knort07’s blog

             This excerpt is about a town’s attempt to isolate Lepers and contaminated people from the rest of the community.  These people are isolated because of a serious plague, which later creates the idea of discipline.  This creation of discipline can be seen through Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon.  This building is a center where prisoners are held located in the middle of town.  Everyone in the city can see each cell of the prison, but the inmates cannot really communicate with anyone.  I notice that this form of punishment seems to be very effective because the prisoners become more obedient when they know that everyone can see them.

             I wonder what punishment would be like if this instance did not exist.  It is true that people act differently when they know that they are being watched.  Most people act a lot better when someone can see what they are up to.  Most crimes are committed in the dark, when criminals think no one can see what they are doing.  I also wonder what surveillance would be like if this had never happened.  Would we have figured out that this tactic help stop crime?  It is obvious that this led to the use of surveillance cameras, which has lead to a breakthrough in catching criminals.  This is a very positive experience that lead to many advances.

           Another resource that deals with the overuse of webcams is the popular television show, Big Brother.  This show is about several people living in one house, who compete with each other for half a million dollars.  This show is basically one big webcam that watches all of the players and shows every little thing that they do.  The participants have absolutely no privacy for the few months that they are in this one house.  Although the game is supposed to be about winning a cash prize, every series has a number of hook-ups between the housemates and you guessed it, anyone and everyone (that pays a fee to CBS) can watch every hook-up online at their leisure.  CBS has created this show as a money-making business and they show no concern for displaying the participants’ secrets all over the television and internet.

           This information can be found at http://www.cbs.com/primetime/bigbrother8/jchen.shtml.  This television show is related to Campenella’s “Eden By Wire: Webcameras and the Telepresent Landscape” because this show it deals with the overuse of webcams.  Campenella’s article discusses how the vast use of webcams can is still increasing and some people are using this technology for “evil” rather than their intended purposes.  For instance, webcams became widely used for security in shopping centers and stores, but some people have used the cameras to check out women as they enter the store.  Big Brother may have also crossed this line.  In the first season, viewers were unable to get a 24-hour look at the participants, but now (in the eighth season) anyone can see all of the footage taken.  This production has moved to meeting the desires of the audience, in hopes that they will profit from the situation.

“Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body”, a chapter from the section “Public Images”, is about the male body as a public image.  Susan Bordo discusses the use of the male body in public advertising. 

            She starts out by explaining her first experience with the male body as a visual commercial image.  She says that the image was so astonishing that it caused her to spill her coffee, and she enjoyed the image so much that she saved it as her screen saver so that she could gaze on the image whenever she wanted.  She goes on to talk about how gazing at one’s self can become addicting.  She admits that when someone compliments her on her looks, her attitude can change drastically.

            She says that the feeling of someone gazing at her makes her feel sexy, and many women become addicted to this feeling.  Next, she explains the differences in styles between men and women.  Traditionally, women are supposed to be objects for attention, and men are supposed to be a moving target.  This means that they are supposed to be objects of fantasy.  However, in today’s society men are being considered as objects to gaze upon.  Men are now being used in public ads as sexual images, trying to attract women so that they will gaze on the male images.

            In this essay, Bordo is explaining the evolution of advertisement ads.  Males are now being used as sexual objects.  She also discusses the evolution of ads regarding minorities.  Now, minorities are widely used in ads, and also different races are used for different reasons.  It is clear that the media is evolving the images that are used in magazines and visual ads so that males and minorities are widely used to attract others so that they will give the articles and ads a second look (and maybe a third or fourth!).

I noticed in this text that the author, John Berger is trying to relay information to people just like me, through some of the same mediums that we discussed in class.  Berger seems to be giving the reader information in a way that is simple and easy to understand.  Berger also compares images given through photographs or pictures and paintings.  He says that usually with pictures, people formulate their own perspectives of the scene, but paintings tend to show the authors point of view more.

I wonder if society and the media can change our perspectives of the things around us to fit their point of view.  The media seems to be able to impress certain ideas on us that make us act a certain way.  For instance, some people feel that they need to go on a diet because the media tells us that it's not okay to be fat or anything other than skinny.  I mean sure, some people should lose weight for health reasons, but some girls get the impression that guys only like girls who are perfectly skinny.