Final Blog: Partner Chris Libbey

For my final consumption blog, i chose to watch something a little out of my comfort zone. On saturday at 1 oclock, I spent an hour of my day catching an episode of "The Real World: Brooklyn." The show is about, "...seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real.." The show airs on MTV which is a channel targeted at a younger more hip audience. The niche audience I categorized the show for is high school and college students. Because the show is airing early and not during primetime, i feel like these will be shorter versions of the commercials and/or will be re-runs of commercials that air all the time. As a result, I have compiled a list of what I thought the commercials would be:

Predictions:
Herbal Essences
Garnier Fructis
Neutrogena
Clear Eyes
Proactive Acne Solution
Taco Bell
Burger King
Bud Light
Coors Light
MTV Programing
Some Teen Movie
Dominos
Obama/USA ad
XBOX 360 Ad
Free Credit Report.com
Some sort of College Loan Ad

Actual Commercials appearing:
Garnier Fructis
Jonas Brothers Movie
AT&T
MTV Programing
Burger King
Race to Witch Mountain
Subway 5$ footlong
Skin ID
Bally Total Fitness
Friday Night Lights on Demand for Comcast
ITunes
Twix PB
Herbal Essances
KFC
Marino Dodge Dealership
H and R Block
USA Service.org

I feel like my list was, for the most part, accurate to what actually aired on TV. The niche audience was proven with all of the health and beauty products for women, and the cheap food for college students. As for the movies, I could see it being directed towards the younger high school students because of the Jonas Brothers and a Disney movie. One thing that I did not think of while creating my list was music. Music is huge with high school and college students and Itunes definitely is a big product with all students. Also, getting in shape is big and i did not think about how many college students work out to avoid getting that freshman 15. Having a Bally Total Fitness was purposely placed there for that intention. Finally, the Car Dealership ad was key because many young high school students are getting their drivers licenses and shopping for cars. Overall, my niche audience was correct, and my predictions were close.
In the end, the theory of targeting an audience works. When I tested my theory, i saw that the types of commercials I thought were going to air did. When there is a niche audience for a show, there is also a targeted audience for products intended for that specific group of people. This does not only apply to MTV but also to other programing. For example, ESPN is intended for males because males seem to be more interested in sports than women. Therefore, the commercials airing are usually intended for males such as male bathroom products, male food, and beer. It is not typical that cleaning products would be promoted during MTV or ESPN because cleaning is not associated with males or teens, but rather mothers or older women. There are so many TV Channels out there that one can tune into what they want to watch. With that being said, not everyone is going to watch the same channel which means that not everyone will be interested in the products being advertised. This theory should be considered a fact because the trends are true for all television networks and shows.

Consumption Blog: 15 Years from Now

1. 15 Years from now, my personal locus will be a lot different from what it is now. My main goal will be to support my family and my main drive will be my family itself. I will have settled down from traveling the world and have met a beautiful wife and have beautiful atheletic children. My time will be spent going to Bristol, Connecticut and working for ESPN. Then i will pick up my kids and coach little league for my son(s). I will even be the president of the father's club at my school. I will have so much going on that the only time I will have to spend on the media will be watching the news and watching a gameshow with my wife(i hope not but i'm being realistic besides the whole ESPN thing). I will not even need to watch sportscenter anymore because of the fact that I am around it every day. On weekends, my goal will be to fix up my lawn and grill for the family(once again I really hope this isn't my life). On sundays, I will go to my local pub, get drunk and watch football all day with my cronies. It will be the only time where media will get in the way of my personal locus. I will waste my entire day forgetting that I am in the real world and will have work for the next five days(God Help Me). Basically my life will be excellent and perfect and I will always have a smile on my face :-)

2/3.
Online Newspaper
-None
Digital TV
-NBC Deal or No Deal
-The News
-Sportscenter (Saturday or Sunday)
-NFL Football
Online Movie
-A Jim Syrek Directed Feature Film(Extra Credit?)
Legally(because it is not illegal anymore) downloaded music
-Contemporary Hip Hop
-Third Eye Blind
- Dr. Dre
-Rod Stewart (i feel like as you get older he sounds better)
Internet
-Facebook.com
-Gmail.com
-google.com
-espn.com
-ebay.com
-mastercard.com(pay the bills)
-peapod.com
-moviesdirect.com(made it up but movies will be available online)
Books
-The Bible
Handheld(ex. blacberry, treo ect)
-grubhub
-agenda
Video Games
-Fifa 2024 and NCAA Basketball 2024

Reaction to "Growing up Online"

After watching the documentary, "Growing up Online," I became fired up when watching the segment with Evan Skinner. Being from the area of Chatham, New Jersey, I had read this story in the local newspapers. I strongly disagree with what she did. It is not her duty to report to parents whether or not other children had been involved in underage drinking. I know that if I was involved and someone ratted me out to my parents, I would be furious. My parents know I drink, however, it does not need to be made evident by other parents who should worry about their own children. At the same time however, I do agree that kids need to be careful with these sites. I know not to accept friend requests from people who I do not know but a lot of people do not. I also have my pictures blocked incase my school or someone hiring for a job were to come across my page. I think that it is up to schools to have seminars on how to be safe and on the internet. There are seminars on drugs such as the D.A.R.E. program to inform kids about drugs but that is not enough. Unlike drugs, the internet is everywhere and accessible to everyone. It is open and free and it is hard to regulate and could potentially be just as dangerous. If schools were to instill a program like this, both sides of the argument of the documentary would be better because the parents would be more willing to trust their kids online.
In this segment, I noticed also how one teen turned on "autopilot" when he was on the computer. He would tune out his father when he would call his name, however, responded to his email because he was so focused on the computer. It is like he was oblivious to his surroundings because all his attention was focused on the screen. I also noticed how it seemed as if the kids' media locuses were very low. When a video was posted from a fight at school, everyone seemed to watch it because it was the cool thing to watch. Granted, I would have done the same thing, but it seemed as if they had no control and simply went through the motions. This documentary had aspects in class and showed how much of our world revolves around the internet.

Week 3 Consumption

Media Consumption for week 3:

Movies
-none

Broadcast TV
-Various College Basketball Games
-The news

Music
-A lot of Third Eye Blind
-T.I. Paper Trail CD
-Britney Spears Circus CD
-Akon
-Cartel

Computers/Internet-Various web sites, including facebook.com, gmail.com, DEPAUL.EDU, youtube.com, ebay.com, craigslist.com, blogger.com

Books
-Media Literacy
-Chicago Blues

Magazines
-None

Cable TV
-Sportscenter
-Friday Night Lights
-NFL Primetime
-Tool Academy
-Rock of Love with Brett Michaels
-College Basketball
-Parental Control
-America's Best Dance Crew

Newspapers
-None

This was an interesting week of consumption for me. It was the first week since August that football did not air. This was big because Sunday is usually the day I consume the most media. With no football airing, I was left with hours of junk on the TV and listened to a lot of random music. I saw two shows for the first time called Tool Academy on VH1 and Rock of Love with some appearant famous rockstar names Brett Michaels. I have never heard of him but i still watched the shows because there was nothing on. The shows were pretty lame and I definitely feel like my media locus was low. I did not want to watch the shows but I kept the TV on. Looking back at it, I feel like I wasted a few hours of my life watching those shows. One thing I did like however was the switch of a sports to basketball. I caught some good games like Louisville upsetting Pitt, and Marquette beating DePaul(shocker) and Notre Dame. It was interesting that not having football made watch more college basketball than usual. I love sports and I feel like its the best form of reality TV because I feel like I can relate to athletes because I have trained for sports and I understand what it is like to try to beat another side who has equally trained as hard as you. In that sense, my media locus was good because I had no regrets towards watching basketball. Lastly, I listened to a lot of Third Eye Blind for some strange reason. I do not know why but maybe that has to do with me not being very media literate. But at the same time, I love the band and grew up listening to them. I am kind of confused on this topic but either way, I feel like I wasted my sunday because the media grabbed my attention too strongly. For the next week, I will try to go back to consuming less media, however, it is Superbowl sunday so I will obviously be catching that.

Facebook/Myspace Audience Profile

Begining this blog was difficult because I could not get off of Facebook . It seems like every time I am on a computer, my media locus switches autopilot mode on and I am hooked to this social network for a while.
I am restarting my blog on the count that I have just procrastinated for 2 hours and 3 minutes on facebook, instant messaging and gmail. This alone brings me to my first point on how the internet is bad. It distracts meand absorbs my attention and often keeps me from doing other things in life such as homework and other things on the computer. This is why these blog assignments are even harder because of the fact that facebook is so easily accessible. Facebook is also bad because of the creeps who take part in the act of "facebook stalking." This is dangerous because people who you do not know but are in your network can still view your profile. This is even worse on Myspace because one can view anothers profile regardless. Also, Myspace does not have networks so it is a lot easier to create an alias. Lastly, Myspace and facebook are one big advertisement. Everything you click has a link to an Ad and now even viruses promote fake sites to contaminate other computers.
As bad ase these sites seem, they do have good things about them. I am from New Jersey and it is easy to keep in touch with my friends because of Facebook. I can message them whenever I want to talk or just look at pictures when I feel homesick. It is nice not having to endure a 2 and a half hour plane ride everytime I want a little piece of New Jersey. Another good thing about Facebook is that it allows people to get to know me better by looking at my profile vice versa. The info page includes favorite types of music, movies, and other cool information to see whether people share common interests. This allows you to get to know people past a first impression and can often lead to better friendships. Lastly, it is a great way to run an organization or recruit members. For the DePaul Club Lacrosse team, we all communicate practice and game schedules through facebook. It is easy because everyone has one and it makes the team more organized.
If I were to create a niche audience for these sites it would be anyone from freshmen in high school til the age where people want to stop being socially connected through the internet. Whether it's being single at 40 or wanting to share pictures of children, adults seem to be adapting to thse sites and using them as frequently as kids. The site is borderline addictive and it is the only media that is directed towards almost all of America. In some cases it is addictive. Many people live their lives as aliases on these sites and spend all of their days on them. I do not know how many hours a day one should be on these sites because in reality, it varys. But if i had to make an estimate, I feel like an average of one hour per day should be sufficient. If one is somewhat media literate and can control their usage, these sites are not too harmful.

American Idol Audience Profile

After catching my first American Idol episode since Ruben Studdard was involved, I realized that I have not missed much and that the show is still a waste of time. I saw how there are still a rediculous amount of people waiting in line to determine whether or not they have talent to impress the celebrity judges in their hopes to become famous. There was one thing that I noticed that did change since I have last seen the show and that is the location. Back then, I remember how the audition cities included L.A. Chicago New York and other big time cities. This year, the cities included smaller ones such as Kansas City and Memphis. The approach seemed different because of what I believe is the production targeting a new set of people. American Idol is targeted to naive Americans from small towns who dream about becoming famous. The show is made for those cindy loo hoo's working at a diner watching the tv saying "that could be me!" This is why American Idol took a new approach in making the city selections mroe accessible to those small town Americans who dream about hitting it big. Another way they target these audiences is by showing their story on how they got there. They show a montage on the person's life as if camera's have been following them and their life's destiny has taken them to American Idol. They show clips on their struggles in life and how singing is the appearant "cure-all" in this world. This captures these viewers hearts and gives them the drive to tune in every tuesday at 8 to see how these small town people prevail. Lastly, the voting allows them to be a part of it. The viewers not only have the privledge in watching the show, but have the opportunity to decide who stays and who goes. This makes these small town people feel like they are a part of something bigger and lets them escape their boring lives. Excuse me for stereotyping, and hope that I have not offended any small town Idol viewers out there. Meza Out.

Week 2 Consumption

Media Consumption for week 1:
Movies
-Goal 2
-Pineapple Express
Broadcast TV
-NFL Conference Championships
-The news
Music
-Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die CD
-Dance songs played by DJ at a club (do not remember exact titles but they were modern hits)
-Lit
-Sum 41
-The Fray How to Save a Life CD
-T.I. Paper Trail CD
Computers/Internet
-Various web sites, including facebook.com, gmail.com, DEPAUL.EDU, youtube.com, verizonwireless.com, craigslist.com, blogger.com
Books
-Media Literacy
-Chicago Blues
Magazines
-None
Cable TV
-Sportscenter
-Friday Night Lights
-NFL Primetime
-Smart Guy
-Double Shot of Love
-CSI
Newspapers
-None

This week I watched more TV than I usually do. I would say that the cause to this is because of the weather. I did not want to leave myt apartment as much so I would stay in and flip the channels and watch some random junk on cable. Besides watching my regular daily dosage of sportscenter and my weekley routine of friday night lights(which this week, happened to be the season finale), I flipped through my channels and stopped on MTV where there were episodes of "Double Shot of Love" playing. This show is quite pointless, however, due to the amount of attractive women trying to fall in love with two equally stunning twins, this show caught my attention. After becoming bored with the show after just one episode, I switched to BET where a show I grew up watching as a kid was airing: "Smart Guy." This show caught my attention because of its dumb witty humor and reminded me how much I really enjoyed the show back when I was younger. I liked it so much that I proceeded to watch the second episode in the hour block. Later on that week I tuned into CSI. I have seen the show a few times and think it is cool, however, never have the time to watch it religiously. The show always strikes me as being cool to have scientist solve crimes that I never knew was possible to do with wierd science stuff. As you can see, I am not intelligent on this subject matter, but this show still hooks me and when I am watching it, my "autopilot" mode always seems to kick in. TV is not usually very big in my life, however, I am not a big fan of the cold. I felt like I did not accomplish much this week because it seemed like all my freetime was spent lounging around indoors. Hopefully the weather clears up this week and I do not consume as much media. Keep it Real.
Fabio