**Voices of Hope Productions |THE EYE| November 2024 - Stand-Up * Voice Opinions *Take Back the Media **

>>>>ISN'T IT TIME TO TAKE BACK THE MEDIA?
People often see media exposure as a cause of societal problems. The average American family spends eight hours and eleven minutes a day watching television. Time spent listening or viewing any medium including television, radio, video games and surfing the internet is time that adults, youth and children are not doing something else; playing, reading, drawing, enjoying the changing seasons outside or plain-old family discussion. However, there's no doubt that media teaches--positively and negatively.

On a rainy Saturday in October, to a standing-room only audience of parents, educators and caregivers, Voices of Hope Productions conducted a workshop on Violence in the Media for PEI Kids. During the workshop we discussed the effects and magnitude of media and its violent underpinnings on small children. A news clip was shown that illustrated the clear effects that television has on children. As shown in the clip, children watched the big purple dinosaur, Barney, singing and dancing. The children all rose to their feet, clapping and laughing, and sang along, as they marched in place. Conversely, when shown the Power Rangers children immediately identified with the individual characters. Their behavior grew less tolerant, and respectful of each other. Similarly, children began imitating the behavior they were viewing: only this time it was kicking, hitting and dragging one another across the carpet. These same children, who earlier had watched and sung along with Barney were now behaving aggressively.

In the past few weeks two studies have been released: The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that since 1998 the number of sex scenes on TV have nearly doubled, and a University of Columbia faculty member has found a relationship between alcoholic-related imagery and the aggression that can occur when someone drinks too much. These examples illustrate that media is a sophisticated tool that holds a multitude of sociobehavioral ramifications.

Media is a part of our culture, our society, and our lives and it's certainly here to stay. Here's what we can change —our viewing habits, and the viewing habits we encourage within our children and youth. We can direct our energies to creating our own media messages such as writing, blogging and making mini-movies. We can also stand up and voice our opinions and become advocates, not only in our own homes, but by publicly speaking out for media policy and reform. As long as we shut-off, blame, ignore or absent-mindedly allow negative, violent images into our lives, we lose. Media is not the cause of societal problems, people are. Let's make a decision to take back control of the media. Let's start now.
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Website: Pledgebank.com- Tell the world “I’ll do it, but only if you’ll help me do it”
We all know what it is like to feel powerless, that our own actions can't really change the things that we want to change. PledgeBank is about beating that feeling by connecting you with other people who also want to make a change, but who don't want the personal risk of being the only person to turn up to a meeting or the only person to donate ten pounds to a cause that actually needed a thousand. The way it works is simple. You create a pledge which has the basic format 'I'll do something, but only if other people will pledge to do the same thing'. For example, if you'd always want to organize a street party you could organise a pledge which said 'I'll hold a street party, but only if three people who live in my street will help me to run it.'

Film: Paradise Now is the story of two young Palestinian men as they embark upon what may be the last 48 hours of their lives as suicide bombers. On a typical day in the West Bank city of Nablus, where daily life grinds on amidst crushing poverty and the occasional rocket blast, we meet two childhood best friends, Saïd (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), who pass time drinking tea, smoking a hookah, and working dead-end menial jobs as auto mechanics. view trailer

>>>>>>PEW INTERNET AND AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT RELEASES REPORT | By Amanda Lenhart, and Mary Madden | Teen Content Creators and Consumers: More than half of online teens have created content for the internet; and most teen downloaders think that getting free music files is easy to do. American teenagers today are utilizing the interactive capabilities of the internet as they create and share their own media creations. Fully half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the internet could be considered Content Creators. They have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations. Read Report

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