Jordan
My ideal neighborhood/community
My definition of a neighborhood is a place where everyone meets and lives together in unity and with minimum disagreement. I know there will be some and/or many disagreements but I just want it to not break out in heavy violence. Community to me is a place where everyone can gather together and express ones disagreements and resolve it without much violence. Hopefully this can be accomplished. Both neighborhood and community should be made up from freedom of expression, peace, respect and love.
I am all for freedom of expression, peace, love, I love the concept of unity, love, and peace. I also love tattoos like the person in the photo. I think they represent expression and everything they feel and/or believe in, also it can be an outlet to their recovery from a struggle and a reminder that they got through it, i feel the same way about piercings, I have a hidden love for both. I believe that's how a community/neighborhood should be like. It should let people feel the way they feel, show what they want, express themselves, BUT in a peaceful way, if its in a violent manner I don't appreciate/ like it very much because it than brings fear, chaos and negative energy. If everyone in this world only expressed their frustrations in a violent manner, nothing will get done and people won't go and make changes to what they believe is wrong. But that makes me think, what is a bad neighborhood? what opinion/action is right or wrong? where has it came from? where was that idea of right and wrong developed? and why was it so engraved in us? I mean I believe if one takes away a persons human rights and they aren't doing anything to hurt you, why are you taking it away from them and stripping them from their identity and beliefs?
I am all for freedom of expression, peace, love, I love the concept of unity, love, and peace. I also love tattoos like the person in the photo. I think they represent expression and everything they feel and/or believe in, also it can be an outlet to their recovery from a struggle and a reminder that they got through it, i feel the same way about piercings, I have a hidden love for both. I believe that's how a community/neighborhood should be like. It should let people feel the way they feel, show what they want, express themselves, BUT in a peaceful way, if its in a violent manner I don't appreciate/ like it very much because it than brings fear, chaos and negative energy. If everyone in this world only expressed their frustrations in a violent manner, nothing will get done and people won't go and make changes to what they believe is wrong. But that makes me think, what is a bad neighborhood? what opinion/action is right or wrong? where has it came from? where was that idea of right and wrong developed? and why was it so engraved in us? I mean I believe if one takes away a persons human rights and they aren't doing anything to hurt you, why are you taking it away from them and stripping them from their identity and beliefs?
The Environment
What is the environment? I define the environment as everything around us that WE affect and that effects US in any way. It could be indirect or direct. My relationship with nature is a reciprocity.Its a give and take kind of thing. Affecting the environment is always going to come back to us and effect us in one way or another. A environment can be a school environment were your pupils or teachers influence and/or teach you a life lesson or open your eyes to your purpose in life. Any environment can do this for you, either a home environment or social one.
Nature
This photo shows how I see nature. The earth/ global is what I see nature as. the wide open space is what I picture when I think of nature. I think of a little butterfly flying above the sky through its little eyes and seeing all the things around it. it sees how we treat the place it lives. And I wonder what how it feels about we have done to the beautiful nature and environment.
I went to a new state recently and I saw so much more than what i see on a daily basis. I saw beautiful clear blue skies when it was sunny and beautiful mountains and its reflection In the surface of the water.
Nature is global to my understanding because it is a learning experience and its anything in its natural state of being. its what we live in basically. When nature comes into mind I picture a happy go lucky kind of song ha ha.
I went to a new state recently and I saw so much more than what i see on a daily basis. I saw beautiful clear blue skies when it was sunny and beautiful mountains and its reflection In the surface of the water.
Nature is global to my understanding because it is a learning experience and its anything in its natural state of being. its what we live in basically. When nature comes into mind I picture a happy go lucky kind of song ha ha.
My Mental Map
One thing I am taking away from the mental mapping project is that learned things about myself that I never really saw the meaning between locations and myself. I never really stopped and thought about what or how my childhood affected me. This project or experiment helped me see the symbolism of my neighborhood and everyone's neighborhood. Some questions that came up is how much or how deep a location meant to you or what impact it had on you. Or how it seems to some people from the outside. We or I really try to see things in many different lights or in many sides of something. In think because every teenager; every person has such unique experiences that there is no one complete general statement to describe every person. It's not possible, in my opinion. BUT, we can try and make one that isn't biased and tries to bring differences together. Another thing that i can take away is how memories and personal experiences have an impact on how you think and act. An example is, when I was younger i wasn't able to go out anywhere really unless i was with an adult, and that impacted me in the sense that I don't like or think I can do things on my own such as go to the doctor or shopping without an adult. I think this is because I was so used to and it was always said to me that it stuck to me.
Some question that emerged to me during this experience is WHY or HOW can something like a childhood have such a DRASTIC impact on the type of person you become as you grow older. I always say that experiences have an impact on your personality and the person you become and will continue to become, I'm just wondering how is that? I'm trying to see the psychological and scientific reason to it. But, the truth is to me at least, is that we won't ever truly find out because it is such a complex thing and area to study and explore.
In my mental map, I would share how different the drawing is compared to what I thought or said. I don't think everything that is on the map is what really says something about my character now. I think is should have been more of a verbal and talking experiment because I think more and deeper, because my mind wanders and as it wanders I make connections. This map will show how a drawing can expand and can mean and describe so much more than what it really shows. Paintings and collages aren't something that only have one interpretation. Just like life it has multiple and millions of interpretations. So, what I'm saying is that the map shows differences and complexity. Other methods that could capture our interests in our neighborhoods is taking personal pictures of our neighborhoods and telling a little story about the picture and describe what it says to you about yourself.
Some question that emerged to me during this experience is WHY or HOW can something like a childhood have such a DRASTIC impact on the type of person you become as you grow older. I always say that experiences have an impact on your personality and the person you become and will continue to become, I'm just wondering how is that? I'm trying to see the psychological and scientific reason to it. But, the truth is to me at least, is that we won't ever truly find out because it is such a complex thing and area to study and explore.
In my mental map, I would share how different the drawing is compared to what I thought or said. I don't think everything that is on the map is what really says something about my character now. I think is should have been more of a verbal and talking experiment because I think more and deeper, because my mind wanders and as it wanders I make connections. This map will show how a drawing can expand and can mean and describe so much more than what it really shows. Paintings and collages aren't something that only have one interpretation. Just like life it has multiple and millions of interpretations. So, what I'm saying is that the map shows differences and complexity. Other methods that could capture our interests in our neighborhoods is taking personal pictures of our neighborhoods and telling a little story about the picture and describe what it says to you about yourself.
Advertisement Project
Methods:Data Collection
I collected my data from taking pictures of TV commercials in New York, screenshots of Facebook on my Iphone, Ads on the train station platform in 86th Street and from the train station in 59th Street to outside on my way to school. The channels that I watched and took the pictures from were the FoodChannel and some other channel. They were American based. The pictures were taken over the course of one weekday and it came up to over 30 photos, but it became narrowed down because some were blurry and repeated. Also I had to choose 20 to work on the project.
Methods: Content Analysis
For the content analysis I looked at each advertisement and broke each down to common threads that applied to intended audiences, what gender was most present in the ad, what type of ad was it for and the race that was most present. I chose these categories because I wanted to focus mostly on gender, race and intended audience and the type of product that were advertised. For each category I looked for it and tallied how many times it was present in the ad(s). The percentage that is present in the pie graphs come from my using Microsoft Excel and making a graph with for each category and with the tallies it automatically came us with the percentages. For the Intended audience category I looked at ads that seemed to apply to adults/kids. An example is a LEGO sign which appeals for children because kids love toys and then the child will go to their parent and ask for a LEGO toy or any other toy. The category for gender I just tallied the amount of times I saw a female verses males. Race category I tallied the amount of times I saw people in the ads that were white or non-white. Finally the type of product category I tallied the different type of products the ads that I collected displayed.
Methods:Critical Discourse Analysis
The one advertisement that I chose for the Critical Discourse Analysis was the P!nk ad, I chose this one because it seemed to be the one with the most issues, to me at least. It seemed to be the one that had the issues that I found important to talk about and point out. The purpose or incentive or their incentive is one of the things that really interests me and that is why I chose this ad, also because it is in regards to the entertainment business. Which is a business that, to me has a lot of problems because it tries to isolate and control the artist. That is why I chose this Ad, and because I like P!nk and her music.
Findings:Content Analysis
From the Pie Charts above the two that seemed the most interesting to were "Gender that is dominant in the Advertisements" and "The Number of People in Advertisements that were of one race." These two seemed the most shocking because it seemed the most shocking. I feel like the results displayed how sex sells in a way and how the white race is dominant in everyday advertisements. It is rare for me to see a Non-white person in a blog. Females being presented in Ads more to me, shows how females are being objectified. They are being used to advertise a product, they are using their beauty and/or body to sell the product, they don't have to be basically naked, but the fact that they are used to advertise a product means that they are only seen as a product. Males do not seem to be shown in ads, maybe, because they may not be able to "sell" the product as well as females. I am not saying that males are not objectified, because they are, in many clothing ads, from what I've seen . The only thing it is more common for females to be used in ads so they can sell the product.
The chart that is titled "The Number of People in Advertisements that were of one race" is shocking to me because the dominant race that is present when there are people in ads are white. What I analysed was that it is demonstrating that white is glorified race or the better race. I say this because I see that in an ad where there are a group of people more than half of the people are white and the rest is non-white. I see this is demonstrating a way of excluding other races by not presenting them.
The chart that is titled "The Number of People in Advertisements that were of one race" is shocking to me because the dominant race that is present when there are people in ads are white. What I analysed was that it is demonstrating that white is glorified race or the better race. I say this because I see that in an ad where there are a group of people more than half of the people are white and the rest is non-white. I see this is demonstrating a way of excluding other races by not presenting them.
Findings: Critical Discourse Analysis
I will start off with I personally adore P!nk and her music and how she is. She has an amazing body. Now this comment I think demonstrates how we idolize a persons body so much and don't really look at their personality. I really admire P!nk and how she is as a person, from what I see in the media or what they show me. One message that I see that is portrayed here is how important being a sex symbol is in the entertainment business. In that type of business the people in charge use the artists body to sell their music and image. Image is key in that type of business because it is one of the only things people look at in an artist. Now a days people really don't focus on the talent. I am not saying this for all artist,but the mainstream and the majority of the artists now really don't have natural talent, it is artificial. This is the message I see in the picture. I am not looking at it the literal obvious meaning, this is a covert message. Now the overt one is the how she has an beautiful body and how it is emphasis. Her legs are exposed and she is wearing makeup, to me this shows how artist and people are being molded in the big screen; in the media. You don't really see the REAL people because it is not shown, it is hidden. The common people like me don't see how the celebrates act once they're home or how normal they are OUT of the spotlight. It is seen or focused because the media doesn't want to show us, because they want the celebrates and the audience to feel like they are worlds apart and non-reachable, like they can ever bounce back and forth into the other "world". These are some of the messages I see in this ad and how I see the entertainment business.
Discussion
This project made me realize how important it is to see the hidden messages Advertisements send to us. We are heavily influenced by them and are impacted greatly in ways we don't even see. It made me see how vulnerable it makes us because we change ourselves to fit what the Ad is portraying. We are vulnerable people because it makes us change ourselves to fit the desires to other people. And how manipulating the Advertisement business it.
The images send the message that sex appeal and being sexy is the ONLY and MOST important thing in the world because we all know sex sells and selling our bodies is the best and most healthy way of doing things (sarcastic tone). This is the kinds of messages I see all around us and we sometimes give I a feel like shit because we don't always fit into the image they portrays to us. This causes us to have low-self esteem.
The images send the message that sex appeal and being sexy is the ONLY and MOST important thing in the world because we all know sex sells and selling our bodies is the best and most healthy way of doing things (sarcastic tone). This is the kinds of messages I see all around us and we sometimes give I a feel like shit because we don't always fit into the image they portrays to us. This causes us to have low-self esteem.