An Ethical Dilemma

Limewire, YouTube, and GrooveDown are all music websites that make it easy for internet users to download their favorite songs all for the very low price of…free.  But just because it’s easy to do, does that make it ethically right? It’s hard to comprehend that more that 95% of all music downloads last year were done so illegally, which means that hundreds of thousands of Americans can be called thieves; because that’s exactly what illegal music downloading is, it’s stealing. Based on this number, it can only be assumed that either all music listeners are morally corrupt individuals, or—more likely—that they’re all subconsciously applying, and then denying, a few ethical principles to  aide them in their ultimate decisions. But what thoughts are causing so many people to reject these ethical values? Is there one universal reason that downloaders are using to validate their actions as morally acceptable? Unfortunately, there is no global reasoning behind ethical decisions, and even after applying ethical principles, everyone’s mind works differently, and everyone has their own set of moral rules.

Many people have attempted, however, to create a globalized system of ethical decision making. Sissela Bok is one of these people, and according to her, the first thing someone faced with an ethical dilemma does is consult their conscious.  This means looking inside for any trace of guilt or viable reason as to why it shouldn’t be done. If they don’t feel a significant amount of guilt, then the next step is to seek alternatives. Most downloaders will at least consider the option of purchasing the song, but for one reason or another, the majority overlooks it. Their logic may include that the wealthy artist doesn’t need the money as much as they do, or that it isn’t worth it to buy the whole CD when they only want a few songs off of it. Whichever reason, those 95% of people all decided that there were no other legitimate, worthwhile choices. The final step is to “hold an imaginary dialogue with everyone involved.” This means explaining to the artist exactly why they’re about to illegally download their property. This is the step that is most likely to be skipped. People find it harder to validate ripping someone off when they have a personal connection with them. It’s easy to steal from a random person that you don’t know, and will most likely never meet, but the second the person becomes real, the game changes. For those few that don’t skip this test, either people are extremely optimistic about the understanding and charity of recording artists, or they’re personal morals allow them not to care.

This is why Bok’s ethical model isn’t always effective. Without extensive surveys or questionnaires, it’s impossible to accurately analyze the reasoning behind illegal downloading, following these steps does not always lead to an ethical decision. Just like every other form of stealing, there may be motives behind it that are unique to the individual and can’t always be accounted for. Morals can depend on everything from religion to childhood upbringing, and therefore cannot be the same for everyone. Personal experience is the only thing that can define what someone deems as “ethical” or not. While Sissela Bok has the educational background to theorize and make general statements, even she can’t pin point how such a large number of people can validate something that when simply explained is obviously illegal and therefore should seem unethical. People do illegal things every day for countless of reasons and illegal downloading is no different.  

24 Hour Advertisements

From the second we start our day until we lay back down at the end of the night, we are exposed to a countless number of advertisements. There are the blatant, obvious attempts to attract your business, like the giant billboards you see on your way to work, or the thirty second prerequisite to your YouTube video, but there are some, however, that are more subtle, almost unnoticeable; like your favorite actress pictured with a coke in her hand on your morning sitcom. After increasing my awareness to the advertisements around me for a 24 hour period, I learned a great deal about the commercial aspect of society that on average, I choose to ignore. While all ads have the same goal in mind (to get you to buy their product) they don’t all do this in the same way. By paying attention to the media around me, I was able to determine just how advertisers were attempting to manipulate me into ultimately choosing their product.

Advertising is used in almost all areas of media, but the one that comes to mind the most with the average American citizen is T.V. The average American watches eight hours of T.V a day, and commercials on average play every four minutes; so in short, that’s a lot of ads. Of course, T.V. isn’t the only advertising outlet, but I’ve learned through this ad diary that without those commercials, ads become much sneakier and harder to point out. I watch maybe two hours of T.V. a week, and it just so happened that neither of those hours came into play during this 24 hour observation.  As a result, the bulk of m advertisement exposure comes from Facebook, Google, billboards, and thanks to the Hunger Games premiere last night, Carmike Movie Theatre. By becoming more aware and purposefully taking notice of advertisements, instead of ignoring them like I usually do, I was able to determine the strategies different media outlets use. “Reason why” and image ads were among the most common. The most obvious “reason why” ad I came across was for Google+ and interrupted my Pandora Radio. Its main motive was to convince me that everyone that is anyone, that has more than two friends, is using Google+ to organize their extremely busy and enjoyable social lives, and if I didn’t have it, I would be forever out of the loop, and long story short: a friendless loser. A memorable image ad based its strategy off of one of the biggest human attractions: sex. Verizon used a sexy, ethnically mysterious woman to showcase their newest phone and catch the attention of both their male and female viewers. They killed two birds with one stone by showing the men that if they buy this phone, they’ll attract similar sexy women, while at the same time, suggesting to the women that if they buy the phone, they’ll look like a sexy phone model: win-win.

Overall, even without the influence of advertising’s biggest mogul—television—I was still unable to escape the commercial nature of our society. Advertisements have become second nature to me, as familiar as seeing a Kutztown squirrel in a trashcan or that permanent Lancaster County farm smell that is always there, but I no longer notice.  Advertising has become a way of life, but when will be too much? Yes, that thirty second interruption of my favorite Train radio station was annoying, but advertisers aren’t stopping at that. They’re everywhere; tracking you on the internet and setting up campaigns in local elementary schools.  While being able to ignore the constant smell of manure can be considered a blessing, do we really want our children growing up in a world where they are constantly bombarded by products begging for their attention? This is a question I have a feeling we’ll be able to answer first-hand soon enough, whether we want to or not.

Diabetes, Healthy Food, and Feminine Products

The magazine industry seems to be the only form of printed publication that isn’t threatened by the sudden increase in electronic media that has been brought about by the Kindle, Nook, blog community, and other online resources. This is in part due to the irreplaceable pass-along circulation which supports the flexibility and portability of magazines that other forms of media don’t have. A second reason for the industry’s security is the number of publications and the broad range of interests that it covers. Ninety-two million adults read magazines, and in the U.S. alone, there are 10,000 publications for them to choose from. There is a magazine for literally every demographic and hobby categorized as either trade, literary, service, little, fashion, lifestyle, comic books, and many others types of magazines. With an audience that diverse, it’s hard to perceive the printed magazine ever becoming old technology. Weight Watchers is an example of a service magazine aimed toward a specific target audience.  Without even looking at the demographic profile, it’s obvious that it is designed with a certain audience in mind. By taking note of the magazine’s editorial content and advertisements one will notice that it is published for overweight, middle-aged women.

                This particular issue of Weight Watchers features Charles Barkley, a former NBA superstar, on the cover. This is misleading as to the function of the magazine as a women’s service publication, but can be explained by an attempt to appeal to more men in order to broaden their readership. Out of its ten million readers, 9 million of them are women. By having an NBA player on the cover, at first glance, the magazine looks like it’s aimed toward overweight men. If this was an attempt to make up for the serious lacking of male readers, however, it was a half-hearted one. All of the editorial content and most of the ads are aimed toward women. Article subjects include, exercising while you clean, blaming mom for obesity genes, and healthy recipes. All of the pictures are also of women, but not skimpily dressed, sexy women that would advertise to men. They’re women that represent the goal of every Weight Watchers member. While the models aren’t the normal six-foot, size two women shown in fashion magazines, they are also not the average body type of women that are a part of the weight watchers program. They more closely represent the body type of women that have successfully followed the diet and exercise regime.

As far as advertisements go, Weight Watchers follows three themes: diabetes medication, healthy foods, and feminine products. These represent the three characteristics of the average reader: overweight, willing to diet, and female. Diabetes is a disease that most often affects overweight adults so the probability of having diabetic readers is high. Also, according to weightwatchersmagazinemediakit.com, the average age of readers is 45.  These are women that are still buying feminine products and also doing the grocery shopping. Where the advertisements are placed within the magazine also contribute to an advertising strategy. The majority of the ads placed in the recipe section are of healthy foods. This forces the reader to connect the yummy recipe they just read with the brand of health food pictured on the next page.

Overall, the assumptions made by analyzing the editorial content and advertisements in this issue of Weight Watchers provide an accurate reflection of the statistical information given by the media kit. It can easily be determined that while this magazine may be interested in attracting more male readers, it’s primary function is to appeal to middle aged, overweight women.

CNN vs. Al Jazeera

When it comes to a country’s media there, are four main ways it can operate: authoritarian, communist, libertarian, and with a social responsibility. From my past experience, and by being influenced by the American given reputation of the Arab world, I have always assumed that finding similarities between western civilization and the Middle East would be difficult. When comparing articles on the same subject from CNN and Al Jazeera, however, I can determine that for both regions, media serve the same purpose, and have the same journalistic values that fall into the social responsibility category.

 In articles about the possible bailout for the European Union nation of Greece—one from CNN and one from Al Jazeera—both news sites reported the same facts, and overall were very similar to each other. They followed the social responsibility theory of the press by providing social functions such as informing the public of political matters. The information given was unbiased and it was obvious that its main objective was to tell the facts and was not used as a government tool, which is the case with many authoritarian and communist presses. They both mentioned the same key players including the EU Commission’s president and relayed the same facts about a strike that turned violent in Athens in response to their struggling economy and a possible austerity. Neither article used language that was slanted or biased, and refrained from portraying any kind of opinion about the situation. The articles were factually based and allowed the reader to interpret it themselves and have their own conclusion about the situation.

I believe that at least some credit for this phenomenon should go to globalization. Globalization has allowed media to spread around the world, erasing national borders in order to create a more connected globe. This is what allows people in both the United States and Qatar to be concerned with what is happening in a third-party country like Greece. Instead of each country reporting separate facts and opinions, globalization has made it possible for someone in Kansas to get the same information as someone in Saudi Arabia. It’s giving people the ability to step out of their own sphere of vision and see the world from other perspectives, which in turn is opening our eyes against bias. While a completely unbiased world view is impossible, having the opportunity to view matters in a strictly factual way without being fed slanted information by the press, is increasing global awareness and turning what used to be assumed perception and reputation into concrete truth.

Taking into account the tense relationship between the United States and the Middle East, the existence of two news sites with similar goals and values is a production that could not come about without a connection between the media. The two regions may disagree in every other political or cultural matter, but when it comes to media, both seem to have the same values and follow the same responsibilities. This in turns brings two worlds together creating a global bond. We can be sure that whatever is in store for Greece, both hemispheres will be equally and truthfully informed.

Michael Kelso: Real Person, or That 70's Fraud?

Superstar Ashton Kutcher had to get his start somewhere, and that was by playing the incredibly dim-witted hottie, Michael Kelso, on the popular T.V. sitcom, “That 70’s Show.” For anyone that doesn’t know, the show is about a group of reckless, fun-loving, teens growing up in the seventies. It follows them through high school and eventually into their post-high school lives. I’ve grown up watching Kelso, Eric, Hyde, Jackie, Fez, and Donna, and have always thought that I can relate to them because of their seemingly realistic lives compared to every other show on T.V. They were middle class kids struggling with school, part time jobs, parents, and relationships, just like me and all of my friends.

The only obvious difference is that their lives are way more entertaining than mine. This was mostly due to the comical source of the group: Kelso. While all of the characters are funny, Kelso is the kind of character that makes you think, “How does he come up with this stuff?” After growing up and becoming less naïve, I’ve finally found the answer to that question: he doesn’t. Every stupidly hilarious act that Kelso does is the product of weeks or even months of writers sitting around talking about what exactly he should say and exactly how he should say it to get the perfect reaction from the audience.

 After this grim realization, I was disappointed that I would never be able to find a friend that could give me as much entertaining relief that Kelso does for his friends. But after continuing to watch the show, this new knowledge did not affect the quality of the show or how often I laughed.  It was still the same old hilarious Kelso, even though I knew the guy I knew as Kelso was really a board of professional writers.

There are some aspects to Kelso’s life that can be automatically characterized as unrealistic though. One of these is that he boasts about being the only person to fall off of the town water tower every year since middle school. Actually falling off isn’t the unrealistic part, but the fact that the most he has ever hurt himself has been a broken wrist and a few scrapes and bruises. One lucky fall is believable, but six? Later in the season, the show weakens its own legitimacy with this issue, because one of their friends, who is only seen for a few episodes, actually dies by falling off the tower the first time he was on it. This makes it unbelievable that Kelso  could have survived all of his falls when this character died on his first one.

There are a few other instances that suggest that Kelso isn’t real; like his getting accepted into the police academy with his reputation of illegal acts, and how he somehow manages to graduate from high school while rarely attending class. Overall, Kelso’s home life and relationships are much like anyone else’s though. He has an ongoing fling with Jackie that has the same ups and downs as real life relationships and his family is one that could be found in your own home town. So overall, even though Kelso may not be as funny or original as his writers make him out to be, that doesn’t make him any less entertaining.