics!  Let’s take a look at how electronic media are impacting social life and how people interact with each other in today’s society.  Social media websites have caused a major shift in how people socialize with each other.  Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat allow people to communicate in an instant across states, countries, and oceans, thereby eliminating any distance that would normally be a barrier to communication.  Snapchat is one of the best examples of how drastically communication has changed.  On Snapchat, people are able to send short picture or video messages to each other, allowing them the ability to visually communicate much easier than with any other communication technology.  Before the creation of the telephone, the only way the general public was able to communicate across any significant distance was through hand-written letters. Once the telephone was readily available for all to use, communication was forever changed.  Individuals were now able to speak directly to other people no matter the distance between them.  This revolutionary invention became society’s main form of communication for many years, until the advent of social media websites.  Over time, people began to realize that instant messaging was far more convenient than talking to someone on the phone.  Nowadays, people have access to these websites wherever they go, meaning fast communication is all around us.  Along with the rise of social media comes the unfortunate reality that people have become much more focused on themselves and less willing to socialize.  Just twenty years ago, students would socialize between classes as well as before and after school, but now students keep to themselves, scrolling on social media feeds and completely unaware of their surroundings.  The rapidly deteriorating social skills in people today due to the constant access to the internet and social media websites is concerning on its own.  Sadly, though, there are other concerns that social media websites bring about.  One major problem mentioned in Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences is that “the Internet blurs the distinction between individual and mass audiences, and replaces the one-to-many model of traditional mass media with the possibility of a many-to-many web of communication.”  Traditional mass media, like radio and television, were always used to reach a mass audience, but now the internet, and especially social media platforms, offer an outlet that anyone can produce content on and choose the audience they wish to reach, thus bending the meaning of mass media.  In Understanding the Media, Devereux reminds the reader that “[a]lthough many early new media theorists heralded the advent and spread of the internet as being a great leveler… the reality is somewhat different.”  In addition, the use of social media allows people to create different versions of their life.  It is common for individuals to post content on their social media accounts that reflects only the most positive, interesting aspects of their life. Whether intentionally or not, this alters how people experience reality and skews the audience’s view on what a person’s life is really like.  This also creates an overwhelming societal envy that is difficult to combat.  People become obsessed with gaining likes and followers and have the compelling need to prove their worth on these sites. Social media create an arena in which users compete to prove their excellence, a problem that was not a concern twenty years ago.

Photo cred: http://www.snapchat.com

[mediaareplural]

Filter Bubbles and Fake News

Hi again!  Let’s take a moment to talk about fake news stories and how filter bubbles affect them.  Filter bubbles are a major issue in the current political climate because they block out any information that may conflict with your opinions.  This is a significant problem for our society because it creates a false reality that people can easily live in through their social media consumption. It is bad enough that people have the ability to limit what they see to avoid any information that conflicts with their own views but, to make things worse, some have taken to creating fake news stories to trick social media users.  Fake news stories and clickbait articles are meant to affirm people’s views by either omitting the truth or changing the story completely.  People are finding that it is incredibly easy to create and publish these stories because the internet has moved to a system that is concerned about maximizing profit.  In Understanding the Media, Devereux says that “[l]egitimate concerns have been voiced about the negative relationship between concentrated ownership and the diversity of opinions evident within media content”, which further explains how people are able to post fake news stories. If websites are concerned with profit and how many views they receive, they are often not concerned with moral integrity.  This is similar to the concept that “any publicity is good publicity”; as long as their website is getting views, they do not care what the content is that is helping them profit.  Because of this lack of integrity, people can easily be lead to these false stories through their filter bubbles.  One of the best examples of how filter bubbles and fake news stories affect social media users and the overall political climate is the overwhelming use of these false stories during the 2016 presidential election.  Social media users often encountered news articles about either Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, usually negative stories that promoted liberal or conservative ideas against the opposing party.  People began to see these absurd articles on their news feeds, and while some believed every story, others were suspicious.  Sadly, though, many users did not recognize which stories were real and which were false because they were blinded by their closed-minded views on the world.  People who had filter bubbles on their social media were especially affected by these fake news stories since they only saw articles that promoted their political views.  These people fell victim to deception and helped promote websites that profited on their ignorance.  And, due to their ignorance, some even shared the stories on their social media accounts, allowing more people to fall for the trap.  In Understanding the Media, Devereux claims that “…[Media] companies produce and sell in the first instance allow for audiences to freely share media content”, this is why it is so easy for individuals to find and share false information without realizing it is fake.  Social media users need to be aware that these fake stories are most likely on their news feeds and they need to critically think about the article they are reading.  Fact checking sources and looking to see if there are other reliable articles about the topic will ensure that the news story is real and accurate.  It is important for social media users to be vigilant about the news stories they consume and to broaden their perspective on the world.  We cannot understand a political concern until we look at it from multiple angles and perspectives.

Photo cred: https://www.yrcharisma.com/2017/10/09/the-clickbait-problem-social-media-disaster/

[mediaareplural]

Media are an Institution

Hey there! Today I’d like to discuss media and how important they are as an institution.  First of all, let’s talk about what exactly an institution is.  Institutions are mechanisms of society that are created to maintain order and promote acceptable behaviors.  Clearly media fit that definition because they are used to inform society on how to behave, as well as how to interact with others.  Television is a perfect example of this since writers can easily craft a script that enforces certain ideals and morals.  In Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, the authors bring up television studies scholar, Timothy Havens, who claims that “... [television] professionals base their decisions not on audience tastes but on institutional incentives.”  This can especially be seen in children’s tv shows like Sesame Street, since the moral messages that they convey to their audiences are often quite explicit.   In the above clip, Gordon is reading a story about two men who copy everything the other does in order to explain to their young viewers how important it is to be yourself.  In American culture, it is an institutional incentive to be unique, so the Children’s Television Workshop decided that this message was important to convey to their viewers.   Another important aspect of media as an institution is the reinforcement of discourses supported in society.  So, let’s quickly explain what discourses are.  Discourses reflect particular ideological positions or social practices.   With television, it is easy to support certain discourses through the script for each episode.  In the Sesame Street clip, you can see that the Children’s Television Workshop supported the discourse that conformity is not productive in society.  One of the struggles of media as an institution is that many media producers are under the assumption that their viewers are not likely to act on the messages they are attempting to convey.  In fact, in Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, the authors state that “…many approaches to media regard viewers as passive if not gullible recipients of media systems and messages.”  For adult viewers this can be the case, but it is much easier to get children to act on a message. These actions could be a result of television writers being much more explicit with a younger audience.  Children are impressionable, and are often very willing to learn how to function in society.  Since children tend to imitate what they see and hear, they are much more active media consumers than most adults are.  For example, in the Sesame Street clip about conformity, children listen to what Gordon tells them about the importance of being yourself and, in effect, are much more likely to follow his advice than if a teacher or parent were to tell them. Media are a powerful institution for communicating a message because the audience receives a form of the message from whatever they are consuming.   Conversely, this leads into the concept of how people may receive a message and interpret it differently from the intended message.  Stuart Hall introduced the terms ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ in the context of comprehending a specific message from any given medium.  Hall claims that since a message must travel through a technical infrastructure, relations of production, and frameworks of knowledge, there is likely to be some form of miscommunication or misunderstanding of the original meaning.  This is not necessarily an undesirable scenario, as it allows the audience to form their own opinions of the message being conveyed and of the medium as a whole. The Sesame Street clip could, therefore, have different meanings to the various members of its audience.  Younger children may think the skit is about copying people they know in order to figure out who they are.  Whereas older children may see the more explicit meaning of embracing who you are and being yourself.  Being allowed multiple perspectives allows our society to be free and open to new concepts and ideas.