Author Archives: Blair Ashcraft

Summary: The article starts by discussing the postmodern world and the role of belief systems, more importantly the suspicion of belief systems and how it divides society. We have a more realistic view of reality, but we have less understanding of truth and this is difficult because while we don’t know how to live inContinue reading ““Postmodern World””

Summary: The article begins with giving two examples of video games designed to recruit people, Special Forces for the Shia group and America’s Army for the US Army, as a form of “educational entertainment”. It then presents the idea that interactive games can be dangerously persuasive. Next it gives us an overview of what propagandaContinue reading ““From the Green Berets to America’s Army””

Summary: The article begins with the discussion of endism, the idea that new developments come from the ending of others and its limitations as an absolute. It then discusses the role of virtual reality in cyberspace and the differing views; positively as an information pathway and negatively as turning children into delinquents. Culture and fantasyContinue reading ““Sorting myths and cyperbole””

Summary: The article starts with the example of the author telling his travel experience to his many audiences to highlight the idea of playing roles and why our behavior changes from situation to situation. He then talks about the ideology of Goffman, on how social life plays out like a drama. It then shows theContinue reading ““The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior””

Summary: The chapter starts with discussion of approaches to analyzing stereotypes in media and how this relates to the idea of “othering”. It talks about the words us, you, and we to show how media aims messages for us to be a part of through interpellation. This can be seen through words and images thatContinue reading “Chapter 6 “Role Models and Stereotypes””

Summary: This article is unique in the way it is giving its information through a comic book style. It starts off with an anecdote about a flight attendant and her story and goes through the steps it took to mold her anecdotes into a real story. As the article goes on, we learn that theyContinue reading ““Keep or Kill: Story Structure””

Summary: The article opens with the idea of the content analysis process to interpret meaning in a text. It shows this through the example of the peach wine ad and analyze all the components of the ad to show the biblical allusion to show the idea of temptation to convey the wine’s temptation. It thenContinue reading ““Persuasive Signs””

Summary: The first part of the article focuses on the recap of the sit down with Barbara Nitke. It discusses her perspective from watching several different food networks shows to see the parallels between the different techniques of producing the show to the techniques of producing a porn film. Then it goes into the biologyContinue reading ““Debbie Does Salad””

Summary: This article discusses the idea of semiotics as the significant factor to understanding meaning. It tells us that a sign is anything that stands for something other than itself and to what it refers to as the referent. It then discusses the process of taking that sign and referent and making it into aContinue reading ““Messages, signs, and meaning””

Summary: This article discusses the differences between research of quantitative data versus qualitative data. They talk about the significance of numbers in being more reliable, however, discuss how “qualitative research is not objective data to be quantified, but meaningful relations to be interpreted”. They talk about socially constructed realities as a key part of qualitativeContinue reading ““Quantitative vs. qualitative research””