Semester Overview

The thing I found most interesting this semester was how society and women view their own bodies. We try numerous products, whether it be makeup, special face cleanser, or an expensive lotion, we will try anything that we think will make us look and feel prettier. Most women seem to lack self-confidence and are not proud of their bodies or proud of what they have given, I think media seems to be the blame  for this. We looking at the ads shown in class, men in the advertisments seem to over power the women. I man is always shown as a strong, empowering person. On the other hand, women seem to be used as objects. In fact sometimes a woman's whole body isn't even shown, only her legs, butt, or any body part that will sell products. I found this to be very interesting because I never did notice how poorly women can be treated in social media. Being a woman myself, I found this to be very demeaning and hurtful to the women in our society and cultures all around us.

CNN News Stories

One of the CNN news stories consisted of the wives of American soldiers who had been wounded in battle. These wives were pampered with a new hairstyle and a new designer dress and shoes. Personally, I thought this was an interesting story. I thought it was a sweet idea to take these ladies, who had been put through so much, and pamper them for a day. However, in the story one of the stylists said they were going to, "make them look more beautiful", which I thought was a kind of degrading comment. Also, I the end of this story the news lady shared that the women were able to keep their designer shoes and dresses, which also had no relevance to the story. Klosterman said that the extra facts stated that have no meaning to the story, are simply done to catch your attention and to add more to the story.
Another story that we watched consisted of the infamous 'Boston Bombers'. The news reporter asked the lady who was interviewing outside of the courthouse what the boys were wearing and asked about their facial expressions, which again has no relevance to the story. Before reading Klosterman's article, I didn't notice the excess things put into news reports, but now it's too obvious and I will definitely be on the look at in more news stories to come.