No telecommunications?

Today I would like to talk about the importance of telecommunications. Just imagine a world without telecommunications. What if there was no television, radio, or Internet. I don't think people realize or appreciate the ways telecommunications has impacted our lives, generally for the better. For starters, we would be far less intelligent. People can talk all they want about how bad TV, radio, and the Internet, among other telecommunications devices, are for us. But in reality, what if we didn't have these things? I for one am a hell of a lot smarter from these devices. I learn so much, and not only that, these devices make me think, mostly outside of the box. They expand my knowledge and my ability to think critically. How many times have you watched a movie or a TV show, and actually learned something? I bet a lot more than you actually think. Next time you know an obscure fact or date, ask yourself why or how do I know this. I bet a good deal of the time it will be because of the power of telecommunications.

These devices I have talked about so far not only provide knowledge, they provide entertainment. I am a big sports guy so whenever I think about this subject, I think about the impact on sports it would have. Imagine this: you have no idea what is going on in the sports world, EVER. The only way you would ever know anything is if you actually attended a game. That would be awful! Sports would not be anywhere near as popular. Not only that, money would be lost, and jobs would cease to exist. From a personal level, I wouldn't have a major since I am a broadcast journalism major. I would not know what I would want to major in. Now take my example about sports and apply it to your own personal interests whether it be history, politics, entertainment, and imagine no telecommunications.

Do not take these devices of telecommunications for granted because we are truly a lucky generation. I have always said that the later in time you are born the luckier you are. Imagine if you were born in the 1800s how much different your life would be. Just think about that. Now I am sure that in the year 3000 people will have it far better than we do now, but at the same time I am thankful that I was not born 1000 years ago. What if telecommunications never existed. What if...

Blackout?

Today I would like to talk about a very personal topic. This topic is very personal to me because I have encountered a serious problem recently. I want to talk about that rights that big media have and whether these rights are ethical or not.

Here is the exact scenario: I am a diehard Philadelphia Flyers fan. My family has had season tickets to the Flyers since the team was founded in 1967 and I have watched every single Flyers game since I can remember, that is, until I came to Penn State. Last year, my freshman year, I was hoping that the dorm rooms would have Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, which carries a majority of the Flyers games. The dorms disappointed me. I listened to all the games on the radio last year, well almost all of them. I got to watch 6 games last year. When the Flyers played the Penguins, I was able to watch on FSN Pittsburgh. So, I listened to 76 of the 82 games on the radio. This year I live in an apartment which features Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. I was ecstatic when I learned about this. So, when the Flyers season started in early October and I sat down to watch my first game of the year what happens? Comcast SportsNet is blacked out. It would be for every Flyers game for the entire season. I own Comcast cable, but cannot get Comcast’s own channel, Comcast SportsNet, during Flyers games. Any other time of day, no matter what, the channel comes in crystal clear, but when Flyers games are about to start, a beautiful striped colorful pattern appears on CSN Philly. That is ridiculous.
I tried to figure out what was going on. After extensive research, I came to Comcast SportsNet’s website. Under the FAQs on the website reads “I have Comcast SportsNet, but cannot view Flyers games. Why?” The response, “Flyers games are blacked out in the following areas in Pennsylvania due to National Hockey League rules regarding home team markets:
Huntingdon, Lewistown, Lykens, Mount Union, Philipsburg, State College.” It says State College, awesome. I later called Comcast and they attempted to tell me the reasoning behind this phenomenon, but they seemed to be just as confused as I was. This is the one thing I do know: Comcast and the NHL blackout the Flyers because we are in a Pittsburgh area. Hello! Are we not in a Philadelphia area also? Comcast owns Comcast SportsNet; they do not own FSN Pittsburgh. To me, and please someone tell me if I am wrong about this, wouldn’t it make sense to black out FSN Pittsburgh, and not your own network?

In my opinion, Comcast, or the NHL should absolutely not have the right to black out games, unless they are available on an alternate channel. For example, if a game is on versus and CSN Philly, it would be okay to black out one or the other, but not both. Hockey fans have a right to watch hockey games, especially when a team is in their market. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are both close to State College. Both teams should be broadcasted. What the NHL and Comcast do, and in my opinion, is just stupid. People pay good money, almost $40 a month for cable services. No one can take away a channel every time a hockey game comes on just because they feel like it. No one.

Sexual Themes in Music

There has always been an association between music and sex, but in the past decade or so this connection has tested the limits of what is acceptable in our culture. Newer songs, mostly rap and hip hop, which talk about topics like rape and murder, have stirred up much controversy across the nation. Using women as sexual objects has become common in modern day music. This is done for one simple reason, sex sells. Women are constantly sexually exploited in order to accommodate our country’s sexual culture.

In our society there is a steady depiction of girls, particularly African American girls, as sex objects which sends a message that some people in our society find extremely offensive. There is a distinction between a music video “fantasy” and reality, but many people believe these songs and music videos depict real life. Although people most certainly do mistreat women, these ridiculously sexist acts seen in music videos are not common in our country. This is where the problem arises. Many children are not mature enough to understand the difference between “fantasy” and reality. They very easily could believe that mistreating women is acceptable and common in our culture. This problem is magnified even greater when the artist himself can’t seem to tell the difference between music “fantasy” and reality. Artists sometimes turn this “fantasy” into a reality and treat women like they own them. Obviously, these are not the types of acts that children should be exploited to, as they may start to act this way themselves.

The one thing that I find particularly interesting about this entire topic is the fact that rappers sometimes rap so fast that there is a chance that people might not even be able to comprehend these offensive lyrics. Also, our society is so accustomed to hearing songs with that talk about drugs, sex, and disrespecting women that people may not even pick up on what is actually being said anymore. The fact that these types of songs are accepted has lead to problems, but the fact that people listen to these songs and try to imitate what they hear is a huge problem. Women are constantly Exploitation of women has become an accepted part in the music industry, for both the artists and the public. These explicit lyrics commonly lead other men to think that treating women disrespectfully is tolerable. Why is this? Because hip-hop and rap music promotes degrading women. Even though rap is extremely well known, it has developed a reputation by some people as being explicit, violent, and disrespectful. Since the beginning of rap music, artists have used derogatory lyrics about women. Today, these degrading lyrics have become more brutal, and more common to hear.

Rap music is definitely the most influential and powerful part of the hip-hop culture, and the fact that it is encouraging the disrespect for women is concerning.
These artists are role models to people throughout the country, including children. These rappers are well respected in our culture by some and some even look up to them, wanting to imitate their actions. These children are of a new generation, and they have already been exposed to these sexual and derogatory songs about women. The longer we allow women to be objectified against, the longer it will take our culture to get rid of this idea that women are sexual objects.

Broadcasting ethics

Public indecency is a hotly debated issue these days ever since Janet Jackson revealed her left breast to almost all of America during Super Bowl XXXVIII’s halftime show. Although this act of public offensiveness may have made just about every American aware of this problem concerning television and radio, public indecency has been occurring for years. As far as I can remember, public indecency has existed on both radio and television. I grew up listening to Howard Stern, watching NYPD Blue, and watching Seinfeld. All of these shows till this day, I feel are great shows, and I could watch or listen to reruns over and over again without being bored.

All of these shows have a few things in common. They presented a lot of indecent content in their shows throughout their entire existences on air. Seinfeld constantly talked about sex; it was a central them in Seinfeld’s nine seasons. NYPD Blue was the first show that I can remember that displayed nudity on network television. The Howard Stern Show took Seinfeld’s sexual theme to a whole new level. Stern was not afraid to talk about anything; he constantly had women, sometimes porn stars, coming into the studio and getting naked. These shows all had sexual themes, but they had another thing in common as well. They were all extremely popular. Stern was so popular that his radio show received a simulcast on televisions’ E! Network.

There is no doubt that sex sells, which is one of the reasons that public indecency is such a highly debated issue. These shows are extremely popular, but is the content they show ethical? I say yes. I am on the side of the broadcasters. The American foundation is based on freedom of speech; you cannot fine a person for cursing on the street, so why is it fair to fine a broadcasting company for airing curse words. No one forces people to watch these shows in the first place; parents now have access to the technology to block any offensive programs from their children, and adults can easily turn off any program they find offensive.
The one thing that I wish that would change about the television broadcasting business is the way television is monitored. I feel that it is just plain dumb that network television monitored by the FCC, but cable television is not. We are no longer in a generation where network broadcasts dominate television anymore. Just about everyone that I know has cable. According to the Sourcebook for Teaching Science, almost 60% of American homes pay for cable television. Both cable and network television should have the same set of rules to follow. With the amount of viewers being just about even for the two, I believe that the same set of rules should apply for both network and cable broadcasting.

Censorship of Music

Today I would like to talk about censorship in music. This history of censorship dates back to ancient civilization. In the 5th century B.C.E., the Romans viewed enforcing censorship as an honorable task. Currently, music censorship is probably the most controversial censorship topic in the United States. There are many people that argue for censorship saying that young kids should not exposed to songs about violence, gangs, drugs, and alcohol. These pro-censorship individuals argue that children imitate what musicians sing about. These people blame artists for violence among children, underage drinking, and drug abuse amongst kids.

Any argument that a person can make for total censorship is complete bogus. Musicians should be allowed to write lyrics about anything they want. I agree that there should be restrictions on what can be seen or heard on television or radio, but only to a certain extent. On standard AM/FM radio stations, there should be censorship of certain inappropriate words, but on satellite radio, there should be no censorship at all. The same goes for television. On standard music stations, like MTV, VH1, etc, there should be censorship on the songs and videos, but on certain music channels, like the music stations that Comcast Digital Cable offers, there should definitely not be any type of censorship. The F.C.C. should regulate what is censored and what is not regarding this particular issue. Nowadays, with the V-chip technology, parents can block anything that they do not want their children to view. The V-chip allows parents to block certain stations or shows based on the television content ratings. It is the parents’ responsibility to know what their children are listening to.

There is no true need for censorship anywhere, although I still think basic stations on both television and radio should be censored. With that being said however, parents are responsible with what their children listen and watch. If adults find the lyrics in songs offensive, or they believe a certain music video is offensive, than they have the choice to simply not listen to the song or not watch the video. I agree with the fact that children should not be exposed to certain songs or music videos, but this is not the job of the artists, the radio stations or the television stations to censor their music. It is the job of the parents to prevent their children from listening to offensive music.

Complete censorship would take away the musicians’ ability to express themselves. It is widespread knowledge that drugs and alcohol are closely related with musicians all across America. Artists get inspiration to write their songs from their very own lives. If a rapper smokes marijuana every day, of course he is going to write songs about smoking weed. The same is true for a musician who may have an alcohol problem. A lot of songs are written on personal experiences and firsthand accounts; taking an artist’s ability to write songs about his own life away from him is absolutely ridiculous. A musician’s main job is to entertain his listeners. Many people like to listen to songs about drugs and violence; censoring goes both ways.
If you censor all parts of the media, then you take away individuals’ rights to listen to songs that they might enjoy.

Overall, I feel that there should be censorship, but to a degree. There should not be a ton of censorship at all because censorship does hurt an artist’s audience as they cannot hear the musician express his true lyrics. If there is not censorship, either online, on television, or on the radio, it is solely the parents’ responsibility to make sure that their children do not listen to offensive material if the parents do not want to expose their children to such music. Regardless if parents disagree that something should be censored when it’s not, parents have the ability to restrict what their kids watch and listen to. If adults do not want to listen to music about offensive material, than they simply do not have to listen. Artists should be able to record music with whatever lyrics they want. Whatever happens after that is not the artists’ responsibility. As Jay-Z says in his song “99Problems”, “If you don’t like my lyrics, you can press fast-forward.”