Good morning, everybody!

The television news genre is interesting enough, but narrowing it down into a more specific type of television news affords us to deepen our understanding of the particular genre. Morning news programs are a particularly entertaining and predictable subset of this genre. The major network morning shows include: Good Morning, America (ABC); The Today Show (NBC); The Early Show--(CBS); American Morning--(CNN). Below you can watch a video describing this genre. Individual slides are shown as well as you scroll down the page.

Some common features of morning television news programs include:

Funny weatherman
•Shown outside with a crowd
•Talks with audience members
•Often has a slogan

Trustworthy male host
•Handsome
•Older than the females
•Funny, but serious
•Wears a suit & tie everyday

Likeable female host
•Younger than male host
•Attractive but not sexy
•Clothing is bright, fashionable, yet professional
•Always happy

News update person
•Usually female
•Gives snippits of current news events
•Appears in other segments but is not a main anchor
•Chronicles feature stories
•Often a minority (race or ethnicity)
•Serious

Celebrity guests
•On-set interviews with celebrities in current headlines
•Tries to make the celebs look credible but this can backfire
–Britney Spears looked like “white trash”
–Tom Cruise seemed whacky & cult-ish
•Celebs promote current film, album, TV show
•Celebs defend themselves against tabloids

Morning concerts (why?)

Health/self-improvement features
•Colonoscopies (thanks, Katie)
•Breast cancer
•Overweight children
•Food allergies
•Autism
•Healthy cooking

Family values features
•Parenting tips for toddlers
•Coping with divorce
•Hosting a holiday party
•Planning a wedding

Middle-class audience

What is love?

This collage of images presents the classic media representation of love. It is my first attempt at making a video of any sort, so...yeah...enjoy!

Looking at Traffic through multiple lenses

One can analyze the movie Traffic through the postmodern and postcolonial lenses to gain a better idea of what the film is about. Here is a brief plot summary of the movie from imbd.com:

Intertwining vignettes frame this tale of America's escalating War on Drugs. Ohio Supreme Court judge Robert Wakefield has been appointed the nation's Drug Czar, his new position made more daunting by the discovery that his teenage daughter Caroline is a cocaine addict. Meanwhile, DEA agents Montel Gordon and Ray Castro are pursuing Helena Ayala, wife of jailed kingpin Carlos Ayala, as she seeks to the control the business that her husband had kept hidden from her. South of the Border, duplicious local constable Javier Rodriguez is fighting the battle with his own
jaded, questionable ethical code.

Multiple storyline montage (warning: graffic footage)

POSTMODERN LENS
The use of parallel storylines is clever for keeping the viewer interested as well as showing how seemingly unrelated events can be incredibly intertwined. Sometimes the short vignettes for each story can be confusing, but more often than not they left me wanting more. It is sort of like reading a book with very short chapters that end with scenes or lines that are so interesting you just HAVE to read the next chapter. In addition, the narrative is presented from multiple perspectives, which adds depth and intrigue. Based on prior viewing experiences, one can easily guess that the storylines will all come together by the end of the movie, so I was constantly trying to figure out the connection. So, even if a person is very disinterested in the topic of the movie (i.e. drug trafficking), it is possible to love the movie because of the mystery involved in solving the puzzle. Director Steven Soderberg may have been thinking about how parallel stories would draw the reader in, but I think that he chose to tell the story this way for a different reason. His use of an alternative narrative version calls attention to how the same events have a different reality depending on a person’s relationship to it. For example, the arrest of drug lord Carlos Ayala is a victory for Drug Czar Robert Wakefield but a tragedy for his wife and son. The film allows us into the lives of people on multiple sides of the War on Drugs to see how complicated it really is.

Corruption in Mexico

POSTCOLONIAL LENS
In Traffic, the Mexican government is portrayed as corrupt and unable to function on its own. One of the top generals in the War on Drugs is profiting from the same drug trafficking that he is supposedly trying to curb. The entire Mexican anti-drug campaign is a fraud, as Salazar is wiping out one cartel, not out of duty, but rather because he has aligned himself with another cartel for profit (Wikipedia). One of only trustworthy, honest characters in the film is Mexican cop Javier gets fed-up with the sick politics and corruption and eventually turns to the U.S. government, because that is evidently the only organization that can make any good out of the situation. However, Soderberg’s use of multiple perspectives reveals that even the U.S. government—which might look like the hero to Javier—has its own problems, such as that the Drug Czar can’t even control the drug use in his own family.