DOES THE MEDIA HAVE AN INFLUENCE ON TEENAGE PREGNANCY???

The media has a negative effect on the rate of teenage pregnancies.

In the society we live in today the teenagers are influenced by everything they come across. They look up to celebrities and see them as role models no matter whether the person is leading a life worth looking up to or leading a life of shame. Most teenagers try to be like the people they see on TV and in the newspapers because according to their view those people live interesting life’s.The media spends most off its time selling their magazines or getting rates up by showing these celebrities behaving badly making babies like it’s going out of fashion and having random sex.

Most teenagers would then see this as ‘cool’ and think ‘OH my now that would be fun let me try it’This is how the media affects the thinking of our young girls. ‘I want to be like her.”The boys are worst of because the media keeps portraying these Hollywood hunks as players who sleeps with every second girl, gets them knocked up and then goes all on in their jolly life’s. They aspire to be like that. They enjoy playing with girls and going all the way, giving them bragging rights to their friends: ‘Oh that John Mayer has nothing on me, I had sex with five girls in just one night.’ Or ‘Boys tonight I’m going to pull a Colin Farell’I actually heard guys say these things while I was in school, so that proved to me that boys like to be more like girls.And some girls even go to say that they don’t mind having sex with different guys or have  a lot of sex, I mean ‘Christina Aguilera is a dirty girl and she does not have a string of babies’

If you take the show “sixteen and pregnant” you would think that is a wake up for girls to see the reality of being a parent on sixteen and having to cope with having to take care of another person, but no they find that entertaining and some even claim that they can do it easier than those girls in the shows.

What the media does is show these girls through shows like sixteen and pregnant that it is okay to have sex and fall pregnant as long as you stand up and take care of it.

MTV sells the show as a cautionary tale to discourage teenage pregnancy, but critics have recently speculated that it actually has the opposite effect. (1) Doctor Logan Levkoff, a teen development expert, says that even though MTV illustrates the harsh consequences of teen pregnancy, there are many pregnant teens in pop culture that can really influence American teenage girls. “There are more pregnant teens in pop culture than ever before,” Levkoff said in an interview with ABC News. “They are on the cover of magazines, getting paid, getting endorsement deals, and becoming calendar models. Even if MTV shows all the hardships, they’re still being supported in so many ways. The way we bring people into fame for really not doing anything has created a culture where it is exciting to be a pregnant teen and the fact of the matter is that most teens who are pregnant do not have the same experience that the girls on those shows have.” The multitude of teen moms that appear in the media reduces the shock that used to be associated with teenage pregnancy. “There is no fear and shame in teen pregnancy anymore,”

According to researchers in the Rand Corp (1) (2008) teens exposed to the most sexual content on TV are twice as likely as teens watching less of this material to become pregnant before they reach age 20.

According to Anita Chandra, DrPHa, Steven C. Martino, PhDb, Rebecca L. Collins, PhDc, Marc N. Elliott, PhDc, Sandra H. Berry, MAc, David E. Kanouse, PhDc and Angela Miu, MSc (2) there is increasing evidence that youth exposure to sexual content on television shapes sexual attitudes and behavior in a manner that may influence reproductive health outcomes.

Sources

1.       MTV’s reality shows glamorize aspects of teenage pregnancies

More schools should implement programs like Paly’s “Baby Think It Over” project

by Bailey Cassidy of Campanile

Published March 17, 2011

http://voice.paly.net/node/26681

2.        Time U.S.

  By Alice Park Monday, Nov. 03, 2008

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1855842,00.html#ixzz1VZiGsmci

3.       Pediatrics: official journal of the American academy of pediaters

to Anita Chandra, DrPHa, Steven C. Martino, PhDb, Rebecca L. Collins, PhDc, Marc N. Elliott, PhDc, Sandra H. Berry, MAc, David E. Kanouse, PhDc and Angela Miu, MSc

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/5/1047.full

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BLOG??

What Makes A Good Blog?

According to About.com (1) the five tips to write a blog is:

·         Choose the Appropriate Tone for Your Blog.

·         Be Honest

·         Don't Just List Links

·         Provide Attribution

·         Write in Short Paragraphs.

I think that those five things are the foundation to making a good blog. By following those steps you will achieve a blog with the attitude that will keep people coming to your blog and wanting more.

By my own ideas a good blog post would be something that speaks to me and something I can relate to or even something that would be useful for me in my life. And how to make a great blog post would be when you put feeling into your words and your whole attitude jumps off the screen towards the reader and draws them in. That’s the thing with words they can make magic when used in the right way and I think that that is the key to great blogging.

Your style and the look of your blog also has a huge influence on the readers of your blog and the way they see the blog posts. For example if you have say a background that is very depressing and dull and you write a cheerful post the readers will think that you are being sarcastic and even think that you have  a bad sense of humour. So for a good post your whole blog should portray what the message is you want to carry across to your readers.

According to UMass Journalism Professor's Blog (2) the Elements needed for a good blog is:

·         Linking

·         Reporting.

·         Writing.

·         Length

·         Headlines

·         Regular updates

·         Interact and

·         Passion.

The moment you know how to use these elements correctly than your blog is on its way to becoming a great one.

According to UMass Journalism Professor's Blog (2) “students should blog because it allows you to practice your writing and your multimedia skills.  And, like anything, the more you practice, the better you get.  In the process, you are creating a body of work that you can show those looking to hire you for an internship or a job.  Remember, your blog is part of your digital footprint.”

Blogging can be seen as an important part of journalism today not just as previously mentioned fact that it helps you practice but because it is a fun and new way of bringing the news across to the readers. What’s more is that blogging widens the audience that gets the news and a lot of them would not have received the news if it was in another means of media.

According to my opinion I think that blogging and journalism go hand in hand because no matter what you blog about you inform, empower, educate or just entertain your readers which I think is the main goals of journalism.

It is mostly important because it opens the door for a younger audience. The youngsters do not want to read newspapers or watch the news on the television and the news sites are not their favourites but blogging gives a new fresh and funky way of letting the youngsters know what is happening in the world.

I would much rather read someone’s opinion of what is happening in the world on a blog or facebook or twitter than read it in a newspaper because there the journalist gives their own opinion.

It’s like UMass Journalism Professor's Blog said:’ “Journalism has become a profession where, if you want to succeed, you must be “platform-agnostic.”  The medium is no longer the message.  If you’re practicing journalism and using blogs to deliver your journalism then you are a journalist.’

That goes to show that journalism and blogging goes hand in hand and therefor blogging is very important in our world.

Referencing:

1.       5 Tips to Write Blog Posts

How to Write Posts that Get Noticed and Keep Readers Interested

By Susan Gunelius, About.com Guide

.http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingtips/tp/TipsWriteBlogPosts.htm

2.       Top 10 Tips for Beginner Bloggers

The Tips You Need to Successfully Start a Blog

By Susan Gunelius, About.com Guide

http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingtips/tp/TipsBeginnerBloggers.htm

3.       Why Blog? A Guide for Students

Posted on August 15, 2010 by journalismprof

http://umassjournalismprofs.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/why-blog-a-students-guide/

Can web journalism replace traditional media

Personally I not only think it can but I think it will.

In this century people are living a fast paced life and traditional media is not fast enough to keep up with that pace. The traditional slumps behind the web journalism. By the time a newspaper hit the stands with news of something that had happened bloggers and people on facebook and twitter had already spread the news to all the internet users.

According to about.com.journalism-With print journalism seemingly on the brink of collapse, more and more are asking whether web journalism can replace newspapers. The short answer is, not yet. Web journalism encompasses a whole range of things, from the websites run by newspapers to citizen journalism and non-profit news sites and even blogs. But aside from the newspaper websites, which are an extension of the papers themselves, few of these other online news entities can compete with newspapers in terms of the breadth and scope of their coverage.

The Problem That web journalism has at this time and the reason it haven’t made traditional journalism fade away is money. Most online news sites don't have enough money from either advertising or deep-pocketed supporters to hire a newsroom full of professional reporters. So they often rely on recent journalism school grads or interns who will work for cheap, and they typically employ fairly small staffs. Even with limited resources and inexperienced reporters, these sites can do good work. The Chitown Daily News, for instance, provides solid basic coverage of municipal agencies in Chicago.

But with only four full-time reporters, it can't hope to compete with the kind of full-bodied news coverage provided by the city's two main dailies, the Tribune and the Sun-Times.Likewise, when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently shut down its printing presses and became a web-only operation, some hoped the P-I website would carry on the paper's proud journalistic tradition. But with the P-I's news staff being gutted to a fraction of its former size, that seems unlikely. Some topnotch journalism is being done by nonprofit news websites, which are typically funded by a mix of ad revenue and contributions from donors and foundations. VoiceofSanDiego.org, for example, has has earned a rep for hard-hitting investigative projects about corrupt local officials. But the nonprofit sites also have fairly small staffs and must pick their targets carefully. They simply don't have the resources to do more. Still, in a time when newspapers look like an endangered species, online news sites seem to be multiplying. And if they can discover a way to make money - the kind of money that will allow them to fill newsrooms with experienced reporters and editors - they may eventually become journalism's brave new world.

According to Mr. John Van der Westerhuizen who is the founder and current editor of our local newspaper in Namaqualand thinks that in time web will completely take over and there will be no more traditional media. People will stop buying newspapers and just get their news from the web.

According to Sandy it will because it’s becoming more and more popular and the world is getting smaller due to web journalism.

Sibulele on the other hand thinks it will not replace traditional media. They are different. The net is a great way to find stories and sources for stories. The print will not go extinct because of it. Yes, more people read their news online than buy a newspaper but the id more quality and depth in traditional Journalism than Web.

So my conclusion is that depending on the people in the world and what they want web journalism could either kill traditional media or it could just improve it.

It all depends on the demand of the consumers.

SOURCES:

Sibulele Sikune

Sandisiwe Sishuba

about.com.journalism