Madeline's Blog

Some basic ideas of cultivation theory are, that over time television alters our perception. Which I think means that the more we see something, the more normalized and the more fearful we become of something awful happening to us. This applies to the video "How We See Violence" because in the video John Oliver talks about how torture is constantly shown on TV shows and movies, and in those programs torture always works. It becomes normalized to us, which connects back to the cultivation theory that Gerbner discusses. I also think that hearing the word violence or torture, is different than explaining how that person was killed, or how that person was tortured. In the video with John Oliver, he read a few parts of a book written about torturing people the government believed to have information about terrorists. When you start hearing exactly what they did to that individual it makes you stop and think, how could we do this to someone, especially someone that could turn out ...

To start off I want to explain what BIRGing and CORFing are. BIRGing is basking in reflected glory, while CORFing is cutting off reflected failure. Most fans of any sort of game will participate in both of these at some point without even knowing. In the video when they talked about the Carolina Panthers putting cabanas and pools in their stadium, Steven Colbert was quick to judge. He mentions that they should focus more attention on other part of the stadium like the football field, rather than putting in pools for spectators. While sort of bashing the team, he is CORFing, simply because he's demonizing this team. He's also blaming the fact that since they spend so much time on silly things like pools, is the reason they don't have that good of a team!  Now if you're a Carolina panther fan getting pools and cabanas is just the beginning of your BIRGing binge. Suddenly this gives panther fans the option to start bragging and comparing the panther stadium to other sta...