Demi VS Media

Demi Lovato
The media has been our main source for finding out celebrity news and facts for years. What started off as informative blogs, websites, and magazines has dramatically taken a turn and is now its own thriving business of both fame, enjoyment, and luxury as well as secrets, deception, and backstabbing. One celebrity who is no stranger to the whirlwinds the media can bring into her life is Demi Lovato.

 Innocent Girl
Demi started off her career in acting at the age of 10 when she landed a role on the children’s show “Barney & Friends” along side her BFF Selena Gomaz. After varied guest appearances on TV shows, she became a household name on the Disney Channel landing the lead in “Sonny With A Chance” and “Camp Rock” movies. While the starlet had become popular and well liked by fans the media was determined to find every dirty secret she had and make sure it was front page news. Through media her public image would soon begin to change.

 Image Changing for the Worst
In November of 2010, a story broke that Demi had punched a female backup dancer from her tour with The Jonas Brothers which ended up being true. As a result pictures of a bruised girl (Alex Welch) were seen everywhere. This gave Demi a bad image as a bully and as being mentally unstable causing her to lose fans from the incident. This however was only the beginning. Immediately following the reports were articles and pictures attacking her physical image that she was too skinny setting another bad example for her young fans. Her Disney show “Sonny With A Chance” was beginning to question if she was stable to work putting her career in jeopardy. Due to the harsh media coverage, not only was her every move and personal life being exploited for everyone to see but when she hit rock bottom and realized that something needed done in order to save her career.

 Fighting the Media
Demi Lovato is a celebrity that will take a punch lying down. While these were personal struggles she was going through, the media had made them public.  After seeing how her image was struggling in the media and as a person she decided to fight back. Demi decided that it would be best for her to enter herself in a rehab center to help her get better. She was entered for eating disorders (both anorexia and bulimia), cutting, and depression in a facility in Illinois. As she stated in Seventeen Magazine “I basically had a nervous breakdown. I was really bad off. My parents and manager pulled me aside and said, 'You need to get some help.' It was an intervention. I wanted freedom from the inner demons. I wanted to start my life over”.  Instead of hiding from her mistakes and faults she went public telling young girls that eating disorders are dangerous and unhealthy. Her manager and publicity rep had her interview for magazines such as People, UsWeekly, and Seventeen regarding all of her struggles and she publically apologized to the dancer she punched. Demi and her team put ion hard work to assure that people remembered the real her and hoped that by gaining the fans back she lost she would get her career back too.

 Social Media
Today Demi is healthy and currently working on various projects including being a judge on the popular show “The X Factor”. Through a media view we have seen her image change from a sweet young girl to a crazy person, back to a stable and beyond talented young lady. Without the help of social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, it would have been harder for her to reconstruct her image. Young viewers do not go out and buy tabloids often or go online to read about the celebrity news. By having Demi thank her fans for support and prayers via Twitter/Facebook she was able to connect with a larger fan base.  Without these media outlets, her image would have been harder to regain because she has the freedom to write and post when she wants on her blogs and sites, while it takes money and time for magazine articles to be published. I think that a huge part of being a celebrity is being in the media. The more stories you have the more well-known you are.  With social media you have more control too with how often or how personal you want to become with world. My access to social media, the internet, and media channels have changed my definition of celebrity. I used to consider a celebrity as a role model that people wished they could be or knew because of how successful they were in their work and how well liked they were. Now I see a celebrity as someone who strives for attention, is a diva, and only cares about themselves. For example I do not see Reese Witherspoon as a celebrity but as a person I respect and that I enjoy seeing on the big screen. Those I would consider a celebrity is Mariah Carey, Lindsay Lohan, or Justin Beiber.

Week 2 Media Critics

I found Bill Carter to be very interesting and his articles easy to read and understand. He is a TV industry critic and the article I was most interested in was about the new TV show "Glass House". After seeing previews of the show, I was interested how people would react to it. What I liked about his article was how much information he could share in one sentence. For example in his opening sentence I learned that there was a legal battle between ABC and CBS for the show, ABC won, and viewers find the show bad. He views his writing as facts and doesn't try to swing the reader's opinion of the show good or bad. He lets you decide for yourself which was refreshing. Carter clicks with me also because he writes in a calm tone and does not try to confuse the reader with large words or scientifically correct sentences. He feels like a real person who known what he is talking about and understands the media world.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/

An article written by Brian Stelter I found on the New York Times website "Obama Video on Fox News Criticized as Attack Ad" caught my eye due to the upcoming election. What I liked about his article first off, was that it focused on the message of the media rather than a TV show, movie, or game. He used quotes from other blogs to show how others felt about the Fox News cast criticizing President Obama, and if it was the News duty to slant a view one way or another. His view was that the Fox News has created a Conservative slant over the past few years and that it is overall taking away from the facts the news should be reporting, rather than what they want to report. I find him very correct on this. I also enjoy the way he did not portray Fox News in a bad light but simply got his opinion across through facts and research that the news may be too politically out spoken. I enjoyed the article a lot.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/obama-video-on-fox-news-criticized-as-attack-ad/

The final critic I enjoyed reading was William Alden. His article was focused on social networking for financial advisers. What clicked with me by reading his piece was all the detail he used.He had examples and multiple quotes he used throughout. He had a view that while it works, these financial business people can use Twitter and LinkedIn but their posts must be pre-approved. It has proven difficult and takes away from the freedom social media allows us. I found Alden to be insightful and to have a great view of in depth material tying into the media world.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/morgan-stanley-to-expand-financial-advisers-access-to-social-media/

Overall I found all three of these media critics to have a separate and defining personality that I enjoyed seeing through their writing. I find their topics to be insightful and relevant to what people actually want to know and learn more about.

Slate Articles

What I found insightful about the article "On TV Critics, Fandom, and Subjectivity" is that subjectivity comes with being a critic. How couldn't it? You need to be passionate about what you are critiquing with either side you take. However a line should be drawn. Being too opinionated can be a problem, but a bigger problem can be critics being influenced by outside social media. It is important for critics to gain the trust of their followers be saying what they believe, and not what others want them to believe. A hyperlink I clicked on was "New York Times ethics policy". I learned about the purpose, scope, nature, and other standards of the ethic policy. For example, the core purpose is to "enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment". Another link I chose was "pop-culture scholar" and learned it is a TV blog written by Myles McNutt that reviews and analyzes a wide range of television series. He focuses on being diverse and open to interpretation.

What I learned in "The TV Guide" is the impact a weekly coverage of an episode in a series can impact what is being criticized. These days a series is no longer being criticized for few episodes then left up to the audience to decide, but rather each episode every week is being torn apart from character development to cultural symbolism. This can be harmful because viewers lose sight of the big picture, being too focused on the detail of each separate episode, ultimately losing the ultimate message. The hyperlink "Lost" went into further detail about the audience's disappointment with how the series ended. I feel it is a shame that the writers kept loyal fans for so many years only to produce a finale that was less than satisfactory. When this happens the show does not only wrong the viewers but itself as well. Another hyperlink "cancelled after one season" I found the first paragraph most interesting. It taught me that when a show is cancelled, TV executives will go out of their way to avoid the issue by saying it was taken off the schedule, is hiatus, or no decisions have been made. Excepting failure is never an easy thing for Hollywood to do.

Ohhhh TV Shows...

I wouldn't say I am a TV junkie but I do know what I love, like, and hate with a passion. Shows I am watching this summer are Keeping Up With The Kardashians and The Bachelorette. These are my favorite shows that I will TiVo and put into my cellphone calendar just so I don't miss a minute of an episode. I honestly don't know what I would do with my life if these shows got canceled. They are the best shows ever created. Peripheral shows that I happen to see when I am in the living room with family or passing through are Duets and Off Their Rockers. These are both shows that my mother and sister love to watch and are always on. As for my Dad, he watches golf and being the US Open is on right now, I have sat down a few times to watch a little here and there.

There are many shows that critics feel my demographic should watch and will enjoy but I don't feel the same way. They are Duets, How I Met Your Mother, and Greys Anatomy. Each of these shows are so different yet so popular among critics and my peers. I have given them all a try and found that I just do not connect with them. Too many singing shows, lame comedy jokes, and medical problems that have been done multiple times already in other series. Guilty pleasures of mine besides my weekly Kardashians and Bachelorette would be Ice Loves Coco and the NBA tournament games! I find Ice and Coco to be the most entertaining couple in the world. They are both crazy people and watching basketball boys at work is never something I would say no to watching.

My all time favorite show that I will watch endless re-runs of is Friends. I find every detail about that show entertaining for the script, style, haircuts, cast, and set designs. It is a forever brilliant show that I will have my kids watching one day! A show I used to watch a lot but do not anymore is Pretty Little Liars. My roommate eventually talked me into watching the show and I got into it for awhile, but the show is so stupid. If these girls would just stop lying about the lamest things then all would be resolved. A show that I resisted for a while was Mrs. Eastwood & Company. While it is a newer show, all my friends watched it and I just had no interest in watching yet another reality show on top of what I already watched. Of course though...I love it now. There are MANY shows I would rather eat charcoal then watch. Some are South Park, Switched At Birth, and Chelsea Lately. These are shows that just annoy the crap out of me and I can find no reason for them to be renewed. Ever.

If there was one category that should be on this list it is definitely the "Shows You Watch Because You Adore Your Boyfriend Too Much". This would be all sport talk shows imaginable, largely focusing on ESPN First Take with Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless. The fact that I now follow them on Twitter shows just how much it is always on when I am with him. A lot.