My speech was about 'Music Today: Not For Kids'.
Since half of the class went for the Star field trip, less tension build up in me but heck yeah, I was really nervous.
But the thought of kids listening to 'those' kind of songs definitely made me confident enough that what I was about to present it a serious matter.
Maybe I started a little slow, and I should cut the long (but seems short) pauses. I didn't get everyone attention at the beginning, so I should work on how to attract the audiences with working on my vocal projection and next time, try and pull people to listen.
Another thing is that, I should really work on which points that are important because the result of not narrowing down the 'most' important info, I fumbled at the 3 minute mark and jumbled up my words at the end.
Another thing I should work on is my dry humour. Turned out the attempt of being sarcastic with 'sticks' didn't work well during the presentation.
Over all, presentation was A-okay, content was up to par and I really should work on the mistakes I made in the presentation. :)
Thanks for listening to my speech! :D
Showing posts with label Afiqah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afiqah. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Music Today: Not For Kids (Research Material)
The Sexualisation of Culture
Taken from: http://myarticlesunite.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/the-sexualisation-of-culture/
By Dr Linda Papadopoulos
20th May 2010
Driving my little girl to school the other morning, we had the radio playing in the background as usual.
But while I chatted to my seven-year-old about preparing her costume for the school’s open day, I began to notice the lyrics of the song that was playing.
‘Hey rude boy, is you big enough? Hey rude boy can you get it up?’ sang American pop star Rihanna.
Had it not been for my daughter’s presence in the car, I probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. After all, it was a mainstream station and she’s a mainstream singer.
So as I fumbled to change stations it hit me that this was just another instance of how desensitised we have become to the sexual language and imagery that pervades our everyday lives.
Our children are surrounded by messages and images that aren’t intended for them. But these messages are so prevalent they can’t avoid them.
It’s not just the obvious things that we see around us – the padded bras for eight-year-olds and the pole-dancing kits in toy departments – that can sexualise children.
More…
LORRAINE CANDY: How do you tell teachers your child’s late because a Quaver got stuck in the printer?
It’s as Dr Maddy Coy, a sociologist from London Metropolitan University, puts it: ‘The background noise of sexualisation that is directed at adults but is available to and absorbed by children’ that is so problematic.
Girls jokingly now call each other ‘slut’ oblivious to the fact that it’s actually a deeply insulting sexual label.
Billboards and posters on buses and in high streets display women in the sort of explicit spread-eagled poses that a generation ago would only have been seen in top-shelf magazines.
But they’re not selling sex. They’re selling ice cream or shoes.
TV programmes shown well before the watershed hour of 9pm are littered with sexual references. But one of the worst offenders are song lyrics. With their drip, drip effect, they form the context to children’s lives. And the effect is deeply disturbing.
It’s cumulative, it’s powerful and it’s sending a terribly unhealthy message to children, and young girls in particular.
Music plays a big part in shaping our children. Kids aspire to emulate pop stars and the lifestyles and fashions they promote. Research shows that pre-teens and young teenagers listen to music for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours a day.
A recent report from the American Psychological Society noted the increasing tendency of popular song lyrics to sexualise women or refer to them in a derogatory manner.
They give graphic examples from popular mainstream artists like the Pussycat Dolls (‘Don’tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?’) and rapper 50 Cent (‘I tell hos [slang for prostitutes] all the time, Bitch get in my car’).
And far from being confined to rap music, the psychologists point out that lyrics and videos across all genres sexualise and objectify women.
Analysing themes and content from hundreds of music videos, it’s obvious that the portrayal of sexuality in popular music has become both less subtle and more explicit.
Just look at rap artist Nelly swiping a credit card through a young woman’s buttocks (Tip Drill). Or a woman being stripped naked and thrown onto a prison cell bed (Lady Gaga, Telephone.)
Or women being walked on leashes (P. I. M. P. by 50 cent). Particularly worryingly, the women in videos are rarely allowed to actively participate. They don’t sing or play an instrument.
They are purely decorative objects. It all serves to shape teenagers’ views on women.
And it’s unhealthy to say the least. Meanwhile, in an article in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers looking at the associations between song lyrics and teenage sexual behaviour found that exposing young teens to lyrics that describe degrading sex was independently associated with teenagers starting sex younger and having more partners.
When this is considered in light of the fact that several studies have established links between early sexual activity, poor sexual health, teenage pregnancy, and degrading sexual practices it becomes evident why we need to address how media and pop culture messages affect attitudes and behaviours
Stripping sex of any commitment or emotion, and where one partner had power over the other, creates an unhealthy view of sex in vulnerable teenagers.
And that’s why the issue of sexualisation is much more complex than is often reported. It’s not simply about children learning about sex too early. After all, kids have a normal curiosity about their developing sexuality and that is both developmentally appropriate and healthy.
The real problem is when girls are presented with an unbalanced stereotyped point of view about who they ought to be and how they ought to perform in relationships. It’s when they are made to feel that there is little alternative to aspiring to the ‘ideals’ of being hot and sexually desirable.
Even where women are the stars, they are often presented and portrayed in an overtly sexual way.
An analysis of the main themes projected in music videos found that violence occurs in 56.6 per cent of cases and visual presentations of sexual intimacy in over 75 per cent. And that’s across the board. From rap to country, no area is immune.
More than 30 years ago, cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out that we perceive the media’s effect on us as poorly as fish perceive the water they swim in.
In other words, the music is so prevalent and we are so desensitised, we simply don’t realise just what impact it is having on us.
Young women should be free to enjoy their sexuality when they feel ready for it and not before. We also need to provide new meanings of masculinity for young men that are not based solely on sexual conquest.
To do that we need to listen – really listen – to the sexualised background noise that surrounds us and act on what we hear to protect our children.
------------
**This article came out in NSTP on the 20th of May 2010
Taken from: http://myarticlesunite.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/the-sexualisation-of-culture/
By Dr Linda Papadopoulos
20th May 2010
Driving my little girl to school the other morning, we had the radio playing in the background as usual.
But while I chatted to my seven-year-old about preparing her costume for the school’s open day, I began to notice the lyrics of the song that was playing.
‘Hey rude boy, is you big enough? Hey rude boy can you get it up?’ sang American pop star Rihanna.
Had it not been for my daughter’s presence in the car, I probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. After all, it was a mainstream station and she’s a mainstream singer.
So as I fumbled to change stations it hit me that this was just another instance of how desensitised we have become to the sexual language and imagery that pervades our everyday lives.
Our children are surrounded by messages and images that aren’t intended for them. But these messages are so prevalent they can’t avoid them.
It’s not just the obvious things that we see around us – the padded bras for eight-year-olds and the pole-dancing kits in toy departments – that can sexualise children.
More…
LORRAINE CANDY: How do you tell teachers your child’s late because a Quaver got stuck in the printer?
It’s as Dr Maddy Coy, a sociologist from London Metropolitan University, puts it: ‘The background noise of sexualisation that is directed at adults but is available to and absorbed by children’ that is so problematic.
Girls jokingly now call each other ‘slut’ oblivious to the fact that it’s actually a deeply insulting sexual label.
Billboards and posters on buses and in high streets display women in the sort of explicit spread-eagled poses that a generation ago would only have been seen in top-shelf magazines.
But they’re not selling sex. They’re selling ice cream or shoes.
TV programmes shown well before the watershed hour of 9pm are littered with sexual references. But one of the worst offenders are song lyrics. With their drip, drip effect, they form the context to children’s lives. And the effect is deeply disturbing.
It’s cumulative, it’s powerful and it’s sending a terribly unhealthy message to children, and young girls in particular.
Music plays a big part in shaping our children. Kids aspire to emulate pop stars and the lifestyles and fashions they promote. Research shows that pre-teens and young teenagers listen to music for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours a day.
A recent report from the American Psychological Society noted the increasing tendency of popular song lyrics to sexualise women or refer to them in a derogatory manner.
They give graphic examples from popular mainstream artists like the Pussycat Dolls (‘Don’tcha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?’) and rapper 50 Cent (‘I tell hos [slang for prostitutes] all the time, Bitch get in my car’).
And far from being confined to rap music, the psychologists point out that lyrics and videos across all genres sexualise and objectify women.
Analysing themes and content from hundreds of music videos, it’s obvious that the portrayal of sexuality in popular music has become both less subtle and more explicit.
Just look at rap artist Nelly swiping a credit card through a young woman’s buttocks (Tip Drill). Or a woman being stripped naked and thrown onto a prison cell bed (Lady Gaga, Telephone.)
Or women being walked on leashes (P. I. M. P. by 50 cent). Particularly worryingly, the women in videos are rarely allowed to actively participate. They don’t sing or play an instrument.
They are purely decorative objects. It all serves to shape teenagers’ views on women.
And it’s unhealthy to say the least. Meanwhile, in an article in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers looking at the associations between song lyrics and teenage sexual behaviour found that exposing young teens to lyrics that describe degrading sex was independently associated with teenagers starting sex younger and having more partners.
When this is considered in light of the fact that several studies have established links between early sexual activity, poor sexual health, teenage pregnancy, and degrading sexual practices it becomes evident why we need to address how media and pop culture messages affect attitudes and behaviours
Stripping sex of any commitment or emotion, and where one partner had power over the other, creates an unhealthy view of sex in vulnerable teenagers.
And that’s why the issue of sexualisation is much more complex than is often reported. It’s not simply about children learning about sex too early. After all, kids have a normal curiosity about their developing sexuality and that is both developmentally appropriate and healthy.
The real problem is when girls are presented with an unbalanced stereotyped point of view about who they ought to be and how they ought to perform in relationships. It’s when they are made to feel that there is little alternative to aspiring to the ‘ideals’ of being hot and sexually desirable.
Even where women are the stars, they are often presented and portrayed in an overtly sexual way.
An analysis of the main themes projected in music videos found that violence occurs in 56.6 per cent of cases and visual presentations of sexual intimacy in over 75 per cent. And that’s across the board. From rap to country, no area is immune.
More than 30 years ago, cultural theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out that we perceive the media’s effect on us as poorly as fish perceive the water they swim in.
In other words, the music is so prevalent and we are so desensitised, we simply don’t realise just what impact it is having on us.
Young women should be free to enjoy their sexuality when they feel ready for it and not before. We also need to provide new meanings of masculinity for young men that are not based solely on sexual conquest.
To do that we need to listen – really listen – to the sexualised background noise that surrounds us and act on what we hear to protect our children.
------------
**This article came out in NSTP on the 20th of May 2010
Music Today: Not For Kids (Analysis)
Based on the survey I've done; some complication happened as I wasn't able to get in contact with the juniors and as well as, not everyone answered the survey. Only an average 40% of people answered my survey. And I thank you. :)
~~
Children these days are not like us or our parents back then. They are much quicker in understanding things as well as much quicker at being influence; be it good things or bad things. Yes, probably they won’t understand the complete meaning of what Rihanna is singing in Rude Boy or what My Chemical Romance (MCR) sings in their song Teenagers, but slowly, they will learn to understand what it means. If not by you explaining to them what’s the real meaning of disco stick or why someone wants to get into someone else’s panties as sung by 3OH!3 in My First Kiss, these kids, these future generations will go online and check the lyrics.
When people listen to songs like Hotel Room by Pitbull or Love Game by Lady Gaga, they know how the artists are like thus they tend to picture some very ‘interesting’ video in their heads. Imagine your younger siblings watching whatever video you’re playing in your head, surely you would straight away change the channel and tell them that they shouldn’t watch such things are they are not ready. But, these kids are fast learners, when we were 9 years old, not all of us know how to use the internet, but now, they have their own facebook or what not. They know how to excess youtube and there they are able to watch whatever you told them not to.
Even censorship doesn’t work nowadays. Clearly when MCR sings “They say all teenagers scare the living **** out of me,” we could easily tell what the censored word was. But now some music artists, they don’t want their songs to be censored so they wrote songs where they use everyday words and make them into a whole new meaning. Songs with double meanings, how cool and how bad is that? Besides picking up foul words from movies or video games, kids these days pick up foul words from songs too.
So what can be done to stop songs from spreading negativity to other innocent minds? Censorship is not that effective so put that aside. People can’t go up to music artists and tell them their songs are giving bad influence to underage children, its freedom of expression, why should they hold back? Based on my research, 81% agreed that radio stations should filter the songs that they play on the radio, but the other 19% argued that if radio stations do that, they will lose a lot of listeners. So, what can people do to protect their children?
~~End~~
~~
Children these days are not like us or our parents back then. They are much quicker in understanding things as well as much quicker at being influence; be it good things or bad things. Yes, probably they won’t understand the complete meaning of what Rihanna is singing in Rude Boy or what My Chemical Romance (MCR) sings in their song Teenagers, but slowly, they will learn to understand what it means. If not by you explaining to them what’s the real meaning of disco stick or why someone wants to get into someone else’s panties as sung by 3OH!3 in My First Kiss, these kids, these future generations will go online and check the lyrics.
When people listen to songs like Hotel Room by Pitbull or Love Game by Lady Gaga, they know how the artists are like thus they tend to picture some very ‘interesting’ video in their heads. Imagine your younger siblings watching whatever video you’re playing in your head, surely you would straight away change the channel and tell them that they shouldn’t watch such things are they are not ready. But, these kids are fast learners, when we were 9 years old, not all of us know how to use the internet, but now, they have their own facebook or what not. They know how to excess youtube and there they are able to watch whatever you told them not to.
Even censorship doesn’t work nowadays. Clearly when MCR sings “They say all teenagers scare the living **** out of me,” we could easily tell what the censored word was. But now some music artists, they don’t want their songs to be censored so they wrote songs where they use everyday words and make them into a whole new meaning. Songs with double meanings, how cool and how bad is that? Besides picking up foul words from movies or video games, kids these days pick up foul words from songs too.
So what can be done to stop songs from spreading negativity to other innocent minds? Censorship is not that effective so put that aside. People can’t go up to music artists and tell them their songs are giving bad influence to underage children, its freedom of expression, why should they hold back? Based on my research, 81% agreed that radio stations should filter the songs that they play on the radio, but the other 19% argued that if radio stations do that, they will lose a lot of listeners. So, what can people do to protect their children?
~~End~~
Monday, September 20, 2010
Music Today: Not For Kids
Here are is the survey for my speech.
1. When do you usually listen to the radio; around what time?
2. Have you heard of lyrics that go like this;
· “Come here rude boy, boy, can you get it up? Come here rude boy, boy, is you big enough? Take it, take it, baby, baby. Take it, take it, love me, love me.” – Rude Boy by Rihanna
· “Let's have some fun, this beat is sick. I wanna take a ride on your disco stick. Don’t think too much, just bust that kick. I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.” – Love Game by Lady Gaga
· “I like your ice cream, and you can lick my lollipop.” – Lollipop by Dada
· “I said no more teachers, and no more books. I got a kiss under the bleachers, hoping that nobody looks. Lips like liquorish, tongue like candy. Excuse me miss but can I get you out your panties?” – My First Kiss by 3OH!3
· “They say all teenagers scare, the living s**t out of me. They could care less, as long as someone will bleed. So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose. Maybe they’ll leave you alone but not me.” –Teenagers by My Chemical Romance
What kind of video do you imagined in your head?
3. If you have younger siblings below the age of 12 years old, how would you react if they sing/listen to these kinds of songs?
4. Continue from question 2, how would you react if your younger siblings watch the video you imagined in your head?
5. How would you explain to a child when they asks;
· What is a disco stick?
· What’s a pussy?
· What’s f***/ b****?
6. How would you react if your younger siblings who are below the age of 12, says foul words towards you, or towards your parents?
6. What’s your opinion on censoring foul or obscene words in music? Is it effective?
7. What do you think of modern songs nowadays? Is it safe for kids to hear?
8. Do think that radio stations should be more cautious when creating a playlist for their listeners?
9. Do you agree that songs nowadays spread negativity such as stereotypes of women, violence, sex and such?
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