Diversity and Social Media

Diversity and Social Media

by Kevin Wolfe

After the Web 2.0 Conference in 2005, Anil Dash commented on the lack of diversity in social media. Mashable's Pete Cashmore picked up on this as a discussion point on his site.

Through the comments on the post, it seems as though the social media world at it's roots, the creators and event organizers, are not as diverse and do not come across as accepting as it may seem from the general user's experience.

Marshall Kirkpatrick also wrote about this issue on his blog after reading about it on mashable.com. Kirkpatrick provides some suggestions, such as stepping outside of the normal realm of "A-list" bloggers when considering experts in the field and bringing together the for-profit and not-for-profit organization.

User diversity doesn't seem to be that large of a problem at the user level. The largest barrier to using social media may be the accessibility to the Internet by some lower income people. But all the average citizen needs to become a user of social media is access to the Internet, something that most library systems provide free of service to patrons.

Social media may end up being a great unifier in the common person's ability to create and access media on their own.

Picture from http://mobasoft.com/wordpress/category/social-media/

Diversity Within My Graduate Project

First and foremost, my project is centered on art museums and the increasing need for a larger audience base. Authors and researchers have accepted the notion of a current generational gap formed in the people that choose to attend art museums. Currently, white affluent men and women over the age of 50 contribute a major portion of attendance and donations to art museums around the country. This in itself is nothing to be alarmed about. The part that is scary for the art museum industry is that there isn’t another demographic that is picking up the remaining portion. This is where my master’s project will come into play.

My project is a portfolio-based project that will be grounded in research involving a specific group (14-21 year old males and females). I will be researching the methods of creativity and social dynamics by holding six focus groups with 6-8 members of this demographic in attendance. The information provided by these as well as other research means will provide me the necessary information and insight to complete a creative brief for an advertising platform. Once this creative platform is completed, I will devise two separate advertising campaigns containing between 10 and 15 advertising print executions. I will then use my research to justify my creative executions, thus allowing for an effective method of advertisement to a previously uninterested group of individuals. 

When looking through the Internet for a viable example of diversity integrating with my project topic, I came across an excerpt from Susan Donley’s book, Cultural Diversity; The Museum as Resource. I found this excerpt at http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/museum/museumschool.html. Within this chapter excerpt, Donley outlines the nature of art museums. She goes into detail about their historical significance as well as their ability to teach diversity. She believes the artifacts themselves, being made by different cultures, is in itself a valid form of diversity. Pieces shown within the walls of a museum are not racially specific in nature. Each and every piece has a different beginning, middle and end. The artifacts themselves are evidence of diversity in action. Within one museum, there are thousands of artifacts, each expressing a different meaning or idea. It is this melting pot of significance that diversity is found. With each piece, a new story is told; it can be one of a middle class Caucasian woman or that of a high class African American man. The point is that art has the luxury of not being racially distinguishable. It is because of this very fact that my project integrates diversity within itself naturally. Conversation about diversity within my project is therefore unnecessary.

My Project and Diversity

The overarching concept of art museum advertising messages is extremely relevant to contemporary media. The notion of talent construction comes into play when regarding advertising different creative outlets to a younger generation (in this case, art museums). In order for contemporary media outlets to continue to strive in the future, it is imperative that younger generations foster a passion for creativity. This is where the issue of art museum advertising comes into play. Squidoo.com defines creativity as “the ability to make something original, to imagine things that don't exist, and to come up with new ideas.” With that being said, the importance of continued creativity generation should be understood. Without creativity in our younger generations, the business fields associated with this wonderful ability will disappear. 

With a topic centered on the renewal of creativity in minors, the ethical constrains of such a task should be considered. According to Ethical Conduct of Clinical Research Involving Children, even though children have benefited greatly from clinical research, their rights must be thought about in an excessive amount. Since children are younger and thus more prone to physical and emotional damage, their care must be ensured at all times when participating in a study. Psychologist Allen D. Kanner, PhD, says “advertising is a massive, multi-million dollar project that's having an enormous impact on child development. 

The sheer volume of advertising is growing rapidly and invading new areas of childhood, like our schools.” This notion outlines the importance of the ethical treatment of children in this study. With the increasing amount of messages being targeted toward children, we as media vehicles must choose the way in which we reach our children targets. It is an important issue that is currently being addressed by different venues across academia. 

The country of Iceland has taken an extreme position on advertising directed toward children. They have several laws that both limit and deny advertising messages during children specific programming. These actions show how important this topic is. When a government makes laws against a topic, it implies importance. 

The way in which American advertisers treat the issue of advertising for children can be described as a self-policing action. There is a lack of laws preventing the advertisement of products to children, however, advertisers answer to the people within their publics. Chris Moore of Ogilvy & Mather wrote a speech in which he stated “Society imposes context on advertising ethics all the time - especially in advertising that involves children.” If a member of the advertising community can recognize a trend within that community, it must be an apparent issue. 

The ethics involved around the notion of creativity prosperity are important to consider when executing research. These children must be thought of before being spoken to. Hopefully, the industry will continue their self-policing in the future, for our children’s sake that is.

The following is a list of sources used in the creation of this blog.

http://www.squidoo.com/fosteringcreativity

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10958&page=R1

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep00/advertising.html

http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/docs/library/studies/finalised/studpdf/minadv_ic.pdf

http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/speaker_pres/data/3001

Achieving Excellence through Adversity

(picture from:images.google.com)

Diversity & My Study

By Adam Pinkney

Synopsis:

My graduate project is a personal documentary. This documentary will focus on different aspects of my life. It is the story of a young man name Adam Pinkney who is pursuing a masters degree. He was the only one in his whole family to go to college and in 2008 he received his bachelors degree. He was born the fifth child of eight children in his family. The color of his mothers skin was white as day, and fathers dark as night. He had conflicting issues growing up as a mixed breed. There came times in his life were he had to chose sides, from the simplest fact of checking his ethnicity on paperwork, to the ultimate fact of being accepted and rejected. Adam faced many hardships in life however he chose to stay positive and strive through adversity.

Adam is one of those success stories we hear all too often; poor boy from a small town turned college graduate. But Adam’s story is a little longer than that. A common phrase that relates to his story is “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” if this is true, Adam is a very strong person. Adam grew up with six brothers and sisters and his parents in a three-bedroom house in McAlester, Okla. I wish I could say that was the hardest part of his childhood, but I’d be lying. He knew more slang words for drugs by the time he was ten. For other people, “visiting relatives” was a family vacation, but for Adam, it was visiting his dad in the state penitentiary.

 

But none of that discouraged Adam. If anything, it was the motivation he needed to make something of himself. He wanted to do something for himself and his family, so he moved to Norman and started the next chapter of his life at the University of Oklahoma. He made great friends, great grades and decent money working various on-campus jobs.  Things were going perfect for Adam. For once, life was good.

 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. On Aug. 30, 2007, two weeks into his senior year, Adam received a phone call that would change his life forever. His mom, Carolyn, and 17-year old brother, Jesse, had died in a car accident, and no one was sure if his 16-year-old sister, Jessica, would make it. At that point, many students would have dropped out of school and spiraled into a deep depression, but Adam knew what he had to do for his mom and brother, for his family, for himself.

 

Adam went home that week to comfort his family, pray for his sister and attend his mom and brother’s funeral. The next week, he was back in class, with a new determination to make something of himself. He was going to do something his brother would never have the chance to do. Adam was going to graduate.

On May 10, 2008, Adam walked across the stage with his dad and siblings applauding from high in the stands, and his mom and brother applauding from even higher. He smiled from ear to ear as he shook hands with the dean and received his diploma. To others, that diploma represented four years of tests and homework, or $80,000 of tuition. But to Adam, it represented his life, every struggle, and every accomplishment. It also represented his strength and his drive for life.

 

This will be one aspect of my documentary in setting up my life. As a whole my documentary will be impacted by diversity. This is due to the mere fact that I grew up with a white side and black side. Through my research on poynter.org I found an article called Diversity in Hard Times. After reading this article I found feedback to this article. The feedback was more interesting and compelling to me because it was more personal and I could relate. One post on the feedback that I could relate to included these words: “The main problem here is the parallel often drawn between diversities of opinion and issues, and the diversity of skin color. For any company or organization to be as progressive as they ought to be in issues of workplace diversity their emphasis should be placed on the individuals up for hiring or firing; what their personal background is, past beats that were covered, and issues that concern them as journalists and as people.”

 

Ultimately diversity made me who I am today. However the color of my skin does not automatically make me diverse.  I have to choice to open my mind up to diversity. My documentary will include diverse subjects from my moms side of the family and my dads side of the family. I will also include diverse subjects from my close friends. All of the sources and views combined will impact my documentary with diversity.

Diversity Within Characters In Film

Diversity Within Characters In Film By Alex Shumate

My proposed project is to create a short film that embodies various theories in relation to a film’s genre and characters. One of the things that I love the most about film is the ability it has to convey meanings and messages to a viewer without the use of dialogue. This very idea is what fueled my passion for film. I discovered that this idea is what structuralist film theory is all about. In my short film, I will use all the aspects associated with film (lighting, editing, cinematography, etc…) to send messages to the viewer about a characters mood, feelings, thoughts, and ideas for each specific scene.

I believe film to also be an incredible teaching tool. One of the most amazing things about film is that it can spark emotional discussions from the viewer for just about any topic. This idea falls under the social cognitive theory. I believe that viewers can learn a great deal about a characters trials and tribulations by watching a film. The viewer can then apply the problems and solutions from the characters in the film to various conflicts that are going on in the viewer’s life. The short film will have a character that has obtained a great deal of internal conflict, as he must make a decision between the lesser of two evils.

In regards to diversity, the way I see it within my project is diversity in conflicts the characters must meet and overcome / fail. My point being that a character must not have just one specific conflict. He / she can have one overall theme of conflict, but if the character does not contain a diverse amount of conflicts, the character is boring to the audience and is not relatable. I think of films such as “Raging Bull” or “Taxi Driver” that are considered some of the best films ever made because they contain characters with so many complicated and diverse issues.

In an article on Poynter, the film “Bend It Like Beckham” is discussed for the diversity it presents in the film. The film is about cultural diversity, but it is also in relation to what I have been talking about. The film has a diverse amount of conflicts going on in the film. The main character Jess must deal with her issues in soccer as well as the boundaries of Indian culture in relation to romantic and athletic choices. Jess finds a friend, Jules, who must overcome her soccer dreams and nightmares while dealing with the conflict that her mom thinks her daughter is a lesbian.

The film brings a diverse amount of conflicts to the viewer to help the viewer understand these disputes while keeping the viewer entertained. Creating and telling a story about a character who has a diverse amount of internal conflicts and conveying these conflicts and meanings through the use of various aesthetics such as lighting and editing is essential to my project. Diversity does not play a role in the selection or exclusion of my subjects (actors) unless they do not fit the character profile.

My Study and Diversity

Diversity and My Study
By: Johnathan Sellers
5/3/2009

The topic of my thesis is about iTunes and the effects of some of the features of the software on the consumers. It is also about if iTunes customers are aware of some of the privacy issues that are involved while using these features and the possible implications. This research will then look into if users feel connected to other users or to Apple. It will then also look to see if users wish to feel more connected with other users or to Apple through additional features to the software.

The idea of diversity really is not a major factor in my study. Up to this point, I have not been able to find any information on demographics of who uses iTunes except for some numbers on podcasting use which are included in this article. Apple though sells and distributes much more media than just podcasts, so those numbers only tell a small bit of information about the people who use iTunes and do not give enough demographic information about all of the people who use the software.

So it was very difficult to come up with a topic regarding iTunes and diversity. What I have settled on and would like to discuss in regards to iTunes and diversity is niche media. Basically, iTunes is making it much easier and accessible for people to download and access all the media that falls in line with their views. They stick with one source which leads to them hearing news that is less diverse in story selection and commentary. They are only consuming one view and never challenging it.

Depending on your preferences for news or media, a person can sign up their computer or iPod to receive audio or video podcasts from numerous news organizations, but for example CNN.com, Foxnews.com, or MSNBC.com are some of the more popular podcasters from major news organizations. By subscribing to those podcasts, every time the customer links their device or opens up their computer, they automatically download the latest podcasts from that particular network or news organization for that day.

That means that a person has the ability to completely immerse themselves in one network’s news, stories or commentary and that’s it. That content stays on your device or computers for as long as you want it to, waiting for you to access it whenever you have time. But a person never, ever has to search for news stories or content. The most major possible implication for consuming news this way is that if consumers only listen or watch programming from the same news organization over and over, there is no rebuttal or insight other than what that particular news organization decides to report. This could be detrimental society at large. Then, by using features from iTunes that explore their library, the software will only recommend other news sources that provide stories and commentary that are similar to that customer’s interests.

Let’s face it, a lot of people are getting their news this way. They do not have time to access other media resources. They just get their news from their favorite network, shows, or commentators. A lot of people are arguing that niche media is killing mass media like in this article and in this article. We are in an interesting time where the media world is changing and we need to evaluate whether or not these changes are for the better or for the worse.

Image provided by biojobblog.com.

Diversity and My Study by Darcy Delaney

Diversity and My Study
By Darcy Delaney


Photo provided by MSNBC

The topic of my thesis is the portrayal of female political candidates by weekly news magazines. I will conduct a content analysis that analyzes three news magazines (Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report) during the 2007 Democratic primaries, ending with the Iowa Caucus. Current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden (then competitors for the Democratic presidential candidacy) will be the two candidates analyzed in this study. It will be a content analysis that analyzes photographs containing one or both of the candidates, and the headlines and cutlines that accompany these photographs.

Political diversity can be defined as encouraging acceptance of political candidates with different backgrounds. The 2008 U.S. Presidential race saw a multitude of diversity, not just with females being in the race, but also with an African American male running for president. It is evident by the results of this race (with President Barack Obama and Clinton being the final competitors for the Democratic seat and with Obama winning the overall election) that Americans are more accepting of diversity than ever before. However, are the media still creating biases?

Diversity plays a crucial role in my thesis. While there were positive outcomes from this election, it is possible the media still created biases that could have created negative portrayals of female candidates, which numerous researchers have suggested could result in the loss of an election. This study would not exist without diversity as its backbone. If diversity were not part of this study, it would have a huge impact on the subjects being analyzed and would determine the sources in every possible way.

If diversity were not a part of this study, Clinton would not be able to be analyzed. This would also not allow me to study Gov. Sarah Palin or Obama. The 2008 presidential election was filled with diversity, which is the primary reason it is worth studying. Without diversity, the election would differ in no way from previous presidential elections held in the United States.

A study of the portrayal of female candidates by weekly news magazines that did not contain diversity would not exist. If different candidates were chosen, it would mean no diversity existed. The results would differ because it would no longer be measuring portrayals of female candidates by the mass media.

Click here to view a video showing media bias against female political candidates and some of the candidates’ wives.