Hey ladies!
I found this good article on the New York Times oppinion page titled 'Behaving Like Children'. This article responded to a "crisis" that was published last week about 1/4 of the girls at a Memphis high school being pregnant. The news was just about to be taken in until a miracle happened: facts. Investigations found that this number was greatly exaggerated but it was only after the news, media, pregnancy experts, and some celebrities, such as Kim Kardashian, indulged in zero-evidence rhetoric attributing Memphis's non-existing crisis to everything from adolescent stupidity to MTV's "Teen Mom".
Later, Memphis officials connected the high pregnancy rates to long-term hardships such as poverty and family abuse like rape. The author of the article goes on to say that even though evidence like statistics shows that teenage pregnany is dropping, the media continues to press alarming claims of new epidemics such as these. The author then goes on to point out how even statistics are manipulated when it was brought to attention that mostly 18-19 year olds accounted for the rise in teenage pregnancy in 2005-2007, not the younger teens which seem to be the only group that the media wants to focus on. No one cared to address this statement because the sex advocates and abstinence-only promoters rushed to blame each other and the 'sexed up popular culture' for the increase. They didn't even have an explanation for the drop in teen pregnancy in 2008-2009.
I think this article closely related to this reading we had to do this week about the Rhetorical visions. In particular, the section that discussed," propaganda-the idea that one person or group will express a particular rhetorical vision that they want another person or group to adopt, and ideology, a term that refers to a pattern or set of ideas, values, assumptions, and beliefs that shapes and permeates a society, culture, or group and is made to seem natural or objectively "factual"." The assumptions made in the Memphis community regarding the fake crisis of teen pregnancy was in my oppinion, a propaganda because the media falsly put out information that led large groups of citizens to believe that there was a teen pregnancy crisis when there really was not. They wanted us to believe something they did because this is what they knew would get attention, whether it was accurate or not. The other thing they did was use ideology to create this vision that there was a crisis in this Memphis high school.
Do you think that the media, sex-advocates, and anti-abortion groups were successful at winning over citizens to see things their way even though these facts were not true? Why or why not?
THIS POST WAS MADE BY SEQWINYA STEVENS(forgot to add that)
ReplyDeletehere is the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29males.html?ref=teenagepregnancy
ReplyDelete-Seqwinya
I really liked your article! I can see all these "ideologies" the article and readings are talking about in the media the most. According to US Television Households as of December 2006 - 111,300,000 people have TVs which leads to these young teens "wanting to be like the stars they idol" including becoming pregnant at young ages. (http://www.blurtit.com/q540527.html)
ReplyDeleteSo, in other words, I agree that the media, sex-advocates, and anti-abortion groups were successful at winning over citizens to see things their way even though these facts were not true because of all the commercials, ads and other things that draw attention of teenagers. Also, as you stated above, “even statistics are manipulated when it was brought to attention that mostly 18-19 year olds accounted for the rise in teenage pregnancy in 2005-2007, not the younger teens which seem to be the only group that the media wants to focus on.” This shows how the media , in a way, controls what we see on TV and in magazines.
-Molly Ewigman
Great post, Seqwinya. The article that you used for this post was really interesting and I think it was a good decision to use that one in particular seeing as it correlated well with the reading for this week. To answer your question, I do think to a certain extent that the media and those other groups got the general public's attention and got them to believe that there was this "pregnancy epidemic." Any time that an issue is commented on by celebrities that so many girls and women look up to, it's going to be talked about among those groups of people and there are very few people who check the facts and do research on something they hear that is startling before they relay the information to other people. I'm grateful that the national news reports didn't go through before they did some investigating of the claims in Memphis. I wish that everyone was forced to read the article that you used because it sheds a lot of light on what is going on with, not only teen pregnancy, but also with cyber-bullying and dating violence, etc. The bottom line is that when you hear something from someone else or on the radio or read something online, you need to know where the information is coming from and in what context it is in before you spread the news to others.
ReplyDelete-Rachel Mitts
Nicely said. Statistics just like gossip is often manipulated to attract viewers and readers attention. Many would agree that no one likes to read or hear about dull news and accusations which causes many sources of media to bend the truth and dramatize situations. In relevance to this article focusing on the younger aged teens made the so called epidemic shocking because sex was involved. These days the term sex itself (out of wed-lock) creates an uproar in society as is especially amongst teens.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the media, sex advocates, and anti-abortion groups were successful at winning over an audience despite the twisting of information because it is what people want to hear. They want to hear juicy information however this has unfortunately lead many to ignore other serious situations such as sexual abuse, bullying, violence etc.
-Tiffany Williamson