Blog Reflection: 4th Quarter

After completing this past fourth quarter of blogging I have made various adjustments to my blogging style. Most importantly, I have much more frequently began blogging posts that often analyze and present my critical thinking. One of my latest posts, "T.V. Segregation?", exemplifies a post that presents my beliefs on what 'segregated' T.V. networks' effect on society would be. Last quarter, when asked to do a similar reflection, I chose "Super Bowl Ads: Are They Worth it?" because that post related to class discussions of advertisement's development in America. While the post did relate to class discussion, it displayed little analyzation. This past quarter I developed more thorough analyzations in my posts, and will continue to do so in blog posts that will follow. I also maintained the principle of relating blog posts to class discussion by re-capping some of Mr. Bolos' "T.V. Tokenism" presentation and referring to it in my post.

T.V. Segregation?

Recently in American Studies class Mr. Bolos presented his views of "TV Tokenism". He led a discussion in which we discussed the limited appearance of minority groups, and also the symbolic inclusion of minorities in some network dramas solely to appear as if the shows have a diverse cast. One key point raised was that African-Americans rarely play leading roles, if ever, in network dramas. The validity of this prompted me to hypothesize why that is. Surely, there are African-Americans on television, but compared to whites, and particularly on network dramas of mainstream channels (NBC ABC and CBS) there are none playing a leading role. Take a look at the Office's cast to the left, and notice the two people of color have very minimal roles, and the third person of color plays the role of a custodian.

At the same time, channels such as BET feature all African-American casts without the inclusion of a single white. However, this is a cable channel and is not viewed nearly as much as a show on any mainstream channel, and consequently does not attract a significant white audience. Strangely enough, white audiences do seem to be attracted to shows that portray people of color as foolish or ignorant. Unfortunately, many black sitcoms portray the "silly African-American " stereotype, for instance, the Amos 'n Andy Show -- which was widely popular among whites and blacks. (That show was finally taken off the air after protests from the NAACP). The following are a few lines of script from the an episode of the show:

"Amos: We is supposed to call dis man at nine o'clock tonight. His wife say dat he wouldn't be home till 9 o'clock.
Andy: Well, yesterday when it was nine o'clock, my watch was eight o'clock an' I didn’t change de time on it. Now today dey stahted dis daylight savin' bizness so dat make my watch two hours off.
Amos: Well, den, it's ten o'clock den, aint it?
Andy: We was supposed to call de man at nine o'clock.
Amos: Den we is a hour late, aint we?
Andy: Not if de man's watch is wrong, we aint.
Amos: Dis heah's de biggest mess I done ever got in."

Andy and Amos are unable to figure out a time issue related to daylight savings. This show was characterized by such silliness, that essentially was an attempt to appeal to a larger white audience. The producers of this show knew many whites would find it humorous to portray African-Americans as ignorant and simple-minded.

We must consider as a society the effects of this television segregation. Some whites could develop a biased and racist view of minority inclusion in network dramas. These people could possibly perceive blacks as they are presented in such sitcoms and could easily be disinclined to, for example, live in an African-American community. Some whites would avoid socializing with these groups in everyday life. Because of this segregation, over time, white audiences have become comfortable seeing blacks in all-black sitcoms but not in all-black dramas, as these do not reinforce common stereotypes. By choosing to the limit the appearance of African-Americans in dramas, and include them often times in sitcoms, are these networks deliberately supporting racist beliefs? What end result do these network's actions have on our society?

Future News

Last Wednesday, many of us American Studies students attended James Fallows talk "Media and Democracy". Fallows discussed the evolution of newspapers, as companies are moving away from print and beginning to publish their news online. Fallows quoted a colleague of his that said he liked printed compared to online news because flipping through a newspaper can yield a sense of doneness. More importantly, after the evolution to online news is complete and the printed news is extinct some will have difficulty receiving news. There are many people without a computer or internet access that would be potentially unable to receive their news from an online subscription. Essentially, I believe that because not everyone can afford the most current technology they should not be unable to keep up to date with current events in our nation. However, printing companies will only work in their own best interest. Unfortunately, if they believe they have a stable amount of subscribers they will undoubtedly begin to publish online and eliminate print. This is because "for a paper the size of The Washington Post, which prints about 700,000 papers a day and 1 million on Sundays, that could be an annual savings of more than $110 million, with newsprint at $625 per metric ton and rising." Fallows also stated that in terms of costs, printing newspapers is more expensive than paying the salaries of all the newspaper's writers. Eventually companies will cut the costs of printing by eliminating printed newspapers all together, and profits would be made through the sales of subscriptions to online publications. Could this leave less fortunate people without access to news? Do these people unable to afford online publications still have a right to access some sort of "news"?

What's Over?

Having completed Junior Theme, I have realized many things about the research process and writing process as a whole. In a five to seven page paper like our junior theme, there is simply not enough room to include everything and everything about a given subject matter. I would have liked to expand upon the effects a pregnant mother has on their child before the child is even born. However, smaller unestablished paragraphs would have distracted the reader from more important points that over arched numerous subtopics. The research process could have continued for months if not years, and the short period of time we were given to research was nowhere near the time we could have spent researching our topics. Pediatricians dedicate their lives to answering a question that I attempted to answer in a seven page essay. The process could continue, researching and generating new body paragraphs or reasons for the rise in childhood obesity in America, however, this would be a book not an essay. I can appreciate the depth and significance of this problem in America, and while I have created what I believe to be good explanations, there are an unlimited number of alternative ways I could have went about answering my why question.

Junior Theme Update

In case you haven't read my last couple posts, my topic for the junior theme is childhood obesity. With the due date approaching fast, there is still lots of work to be done. My interviewee, a Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University is going to be unavailable. Conveniently for me, he offered to meet May 6th, the day before the paper is due.
Other than my interview trouble, I keep finding new subtopics within my portions of my thesis map which all could stand alone. The first reason I am outlying to explain the increase in childhood obesity is the increase in fast food consumption nationwide. Within this issue, however, I have various decisions to make. I could expand upon the unhealthiness of the foods offered at such places, write about the sudden and dramatic increase in soft drink consumption (McDonalds Coca-cola syrup sales are the highest in America), or the fast food chains being opened in high schools nationwide.

After continuing to research juvenile crime in America, I have decided to take a different route, in selecting a new topic altogether. While there are undoubtedly plenty of juveniles raised in single-parent families, this is a correlation not a causation of crime. Juvenile crime was on the rise for over 2 decades, but it hit its peak in the mid 90's. Since then, from petty crimes to violent crimes, the overall crime rate in America has plateaued. I considered researching why the crime rate has decreased since the mid 90's but wasn't too interested that approach. Contrary to male crime, female crime, in particular, violent female crime has shown a slight increase over the past twenty years. However, female crime is almost 90% of the time non-violent crime, and less than 1/5 of all crime in America. There really is no link between criminal physchology and the topic I decided to research- childhood obesity. I had considered writing about this dilemna originally as it is certainly a prevent issue in America right now. The life expectancy of children born after 2000 is shorter than that of their parents. Type 1 diabetes, once thought to be an adult only form of the disorder, is now becoming more prevalent among children. The topic is one that will hopefully assess the crisis in America, and will create reasonable solutions to this problem.

Junior Theme Update

For the last couple weeks of American Studies class, we have been researching topics of interest in a seemingly never ending attempt to create a why question. Initially I had no idea which theme my paper would be; sports, political, media, etc. I am fascinated by physcology, and came across an interesting article online about the physcology of criminals. This topic became one of interest to me, and I continued to search in the library for books that pertained to this topic. Upon further research, I read an article that presented a narrower question that I saw potential in for a "Why" question. It brought to my attention the controversy of the insanity claim. The defense used by criminals in hopes of lessening their sentence, or not facing a death penalty. However, this defense is used in less than 1% of criminal's trials, and there is no trend in recent years to further investigate, i.e., a sharp increase or decrease in the usage of this defense. Refocusing on criminal physcology I looked for a new topic within this field, with a little more relevance in the present day. I found an interesting article that over the last 30 years there has been a sharp increase in children being raised by singles parents, and that children raised by single parents make up over 70% of inmates in state junvenile detention centers serving long-term sentences. Likewise, the studies showed additional statistics that were very striking: children in single-parent families are 20 times as likely to end up in prison and 32 times as likely to run away from home. The numbers vary from source to source, but the general consensus is that we have a sharp rise in crime that is held responsible by children in single-parent families. Take away 70% of crime from America today, and are society would be much safer then it is today. This topic yields a few question I can't help but wonder; why the sharp rise in single parent families, and more importantly, why the increase in crime for these juveniles in single-parent families?