In class this week, we learned about the Uses and the Gratification Theory, which is this theory that takes a different approach than most other theories that we have talked about and learned in our class. The theory focuses on how the viewers take an active role in choosing the media that we see, where we see other theories focus on the affect media has on the viewer. We learnt the needs of the viewers as to why they choose the media that we have. The needs are affective, the social integrative and tension free. Out of those needs, i can definitely relate to the tension free one. This is when you need to escape reality and release some tension in something that you want to watch. Whenever i am feeling overwhelmed in my life, i turn to my favorite shows so i can unwind and relax. This can be helpful because it restarts my mind and gives me a more fresher look on what i was doing before. It can also be dangerous because i can get unfocused on my work and start to be focused on the show that i am watching.

Next, we watched this screening called Galaxy Quest that supports the U and G theory and the fandom theory. Fandom is when the fans support a specific media that they are fans of. There are a lot of different type of fans, you have the mild fans, very active ones and the pro active fans. Fans are very powerful in all areas of media and in the production of media. It was the fans that brought back Family Guy on Fox. Without the fans, media would lose it’s importance and it is the viewers that make the shows and movies way more successful. Fans have this strong attachment to a character than an actor plays or an music artist. For example, John Lennon was shot and killed by a big fan and then the music sensation Selena was killed by a woman who was in charged of her fan club. Finally, Galaxy Quest is a movie that shows a lot of fandom due to the fact that the aliens that come to earth are big fans of this show which they believe are actual events that happened so they build their civilization like the show. The movie showed a lot of fandom and it presented and supported the U&G theory.

In class this week, we watched two episodes ”The Newsroom”. I have seen the pilot episode before but the second one i never really seen before. I still loved the pilot episode. The first episode is all about the news anchor Will McAvoy who comes back from vacation after an embarrassing pubic incident at an university. He comes back to find that half of his staff are leaving to go work for a different new anchor. His boss then hires his ex-girlfriend Mackenzie MacHale to be his new executive producer. This makes Will very upset, but his boss says that it can help him a lot and that it can work. An issue that a lot of news channels have is figuring what issues are worth pursing and see how much views it can bring in. A news alert came through the news station about an explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, many of his people, working for Will don’t see it as it’s very important and tell him that it won’t gain him a lot of views. As the team did their own research, they find out that it is an oil spill that had been yet to be plugged. McAvoy and his pursue the issue and are the only ones to broadcast it on the airwaves that night. Other news stations had not yet realized the big issue of the oil spill and it was very good for McAvoy to have displayed this news out fast. I really loved the episode because they did a great job displaying the news story and seeing if it would help the situation or if it would be beneficial for the public.

In the next episode of the Newsroom, there was issues with what they wanted to broadcast. The issue was what the public wanted to hear and not for entertainment or relying on actual news. McAvoy show took a big hit after not covering the Casey Anthony trial. McAovys and his team wants to cover real and actual news that is actually important to the public. After they lose half of their views to Nancy Grace, they decide that it was time to make a change and put on the Casey Anthony trial. The team decides that they want to stay on top of the news that is going on and they start to report about the trial in case their views come back, The episode shows you that sometimes the news doesn’t show you important information and they are just showing you what is going around in the world or in our country.

This week in class we discussed many things but we mainly talked how the media can be misleading and misconstrued. Sometimes we see things about fake news and how some things on television aren’t are always true or that they don’t appear to be true. On Monday, we watched a video in class that i found pretty interesting and it focused on the mean world syndrome that media had installed us with. Mean world syndrome is when you have an idea that more negative information and news that you are shown by how dangerous the world is, and on the most personal level, the more likely you will think you might become the victim in our world. It has been found that you might feel more victimized the more likely you will be. Gerber has said that the more television that you watch, the more paranoid and fearful that you will become. What is more weird about this theory is that though crime rate is dropping, the majority of people believe that it is increasing and there is higher chance of the day to day violence

.I definitely think what you watch has something to do with how you view the world. I watch a lot of crime and police shows and i will say that i am very shocked on what they show on those shows and i think about how some of those things that they show may have actually happened. There are really sad and upsetting stories of bad things happening to people and it makes me upset and you never think that would happen to someone.

Another thing we discussed in our class was the power of authority. One example that stuck to me was when the food manager at a fast food place strip searching a high school employee because someone on the phone was telling them to do so. The person on the phone claimed to be the police and of high authority so the manager thought that she had to listen to commands. The entire scenario was crazy because i kept thinking that i would have never done that type of thing to someone.

America has come a very long way when it has came to topics that involve sex compares to other countries around the world. In America, sex wasn’t very much talked about and a lot of people were very quiet about it throughout the 20th century. In 2019, when it has came down to sex and nudity, it has became little bit more laid back than it was back then. In movies today, they could be rated for a lot of things like drugs, cursing, violence, gore and blood. A movie could be rated NC-17 if it contains a lot of sex and violence. A movie can be rated PG-13 if there is some violence but not a lot of blood. These ratings are very key because it can help limit the movie to a specific audience like teenagers. If you wanted to make movie that was PG-13, then it would be available to at least a lot of people. The only problem is that if you are under the age of 13, you would need a parent or guardian to accompany you to the movie. If the movie that you see is rated R, you would have to bring someone over the age of 18 to actually see the movie if you are under 18. NC-17 means that only the adults can go see the movie and no one else can actually see it. In other places around the globe, when it comes to that, it is very different and not the same. If a movie gets a rated R or a NC-17, then usually it would mean that there is a lot of violence instead of sex. The main reasons why movies are rated like this is because many people don’t want to receive letters or any calls, getting yelled at over the content of the movie that they put out. I think people should be able to watch what they want and not have to get slack about why they watch it.

This week in class, we learned about Rod Serling and the whole twilight zone. He was a very successful man and i had no idea who he was till i watched this video and realized how much he influenced us and how he made us have what we have today. He was really smart and his friends always thought he was crazy but he believed in himself and had confidence in him so he had his sights set pretty high. His wife would talk about how he was traumatized from the war and like most men were. Some of his best writings came from the pain from the war and his mental suffering from the war too. The emotion he poured out was raw and very different from others. Being able to write those things and see them was a great way for him to get it off his chest and to express his self.

Serling was well known for his ability to expose the potential for evil amongest humanity in his writing. Serling would also question his work and would never think his work would be the best and never have worth so you would see him question himself. He had this pressure to make his work great and he did a great job because The Twilight Zone became famous and was a hit.

The 1970s had alot of hits during this decade. It had shows like Happy Days, The brady bunch, Good times, The Jefferson etc. During this time, people were still trying to accept African Americans and there was a lot of tension as to why they were on TV. I feel like the main focus was to get rid of this controversy and to focus on making an difference and to show people that different times are coming.