Fashion meets function

Many famous brands such as Rag & Bone and Michael Kors have started a new trend in fashion: fingerless gloves; they are seen in many runway shows and stores. The reason for such product is that people stopped buying and wearing gloves because we are all so used to multitasking that we need to use our fingers and its not easy to use them with normal gloves. Guess what? One of the tasks that we do most of the time is texting! Therefore, famous designers found a solution to this problem by designing fashionable, fingerless gloves. There are many types of gloves that are adapted for special use such as Harris Tweed gloves for men that thumb flings back so they can use their guns (it was for men using guns, or workers) or there are "biker gloves" that are for motorcycle users. Now, as constant texting is part of our thanks to Blackberry, "texter gloves" are invented! Fashion is adapting to new technology because technology is changing the way we live, and we need other parts of our lives to be adapted to that. Fashion is not just appearance anymore; more functions are added to it, just like new functions are added to new technologies all the time.

Good Grades = Free Phones

An interesting experiment was initiated in Oklahoma city to middle school students: if they get good grades and read more books, the program called the Million, will be giving free phones with free minutes and texts. It is a very controversial promotion, since it is believed that spending time in the internet and phone causes children to read books; and now it is expected to motivate them. Using financial incentives to motivate people to work harder is a commonly used method; however, it is highly doubted if it will work for 6th or 7th graders. In my opinion, I don't believe will teach students the true habit of reading a book and studying hard, but it will get them somewhere. Turning the obstacle on the way of education into an opportunity for motivation is not a bad idea, because no matter what happens, phone addiction in teenagers are not going anywhere. If this program is going to enable students to balance their time on the phone and on school work, it will be success and everyone will reach their goals.

Religion meets new media

As media grows and becomes an inseparable part of our lives, it affects our religiousness as well. First of all, religions are part of media, which are targeted for the masses and to bring people together. The Kuran, the Bible and the Torah can be considered as media artifacts that convey the message of each religion. The new media emerged and became a place where people meet to discuss and debate religious issues. There are many websites that provide information on religion so in a way they started t replace the religious books because it is much easier to find what you’re looking for. Therefore, media is used to bridge communication gaps and encourage heterogeneous relations between people. Social networking sites help religious communities to get together and communicate. When a celebrity passes away many fans put up discussion boards and pages; internet also changed the way people grieve. There are many applications for phones about religion all serving different purposes. There are TV shows where people read the Bible and discuss it. So overall, media opened up new ways for religion to spread and reach its audience. 

Smirting

As I was observing what to pick as a media artifact, I realized I was always focusing on technology, ads, TV shows or movies. However, these media artifacts rarely enable people to come together on a personal basis. Drinking is often considered as a social tool; it brings people together, and is often served in places where people go to have fun and meet others.  I realized smoking has an even greater impact on communication, of course to those that smoke. Smirting is a modern term that means smoking and flirting outside public places where it is illegal to smoke outside. This is true; many smokers always say that they meet so many people when they go outside to smoke. Although, it is a very harmful habit, smoking does bring people together and make them communicate.  Smirting was first identified in New York in 2003, and articles titled “Smoking ban lights up love life” began to be published. In fact, this concept is so common that, one study showed 25% of Irish couples had a relationship that started while smoking outside.  Overall, cigarettes are a very widespread medium that allows people to communicate and it is a proof how media is not just limited to technology.

Why People can’t think for themselves

                  Last week in one of my classes, the professor showed us a video of Tony Robbins, in which he is lecturing the rest of the world about how to be happy and successful. The title of the video is “Why we do what we do and how we can do it better”; he gives a 20 minute speech that is suppose to motivate and inspire the audience. For those who don’t know him, Tony Robbins is a self-help author; he is the author of several self help books on enhancing relationships, overcoming fear and other similar issues.

After watching this video, I started thinking how the self-help industry has been affecting our society. I am not against people learning from media; in fact, media has a substantial part in our learning. However, I have no support for self-help books, shows or lectures, whatsoever. It’s not just that I believe they are completely worthless, I feel it also pushes people to stop thinking for their problems and coming up with their own solutions. After all, I know myself better than Tony Robbins’ generalized comments. It should also be noted that Robbins is not licensed in any psychological sciences; so, what really makes Robbins superior than the rest of us? He wrote a book on how to make a marriage last a lifetime, and then he divorced his wife and got married to his girlfriend who is half his age. I don’t want to make any judgmental comments about his personal life, but as he’s not a trained professional, who would want help on marriage from a divorced person?

                Tony Robbins is just an example of the rapidly growing self help industry. There are self help books about anything in bookstores.  On TV there are reality shows that people join to face their challenges and the so-called experts on life help them get better.  Maybe there are people that find these books, shows or seminars helpful and inspiring; however, I just believe the industry manipulates people’s problems and makes it even worse by not giving them a chance to be strong enough to figure it out by themselves. 

TV and Tourism

Countries have been using media as a way to promote themselves and attract tourists; hotels and airlines have been using it massively. However, there is much more influence other than direct marketing to tourism than we realize. It happens all the time; a certain scene of a popular movie takes place in some restaurant, and that place starts booming. Either intentional or not, movies and TV shows affect tourism a lot. It determines the tourist profile that visits those places. For instance, I just came across a video about how Turkish soap operas have been affecting tourism in Istanbul, especially from the Islamic regions.

 Recently, many of Turkish shows have been shown in Middle Eastern countries; and since then, tourism from those countries increased highly. It is a hugely growing trend; many of these tourists never been to Turkey before but lately all the flights are full and hotels are packed. The video has interviews of people about how they decided to visit Istanbul and they all give similar answers saying that they’ve been seeing it on TV and considered it would be nice to see the country themselves. Those TV shows proved that they would be comfortable in the country since the culture is very similar but also more liberal. None of the other mediums portrayed Turkey to tourists the way those shows did. You cannot get that kind of information from the web, newspapers or travel agencies. TV is a culturally subjective medium, and it is different in each country. It has a substantial effect on people relative to other media; and it definitely has an indirect influence on the travel industry as well.

Is American culture obsessed with alcohol?

Portrayal of alcohol in media has a lot of influence on people and their drinking habits; media tells people when and what to drink. For instance, have you ever paid attention to the number of beer ads on tv, especially if a football game is on? They are repetitive and keep increasing in number. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with reaching the target market a business is aiming for.  But with continuingly streaming media, it is becoming much more than selling a product to the customer. It is affecting customer’s habits; today, people cannot watch a sports game without having a beer. This did not just happen because people who watch sports are also people who drink beer. Beer became a must have for some occasions. Think of barbeque parties as well; there’s always beer served.  There’s an alcoholic beverage that suits almost every occasion.  How did alcohol become a celebration drink? Weddings, birthdays, college parties or any event that celebrates something does it by serving alcohol.

On the other hand, many people discuss that too much emphasis is on positive aspects of drinking when negative effects are disregarded by media. You can’t expect any ad to show negative sides of a product. However, whether it is bad or not, American culture has become obsessed with alcohol and media has a big part in this. There’s nothing wrong about having alcohol ads on TV; the obsession factor comes in when the number of them increase and start affecting people more than convincing them to buy their products.  And, this is not just true for TV commercials, movies and TV shows do an indirect marketing of alcohol by portraying the glorified fun that comes by drinking. Overall, there’s barely any media that you cannot see alcohol.