COMM 322: Final Project: The Sexualization Of Children

Brandon Reed, Josh Fern, Alexandria Larsen, Caleb Livesay, Andy Kunz, Sydney Curet, Reign Acosta

A Violent Society

The militarization of our society is inevitable. As a nation, our military grows because of the enlisting effort and style used by recruiters. This is not a bad thing. As the world grows smaller with technology and quick travel, the need for a strong military for a nation that stretches as far as the United States does is necessary. However, the dissemination of violent media is concerning. I would argue what started off as a means of recruitment has spurred forth a more violent and hostile media, and these media images are now being illustrated in real life.

As Dave Grossman puts it “From a military and law enforcement perspective, violent video games are ‘murder simulators’ that train kids to kill.” Grossman is a retired Army Ranger and former psychology professor at West Point. He argues that video games with emphasis on violence improves “killing skills” and desensitizes the individual to violence. 

Some examples back up Grossman’s findings. Many of the mass murderers in the last decade have had excessive exposure to violent video games. The experts following the case of the recent attack on the Navy Yard in Virginia have pointed fingers at violent video games. A friend of the shooter said Alexis (attacker) spent up to 16 hours a day playing warlike games such as Call of Duty. Another killer from Norway claimed the lives of 77 individuals in 2011. The killer, Breivik, testified in court that he used “holographic aiming devices” from Call of Duty to perfect his marksmanship.  

Beyond this, there are stories of young ones using violence because of something they’ve seen on TV or in movies. For instance, Anthony Conley, 17, strangled his 10-year-old brother to death and afterwards stuffed his head in a bag so as to not “get blood everywhere.” When asked the reason for his actions, Conley said he identified with Dexter Morgan from the hit HBO show Dexter. The head investigator in the case was quoted saying, "Conley said that he just 'felt like him.'"

The military is an important and honorable part of our society. However, the effects of glorifying the horrible things soldiers’ experience in media images only perpetuate a violent society. Furthermore, I argue that viewing violence of any kind may increase the likelihood of an individual having aggressive behaviors. My suggestion is not to ban violence from TV and movies and video games. But there needs to be a conversation with people who do indulge in violent media. Without intervention, those people may consider violence to be an acceptable behavior.   

Facebook Reflections

I have not felt as much conviction with any of the lectures as I felt about our class discussion on Facebook. After reading “Is Facebook Making us Lonely?” I had a personal reality check. I began recognize the amount of times I would find myself typing in the forbidden ‘F’ word into my search engine. F-A-C…”stop it, Josh!” I would scream internally. The countless times I had found my thumb hovering over the blue icon with the big white ‘f’. Did I have a problem? Had Facebook become (dare I say it?) an addiction?

Of course this is all very dramatic. Facebook is not a drug, alcohol, or any other activity that if abused can kill you. However, I do believe Facebook can become an addiction. Addiction can be defined as a “persistent and intense involvement with and stress upon a single behavior pattern with a minimization or even exclusion of other behaviors, both personal and interpersonal” (L’Abate, 1992, p. 2). For L’Abate, an addiction does not need to involve a substance. He instead offers that it is a behavior pattern that affects the individuals “personal and interpersonal” life. My “intense involvement” with Facebook had removed me from possible conversations or new/improved relationships. So many times I would find myself checking out my friends new cat instead of talking to the person sitting next to me in class.  

This definition and my personal experience align perfectly with the article “Is Facebook Making us Lonely?” Marche state, “Digital technology” has been “enabling our tendency for isolation” since before Facebook. He continued to explain a study showing individuals who had higher levels of technology use were more likely to have feelings of loneliness. Technology has interfered with potential interpersonal relationship.

This addiction-loneliness complex to social media is a vicious cycle. Let me use Bob to demonstrate my argument. Bob is a bright recent grad from Ball State. He just recently got a job for a marketing firm. However, in his new life, Bob does not have as many friends as he did back when he was a Cardinal. To make up for this, Bob is on Facebook all the time. When he is a work, he is browsing every free minute. When he is on the toilet, his Facebook machine (AKA cell phone) keeps him company. When he is at a bar with his coworkers, he can’t help but check on his friends at other bars by using Facebook. You get what I am saying? Bob, as a young 20-something is more likely to become addicted to social media considering his extraordinarily high use. The addiction to social media gives Bob artificial interpersonal feelings. Bob has come to a point where Facebook is easier to interact with than tangible people. Empirical evidence then proves that Bob’s addiction to these media outlets fuels feelings of loneliness.

Although Bob’s situation is an extreme case, most of us can probably personally relate with his Facebook usage. When I started realizing my nearly obsessive relationship with Facebook, I took some time off. It was weird and hard at first, but it got better. It now feels as though my relationships are more enjoyable when they are face to face or over the phone. Taking a Facebook hiatus hasn’t changed my life dramatically, but it has changed it for the better. Maybe you could try it.

L’Abate, L., (1992). Introduction. In L. L’Abate, G. E. Farrar, & D. A. Serritella (Eds.),

Handbook for differential treatments for addiction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

A Boy Without Cable

When I was young, my family chose to cancel our cable plan. The reason for cancelling cable was for purely financial reason; it was just another bill to pay. However, what resulted from our family stepping away from the media mayhem was more than a few dollars saved.

You may be wondering, "do you not know who the Rugrats are?!" And the answer is, no. I really don't know who they are besides what my friends have told me. And, to an extent, I agree with what you may be thinking: Being disconnected from media has caused me to feel disconnected from my friends. Nevertheless, I am doing just fine not knowing what the Amanda Show is about. In fact, I would argue that because I did not have cable growing up, I am happier than I would be in a house that had cable. One of the main reasons I believe am happier is because I have grown up learning a different version, a better version, of manhood from the one displayed on television.

When reading the article "Congratulations Television! You Are Even Worse At Masculinity Than Femininity", I was thankful for my lack of media indulgence growing up. Before I get into my own personal experience, let me give a quick summation of the arguments from the article:

• Men are portrayed as either...
• Smart, emotional, and thus weak
• Dumb, sex-crazed, and emotionally inept.
• In the media, men who are emotional/weak are to be made fun of or labeled as gay.
• Men in the media who are dumb/emotionally inept are not to be trusted with even the simplest of tasks.

Overall, the argument Linda Holmes makes is that men according to the media cannot be complex, multi-faceted individuals, but rather fall into one of the two extremes listed above. She wraps up her article asking several questions ("Where, on television, are the men who both like football and remember birthdays? Where are the men who are great dads, great husbands, great boyfriends?"). When reading those questions I thought that is the type of man I know and that I want to be. So, how have I established a contradictory image to the media's image of what it means to be a man?

Back to my personal experience. Without media guiding my ideas of manhood there was one place to turn: The actual men in my life. Instead of modeling my actions and attitudes off of a man like Barney Stinson (I recognize that he is a little after my childhood days, but I don't know any TV men from the 90's.), I looked to my coaches, teachers and, primarily my own dad to know how to act. I was lucky to have a father who spent time talking and interacting with me. I learned by watching. I watched him shave. I watched how he threw a baseball. I watched how he treated my mom. I watched how he treated his friends. I watched how he handled hard situations and stress. Through watching and talking to him, I realized my capacity as a man to "like football and remember birthdays" or understand what it meant to be a great dad, husband or boyfriend as Holmes states in her article. My understanding of manhood was not about having a shredded body or acting out in anger rather than experiencing my emotions or being a single-faceted individual. Rather, I understood that the media's perception of manhood was wrong. Sure, I didn't put this specific argument together in my 10 year old head, but I grew up knowing that there was a wrong way to act as a man, and that the media illustrated that exact persona.  

So where does this leave us? It is hard to escape the media, and as a child one is malleable to what s/he hears, sees, and experiences. Our generation has already been thrown into the 'media fire' so to speak of superficial dads and sex-crazed meatheads, but I do think understanding the harm in believing the mainstream media's message of masculinity could be a lesson to how we interact with the next generation. If you are thinking about being a parent, consider shutting off cable for the first years of your kids lives. If you aren't willing to do this, monitor closely what your kids can view. I can guess that many of you are thinking "who wants to be THAT controlling parent?" But I think what you'll find is your children will perceive the world through a better, healthier, and more accurate lens. I know I am grateful for the years I spent as a boy without cable.

Questions of Cool

In a few of the articles we have read, the culture of cool has been discussed, defended, and opposed. In class we discussed several perspectives of “being cool” and the desire to be perceived as cool. Counterculture has become a powerful force that has actually begun fueling the mainstream culture. Gladwell highlights this paradox between counterculture and mainstream culture in his article The Coolhunt. The mainstream brands such as Reebok and Converse discussed in the article have people specifically figuring out what is cool and trending with inner city young people and then replicating that look in the mainstream market. This creates a cycle of ‘street fashion’ converting to mainstream fashion. The article sites that companies do this in 6-month cycles. That’s a lot of fashion!

So, my questions regarding the art of being cool: Do companies consciously create mainstream culture in order to have a counterculture to replicate? In other words, are companies like Reebok and Converse creating a fashion that young people rebel against in order to take their revolutionary fashion and market it as mainstream fashion? You can see how this confuses me. If this is true, then companies would need to create a balance between maintaining a mainstream culture and pushing the limits with the counterculture. 

These are all tricky questions. And to be honest, I do not personally think the concepts described above have real life implications on each and every one of us. However, as a critic of popular culture, I see a trend that enforces foundational tenets of our society such as consumerism and a high priority on economic gain. It is interesting to me to see corporations straining to find out what we want, and then meeting those desires.

Maturely Intimate

After having several conversations about Catfish in class as well as the reading about distance relationships, I thought it was time for me to come out. I am in a distance relationship. However, it is nowhere near as exciting as the thrill of online dating (or whatever emotion you equate to it). My girlfriend and I met here at Ball State 3 years ago and have been dating for about 2 of those years. She graduated last May, and moved to Evansville for a job. Now, instead of a 5-minute walk, we are a 4-hour drive from one another. We Skype, text, call, write letters, and use Facebook. You know, the works.

I do not want you to think I am complaining about my life, or about the difficulties of a distance relationship. I am happy with both of those. Instead I would like to focus on what our class discussions on Catfish and the article called “A Long Distance Affair” have missed about technology mediated relationships at a distance; matured intimacy.

First, to start with Catfish. The relationships in Catfish all lack true intimacy, which is an important aspect of a healthy relationship. One complaint I would have about most forms of mediated communication in reference to my relationship is that they are purely information seeking. My girlfriend can express emotions through a text like “I had a bad day”. 90% of the time my response is “I’m sorry” or to seek more information about said day. I have no opportunity to hug her or comfort her empathetically. I think of breadth and depth in the social penetration theory. All the information I get about my girlfriend allows me to experience her life through words (breadth), but we lack the chance of depth through proximity and touch.

To better explain the need for proximity, let me tell you about one of my close friends. We became friends after working together. Both of us were into fitness and being in shape so we began hitting the gym. A year later we are still work out partners and close friends. Sadly, I recently strained my groin, which has put me out of commission for a while. My friend and I are still close friends, but hang out far less. At first, I wondered why this was happening. We hung out far more than just at the gym before my injury. Why this sudden drop in time spent together? Then I thought about how we would make all our plans to do things together while we were at the gym. It suddenly made sense. The more time we spent with each other meant the more time we planned to spend with each other.

So, back to the original issue of Catfish. Luckily, my girlfriend and I have established intimacy from our time together before she left. Strictly online daters on the other hand are far less likely to be intimate without having the opportunity to spend time with one another. 

Intimacy is one part of my argument. The next part, maturity, lies within the article “A Long Distance Affair”.

Most of the relationships examined in the article seem fairly healthy. However, the author writes a section on how people leaving high school can cling to previous relationships. This can prevent individuals from enjoying their time in college and can cause partners to be jealous. The one thing I think these relationships lack is maturity. I am not saying my girlfriend and I have it all together, or that we are incredibly mature. However, we do have a quality of maturity that provides for the other person to have some space. This isn’t because of something unique in our character, but has cultivated with time. The 4 years I have spent in college so far have been extremely influential in my maturing process. The lack of maturity and experience in a high school couple makes me question their ability to handle a long distance technology-mediated relationship.

So there you have it. A mix of intimacy and maturity can make a distance relationship thrive. A lack of that mix can make it miserable. Being ‘maturely intimate’ allows for a better and more enjoyable long distant relationship.