Britney's Media Blog

     Alan Turing was an English computer scientist, cryptanalyst, and mathematician. He was the creator of "the Turing machine" or what is now known as a computer. During WWII, Turing worked in the Government Code and Cypher School. He invented a machine that could help find settings for the Enigma Machine. The machine was used to figure out Nazi traffic signals. It has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over fourteen million lives.      The movie The Imitation Game shows us his life during and after WWII and the breaking of the Enigma codes.      In the 1950s, homosexuality in England was still illegal. He was gay and prosecuted with homosexual acts in 1952. He accepted chemical castration over imprisonment. Turing committed suicide in 1954.      The movie brought Turing's legacy to a wider audience.      Despite having helped save so many lives, he...

     Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She stood up for her education and was shot by the Taliban while she was riding the bus home from school. She didn't just stand up for herself, but for other girls who had the same dream as her. She was their voice. In her book I Am Malala , she tells her story.      Malala makes us picture men, women, and children who were being terrorized everyday by the Taliban and where boys were being radicalized. People could only follow orders or face the consequences.      Malala wrote more of her experiences in a BBC blog under the pen name Gul Makai. Although she had grown used to going to school with her books hidden, she started publicly writing and advocating for girls' education. Malala was even forced to leave her home with her family because they were living in a very violent border. When they came back, their school had been bombed and ...

In Miss Representation, we learned about the media's portrayal of women. Women are judged more harshly because of the "models" they see on the media. The media is telling women that they will never be "beautiful enough" to make them feel bad about themselves to get them to buy a product that they say will make them feel beautiful. This leads to self-objectification, which can lead to depression, anorexia, and lower ambitions. You can see this portrayal of women in this video , it was titled "You Look Disgusting". The video shows people's comments towards Em, the girl who made the video. Em posted pictures of herself without makeup on social media, and the comments were ridiculous. The comments ranged from "I can't even look at her" and "Her face is so ugly," to her being described as gross, horrible, and ugly. The commenters expect her to look the way the media portrays women, they expect her to have flawless skin. Because ...

René Pérez is part of the Puerto Rican band called Calle 13. The band is known for its satirical lyrics and songs about Latin American social and political issues. René wrote the song Adentro that talks about materialism and violence. In the song, he talks about certain "rappers" like Daddy Yankee that sing about killing people, being drug dealers, and being part of gangs. He tells them that they don't know what they are singing about and that they are not setting a good example to the kids who listen to their music. He tells them that have probably never been through a time in their lives where they didn't have food or an education. He talks about how after seeing wars and guerillas, he isn't scared of seeing the "gangs" that the rappers are part of. He tells them to ask themselves what they would do if a family member or a friend was killed like they sing about killing people in their songs. He says that what those rappers really need is to go to pla...

A mook is a male that is arrested in adolescence, meaning that he never got over being over immature. A mook is loud and obnoxious. You can tell Tom Green is a mook just by the title of his videos. He has titles such as: "Bingo Was His Name-o" and "S.C.U.B.A Hood". The title catches our attention which will make us want to watch the video which is what the producers of the video or the show want us to do. In his videos, he does all kinds on things no one ever dares to do- like going swimming in poop. Tom even made a song called The Bum Song, which consists of him rubbing his butt on people and several objects. However, Tom Green may not actually act like this in his private life. Mooks are characters produced by the market. According to market researchers, mooks are the opposite of what male teenagers are like. Market researchers try to understand teenagers to come up with different kinds of things to please them, but rather, to come up with different ways to sell t...

Mexican journalist Javier Valdez was assassinated in Sinaloa by unidentified attackers, making him the fifth journalist killed this year. He received the International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2011 for his coverage about drug trafficking. He had described a journalist's life as being on a black list: you can wear bullet-proof vests, and have groups of bodyguards, but the gangs were the ones that decided when your time has come. Throughout his career, he constantly wrote about violence in Mexico, and emphasized the Sinaloa cartel. He reported about organized crime, corruption, and drug trafficking. Journalists inform people about what is going on in the world. They are kidnapped, tortured, and even killed for doing their jobs. Once they inform the people, it's like they become the news. Freedom of expression doesn't exist in Mexico since journalists have been assassinated for telling people the truth and for expressing their opinions....