SARAH
My Nature
This is a picture of a McGoldrick park that is located very close to my house. When I was younger, my mom would always take me there to play with children my age and to meet new friends. When I came to the U.S. I was ten years old and I didn't know anyone. I had no friends. This was my place where I met my first friend and where I started to get used to the new situation that I was struggling with. Now as I am getting older, I go there with my little brother. Every time I visit, I remember when I was the little kid playing around. Besides all of the memories, I love this park because it has tons of trees and beautiful paths that make everyone feel welcome. It has a lot of space where children can play soccer and other sports. Also, it is a very quiet place where people can just sit down and relax after a long day of work.
My Neighborhood
For many a neighborhood is just a place were a person lives. This is a picture of my neighborhood. The street that is shown in the picture is the busiest street in the entire Greenpoint. You can find there variety of grocery stores, hair salons, restaurants and other shops that make people's lives easier. Whenever I go shopping with my mom, it seems like everyone knows one another.
Usually, Greenpoint is known as a polish neighborhood. When I walk on this street or any other street, I feel like I am in Poland. Sometimes there are people talking to one another in polish or parents speaking to their children also in polish. I am glad that the neighborhood that I live in has such strong polish traditions and cultures because it helps me define who I am. There are people that as they get older forget where they came from and who they used to be. They just live the moment. However, by constantly returning to a neighborhood full of traditions and memories, it's impossible to forget one's true identity.
Usually, Greenpoint is known as a polish neighborhood. When I walk on this street or any other street, I feel like I am in Poland. Sometimes there are people talking to one another in polish or parents speaking to their children also in polish. I am glad that the neighborhood that I live in has such strong polish traditions and cultures because it helps me define who I am. There are people that as they get older forget where they came from and who they used to be. They just live the moment. However, by constantly returning to a neighborhood full of traditions and memories, it's impossible to forget one's true identity.
My Community
This is a picture of an organic shop that I used to work in during the summer. A community is a group of people that interact with one another at a certain place. I consider this shop my community because while working there I meet a lot of new, fantastic people that taught me a lot. They taught me how to work with one another in peace and how to trust other people. Like in every workplace, there were some conflicts that had to be solved, but overall it was a good experience. After working there for about 4 months, I began thinking of many people there as my family. This is the point of community. Everyone should feel welcome, accepted and respected because no one should judge other people based on their differences. These are the three characteristics that define my idea of a perfect community. Even though, my neighborhood did not reach that ideal stage yet, I am sure that one day it will be as I always wanted it to be.
My Environment
An environment is a person's surroundings or everything around a person. My idea of an environment is my home. My environment are my parents and my family. I live with them, I listen to everything that they have to say and I follow everything that they told and taught me. An environment should also be a place of trust, respect and happiness. For me, my parents are great role models and I cannot think of what I would do if they disappeared out of nowhere. Every worry that I have, I bring it to them and they always help me figure out a perfect solution. Moreover, an environment should be a place that is open minded to different ideas. It shouldn't be limited to just the concepts that are being followed through generations. My home is a place where I feel comfortable and I feel like I can be myself around everyone. In other places I feel like I have to control my behavior so that people don't think that I am a crazy maniac. At home, However, at home it doesn't matter because everyone loves you the way you are.
What does this mean to me ??
I feel that all of these places are very close to my heart and that there are different ways that I feel in all of them. In my neighborhood, I don't feel like an outcast, instead I feel like I belong there. There are situations where I feel like people are judging me based on how I look or what I wear, but I try not to pay attention to the negatives. In my park, shown above, I feel relaxed. That is the only place were I know that no one will bother me. I can sit on the bench, stare into space and I know that people won't look at me like I'm crazy because most of them do the same. I try to give as much to my neighborhood as I can. On Saturdays I volunteer at a polish school where I help little children read and write in polish. Moreover, on Saturdays I go to polish school myself. I learn the polish history and cultures that associate with it. The environment in a public school and a polish school is completely different.
In community which would be the store, I feel a little different. At the beginning when I started working people looked at me differently just because I was shy. I know that to some people shyness may seem silly, but being shy is a part of me. That is an issue that I have been struggling with every since I was a little child. It is something that is very hard for me to overcome. When I started working, the first thought that came to my mind was that I probably will not fit in.I was judging myself before they could even form their own opinions about me. After I got to know them better I realized that they are not as bad as I thought. By getting out of my comfort zone, I gained new friends and new experiences.
Lastly, my home is my comfort zone. There I don't have to worry that I will do something wrong or that I will have to speak in front of audience. I just enjoy who I am. Home is a place where I am acting different then in any other places. I feel like I can be myself. At home I can find support, I can reveal all of my emotions that are bothering me or making me happy. Whenever I am with my friends or with any other people that are not my family, I am afraid to open up. By trying to make a good impression on other people, I have the tendency to create a barrier that separates me from other people. I do not know why this happens, it just does.
These places influenced me in a lot of different ways. In these places I learned how to be myself. I always thought that people will judge me by how I am. However, I learned that I shouldn't worry what other people have to say about me. I have to worry about myself and my life. Whenever, I compared myself to other people or I felt that I am not good enough, they always told me that I shouldn't compare to the people that are better off, but to those who are worst off. That way I saw that my life is not so bad. I realized that there are people in the world that would love to live the way I do. People learn everyday. Another thing that I am still learning is how to be confident and believe in myself. Hopefully one day I will be able to stand in front of a large crowd of people and speak without any doubts.
In community which would be the store, I feel a little different. At the beginning when I started working people looked at me differently just because I was shy. I know that to some people shyness may seem silly, but being shy is a part of me. That is an issue that I have been struggling with every since I was a little child. It is something that is very hard for me to overcome. When I started working, the first thought that came to my mind was that I probably will not fit in.I was judging myself before they could even form their own opinions about me. After I got to know them better I realized that they are not as bad as I thought. By getting out of my comfort zone, I gained new friends and new experiences.
Lastly, my home is my comfort zone. There I don't have to worry that I will do something wrong or that I will have to speak in front of audience. I just enjoy who I am. Home is a place where I am acting different then in any other places. I feel like I can be myself. At home I can find support, I can reveal all of my emotions that are bothering me or making me happy. Whenever I am with my friends or with any other people that are not my family, I am afraid to open up. By trying to make a good impression on other people, I have the tendency to create a barrier that separates me from other people. I do not know why this happens, it just does.
These places influenced me in a lot of different ways. In these places I learned how to be myself. I always thought that people will judge me by how I am. However, I learned that I shouldn't worry what other people have to say about me. I have to worry about myself and my life. Whenever, I compared myself to other people or I felt that I am not good enough, they always told me that I shouldn't compare to the people that are better off, but to those who are worst off. That way I saw that my life is not so bad. I realized that there are people in the world that would love to live the way I do. People learn everyday. Another thing that I am still learning is how to be confident and believe in myself. Hopefully one day I will be able to stand in front of a large crowd of people and speak without any doubts.
Mental Mapping
While doing this mental mapping activity, I realized that family and family opinions are very important to a lot of people in the class. Also, a lot of people did not feel any connection to their neighborhoods. When we were discussing this in class, I wondered why people feel this way. For me it was hard to believe because I am close to my family. I am sure that a part of why I am close to my family is because I was not born in the U.S. My parents were always very protecting and understanding so I never feel like I need to do something against their will. Another thing that I realized was that most students leave( to a different neighborhood) from their neighborhood because they are unable to express themselves were in the place where they live. I found this very important because a lot of people decide to go to Manhattan to " find" themselves. When we were talking about this I was able to connect to many people in class because sometimes I feel like the people that I am around expect too much from me and I don't have have time to think about me. Lastly, I learn that many do not like to speak about their neighborhoods because they are afraid of being judged by other. I feel like it is not about the neighborhood, it's about the way a person feels in the neighborhood. Just because another person feels that ones neighborhood is "bad", it does not have to mean that exact thing. When someone feels safe then that's all that matters. No one should feel bad about where they live. If I were to share this research with someone it would probably be my family and my friends. Since some of my friends do not like to speak about their neighborhoods, it would be a perfect research for them to see that just because a neighborhood has a bad connotation it does not mean it's bad. My family would learn a lot from this research because sometimes I think that they are overprotective. I think that they need to know that everyone deserves their own space. However, because they did a lot for me when I was younger I don't want to disappoint them so I just act like a obedient child.
I really enjoyed doing this exercise because it thought me a lot about the ways that other people are thinking. Also, I connected to a lot of the ideas that other people were talking about. I think that it is a very good way of researching how students feel about their neighborhoods. One thing that was beneficial was that students were able to listen to others and realize that they are not the only ones that feel a certain way about their neighborhood. I think that people also got to learn a lot about each other. I really liked that we were able to discuss our ideas as a class and share our thoughts. It was very fun and interesting. The thing that was effective is the recordings and putting all of our information into one document. These documents showed a collective data of what everyone in our group thought. One thing that was less effective was that I think we discussed one group for two days and then we had to rush through the rest of the groups. Maybe there should be equal timing for every group. Otherwise, I really enjoyed our discussions and everything that other people got to say. I feel that maybe we should have been given more time to draw the map. That way people would be able to draw more things on their maps and the data would be more accurate. We should have more time to record it too. That way there would be more data and the results then everything would be better and the research would be more accurate. Other ways in which we can capture what we want to learn about our neighborhood is by talking about other people from the same neighborhood we can encourage others to change and improve the neighborhood. Therefore, first we should discuss our ideas in small groups and then go bigger and bigger. By talking to people from the same group we learn about the positives and negatives of their neighborhoods, but we cannot do anything to help them.
I really enjoyed doing this exercise because it thought me a lot about the ways that other people are thinking. Also, I connected to a lot of the ideas that other people were talking about. I think that it is a very good way of researching how students feel about their neighborhoods. One thing that was beneficial was that students were able to listen to others and realize that they are not the only ones that feel a certain way about their neighborhood. I think that people also got to learn a lot about each other. I really liked that we were able to discuss our ideas as a class and share our thoughts. It was very fun and interesting. The thing that was effective is the recordings and putting all of our information into one document. These documents showed a collective data of what everyone in our group thought. One thing that was less effective was that I think we discussed one group for two days and then we had to rush through the rest of the groups. Maybe there should be equal timing for every group. Otherwise, I really enjoyed our discussions and everything that other people got to say. I feel that maybe we should have been given more time to draw the map. That way people would be able to draw more things on their maps and the data would be more accurate. We should have more time to record it too. That way there would be more data and the results then everything would be better and the research would be more accurate. Other ways in which we can capture what we want to learn about our neighborhood is by talking about other people from the same neighborhood we can encourage others to change and improve the neighborhood. Therefore, first we should discuss our ideas in small groups and then go bigger and bigger. By talking to people from the same group we learn about the positives and negatives of their neighborhoods, but we cannot do anything to help them.
Ad- Busting Project
Methodology
Data Collection:
Data Collection:
I started this project by taking pictures of random advertisements that I found. I took the pictures while I was walking near my neighborhood. I knew that I could find most of my advertisements at the bus stops and inside and outside the different stores. My major focus was beauty products because that's the advertisements that were mostly common that I found. Also, there is a street in my neighborhood that I knew it would have a lot of advertisements. When I go back from school, I always pass by a couple of bus stops and I knew that there will be advertisements there too. Mostly these ads were addressing/ promoting some kind of technology. It was either about the newest cell phone that recently came out or other technology. I actually found it very interesting that most of the advertisements were about a similar things.
Data Analysis:
The categories that I chose to analyze the advertisements were: theme, the number of times it appeared in my ad collection, who is the product marketed for, how I feel about a certain ad and the percentage. I chose these categories because I think that most of my advertisements are revolving around similar types of products. For the theme category, I looked at each of the advertisements and I saw what was the message of the advertisement. I gathered 10 different themes. For the category that says # of times it appears, I counted how many pictures present a certain theme that I wrote about. For the category of who would buy this product, I tried to imagine who would most likely buy that certain product and who would be affected by the advertisements. For example, if it is a beauty product, I would most likely think that probably teenage girls/women would be affected by this product. For the how I feel section, I wrote how I was affected by the product and my opinion about if it is a positive or negative on the people that look at those ads. Lastly, for the percentage section, I calculated the percentage of how many times it appears over the total number of advertisements.
Critical Discourse Analysis:
One advertisement that I chose is the second picture that shows a young, white women with a shocked expression. This ad presents mascara. I selected this advertisement because it was the most surprising to me. Since it is trying to sell mascara I do not really see why the advertisement is focused on the entire face. Another thing that also surprised me was the caption that was under the face. It states " 8x BIGGER. SMOOTHER. EVEN". This is realistically impossible, however, it's funny that people are blindsided by the advertisements and people buy the products anyway. The last thing about this ad is that the company that produces this product made sure to pick a girl that is really pretty. The company knows that when the girl on the cover is pretty then it will attract more female attention. I noticed that a lot of women are observers and instead of actually looking at the content of the product, they look at the advertisement. That is how they make their decisions whether they want to purchase something or not. I found this ad when I was at a store and I noticed that while walking through the aisles the products with some sort of commercial/ad seemed much more attractive.
FINDINGS/RESULTS:
Content Analysis:
Data Analysis:
The categories that I chose to analyze the advertisements were: theme, the number of times it appeared in my ad collection, who is the product marketed for, how I feel about a certain ad and the percentage. I chose these categories because I think that most of my advertisements are revolving around similar types of products. For the theme category, I looked at each of the advertisements and I saw what was the message of the advertisement. I gathered 10 different themes. For the category that says # of times it appears, I counted how many pictures present a certain theme that I wrote about. For the category of who would buy this product, I tried to imagine who would most likely buy that certain product and who would be affected by the advertisements. For example, if it is a beauty product, I would most likely think that probably teenage girls/women would be affected by this product. For the how I feel section, I wrote how I was affected by the product and my opinion about if it is a positive or negative on the people that look at those ads. Lastly, for the percentage section, I calculated the percentage of how many times it appears over the total number of advertisements.
Critical Discourse Analysis:
One advertisement that I chose is the second picture that shows a young, white women with a shocked expression. This ad presents mascara. I selected this advertisement because it was the most surprising to me. Since it is trying to sell mascara I do not really see why the advertisement is focused on the entire face. Another thing that also surprised me was the caption that was under the face. It states " 8x BIGGER. SMOOTHER. EVEN". This is realistically impossible, however, it's funny that people are blindsided by the advertisements and people buy the products anyway. The last thing about this ad is that the company that produces this product made sure to pick a girl that is really pretty. The company knows that when the girl on the cover is pretty then it will attract more female attention. I noticed that a lot of women are observers and instead of actually looking at the content of the product, they look at the advertisement. That is how they make their decisions whether they want to purchase something or not. I found this ad when I was at a store and I noticed that while walking through the aisles the products with some sort of commercial/ad seemed much more attractive.
FINDINGS/RESULTS:
Content Analysis:
The most interesting aspect about my data is that overall I had a lot of advertisements that included products for women. It I were to count all products for females ( either young or older) it would be a pretty large number as opposed to men products. There was very few men products that were extremely visible. One thing that was really interesting was that for a lot of the products for men, women were on the front cover. For most of the female ads, the only thing that was visible was the face.The norm that was also very interesting for my findings was that there a lot of products that are created to both the women and men. The most advertisements that I found were for both. For example products such as medicine, technology or sales could be considered for both because both genders are dealing with them on almost every day bases. Moreover, to encourage people to buy certain things some products had celebrities on them. Since many ( especially young girls) are inspired by movie stars or singers, it makes the product more popular, even though, the celebrities have probably never even used that product in their life. These are all very interesting concepts that I came across while looking back at all of the data that I have created for this project.
Critical Discourse Analysis:
For the one advertisement that I chose from above, I looked into it very carefully to see if there is any other message behind just the face. After staring for a while, I noticed that the mascara, which is the main product, is much smaller is size than the face. I do not think that this is right because this way they are covering the entire purpose of an ad. Also, I noticed the name of the actual product "theROCKET". When I think of a rocket, I think of something that is fast and not stoppable. I think that they are comparing a mascara to a rocket because they are trying to show that it is easily applicable and easy to manage. It is a very smart way to convince people to buy a product because people can compare them to something else and make their decision based on that information. Lastly, what I noticed was that there are a lot of companies with similar products that are fighting for similar consumers. This means that they have to make the best advertisements they can to drew people towards them and away from other companies. They have to come up with ideas that would be out of this world, unusual or unique.
Discussion:
a) What I learned from this project was that many advertisement use women mostly as a sex object. The women's beauty is used to attract others to buy a certain product. Usually these women are being photo shopped and do not even look that way in real life. When girls look at those advertisements they want to be like the women in the advertisement. However, these advertisements are not accurate because no one is that perfect. While looking looking at these pictures I noticed that there is a lot of ads about beauty products and medicine. I am sure that this is because there is a lot of pharmacies around my neighborhood. They post these ads to encourage people, especially young adults to purchase a certain product. Moreover, I learned that we should not pay much attention to these ads. We should focus on things that are more important than just looks.
b) The messages that these advertisements are sending young people is that everyone has to be perfect and that everyone need to have all of the newest products that just came out. I feel that this is a negative message because instead of teaching young adults that the inside is way more than the outside, it provokes them to feel insecure about their bodies and everything they do. Being a young adult is not easy, sometimes they just act without thinking. For example, one beauty product will not make a face completely spotless. Every person wants to be as beautiful as they can, but sometimes we have to learn that there are a lot of other things that determine the beauty of a person. This matters because as I said before it can make people really insecure and as a person become older, this insecurity can turn into something much more dangerous and unhealthy.
c) Some new questions that emerged from my investigation were:
Why can't advertisements show the real beauty and not the photo shopped one?
Why are young people so influenced by the context of the advertisement?
Why are there only white women on my ads?
What can I do to change how advertisements affect people?
Are there any advertisements in the world that show the real beauty of a women/men?
Am I influenced by the advertisements that I see on the streets/stores/television commercials?
Critical Discourse Analysis:
For the one advertisement that I chose from above, I looked into it very carefully to see if there is any other message behind just the face. After staring for a while, I noticed that the mascara, which is the main product, is much smaller is size than the face. I do not think that this is right because this way they are covering the entire purpose of an ad. Also, I noticed the name of the actual product "theROCKET". When I think of a rocket, I think of something that is fast and not stoppable. I think that they are comparing a mascara to a rocket because they are trying to show that it is easily applicable and easy to manage. It is a very smart way to convince people to buy a product because people can compare them to something else and make their decision based on that information. Lastly, what I noticed was that there are a lot of companies with similar products that are fighting for similar consumers. This means that they have to make the best advertisements they can to drew people towards them and away from other companies. They have to come up with ideas that would be out of this world, unusual or unique.
Discussion:
a) What I learned from this project was that many advertisement use women mostly as a sex object. The women's beauty is used to attract others to buy a certain product. Usually these women are being photo shopped and do not even look that way in real life. When girls look at those advertisements they want to be like the women in the advertisement. However, these advertisements are not accurate because no one is that perfect. While looking looking at these pictures I noticed that there is a lot of ads about beauty products and medicine. I am sure that this is because there is a lot of pharmacies around my neighborhood. They post these ads to encourage people, especially young adults to purchase a certain product. Moreover, I learned that we should not pay much attention to these ads. We should focus on things that are more important than just looks.
b) The messages that these advertisements are sending young people is that everyone has to be perfect and that everyone need to have all of the newest products that just came out. I feel that this is a negative message because instead of teaching young adults that the inside is way more than the outside, it provokes them to feel insecure about their bodies and everything they do. Being a young adult is not easy, sometimes they just act without thinking. For example, one beauty product will not make a face completely spotless. Every person wants to be as beautiful as they can, but sometimes we have to learn that there are a lot of other things that determine the beauty of a person. This matters because as I said before it can make people really insecure and as a person become older, this insecurity can turn into something much more dangerous and unhealthy.
c) Some new questions that emerged from my investigation were:
Why can't advertisements show the real beauty and not the photo shopped one?
Why are young people so influenced by the context of the advertisement?
Why are there only white women on my ads?
What can I do to change how advertisements affect people?
Are there any advertisements in the world that show the real beauty of a women/men?
Am I influenced by the advertisements that I see on the streets/stores/television commercials?
Will there be more or less advertisements in the future? If there will be more and we are already affected by the ads, what will happened
Neighborhood Reflection
Favorite Place:
I do not have a favorite place in my neighborhood. There are a lot of places in my neighborhood that I go to, but none of them are places that I would say are my favorite. These places are just there. When I wonder around my neighborhood I usually go either with a friend or my parents.
I do not have a favorite place in my neighborhood. There are a lot of places in my neighborhood that I go to, but none of them are places that I would say are my favorite. These places are just there. When I wonder around my neighborhood I usually go either with a friend or my parents.