CampusIntel

I have just finished a class about gender issues in the media. I firmly believe I have been oblivious to reality for too long, and so, have wondered if anyone else has been as well. For this reason, I have decided to share some of the knowledge I have recently learned about how the media uses images of men and women in stereotypical roles.

When it was first mentioned in class, I began thinking of the shows I watched and the movies I have enjoyed. And although cliché, I decided to analyze one of my favourite movies (please do not judge me), “Legally Blonde.”

In the movie, beautiful Elle Woods is portrayed as the typical female – she has a bubbly personality, is obsessed with shopping, make-up and shoes, and is known to be ditzy… To be clear, this is NOT my definition of a woman, but in fact, what I have learned society dictates the stereotypical woman is.

My professor discussed how today’s society continues to privilege males over females. Now, I don’t know why, but for some reason this surprised me. Perhaps it’s my many women’s studies classes or even the fact that my university is majority women, but I firmly believed that the division was becoming less and less apparent. But, supposedly, we are we are still living in a patriarchal world.

The movie tries to overcome this obstacle through having Elle attempt to break the barriers between the sexes. For instance, she starts attending a college dominated by males, Harvard Law School. Unfortunately, however, their distinction seems to do the opposite, as it appears to strengthen presupposing stereotypes and reinforce the divide between the sexes.

I further investigated other stereotypes present in the movie….and yes that required me watching parts of the movie again…..and yes I should have been studying for exams and not procrastinating….but to my defence, I was still learning! One of the most interesting lines comes from the saleswoman, who states:  “there’s nothing [she] loves better than a dumb blonde with Daddy’s plastic.” This reinforces not only that women are unintelligent but also that they are reliant on males as they hope to receive money from their fathers.

The more I watched, (and the more I procrastinated), the more I saw the presence of stereotypes. And in fact, stereotypes were present for both men and women, creating a further divide between the sexes with each one.

One of the most noteworthy examples involves shoes. For instance, when Elle is talking with Enrique, the cabana boy, he states: “don’t stomp your little last season Prada shoes at me, honey.” His knowledge of shoes, forces her to gasp and proclaim: “He’s gay!” Through this, we see that when males hold similar interests as women, their association with their sex is diminished, much like how Enrique is viewed as being unmasculine. Conversely, through observing Warner, the macho and intelligent male, we can see that the opposite can be stated. When Elle asks him what kind of shoes she’s wearing, he responds: “ummm… black ones,” reinforcing society’s expectations and thus his masculinity as well.

Through observing these facts I now wonder what other television shows and movies focus on stereotypes and highlight the distinctions between the sexes. Are there any other movies that anyone has watched that have presented similar stereotypes?

Many sitcoms are focused upon the average looking, hard-working, money-making male, with the gorgeous woman who stays home and spends all of his money. What I find unusual is that it is these shows that we have become accustomed to enjoy. I now wonder if there is any way to overcome these labels once society has etched them in our minds. For instance, do you think that if a show presents the opposite, which would be in this case, a hard-working woman, with the stay-at-home father, would the show be just as popular?

A poll last week by EKOS shows the Liberals have regained some support among voters and are now in a virtual tie with the Conservatives despite the government’s Haiti recovery efforts. Around Christmas, Harper polled around 40 percent compared to Michael Ignatieff trailing at the 23 percent mark. Ignatieff, whose nosedive in the polls reflected levels of Stephane Dion’s disastrous reign the year before, has made a comeback in vote-rich Ontario and Atlantic Canada, as well as gaining popularity with younger voters.

The poll suggests that if an election were held tomorrow, 30.9 per cent of those polled chose the Liberals and 31.5 per cent would back the Conservatives. 14.9 per cent of respondents supportedthe NDP, 11.5 per cent the Green Party and 9.1 per cent the Bloc Québécois.

The poll also highlights the mixed feelings among voters when it comes to the performance of their government. Forty-five per cent feel the government is moving in the right direction while  42 per cent believe they are moving in the wrong direction.

It seems as if Harper’s strategy to prorogue parliament until the federal budget is revealed has hurt him in the short term among voters, but as quickly as polls change, I suspect by March Harper will make a comeback as the storm dies off and parliament gets back to business.

DEMOCRATIC: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICANISM: You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?

SOCIALIST: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE: You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.

It’s been a rough year for the Ontario Liberals. First a billion dollar eHealth scandal, then a mind-boggling  $25 billion deficit. To make matters worse, McGuinty’s adminstration is set to unveil summer tax reforms which are being viewed by citizens both rich and poor as yet another tax grab- this time on everything from haircuts to funerals.

Polls have displayed negative momentum for McGuinty, who is now trailing Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and seems poised for certain defeat unless he can pull a rabbit out of a hat very soon. With July looming as the beginning of the new Liberal HST in Ontario, the ability to produce rabbits or magic tricks of any sort seems very unlikely for the embattled McGuinty.

With the hope of breathing some new life into his dying government, McGuinty revealed his newly shuffled cabinet in Queens Park Monday January 18. The new cabinet is as follows:

Leona Dombrowsky- Minister of Education

Brad Duguid- Minister of Energy and Infrastructure

Chris Bentley- remains Attorney General and becomes Minister of Aboriginal Affairs

Monique Smith- Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and she remains government house leader

Jim Bradley- Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing

Sophia Aggelonitis- Minister of Consumer Services

Michael Chan- Minister of Culture

Carol Mitchell- Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

Linda Jeffrey- Minister of Natural Resources

Eric Hoskins- Minister of Citizenship and Immigration

Kathleen Wynne- Minister of Transportation

John Milloy- Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities; Minister of Research and Innovation

Rick Bartolucci- Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services

Margarett Best- Minister of Health Promotion

Laurel Broten- Minister of Children and Youth Services

Sandra Pupatello- Minister of Economic Development and Trade

Harinder Takhar- Minister of Government Services

John Gerretsen- Minister of the Environment

Dwight Duncan- Minister of Finance

Peter Fonseca- Minister of Labour

Deb Matthews- Minister of Health and Long-Term Care

Michael Gravelle- Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry

Madeleine Meilleur- Minister of Community and Social Services, Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs

John Wilkinson- Minister of Revenue

Gerry Phillips- Minister without portfolio and Minister Responsible for Seniors

Removed from cabinet are Donna Cansfield, Ted McMeekin and Aileen Carroll.

McGuinty will face another test February 4 when Toronto Centre goes to by-election to fill Toronto mayoral frontrunner George Smitherman’s vacant seat, with (of course) yet another star candidate, this time former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray. It is my hope that PC Party candidate Pamela Taylor wins Toronto Centre; Ms. Taylor being a life-long Torontonian who wasn’t parachuted in to the region for political gain.

Rogers, and Bell, you had your chance to promote a two way conversation with consumers.  After years of having frustrated customers complaining about expensive pricing, poor customer service and plans that if got anymore complicated could result in the loss of your first born child.  Do I even need to mention those annoying as hell television advertisements?

Well in Toronto’s Telecommunication Industry, the forecast predicts high speed winds blowing through the market .  Wind Mobile, is proving that they can run with the Big (and Old) Dogs and succeed by taking a major chunk of the GTA market share. 

Wind Mobile encourages the flow of conversation with consumers.  No longer are cell phone users bound to long term contracts, start up costs and random fees (why was my Rogers SIM card free but then at the end of the month I was charged an additional $40 for service repair?)

Students should be looking to make the switch and escape from the scaly clutches of Rogers and Bell reminiscent of Mr. Burns. 

Just by going to the Wind Mobile website a student can get the sense that this is an organization that “gets youth”.  Innovative designs and easy to navigate pages (you can apply for a job through the home page), makes Wind all the more appealing.  Wind even has a community page that encourages users to make suggestions and complaints that are publicly displayed, proving they’re already jumping way ahead in the social media marketing game (@WINDmobile).  

Talk about smart marketing, Wind is engaging its users online but also presenting exciting and entertaining advertisements in the traditional mediums.  Impressive work done by the teams at Trapeze Media, Clean Sheet, and Starcom Mediavest has resulted in a series of effective creatives that should get Bell thinking, “maybe we should bring back the Beavers, and what were we thinking with the ‘er’ campaign?”

Wind is making ground in the Toronto market and they are expanding into Calgary with the giant “customer” statue making its way to the retail stores.  Hopefully within the next year other major cities with high student populations should be getting the chance to join the conversation.

And yes, they do offer data plans with smart phones for all those blackberry users out there.

- Written by Laura Taylor

It’s interesting to note that digital signage has been around, even in its most basic form since the 1970s having televisions display pre-recorded signs to get people to come into the stores – yet I’ve still been asked by several people, what is digital signage?  

Digital signage is an electronic sign that displays pretty much whatever you want it to – and for every organization, group, individual, it’s different. Fortunately, because it’s digital, it can be tailored to display whatever you require. For example, if you own a fast-food restaurant and want digital signs to display your menu, you wouldn’t buy an expensive multi-function digital signage system because you’d only be interested in text and images. Other digital signage systems can display flash, videos and RSS feeds which would be useless if all you’re interested in is inform your customers about your daily specials! 

Personally, I think digital signage is a great step forward – constructively using a piece of technology to not only inform, educate and communicate with people, but to save the environment as well. And, using less paper and people power to implement signage everywhere increases productivity within a business; Signage can now be done in the comfort of ones own home (if it’s an online-based digital signage system) or at work, depending on the signage equipment. And again, because it’s digital, you wouldn’t have to recreate your original template – all changes can be done on the computer.  

However, digital signage has become more than just signs informing people of the lunch special or luring people into stores. With the ability for digital signage systems to connect to the Internet, your digital sign can receive live updates of weather, news, sports, traffic & public transportation, etc. Through the use of RSS feeds, it can display headlines of top stories for that day. (This is especially true of the TTC; as the digital signage in the subway reports time, weather, when the next train will arrive, news, videos, etc.) Furthermore, it’s possible to play full feature length videos in one portion of the screen with the weather, time, date, in the top right hand corner with the day’s top headlines scrawling across the bottom of the screen. Really, the possibilities with digital signage appear to be endless.  

So why is digital signage just now taking off? Digital signage is more widely available, has more capabilities and the technology has improved drastically. There are two options for your digital signage needs: You can pay for a company to send you software (often the software is very advanced giving you tonnes of capabilities) or open-source (free) based digital signage programs. These programs are often online and while they have limited functionality, they’re still able to get the job done. Moreover, the technology has improved; it’s quicker, more reliable, has more functions and the platform (screens) upon which digital signs are shown has become cheaper making it easier for people to display their signs digitally.  

In particular, one digital signage presenter I found interesting was: ~sedna presenter – a proprietary Mac digital signage software that allows for video, text, images, audio, web pages, Quartz (Mac graphics layer), and third party application displays (ie. It can display your PowerPoint presentations, Office documents, etc.). The cool thing about this signage presenter is its capabilities to pretty much do anything you want it to in terms of signage – with several layers you can manage tonnes of content easily and effectively. However, because it is proprietary to Mac, you can’t run it off your PC. And while some may say that’s not really a drawback at all, if you’re primarily a PC person, it takes a bit of getting used to when figuring out keyboard shortcuts and the specifics of the program.  

In the future, I see digital signage becoming more prevalent in day to day society. It not only appears to be a more eco-friendly way of communication when you’re on the go, but it’s also providing more jobs and is a fun and creative way to get your message out to the world.

So we are once again back at it, back to the endless hours of reading, writing, analyzing, calculating and so on and so forth. We are back for the winter semester at school – ready to discuss the many topics that have plagued great scholars over the past centuries and place them in modern ideologies. If any of you are like me, you are absolutely dreading the thought of starting it all up again – trying to remember the right way to take notes, trying to remember where your classrooms all are and, more than anything, trying to figure out how you ever got out of bed early enough to make it to your 8:30am class. Then a wonderful thing happens, you get to class and amidst all the discussion and note-taking, a topic comes up that actually interests you and what’s better, your teacher is willing to stray from her lesson and take a look at this topic.

It might not happen too often, but when it does you must savour the moment. Today, while discussing the enthralling events of the restoration period and the effects of the printing press, the idea of the dying newspaper came up. This topic led to the question of our generation and our knowledge of the world and the way the internet has changed media forever. From there a somewhat exciting discussion developed (obviously, because we had the chance to talk about ourselves). It is undeniable that the newspaper, as it has always been, is a dying medium. While some generations (including ours) do still take the time every morning to flip through the pages with their cup of coffee – the fact is that there is information available to us that is faster, cheaper (if not free), and coming from an array sources. All of this can be found on the internet. Much like the problem the music industry has faced with illegal downloading of music, news and other written materials are becoming available on the web to just about anyone who chooses to look for it. Copyright laws are unfortunately way out of date and there is little protection for authors and their work.

So, what is the concern about our generation? Many people in the media world (generations older than us) believe that we are uninformed about important issues, locally and globally, as we no longer read the newspaper like the people from our past once did. What do we have to say about that? Well, many interesting ideas were brought up by the students in my class when this question was proposed but it came down to a few main notions. For one, the newspaper is slow and if we have learned anything through observation, it is quite obvious that we enjoy fast and up to date information. Also, we are a cynical bunch and don’t enjoy having thoughts put into our heads and on the internet we are free to search for news from a number of different sources from nearly anywhere in the world. Lastly, with the many networking sites available, we are able to sift through the media and the news and decide what we want to learn about – rather than being limited to what one particular editor chose to print in their paper that week.

It turned out to be an interesting and controversial discussion, as my professor is an avid newspaper reader, however there was one outcome. The newspaper is dying due to the likes of new media forms – mainly the internet – and there is one option left for this dying medium, adapt or fade away.

Written by: John Coleman

To put the car North American car industry into perspective, China recorded a 45 per cent increase in auto sales in 2009, while the US recorded a 21 per cent decrease. However, both nations still sold numbers in the low tens of millions. The high increase in auto sales in China was unexpected, and only goes to prove China’s legitimacy in the race for top world superpower status. Chinese drivers are saying “Economic Crisis? What economic crisis?” which also says that their rise in international politics will also be hard to hinder. North Americans have displayed a different mentality, and the marketplace for new cars has reflected it.

The main thing North Americans thought about 2009 were the ongoing plant closures in Canada and the US. Ford, GM, and Chrysler all downsized tremendously within the past few years, and 2009 saw plenty of it: GM stopped production at its Oshawa truck plant in September, alongside 13 other plant closing in the US. In early 2010, the latest GM plant closure was announced in Windsor, where 1,400 jobs will be lost. The world economic crisis has, of course, contributed to North America’s leading automakers drive for cheaper production costs. Labour and parts produced in Canada and the US are more expensive than elsewhere.

But, it looks like some of these wounded auto manufacturers have decided that enough is enough, and the 2010 North America Auto Show is the perfect place to showcase their new, greener approach. The most revered event in the car industry, rolling into Detroit next week, everyone is expecting to see what the auto industry will do to bounce back. The show, which starts on January 16, is expected to unveil hybrids and electric cars from all automakers, in a revamping attempt to create a new market. SUVs and big trucks are to be scarce, and even some lighter trucks and small passenger cars will be hard to find. The 2010 Auto Show in Detroit will be comprised mainly of electric and hybrid cars.

Some big names expected to turn gear-heads are Toyota, Mazda, Magnum, and GM and Nissan, who will all be using the show to create buzz around their latest green concepts. Also, American based companies Tesla and Fisker’s new electric cars are drumming up attention among buyers looking to go green. But, Chinese based BYD Auto, being funded by US billionaire Warren Buffet, will be most watched when it reveals its latest line of hybrids that have been in semi-production since 2008.

It is no secret that with sub categories such as: Arts & Design, Business, Political Spectrum, Travel, Restaurants, and Green Living that the Culture Cafe category will be a huge hit amongst our reader base. We are really excited to start rolling out fresh content for you, so please stay tuned!