Welcome to the Blog Project! Every week, a group of you will be responsible for locating and posting the link to a blog or website for the class to discuss here. On your week, you will post the title and URL of the site you've found, along with a brief description:
Sociological Images
This is a site about analyzing culture/society through images- pictures, posters, ads, graphs, sometimes videos- from a sociological perspective.
Easy, right? The facilitating group must post the site before Wednesday's class, and give a very brief presentation in class, just saying why you chose the site and why you think it's interesting. Each member of the group must point out something about the site, or ask a question, to get the discussion started. Then, throughout the week, everyone else in the class is expected to engage in discussion of the selected site.
The project officially starts next week, but I thought I'd give everyone a chance to try it out with a blog I selected. Check it out, and share your observations in the comments.
The tagline of Sociological Images is "Inspiring Sociological Imaginations Everywhere," which seems to indicate that the site is aimed at a broad audience. But is that really true? Is the language and style of the site truly accessible, or does it implicitly address itself to a particular audience? What assumptions do the writers make about their audience?
ReplyDeleteLooking at the comments, what can you say about what kind of place this is? What kinds of conversation take place? What seem to be the conventions or rules of engagement?
What do you think of the analysis the writers are engaging in? Is it well thought out? Convincing? Similar or dissimilar to the analysis you have done before, or expect to do in this class? What is interesting about it?
The audience Sociological Images is reaching for appears to be broad with emphasis on those interested in analyzing well known topics. Topics regarding money, tv shows, or happenings in the news can be understood and related by people everywhere, possibly where the tagline is derived.
ReplyDeleteThe comments on the articles include research and other facts, thus some of the audience value the importance of logic, and not just opinion. The comments are abundant and often spark intriguing discussions of themselves where readers try to analyze the topic at hand.
Due to the fact that most of the content on this blog is part of the mass media, being ads or video clips, I would definitely say that interest in this blog should apply to anyone who consumes media (which is essentially everyone). This blog has formed a community of people sparking analysies of media we consume on a daily basis. In some cases, we may not even realize the brainwashing effect this subtle and not so subtle marketing can have on our society. The bloggers on this site are very productive and point out interesting things about these various ads/clips. Overall, the blog has created a thought provoking community of people to analyze how the media can affect our society.
ReplyDeleteSociological Images seems to be a blog that makes commentary on events, advertisements, tv shows and other things that happen around the world. The criticism is in a mild tone so it seems to be all in the name of enlightening their readers and sometimes providing a sense of humor. I think the writers are simply looking for the irony in some situations.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do notice is that Sociological Images seems to a take on a more "liberal" perspective. The seem to take on sides that might be geared towards the more "educated" person.
I was really surprised when I went on this blog because I assumed that people were not going to put as much thought into there comment as they did. Many of the comments were paragraph and were very detailed. Some people had good mini debates about the topic, which was interesting. Overall I think that a majority of the comments are awesome because some of them have examples and research put into them.
ReplyDeleteThe writers probably chose such a broad topic and title because they want readers to think about how it applies to society and themselves. The title is "Inspiring Sociological Imaginations Everywhere" and with it they assume that anyone reading can create/post their own opinions. Most people have at least one thing to say about a topic whether those words are spoken or remain silent, thought is being created. That seems to be the main point, to get others to think. The people who have commented on this blog, about media and ads, are sharing their own opinions about how media affects society and that is very important for everyone to understand.
ReplyDeleteThis is a blog which I less like to read it, the title seemed quetioned me a lot, it was broad and hard to understand, maybe I need to have a better mind on this in the future.
ReplyDelete