Video Games: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

For my fourth Media Arts blog post, I will be talking about video games and their impact on society. Video games have evolved over the past three decades, and they are constantly growing in popularity. However, they are bringing controversy, due to the fact that some children seem practically GLUED to the consoles. They just don't want to put the video games down, and its beginning to worry parents. Despite the evolution of video games to what they are today, I believe that they are currently more detrimental rather than beneficial. However, some of today's technologies are beginning to show a better future for video games.

One of the most popular new consoles is the Nintendo Wii. Nintendo has always been a trendsetter in the video game work, with things like the NES, Mario, the Nintendo DS (a touch screen portable console), and now, the Nintendo Wii. The Wii is different from most consoles because it encourages players to use hand motions to play the game. For example, if you are throwing a Frisbee, you have to mimic throwing a Frisbee with the controller in your hand. This gets gamers up off the couch and it makes them move in order to achieve results in the game. However, there are still not enough games where movement is required, and the movement that IS required is very minimal. This is where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft is working on a new technology for their Xbox 360, where a camera is positioned on top of the TV screen, and the player must move his or her entire body to play the game. This is a great example of video games that are more good than bad, because the player is actually exercising and moving.

This technology is still in its early stages, and until it is released to the public, video game continue to do more harm than good. In fact, children in Asia have died of starvation because they played video games for too long. The themes in some games are also harmful, such as shooting and gore in some games rated M for Mature. These games encourage gamers to kill as much as they can, which isn't very "family oriented" The Nintendo Wii is a great start towards activeness in games and family-friendly gaming, but it is going to be a while before video games truly become beneficial to people.

Dove VS. Axe: An Ad Controversy

This is my third Mary Ward Media Arts Blog post. In this blog post, I will be answering the following three questions; How do you feel about the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, how do you feel about the Axe Effect Campaign, and do you think that a 'parent' company has some responsibility to ensure that all of their different sectors uphold the same sort of beliefs and values.1) How do you feel about the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty?

I feel that the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a great new idea. Up until now, just about every beauty company has been focusing on improving someone’s looks, but now Dove is saying that all women should be considered beautiful, no matter what they look like. I agree with Dove’s idea for the Campaign for Real Beauty, because it is a different approach to advertising their products. Plus, it also gives women a higher self-esteem, something that many women lack today.

2) How do you feel about the Axe Effect Campaign? Does it make you laugh hysterically or roll your eyes in disgust? Why?

I find that the Axe Effect Campaign is quite funny, but it is obvious that these things will never happen to someone who uses Axe, even if some people do believe that it will. I feel that it is just another funny, new, and innovative marketing scheme, and it seems to be working, because more and more people know about Axe.

3) Do you think that a 'parent' company has some responsibility to ensure that all of their different sectors uphold the same sort of beliefs and values? Why or why not?

I feel that a ‘parent’ company has some responsibility to ensure their different sectors have similar beliefs and values. They own both companies, therefore they should have a say, just like most other parent companies. However, Dove and Axe act like two very different companies, since neither one of them would be caught dead using the other’s advertising technique. This makes most people believe that they are two separate companies (I didn’t know that they were owned by the same parent company until I read Mrs. Arturi’s blog). Therefore, the parent company should have some say, but it this case, the ad campaigns have already been released, they have both been successful, and therefore the parent company will make a lot of money, so there is no reason for them to step in now.

Overall, both companies use interesting advertising techniques to hook in customers, and other companies of different products should follow suit.

The Ads of the 50s and 60s

This is my second Media Arts blog post, and it is about the ads of the 50s and 60s. In the past, I have seen some of the ads from this era, and I thought they were stretching the truth and that no one today would give in today, let alone back then. However, the 4 ads posted on Mrs. Arturi’s blog are different than the others, and I feel that they would not be accepted at all by today’s standards.

The first add states that you can eat, eat, and eat, but still stay thin. How? By eating tapeworms! Obviously, this is an ad for a dieting plan that doesn’t sound like it would work, and if it did, you wouldn’t want to eat, eat, and eat because the food would be so disgusting. The second ad states that if you blow smoke from a certain cigarette into a woman’s face, she will, “follow you anywhere.” First off, this ad is endorsing cigarettes, which you don’t see much of today, and second of all, why would you allow someone to blow smoke in your face and then follow them afterwards? If someone blew smoke in my face, the LAST thing I would do is follow them. The third ad shows a family, and states that they are happy because they eat lard. Why someone would get all excited after eating pig fat, I do not know. What I do know, though, is that after eating all this lard, this family should be anything but happy!

The final ad has to be the worst of them all! It shows a doctor smoking a cigarette, and it says that more doctors smoke Camel cigarettes than any others. Why in the world would someone use a DOCTOR to indorse cigarettes when they are bad for you? Back when this ad was published, however, people would not have known that cigarettes were bad for you, but the company could’ve picked any other job, and they picked doctors. This ad certainly takes the cake!

The only reason these ads ran in the 50’s and 60’s was because they were what America accepted at the time. Obviously, these ads would not be accepted in the modern world, as today’s ads have more balanced gender roles and usually have statistics that actually make sense (doctors and cigarettes don’t go together). Overall, I find that the ads of today are much more convincing, but there is no forgetting that they were built of the ads of the 50s and 60s.