RGM post 8

The other day I gave a presentation for another class, and in the powerpoint we had a picture of the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. I didn't really look at the cover or read any of the headlines at all, but a friend asked me if I had seen one of the articles that was on the cover. I hadn't because I was so focused on giving the presentation. But the cover read "The #1 thing men are good for besides you know".  My friend was laughing at it until she said, "Imagine if that was on a men's magazine and it read 'the #1 thing women are good for besides you know'. People would absolutely freak out if that was on a men's magazine.

People would say that men were once again objectifying women and viewing them as a sexual object rather than human beings. The magazine would suffer because of the outcry it would cause, and the writer would likely be out of a job.

My point here is, it's funny when it's on a women's magazine cover, but it's awful if men were to say the exact same thing about us. We talk about there being double standards all the time and how things need to be different. But how is this double standard okay?

This makes me pretty angry actually. We talk all the time about how men view us and how awful they are. But in reality, we are no different than they are, and because we are women objectifying men it's perfectly okay and funny.

I'm not trying to argue that men should be allowed to objectify women, but with covers like the one I'm referring to, how can we say anything at all. When we are doing these stupid things, we have no right to get upset if and when they do the same things. Yet, I guarantee the same women that were laughing at this cover would be the first ones to get upset and make a big deal out of it if it were on a men's magazine.

We talk a lot about how things should change in this class, but from my point of view, it's not at all one sided. Sure, there are problems, but I have to argue that all of these problems do not come from  a bunch of "white males who are in charge of everything". I guarantee a man didn't make that Cosmopolitan cover.

I guess I am playing devil’s advocate here, and I’m sure a lot of people see nothing wrong with the cover. I didn’t until I really started to think about how much of a double standard was there. I think we women should be held accountable for what we say about men just as much as we try to hold men accountable for the things they say about us.


I just think that people need to be more objective about the things that they get offended about. Yes, I think it would be offensive to see a title like this on a men's magazine. But it should offend me just as much to see it on a women's magazine if I want anything to change at all.

RGM post 7

I absolutely love Disney. I love the stories and songs and the magic of it. But I realize that the portrayal of women anger many people. They are shown as damsels in distress many times. However, in recent years they have gotten much better in my opinion. Mulan tells the story of a woman going to war for her father. Brave's Merida has no interest in being married and wants to make her own way. In Frozen, the true love is love between sisters and the main male character isn't the hero.

While I love all of these movies, I love the older ones as well! I actually like the romantic idea of women being swept off of their feet. Maybe not in the same way as the movies show, but I am perfectly fine with the men being shown as the strong ones. Men are built stronger than we are, but that's not to say that women aren't strong too. I feel like Disney does a pretty good job of showing that women are more than just weak creatures waiting to be rescued because they are incompetent and have no minds of their own.

I think Disney has also done better recently portraying different races. Pocahontis, Mulan, Tiana, Jasmine and Merida are just a few examples, but most of the stories are set in different parts of the world. And the characters I just named are just princesses. There are other stories that Disney has told with different races and cultures.

I know and accept that there is still room for improvement, but my opinion is that they have done a pretty good job so far. The older movies have less diversity, but you have to think of the time when the movies were made.

I also kind of feel like people tend to look at the bad and focus on that, but pay little or no attention to the good things. Not just with Disney, but with life in general. I fell like sometimes people try to find the bad in things instead of looking for the good. Instead of seeing all of the good things Disney has done, people want to get upset about the characters they chose to write movies for. Honestly, I tend to feel like people are too sensitive.

Now that’s not to say that I am excusing things, because that’s the furthest thing from my mind. I want to see things change just as much as the next person. But the thing I’ve seen is people getting all mad and expressing these opinions but never acting on it. They want the change but they won’t do anything to help that change to come about.

In order for anything to change, people have to listen to each other and cooperate instead of getting themselves all worked up and nothing ever comes of it. The end of this blog has nothing to do with Disney really, but this is what I think is actually important.

RGM post 6

In class last week we talked a little bit about the Always "Like a Girl" commercial. I have loved this commercial every time I've watched it. It shows the difference between young girls' and teen girls' views of what "like a girl" means. When the older girls were asked to do things like a girl, they did the actions weakly and clearly not in their full strength. But when the younger girls were asked to do things like a girl, they did them to the best of their ability.

One thing that struck me was the little boy in the mix. When he was asked if he had insulted his sister, he was taken aback because he hadn't thought about it that way. He knew it was insulting to girls, but he didn't think about it being insulting to his own sister.

My favorite part about the ad is when the girls are given a second chance to do things like a girl. Their attitudes have changed and they want to do things better. I think that society has really played on the fact that girls are not as strong as men maybe. They've taken something true, that we are girls, and made it a bad thing. They've made it seem like being a girl means that we are weak and can't do things well. And that's simply not the case.

Being a girl is not something that hinders me in any way, but it's so easy to believe things like that when you're younger. Yes, I do things like a girl. That's because, surprise, I am a girl. I'm not weak or incompetent. I know my limitations, and my strengths. I just wish that young girls weren't so bombarded all the time with ads and shows that focus on their looks or personalities.

This goes back to the week that we watched the documentary about women and ads, and how they're all around us and how much they must affect younger girls.

Another thing that I can’t help but think about when it comes to these topics is the movie Mona Lisa Smile. The movie focuses on the fact that in that time period, girls focused on getting married and running their households. Yes, they went to college. But most women didn’t do anything with the degree they worked so hard for. And I am not at all against women who run their homes and stay home with the children. That is a noble job itself. But in the movie, it was what was expected of them so that’s what they did.

The girls who wanted to actually pursue a career were looked down upon. It was a time when having a brain meant next to nothing. We have come a long way since then, and I’m really happy that I’m not expected to be married by the time I graduate. I’m glad that I have my family’s full support in wanting to have a career and chase after my dreams.

RGM Post 5

Something that has been getting some attention in the media lately is Jennifer Lawrence and her stance against unequal pay in Hollywood. She recently wrote an essay for Lena Dunham's newsletter addressing the huge gap in the pay of men and women in Hollywood.

Other actresses (Emma Watson, Elizabeth Banks, and Sienna Miller) have backed her up on Twitter and other media outlets showing their support. The thing that I like about what is going on, is that instead of sitting back and seeing the problem but doing nothing, these women are fighting for what they want to change.

While I do think that actors and actresses make a ridiculous amount of money to begin with (which makes her problem almost non-relatable), the fact that even big name stars are dealing with the same inequality that other women are dealing with is startling but almost heartening. It's just not something that I have given much thought I guess.

Another cool thing is that one of her male co-stars, Bradley Cooper, is supporting her and telling her to know what she is worth and to not back down in her negotiating when getting parts for movies.

But these people are influencers. And they can get the message out there much easier than I could. And there are so many people who love these actresses and will actually listen to them. It makes me hopeful that something might actually change.

By having the power of the media on them almost 24/7, actresses can bring issues to light in ways that I wouldn't be able to.

Here is a video on ABC news.com talking about the issue. There are also several articles talking about other actors' responses to her essay.

Some people are pretty upset at Jeremy Renner's reaction. He was asked if he would be willing to help out to try to change the way things are, and he responded that it wasn't his job, which obviously made a ton of people mad.

But really, it isn't his job. He has explained himself since then saying that he has no knowledge about the negotiating process and that he wouldn't know where to start, and not that he didn't care about unequal pay.

It's just interesting to me how much media coverage it is all getting.

RGM post 4

In class we watched the Rihanna and Eminem video for the song "Love the Way You Lie". Honestly, when the song comes on the radio, I sing along with it. I don't like the lyrics at all, but I don't ever really stop to think about what I'm singing because the song is pretty catchy. After watching the video, I think I will probably change the station when it comes on now.

 It was completely awful and really made me rethink the kind of stuff I listen to without really thinking about what the artists are singing about. 

We are fed so much garbage by the media, and if you are like me at all, we don't really think twice about the things we are listening to or watching. 

It isn't just the music industry either. No matter where you look, whether it’s advertising, movies or magazines, we are being told how we should be. 

It kind of relates to the documentary we watched a few weeks ago about women's views of themselves. We are told how we should look and act and think and feel. And we don't stop and think about how it affects us or younger girls. 

In the case of this particular music video, it affects men and women alike. It seemed to say that if you're in an abusive relationship, there's no getting out of it, and you should just accept the way things are. And it blows my mind that Rihanna would make a video like that after her awful relationship. 

And the video sparked a pretty heated discussion in class that I don’t think I’ll get into, but it made me glad to hear that the majority of the class disliked the video and everything it was telling people. I’m glad that they want to go into their respective fields after graduating and make a real difference there. 

RGM Post 3

It's been a while since I've blogged about class, but a few classes ago we were talking about how women are told from a very young age how we should look. Ads are everywhere we look, telling us we aren't skinny enough or tall enough, or that we are too tall or too skinny. The media shows this perfect body type that is impossible to achieve because even the women being photographed don't look that way. They've been airbrushed and photoshopped to the point that they almost don't look like the same person anymore. And that is the standard of beauty that we are measured by.

We also watched a video called "Killing us softly" that talked about the same sort of issues. But one thing that she brought up that stuck with me is that we are told to be sexy but innocent. We have to have that sexiness in order to please the men around us, but we also have to have the innocence of a child or we are condemned. And there is such a double standard here. Men are praised for the amount of women they sleep with, and are judged for being a virgin. But it's the exact opposite for women.

I'm not trying to say that women should go sleep around all the time too, because my beliefs hold me to a different standard altogether. But the double standard is completely ridiculous.

Another thing that’s been on my mind is the sexualization of women in advertisements. For our projects we just turned in I analyzed a magazine from 1971. None of the ads had women in anything but completely reasonable clothes and situated in normal positions. I hate the fact that people decided that sex sells and that it’s the only way to sell to men especially.

RGM Post 2

So last night in class we were discussing women's roles in media and society. The point was brought up that people may have a great view of a company until they find out that its CEO is a woman. Their thoughts about the company might immediately change and they could lose some of their support for the company. People tend to have less faith in women running a company than they do for men, and that's completely ridiculous in my mind. Yes, women have made leaps and bounds in their rights, but to still be looked upon as less capable to run a business shouldn't be the issue that it is. I could go on about this, but it wouldn't be any new insight that hasn't been said before, so I will move on.

We also saw an ad that portrayed plus size models, and said plus is equal. The biggest issue that people had with it was that the models they used were still hourglass shaped, and that's not how everyone looks. They are wanting to show how women truly look...by choosing models with a specific body type. Now, I understand why they did that, but people are still going to get upset because it's not truly how women look. The problem is, I don't have the magic solution to this issue. I don't think anyone does really.

The last thing we discussed in class was the black press in America, and the history of it. It was so interesting to me! I really enjoyed the documentary we watched about it. The crazy thing is, we don’t learn about any of this in history class. Sure, I had heard the term “black press” before, and honestly I knew about a lot of it from my History of American Media class at UNT. But I believe that this stuff should be taught in History classes in high schools. It is an incredibly important part of our history that shouldn’t just be skimmed over. 

Minority Representation in the Media

So here it is, the start to the new semester. We've only been in Race, Gender and the Media for two weeks and I've already had a lot of things to think about.

One of the things that keeps coming to mind was actually brought up this last week in class. We were talking about the way different races were portrayed in the media when it comes to shootings and things like that.

Someone brought up the fact that most of the time, white people who come into schools or theaters and shoot people have mental issues. But when a black person is the one who has done the shooting, it's related back to gang violence.

Now that's not all that surprising. What got to me was when someone brought up kids who are raised around gang violence and the issues in their development that could occur to being brought up in that environment.

Honestly, I had never thought about that before. Sure, I feel bad for kids that are raised in it, but I hadn't thought about the issues those kids would have!

It just made me really take a look at myself and the way I view other people and their situations. Rather than judging someone immediately, or brushing something off saying, "Oh that's just the way they were raised", I'll definitely think more about the child who had no say in what they were raised around.

Another thing that got me thinking last week is nothing new either, but something I don't give a ton of thought to. Since we were talking about minority representation in the media, we were reminded that as journalists, we are to be the voice to the voiceless.

If the way people are represented bothers us, and it should, we should do something about it and be the voice for those who don't have one.

What I've learned

Well here we are. The semester is coming to a close and this is the final blog post for Ethics. This is the time of the semester to look back and think of all of the things we’ve learned. 

Going into this course, I didn’t really think I’d learn all that much to be completely honest. I had a pretty solid grasp of morals and ethics and thought that there wouldn’t be very many interesting things to learn. I was absolutely proven wrong.

I really enjoyed the case studies, maybe not the process of getting them written, but researching and hearing the other groups’ cases was really interesting to me. 

I learned that there are so many different situations in the Ad and PR world where ethics come into play that I would never have thought of. And I never really thought about companies having to react and respond to consumers being the ones acting unethically.  I enjoyed seeing how these companies handled situations, some much better than others. 

I think the case studies were a great way to get us critically thinking about the ethics that go into decision making within agencies and companies. It made me think about how I would have reacted in those situations, and at the beginning of the semester I didn’t realize how little I had to go off of. 

Before this course, I had taken a Sociology of Morality class, so I had heard of some of the ethical theories that we talked about in class, but there were a lot more than I expected. And learning about those theories played an important role in getting our case studies done, so I learned a ton just by researching for those. 

Another thing I learned is that there is absolutely a difference between morals and ethics. Before, I might have thought they were almost interchangeable. I knew there was a difference, but I figured it was such a small difference that it didn’t really matter. 

I think that one of the big things I learned this semester was how to work in a group with several leader personalities. It was pretty rough at times, but we were able to figure out a dynamic of working together that worked out well for us by the second case study. That is something I’ll take away and absolutely use in the future. Not every person I work with in the future is going to be easy to work with, and that’s ok. 

I will also definitely use the decision making skills I learned in this class. I make decisions now, and I’ll have to make decisions in the future that will be determined by the ethical standards I learned in class. 

I am glad this class was a required course because it made me think differently about things I thought I already knew all about. Thank you to Professor Bufkins for a great semester! 

Commentators anonymous

The internet is an incredible thing. With it we have a world of possibilities at our fingertips. But is the online world making society nastier, or is society just taking advantage of the ability to express what its always felt?

I think the answer is a little bit of both. People just don’t talk to one another in person like they do online. In person, people are empathetic and understanding. Online, people lose that empathy and sometimes say some really awful things. I don’t know if they say these things because the internet is making society as a whole more mean, or if that truly is the way they felt and now feel they have the freedom to express themselves. The internet is the vehicle being used to deliver hate filled messages and comments, but if people didn’t honestly mean what they write why would they write it at all? 

In this article, Alan Manevitz, M.D., a clinical psychiatrist says “There’s a freedom of speech without a fear of consequences. There’s no inhibition. It’s like being drunk.” It’s a lot easier to speak your mind when there is no one standing directly in front of you because there’s no physical consequences from your words. 

Another perk of not having the person there as you talk about them is the lack of non-verbal cues. This article quoted Amanda Gardener saying “The majority of communication is non-verbal, composed of body language, eye contact, speech tone and language patterns.” Face-to-face, these cues give us some sort of filter because, like I said before, we are more empathetic. Without these cues, we are more likely to say things that are hurtful. 

A major factor in the way people talk online is the anonymity factor. When no one knows who you are, it is much easier to say exactly what is on your mind with no real thought to the consequences. It is so easy to get fake accounts on social media that are not tied directly to you, and people do this all the time. You could sign in to each account and post mean comments from all of them to stir up trouble. 

Lots of people follow the crowd, so if there are a lot of people bullying one person, more people are bound to jump on the band wagon. There is strength in numbers, and when someone sees that a lot of other people are saying what they want to say, he has a certain confidence that prompts him to say things as well. 

I don’t think the internet is to blame for this societal change we are experiencing, but it is being used by people who already felt this way to begin with. Lack of consequences and anonymity are just two small factors that lead to the way people are today. 

Sources: 
Gardener, Amanda. "Troll Psychology: Why People Are So Mean on the Internet." Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health. N.p., 02 Aug. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Roberts, Jeff. "Why Are People So Mean? Has The Internet Destroyed Empathy & Compassion?" CollectiveEvolution RSS. N.p., 08 May 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Ethical Issues in Advertising

Problems in Advertising

Advertising is not a perfect business by any stretch of the imagination. But really, I can’t think of any business that I would deem perfect. Every business has problems. Many of them, and advertising isn’t exempt from this. One of the biggest issues in my mind is the truth.

No one wants to be lied to.

As advertisers, we shouldn’t ever lie right out to the consumer, and I don’t think any business that hires us would want us to do that. But there is a grey area when it comes to how much of the truth to tell.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there are times we should lie to people. I’m saying, that I agree with this article when it talks about there being two types of truth. “Ask yourself if a higher purpose would be served is Pampers and Kotex commercials showed the real thing instead of that fake blue water. Sometimes there’s a difference between the pure truth and the useful truth.”

I for one wouldn’t be a fan of those commercials if they were showing the “pure truth” in these cases.

The article also gave an example of Volvo wanted to show that their cars were strong enough to withstand being run over by a monster truck. In order to make the commercial, the film company needed several takes of a monster truck driving over a Volvo. Clearly, the car wouldn’t be able to handle being run over more than once, so when it came out that the car in the ad had been reinforced, Volvo and the ad agency suffered for it.

The car was rigged, yes. But the ad did its job of showing that it could be run over by a monster truck and withstand it.

Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what the company or Volvo did. They weren’t trying to make it look like the car could handle being run over more than once. That’s where the problem would be for me.

I understand why people were angry that the car had been reinforced. They felt they had been lied to. But at the same time, I don’t think the ad was an attempt to lie to consumers about what the car could handle.

We have to keep in mind that no one wants to be lied to. And as advertisers, our job is to make our client’s product look as good as we can without lying about it.

So many times, I’ve heard my parents or friends say things about not trusting advertisements. I think trust is a huge issue that consumers have with our industry as a whole. It’s our job to make ads that will build up credibility for the company we are working for.

How do you do that? By telling the truth! What a concept!

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says that “advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive; advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and advertisements cannot be unfair”.

So, when we are in a big agency someday, if we just remember these three simple things we’ll be just fine.  




Sources

Moore, C. (2006 ). Ethics in Advertising . In Advertising Educational Foundation.Retrieved March 21, 2015, from
http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/6000

Advertising FAQ’s: A Guide for Small Business (n.d.). In Federal Trade Commission .     Retrieved March 21, 2015, from
 https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/businesscenter/guidance/advertising-faqs-guide-small-business

Ethics in Business and Media

The need for ethics in business and media

Our world is, in my opinion, headed downhill quickly on the ethical slope. Businesses are most concerned with how to make the most money, and many are getting to the point of not caring how they get there. Obviously this can cause some ethical issues.

We live in a culture where telling consumers to trust us isn’t good enough anymore.
In an article for The Guardian, Tim Melville-Ross makes the point that businesses have to have ethical standards at their core. They have to constantly be proving themselves to consumers, and not just asking people for their trust. He says that businesses depend on trust in order to thrive. “Business must be conducted in an open and honest manner, otherwise trust is eroded and businesses fail. But calls for an increased trust in business miss the point – trust needs to be earned.”

Reading that made me think of something I heard the other day. I told someone that my major was Advertising, and their response was “Why? All they do is lie to people to get them to buy a product.” At first, I was a little offended because I felt like this person was judging me by what other people have done, which really isn’t fair to me. But that is people’s perception of us today. They don’t believe things we say because advertisers before us have behaved unethically and lied to sell products. It’s just the same with businesses other than advertising.

Lying is a pretty obvious form of unethical practice, and it is from the business side to the consumer. That is how I tend to think of ethical practices, from businesses to consumer. But there are practices between employees that can be unethical as well.

Victoria Duff wrote Examples of Unethical Behavior in the Workplace, and made some observations that I never would have thought about. She separated her thoughts into five categories of unethical practices: Deliberate Deception, Violation of Conscience, Failure to Honor Commitments, Unlawful Conduct, and Disregard of Company Policy.

In the deliberate deception category, she gave examples such as sabotaging other people’s work, calling in sick when you aren’t really sick, or taking credit for work that you didn’t do yourself. The list goes on, but all of these can lead to people not trusting each other within the work place and, in some cases, can lead to lawsuits.

Violation of conscience is when your boss asks you to do something that goes against your moral code. Duff gave an example of selling toasters. “Your sales manager calls you into his office and threatens to fire you unless you sell 50 large toasters. You know the large toasters are inferior products and have been selling the small toasters to your customers, instead.” By telling you that he will fire you for selling a better product to customers, he is behaving unethically.

Failure to honor commitments is fairly obvious. It is having something promised to you, like a day off, and when it comes around your boss doesn’t honor it because work is too busy. Being the type of person I am, I wouldn’t have thought of this as being unethical. Because I am the type of person who goes with the flow normally, I wouldn’t question my boss’ decisions like that because I want everyone to be happy and work to run smoothly. If it were to happen more than once it would bother me. But if my boss were to do it once, I probably wouldn’t think of it as being unethical.

Unlawful conduct is anything unlawful that is going on within the company. Whether its pens or getting money from an expense account for non-business related expenses, it’s stealing and shouldn’t be allowed to go on. And, lastly, disregard for company policy is not abiding by the policies laid out by the company. Duff says, “To disregard company policy is unethical because it has the potential to harm the company and other employees.”

All of these things, to me at least, point back to earning trust inside and outside of the company. If employees are acting unethically, it is a definite reflection on the company itself. People don’t really want to do business with someone whose employees are willing to steal from them. I think it all goes back to having ethics at the core of the company. If the employees working in the store aren’t behaving ethically, chances are the heads of the company aren’t either.

Ethics in Media

I think a great example right now of why we should have an ethical standard in media is Bryan Williams. Viewers watched him faithfully and believed that he was telling them the truth for years. With all the things that have come out about him recently, it gives people reason to be wary of trusting, not only newscasters, but anyone in the communications world. People are saying they won’t watch him anymore, but more than that they are questioning the credibility of NBC. However, according to an article by Brian Stelter with CNN Money, “Williams has been hurt individually much more than NBC has been hurt institutionally.”

Ethics are important because the only way we can assure people that we can be trusted is to show them that we are trustworthy. And the way to do that is by having an ethical standard.




Sources:

Melville-Ross, Tim  “Ethical Business: Companies need to earn our trust.”  The Guardian . N.p., July 2013. Web. 15 Feb. 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/ethical-business-trust-values 

Duff, Victoria. "Examples of Unethical Behavior in the Workplace." Small Business. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-unethical-behavior-workplace-10092.html 

Stelter, Brian. "Some Viewers Think Brian Williams Deserves a Shot at Redemption." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 16 Feb. 2015.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/16/media/brian-williams-nbc-survey/index.html 

I'm a blogger?

So I guess I'm officially a blogger now. Who would have thought that my Ethics class would be the reason I started? Definitely not me! But here I am, first post ever. I will give this blogging thing a shot, and let's see how it goes! :)