Advertising Rant

Yesterday evening at around 6pm I was doing what the majority of the nation do at that time on a Saturday evening, I was watching ITV. I absolutely love watching “The Chase” but what I hate is advert breaks that are longer than the snippets of the show in between them. Yesterday evening was slightly different as I don’t recall there being a break in “The Chase” at all, I have no idea why … perhaps ITV want to me more like BBC? perhaps the pre-recorded show was longer than intended so they cut breaks so the schedule ran smoothly? I don’t really care to be honest, I just want to rant about advertising in general. 

It’s rather sad to think of how much of your life you have spent watching adverts, probably hours on end where you could have been doing something much more productive with your time such as reading a book or taking your four legged fury friend for a walk. Instead we just sit there watching a series of clips of “sexy” people advertising toasters (and other products) which they probably really don’t own. The level of celebrity influence is beyond despicable these days. X Factor rejects One Direction advertise Nintendo products, children then want said Nintendo products because One Direction apparently like to use such Nintendo products. Surprisingly  this effect isn’t just apparent in the young and naive, we’ve all bought something because of celebrity influence at some point, whether that’s perfume, football boots or food from Iceland, their slogan is “Party like a Celeb” after all. It’s rather stereotypical to say “oh, well sex sells and that’s what sells products best” … this is actually my point, a negative point. All people who feature in adverts are stereotypically attractive, the kind of people who “normal” people would like to be similar to. We’re all more foolish than we thought as we then go out and buy these products in order to gain a similar life style.

You’re probably all sitting there thinking that I’m a bit nuts. You probably think that I’ve just demonstrated that the whole point of advertising is to sell a product and these are the best methods to use. Yes, I’ve researched the history of advertising and know quite a bit about media influence. If you know anything about advertising at all then you’ll know about a man called Walter Dil Scott who experimented with subliminal advertising in the 1950s. This is when advertising started to change into the type of advertising today, this is where advertising became based on influencing behaviour. Before Walter Dil Scott’s experimentation advertising was merely just posters with a picture of a product and a bit of information explaining what its purpose was, where you could get it from and how much it would cost. After subliminal advertising on TV and in cinemas was made illegal the advertising industry had to think of other ways to influence people and remain powerful in order to keep capitalism the way it had boomed. This sadly was celebrity influence and the “sex sells” approach. 

I think it’s about time that I gave some examples of ways in which companies manage to influence, perhaps stories where changes have been made in order to make a product seem more appealing. A perfect example would be the recent Marks & Spencer Christmas advert. The advert features this years X Factor finalists singing “When you Wish upon A Star”, each time a contestant leaves the show (weekly) the advert is updated by removing the reject out of the video. What’s even worse is that I think this was sparked off by bad boy Frankie Cocozza being thrown out of the show for partying hard and taking cocaine. As you can imagine, Frankie got bad press and many newspapers reported that Cocozza spent the £3,000 that Marks & Spencer paid him to feature in their Christmas advert. Shortly after the bad press Marks & Spencer removed Cocozza from their advert, obviously because they didn’t want someone who got bad press to be advertising their wonderful Christmas food, keeping Cocozza in the advert would mean that partying cocaine addicts adopt the Marks & Spencer lifestyle and that would be completely the wrong image for Marks wouldn’t it?

So what happens when attractive or famous people aren’t ideal for advertising a certain product or service? for example beauty products that make you look ten years younger, or medications and vitamin supplements. Well, this is where “research” and mathematical explanations come into play. I’m not going to rant on about this too much, a chap called Ben Goldacre wrote a book called “Bad Science” that has various chapters about how the media use and report research, I do recommend reading it but this is completely beyond my point. What I’m trying to say here is that companies try to make their adverts seem sciency by reporting findings from their research which was actually badly run and it’s even a known fact that skin cream companies have invented chemical names to make it look like their cream has different active ingredients to all other creams out there. If you have more than two brain cells you will realise that active ingredients in all skin moisturisers are the same and if you moisturised everyday for 10 years you would look younger than people who didn’t anyway. You can also get the gist of how bad the research is by actually reading the small print at the bottom of the screen, it will say something like “when comparing all of our nationwide stores to a very small corner shop in Grimbsy” or “50.2% of participants agreed, n=2”. It seems that a sciency type presentation influences people to buy products where health is concerned. As I said, I could write about this particular topic all day but I’ll spare you the detail, it’s merely a rant about advertising not a lesson in scientific method.

This rant has only sparked up because advertising breaks on TV and radio are becoming a lot more frequent, the recent product placement update really doesn’t help either. Free software such as Spotify bombard users with 3 adverts after listening to one or two songs. Companies use social networking websites as a means of advertising when we’re using media that is supposedly alternative. Webpages are plastered with adverts. It just seems difficult to escape corporate advertising. I challenge you to live a normal day but avoid advertisement of any kind … I bet that isn’t even possible.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s rather sad that we live in a society where the majority of us buy products without looking into its actual purpose, quality and features. We assume that products are of good quality because the company’s advertising strategy is powerful, i.e. they get someone who is really attractive and/or famous to advertise them and broadcast their advertisements where people are most likely to see them frequently. I’m the type of person who sees product packaging as an advertisement too, so just remember that it’s what’s inside the packaging that counts. 

Media Ethics and Standards

If you know me pretty well then you probably realise how much I rant on about media standards and how much they seem to mean to me. I figure that this would be an easy rant to start with. I could probably write for hours about this issue, meaning that I’ll probably be annoyed with this attempt of explaining my views and I’ll most likely write about this issue a number of times as the enquiry goes by. 

For starters, those of you who say “oh no not this again” every time the hacking scandal or recent standards panic is mentioned are simply ignorant, if you could be bothered doing your research into the topic you would realise how poor media standards currently are and how the media are essentially taking basic human rights away from people. 

In my opinion the most fundamental of ethical standards are basic human rights, all human ethical guidelines are based on the human rights act. I think most of us are forgetting that privacy is part of the human rights act and that celebrities are human too (I know it’s hard to believe sometimes). To start off simple, think of it this way: you set out to have a peaceful day but your phone has been bugged by journalists, your friend leaves you a voicemail telling you that they can’t make the coffee meeting today but the journalist listens to your message, transcribes it and then deletes it. You get out of your car in town and some camera men start following you. You go to the coffee shop where you meet a friend of the opposite sex who is merely just a friend, you both wonder why the other person’s partner hasn’t turned up to the coffee meeting. A few days later you’re browsing the internet and find an article that claims your friend who couldn’t make it to the coffee shop had an argument with you via voicemail because their partner had cheated with you, the article then provides snaps of you and the person of the opposite sex sitting close to each other in the coffee bar and then claims that shortly after the photos were taken you passionately kissed. This isn’t the first time an article has been published that told lies about you. Take time to reflect, how would you feel if you were in this situation? I’d feel as though I’d had my privacy taken away from me and I’d also feel deceived and awfully upset. 

If you would react similar then we’re finally on the same page. What I’m trying to get across is that celebrities are human too, so surely they have human rights! privacy and not being deceived are the most basic of human rights and needs. I find it kind of funny how the majority of the public weren’t bothered about the phone hacking scandal when it just effected celebrities such as David Beckham but as soon as it involved Milly Dowler the world were really disgusted. Part of me thinks that this could be because of the tragedy but a bigger part of me thinks that this is because the Dowler’s are a normal family, i.e. not celebrities. People tend to dehumanise celebrities, I’m not saying that you should pretty much worship them, but you should consider them as being human beings. 

So, why does the media (journalism in particular) allow such poor standards? This is where having a degree in psychology would help me to explain. You’re probably expecting a behavioural explanation of what’s going on but in fact my explanation comes from an ethical perspective. Last year I wrote an essay that was partly about the media and ethical standards, at the time I was actually interested and appalled by the phone hacking scandal and doing the research for the essay helped me to build up a clear overview of media ethical standards in general. I’m not sure whether you’re aware of this but every profession that involves working with people (and animals) has its own set of ethical standards based on the human (or animal) rights act. This is to ensure that people and animals are treated fairly. The standards are based on the same set of principles but applied to the particular profession (for example: psychology, sociology, health, biological, political and general research). These professions have governing bodies which all people of the profession must be members of in order to practice. By signing up to the governing body you are agreeing to follow the compulsory ethical guidelines, failure to do so could lead to losing your job and no longer being able to practice your profession. 

What I found odd was that when I was researching journalism ethical standards (in order to compare them to psychology ones) I found that journalists do not have a compulsory professional governing body. What I found was that in the UK there is a governing body for journalism (called the National Union of Journalists, [NUJ]) but it’s completely optional to join the professional body. What’s worst still is that they do have ethical standards but they are so ambiguous, it’s basically a list of excuses that could be used if someone said that you weren’t practicing journalism ethically. I’m not going to give any example here, if you’re really interested then go to the NUJ website and read the guidelines for yourself, they’ll either disgust you or make you laugh, or maybe both! I blame the lack of a compulsory governing body for the shaky standards and practice in journalism. 

I think that the core solution to the problem is to actually create a compulsory governing body for media standards. I’m not saying that the ethical standards should be as strict as social sciences and health (for example never revealing a name to protect confidentiality), what I’m saying is that the standards should be more structured and objective. For example, with the issue of consent, if a journalist is merely observing an event and then writing an article on it, it is ok to just ahead and write without permission, however if the journalist talks to anyone then they should sign a consent form and be provided with contact details incase they want to be withdrew from being mentioned in the article. Confidentiality should be respected, if people want to remain anonymous they have every right to. With the issue of deception, all forms of deception should be prohibited, this includes misrepresentation of the truth in the media and also deception by means of hacking or other forms of spying. 

The idea behind membership of the professional body is that it will be compulsory in order to practice any form of journalism. It should take the same format as the British Psychological Society (BPS) where members pay membership fees but get monthly magazines about how to improve standards and recent news in the field, this will help to encourage journalists to engage in ethical practice, keep up to date with the field of journalism and also feel a sense of community. If journalists break any of the ethical standards the serious precautions will be taken and this may result in the journalist never being able to practice again depending on the seriousness of the offence. 

This may seem like it’s taking the fun out of the media and their celebrity gossip rumours and photographs of them looking at their worst (I forgot to mention that consent forms are required for photograph publication also), but you should think back to the paragraph where I asked you to imagine if it were you. I do realise that some celebrities are determined to be all over the media, no matter why, where and when but not all celebrities are the same … as not all human beings are the same. Technically my fictitious ethical standards are giving celebrities (and the public I guess) the option to have bad press if they want to and also protecting celebrities and the public from having bad press if they don’t want it. 

Remember that this is just my idea, nothing is set in place and nothing will probably come of it but I just felt like getting my opinions across. I hope you enjoyed the read, please contribute if you have any further ideas of an opinion of your own on the issue.

Thanks

- Jodie 

Insomnia, Robot Unicorns, Yearly Thank-Yous and Maybe Some Other Stuff

So, here I am at almost 1am writing a blog entry that probably won't be commented or even read by anyone that I actually know. I don't sleep too well, I guess I've never slept too well so it's nothing to cry about. But here I am anyway, I'm going to write a master piece or a half decent blog entry!

When it gets late and I can't sleep/have nobody to chat to I find myself playing Robot Unicorn attack repeatedly until I get bored or my overall score starts getting much lower than it should be. It's an awesome game, but I should find an alternative game or something else to do (writing seems like a good idea). My high score is so high that I feel that my Facebook friends fear playing the game because their score is always compared to mine ... I'm not being big-headed here by the way ;-).

As I've demonstrated already, blog entries that I write at stupid o' clock are nothing but whiny, unstructured and about the most random topics. I'm the type of person who just goes off on one with my train of thought when I have nothing else to occupy me. I should really use this blog to rant about things that are worth while or talk about what I've been up to during the day. As I feel quite content today and have nothing sensible to rant about, I've decided that I'm going to tell you about my day. 

So, today I've been Christmas shopping again and failed to finish buying gifts for family and friends, instead I've treated myself. I treated myself to Mark Watson's DVD (which I'm hoping to save until Christmas), a fancy bar of soap that I don't really want to open as the packaging is so pretty and present like, and more body butter that I've already started using. I've also been to Starbucks today and had an eggnog latte and a cinnamon swirl. I do actually feel quite festive now, despite still having a few gifts to buy and then wrapping!

After shopping I pretty much spent time in my bedroom feeling a bit sorry for myself as I do have a very sore throat and a cold. Instead of whining on Facebook I decided to watch a film. I watched "A Scanner Darkly", it was a really interesting film but sadly I couldn't watch the last 20 minutes of it as I watched it for free online and the website wouldn't allow me to watch the last part! What do you expect for free huh? Overrunning the tale, I really like the concept of the suites which change your appearance every second or so (I forgot what they're called). I'd love to own a suit like that, just for a day. Can you imagine the sort of things you could get away with, being anonymous and all that =P.

I realised today that 2012 is approaching us. 2011 was a pretty strange year for me. I guess I had a tough time at university (but not where grades are concerned), I also graduated from university and realised how hard it can actually be to reach your goals. I went through a period of depression and other problems. It wasn't easy, but I'm getting there now. I really hope that 2012 will be a better year for me, rather than just hoping, I'm going to make 2012 a better year. However, I do have a few people that I'd like to thank for things they did for me in 2011. so here in no particular order are a list of names and a short message/explanation for each of them. 

James Watson

We've been friends for a long time but in 2011 I realised that we actually have similar problems and insecurities. This made our friendship much closer and I feel that we trust and understand each other a lot more now than we used to. He's managed to keep me happy by meeting me regularly for shopping and meals. Thanks for your support James. 

Alexandria Meacham

It's been a hard year for Alex too, we've both had major problems this year and I do agree that at times we've just clashed and not seen eye-to-eye but this is because we've both had our own problems to suffer with and attempt to sort out. I would like to thank Alex for being so patient with me and listening to what I have to say, I really appreciate it. 

Dr Chris Fullwood

This is possibly going to be the hardest message to write, especially publicly. I realise that from time to time over the past year I have been a complete cow and I've really not considered his feelings at all. I've treated him with a certain amount of disrespect but this is largely due to problems that I've had which I've not explained inside out and kind of exhausted. I would just like to thank Chris for being so understanding of me over the past year or so, I really appreciate it. 

I probably have a lot more people to thank for things that they've done in 2011, for example my mom, various members of academic staff from university and a few friends from university who didn't believe the childish rumours and literally fought my corner until the end. I'll probably write another blog entry soon to thank others, but sadly that's it now as I'm starting to feel tired. It seems that writing helps me to sleep.

Take care,

Jodie

Today is The Day

That I'm trying Starbucks Eggnog Latte ^_^. 

Happy Jodie...

Top 10 Hottest Male Celebs

You've probably gathered that I'm not big on mainstream celebs. I always find that polls for sexiest male celebs hosted my magazine don't reflect my opinion, I usually stare at the results and think to myself "who the hell are these men" or "Oh no not Johnny Depp and Beckham again". So, for this reason I've decided to do a top 10 count down of the most attractive male celebs in my opinion. Here goes:

10. Matt Johnson:

09. Joshua Wilkinson:

08. Brandon Flowers:

07. Ed Sheeran:

06. Tom Lister:

05. Johhny Flynn:

04. Chris Fountain:

03. Charlie Clements:

02. Gary Barlow:

01. Rufus Hound:

Hello to One and All

I realise that I haven't blogged here for absolutely ages, in fact my last post on here was simply copied and pasted from my Tumblr account. At the moment I feel the need to just write and write so I've opted to do this here. To be frank, people on Tumblr would moan if I wrote a long blog entry whereas people on here either enjoy reading or never actually come across my blog anyway. 

It's been a strange few months adapting to my after-uni life but I'm finally getting into the swing of things! I still remain unemployed but I am getting used to the applying for jobs malarky and have also started to volunteer as a helpline support worker for a mental health charity. I'm quite enjoying the voluntary work I do, not only am I helping those in need but it also breaks my own week up and gives me something to do and new people to talk to. I'm starting to feel more and more content with unemployment, I know I'll get to where I want to someday soon. The job market is pretty lame at the moment and I do realise that I'm not the only person who doesn't have a job. It was so depressing at first but now I feel ok with it all and I suppose my new positive attitude helps when applying for jobs anyway, I'm the kind of person who reflects my mood through my writing!

So, apart from job hunting and volunteering I haven't been up to a fat lot. I guess I've been cooking and baking quite a bit more. Earlier on I made a pizza with marmite-mushrooms, 3 types of peppers and cheese on it, it tasted pretty lush, so I'll be making it again soon. 

Today is the 1st of December which means the run up to Christmas! This year I actually feel excited about Christmas and I have no idea why because I have less money than I had last year. I think it's just the idea of spending time with family & friends and good food. I remember being spoilt as a child, Christmas was pretty much about presents, now I really appreciate the company, the food and the thoughtful gifts. I started to feel proper Christmassy this afternoon when I went into town with my mom to get some frozen food ready for Christmas and just have a general browse around the shops. I bought two Christmas CDs, one with songs by Frank Sinatra on it and one with classical Christmas music on it. I now have a wide range on Christmas music, I made a playlist on iTunes earlier and I have over 100 Christmas songs which is great at the moment but I have the feeling that I'll get annoyed when Christmas tunes are selected on iTunes shuffle in May!

I've decided that I am going to update this blog more regularly from now on, so watch this space!

- Jodie

And The Moral of The Story is ... Gary Barlow

Yesterday I read a very interesting article via the Guardian online, if you’re assuming that it was a science article or an article written by the fascinating Ben Goldacre you’re assuming wrong. This article kind of made me see the light at the end of the tunnel and also inspired me a little. The article was about none other than Gary Barlow (Take That vocalist). 

Growing up I was never really a Take That fan, I think I just missed out on the craze. I grew up in the era of a1, Westlife and Steps, just missing out on Boyzone and Take That. The Take That comeback didn’t really bother me either. So, why am I writing about Gary Barlow now? Why do I look up to him so much?

My appreciation for Gary Barlow started a few months ago when he became a judge on the current series of X Factor. I pretty much instantly felt admiration for Gary with his mannerisms, facial expressions and one-liners. I saw Gary as a guy who was honest yet cheeky. I do have to add that Gary is quite handsome and presentable too, but I won’t drag this story out too much. 

Over-running the tale, yesterday I came across an interview with Gary Barlow on The Guardian Online. I expected the interview to be largely based on the X Factor, trying to get the latest gossip from him about which acts would be most likely to win. As I was bored I decided to give the interview-based article a read anyway. The article was such an eye-opener and talked about the days in which Gary was no longer with Take That. The now sexy X Factor judge suffered a bout of depression and over-ate to the point where he put on 5 stone in weight. Gary reported often catching the train in disguise so that people wouldn’t recognise him, he was ashamed to be who he was, lost all sense of self and hated the life that he was leading. The negative comments in the media from Robbie Williams didn’t help either. The star was depressed and really saw no way out of it. At the age of 24 had Gary’s musical career really ended? Well, he thought so. 

As you all know, Take That made a comeback in 2005 and this was the highlight of Gary’s career never mind the highlight of his day when the ball started rolling. Music professionals constantly told Gary and fellow Take That members that Take That just wouldn’t work without the presence of Robbie Williams. Barlow started to worry that the Take That comeback would be a failure. The night before the comeback gig tickets went on sale, the almost tea-total Gary Barlow went out with a friend and got very drunk. He then got the phone call that told him that the tour was a complete sell out, Gary was amazed. 

Towards the end of the article Gary explained that whilst the initial split up of Take That made him feel quite depressed the whole experience makes him who he is today. Having suffered such a loss in his music career he now has experience to reflect on. Barlow feels that if Take That hadn’t of split when they did he would be a completely different person. 

The moral of this post is that you can always turn a negative into a positive, just as Gary Barlow did. I do understand that we’re not all professional singers or Take That fans for that matter but surely we can all take a little bit of inspiration from Gary Barlow. Just because you have problems when you’re young this doesn’t mean that your life is over, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Negative experiences often make you a stronger person and you gain a higher level of self-awareness. What I’m trying to say is never give up, if you have a dream or ambition then chase it, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again’. To my knowledge you only have one life, so don’t waste it by thinking it’s come to an end early on in adulthood. Always take time to reflect on negative experience, turn them into positives and make room for self-improvement. As human beings we’re ever developing, never forget that. 

Today is World Mental Health Day, so I would like you all to spend a fraction of your time to think about people who suffer with mental health disorders. Whether it’s occupational stress, mild depression, OCD or schizophrenia. The more awareness of mental illness that there is, the less stigmatisation is attached to them. A little understanding could make the world a much happier place. Mental illness is often negatively wrote about in the media, for example Gary Barlow’s depression and weight gain, “psychos” committing crimes and so on (there are many examples). A stop should be made to this and the media should focus on the more positive approach to looking at mental illness, for example the article about Barlow in the Guardian. I’m going to stop writing now, I could probably write forever. But, please do take a short moment to reflect on mental illness and your attitudes towards it.

Original Guardian Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/oct/08/gary-barlow-interview-x-factor

Thanks

- Jodie

Slowly Sinking

So yesterday I posted just to say that I hadn't posted a proper blog entry in such a long time. The reason being that I've simply forgot to post here for a while. I figure that it's time to give you all an update of what's going on in my life (well maybe not everything!!!). I really want to get back into the routine of maintaining a blog but it seems to be more difficult than assumed. 

I feel that since leaving university I haven't posted much, yet a lot has happened and I've certainly changed a bit as a person. Gone are the days when I could act a bit childish and use the excuse that I'm still a student. I'm now in the real world and seeking employment. I started looking for jobs a bit later than my classmates as I assumed that I was going to do my masters degree, however I assumed wrong. I applied for a careers and professional development loan from Barclays bank, the application process didn't run as smoothly as planned. Even though I sent all of the evidence required to them, they kept sending me letters asking for even more evidence, which I'd send and then be asked for even more. This cycle kept continuing until one day when I got a letter of confirmation. By this time I'd decided that a masters degree wasn't really financially worth it as I'd already got a first class degree. I feel that a masters degree in research methods is designed for people who got a 2:1 classification but want to proceed to PhD level, that's when the degree would come in useful. If you have a first class degree you are eligible to apply for PhD studentships, so why should I borrow money that isn't needed? I see the masters degree as a second option, to improve my skills if I have no success in getting a desirable job over the next year or so. 

So far on the job front I haven't actually been invited to an interview. I do admit that a few of my applications were rushed, maybe that's why. I've recently picked up new skills and pushed myself to the limit when applying for a PhD studentship, I still haven't heard any feedback from the particular university but there is still time. I have a few more applications lined up, so hopefully something good will come of all of this time that I'm spending applying for jobs. I'll let you know when and if I'm invited to an interview. Meanwhile I'm stuck visiting the job centre I'm afraid. 

I feel down sometimes because I haven't got the job that I want. There's nothing more that I want than to have a job. Sometimes I think that any job would be better than no job. The harder I work on an application the more heartbroken I actually feel when I don't hear anything from the employers. I'm fast loosing my sense of self. Surely something must give soon? I just feel as though I'm going nowhere, the road has ended here, I'm going to unemployed for the rest of my life. This is the last thing that I want, I'm so determined that I'll find a job soon. 

Apart from applying for jobs I haven't been doing much else. This might be due to the lack of money that I have at the moment. I've been hanging around with friends, going shopping and the usual things that I like doing, just not as much as I used to. Yet I have more time on my hands, this doesn't make much sense to me. I might seem a bit gloomy at the moment and there's probably a lot more stuff that I want to air but I best leave this for now!

I'll write soon

- Jodie

A long time ago ...

The thought occured to me earlier that I haven't posted a proper blog entry in such a long time. I'm not quite sure why, I guess it's simply that I keep forgetting to post an update.

Right now I have so much that I could be writing about but I feel very tired at the same time. So, I've decided that I'm going to write a lengthy post when I feel alert.

Speak soon
-Jodie

There's Panic on The Streets of London, Panic on The Streets of Birmingham

If you haven't heard about the UK "riots" by now you must be living under a rock in the sea or something. I say "riots" rather than riots because the majority of criminal behaviour taking place is just looting and not rioting. The majority of rioters are in their teens, some still at school, what do they really have to riot about? I find that this question is being circled around the internet but nobody has a clear answer but there are educated theories, sociological guesses and complete mindless explanations. As usual I have my own opinion of why such things are going on. I'll warn you now that this is only an opinion and I'm not discrediting anyones opinion as such. It's a theory that can be constructively criticised, the reason being that nobody has actually asked the rioters WHY they went looting. 

Taking a bit of a detour here, but yesterday morning I foolishly travelled into Birmingham to go shopping for a friend's birthday, I agreed to the trip on the say so of the news, apparently town was open up for business and everything was safe. Shops were open alright, but police were just everywhere and the town seemed pretty dead. Shops started closing up at around 2:30pm so we started to head back home so that we were safe. On the bus home I started to think about WHY the riots were taking place, this was just something to take my mind off what my friends were saying and other bad news. I soon saw a possible relationship with the media and also moral disengagement. 

There are many theories stating that the riots happened because job centres closed or a Marxist explanation can be given, i.e. political battle of the social classes. I kind of discredit this as the majority of the looters have been described as being in their teens, young teens at that, even children have been looting in their own towns this week. We also know that the majority of looters were also from working and lower class backgrounds, meaning that they're likely to have low IQ scores (this might sound harsh of me, but would someone with a decent IQ go out looting? probably not). Taking this into consideration to what extent do these people have political knowledge? and do politics really matter to them? Also, most of the looters are school age, so why loot / riot because of the closure of job centres? This makes no clear sense.

Back to my media-based theory! I think that the riots in London were real riots for real reasons (but with that said I've still heard no explanations as to why the first riot took place). I think that once the first few riots hit the news, that was it, World War III. The media portrayed the riots in the light that the police's behaviour was wrong and there wasn't much that police could do, not many arrests were made. The media also gave a host of uninformed explanations as to why the riots happened in the first place, and made these reasons seem very rational (to teenagers at least). This is where moral disengagement pops into my explanation: because the media portrayed rioting and looting as an acceptable thing to do youngsters took advantage of this and decided that it was morally justifiable to go out and cause trouble on the streets. They could easily shift the blame and also blame the victims (the victims being business owners, home owners and the police .... they get the blame because they're middle / upper class and most probably tory [which is an ill informed opinion held by teenagers by the way]). The act could be seen as dehumanised as everyone was doing the same, dressed in similar clothes, they're no longer individuals when they're in the large mob. I suppose taking each mechanism in term and even applying group theory I could go on forever with my explanation, but this is just the theory that popped to my head during in the thinking time I had yesterday. But what I'm trying to say is that teenagers heard about the trouble happening elsewhere and decided to take advantage and take the opportunity to cause trouble while it seems morally acceptable and justifiable. 

A lot of people are saying that social media is to blame for these riots. As a cyberpsychologist you would probably expect me to have an opinion on this ... and I do. I'm probably saying this for the 1,000th time but you can't blame social networking websites for bad things that go on. Take for example, teenagers self-harming or even committing suicide because of cyberbullying. You can't blame the particular social networking site being use here for the suicide attempt. The social networking website is just being used as a platform for communication, hence the teenager could have been bullied via text message or in a face-to-face situation with the same psychological effect. What I'm trying to say here is that social networking websites are nothing but platforms for communication, riots could have been organised through other means of communication such as text messaging, phone calls and even email if you want to add an online platform to this. I suppose one advantage of informing people about planned riots in a public domain is that there is increased anonymity online, but even then you could stick posters around wearing a hood and a face mask, or even do a bit a graffiti, hence you could do that using an offline platform too. The majority of the riots were planned using Blackberry Messenger, which is private and pretty much like texting using an internet connection rather than a mobile phone signal. So, you can't really blame social media.

However, I'd argue that social media did help in enhancing public moral panic. The media alone wouldn't have caused so much moral panic, Facebook statuses and Tweets about the events possibly made people feel more worried than they would have been otherwise. Also, individuals circling rumours probably didn't help. This could have also happened via other communication channels but it's the fact that the internet connects the world!.

It's really bad what has happened in the UK over the past week and I have deep sympathy for those who have had their businesses or homes trashed. I advise you to "Keep Calm and Carry On", be careful but don't let the threat of violence ruin your plans. 

Most of all: Stay Safe

- Jodie x

I Even Procrastinate Blogging Now!

Hiya everyone, I know I promised to blog days ago but as usual I've procrastinated blogging. You would think that by not blogging for a few days my posts would cover a lot more and be a lot more interesting, but that just doesn't happen with me, I seem to just skim over things that I've done and blog about random thoughts I'm having at the time anyway. 

I've had quite a few outings recently but I'll just tell you about the ones that are significant. Last Thursday (the one in July, not a few days ago) I met my friend James for a curry after he finished work. I actually travelled for about an hour and half to get to him. I met him at about 5pm and we headed to the Apple store to have a look at carry cases for my MacBook first. After our mini shopping trip we went to the pub for our curry and a glass of wine. The curry was really nice but we both started to feel ill afterwards, we suspected food poisoning but it could have been the hot weather. After the meal we headed back home but stopped off at another pub before going our separate ways. It was a really nice catch up (as usual). I think I'll really miss James when I move in September but I'm hoping that he will come and stay with me for a weekend or two. 

Last Saturday I headed into town with my mom and got a carry case for my MacBook, as my Macbook has a 13.3" screen it's the only laptop of that size, meaning I had to buy my case from the Apple store. I opted for the red one that has (fake) fur inside it, you might have seen it in the Apple Store (that's if you're even interested lol). 

This Thursday I met up with a friend in town for a meal and a bit of shopping. We went to Pizza Hut for our meal and I had the most tasty pizza ever! The pizza had blue cheese, mozzarella, onions and mushroom on it. I discovered that I actually LOVE blue cheese! After the meal we did a bit of shopping and had a look in Saint Martin's Church (we were in Birmingham may I add). I'd never been inside the church before so I took a few pictures:

I'm not religious but I really admired the architecture of the church. After our visit to the church we had some coffee, did a bit more shopping and then went out separate ways. On the bus journey home I listened to my iPod and a Chinese girl who sat next to me on the bus kept giving me strange looks because I was listening to Busted .... ok I admit that listening to Busted is a bit strange! When I got home I took my dog for a walk and then had something to eat and watched a bit of TV. It was such a lovely day despite the rain.

Yesterday was the big shop day, so as usual I went to the shopping centre with my Mom. My feet were in really bad condition so I went to the salon for a fish pedicure. The first time I had a fish pedicure was about a year ago, so I knew what to expect. For your information, the process is rather relaxing and all you feel is tickling. In the particular salon that I went to they played relaxing music and I just felt like nodding off to sleep. The salon also sell their own brand of tea and the idea of chocolate tea amused me so I bought some to try. I had my first cup last night, it was so indulging and relaxed me so much that I nodded off on the sofa and actually went to bed at about 10:30pm (rather early for me may I add). I've decided just to drink this chocolate tea at night and coffee in the day. Whilst I was out shopping I also bought two new tops and a pair of black leggings. Both tops have leaves on them, but one is a white pretty top with black leaves and the other is a mustard yellow jumper with green leaves. Yesterday evening I visited my nan, came home to Marmite spaghetti Bolognese for dinner and then spent pretty much all of the evening on the sofa. 

So that's it, my significant outings, I hope to have more soon. For the time being I will continue to be lazy. Catch you all soon!

- Jodie x

Happy August?

Hello one and all! I realise that this is my first blog for quite a number of days, so I felt the need to just post a quick update. 

I'm Still Alive

I'll post a much longer blog tomorrow. Meanwhile look at this kitten

The Benefits of Doing Statistics by Hand

If you're a psychology student I can imagine you grumbling at the title of this blog and you're probably thinking of a late-middle aged lecturer moaning about the use of SPSS. But in all honesty I have discovered the benefits of calculating statistics by hand for myself today.

Over the past week or so I have been worried because I can't put SPSS on my Macbook just yet, in panic I started to hypothesise ways that I could do statistics on my Mac, I discovered that the statistical functions on iWork Numbers 09 aren't the same as those on Microsoft Excel, thus the statistical tests that are needed most in psychology are not included (with exception of the t-test and correlation as far as I am aware). Suddenly I came to the conclusion that if I could do all of these tests by hand then I could just use SPSS to check my answers when I am studying for my Masters degree. So, today I got out my statistics textbook and taught myself how to calculate and one-way ANOVA. It was surprisingly much more easy than I thought it would be.

I feel that the hands on method is much more beneficial than using SPSS even if you do understand all of the statistical concepts. I believe that you can only truly understand what you have done if you are able to calculate the test by hand. There are probably quite a few people who would disagree with me, I suppose SPSS is useful in some cases, for example when you have 500 participants to deal with (I would argue that the statistical power would be too high here though) and it's also an asset for psychologists who aren't so statistically minded and perhaps prefer qualitative data. If there were computer programs that did qualitative analysis for you I think I'd jump at it with a shot. 

In my opinion SPSS should only be used for checking and I suppose printing your analysis for projects (like typing up in neat). So next time you are about to carry out a test on SPSS think to yourself "can I actually carry this test out by hand?"

- Jodie

Tracing the Family Tree ... Oh why did I get involved!

This is just a quick post out of boredom really! I'm just letting you know that I've recently got involved with tracing my family tree. My late Grandfather's cousin started tracing the family tree a few years back and recently came to a point where the wires got a bit tangled. My nan finally managed to get an email address for someone who lives miles away, who is some kind of relative and has information about the specific relative that we're trying to trace. My nan doesn't know how to use email so I was roped in to send her an email on my nan's behalf. I got a reply today, she basically has the same information as us and now she's asked me to provide her with information about my own family, as far back as my great great Grandfather. Although this is a bit of a pain in the backside I think I'll actually enjoy it.

- Jodie x

The Blog is Late!

Hiya everyone =). First of all, I know I promised that I would blog on Thursday and Friday but I've been surprisingly busy. So, I guess it's time for a catch up with you all now. 

My Macbook arrived on Wednesday rather than Friday as I expected. But I worked out that my Macbook was delivered on the day that the new operating system (iOS Lion) was released. I suppose they were in the rights to deliver on or before the release date as you always have people who will moan that they received a new system with an old operating system on it. I on the other hand don't really like the idea of the new operating system as there seems to be a Windowsness about it, as far as I'm aware you can place applications and folders anywhere on the desktop and in some cases you have rows and rows of applications and folders across your desktop, which to be honest is the one thing that annoys me about Windows. I really do have a thing about tidy desktops and Mac iOS Snow Leopard seems to keep your desktop extremely tidy. I actually do love my Macbook, iWork 09 is a lot more compatible with Microsoft than I was previously told (admittedly by a friend who hates Apple Macintosh), also the system is much faster than any laptop that I've ever owned and I love the fact that you can download decent applications as you would on a Smartphone. I know intel have released an app store, but to me Windows seems pretty outdated compared to Apple Mac. Mac's are surprisingly easy to use too, as soon as I loaded my Macbook up I could use it, I took to it like a duck and water. I probably shouldn't be selling the benefits of Apple Mac too you, but I would advise anyone to buy an Apple Mac for all of the reasons above and possibly more.

Moving on to my social life, on Thursday I met up with two friends from my college days, Racheal and Amanpreet. We met up at my local shopping centre and 1pm and were quite chatty from the word go as we hadn't been out as a three for about four years. We certainly had a lot of catching up to do. The first thing we did was go for a meal as we had all made the decision to skip breakfast and save room for a meal, so by this time we were all starving. We went to the food plaza and treated ourselves to a plate of chip shop chips and a coke as funnily enough neither of us had eaten chips for a while. We were going to get dessert too but then decided to grab something when we got to the cinema. After our wonderful (but fatty) lunch we headed off to the cinema. We decided to see Harry Potter 7pt2 at the cinema even though none of us had seen all of the films or HP 7pt1. We had an hour to spare before the film started so we decided to grab a coffee and have more of a catch up and then we bought some popcorn to share and entered the showroom. I really enjoyed the film even though there were parts that I didn't quite grasp because I hadn't seen the previous film or read the book. I'm not going to give away any spoilers so all I can say is that I do indeed love Neville Longbottom. Anyway, after the film we headed back into the shopping centre and had a look around before we realised that it was almost 6pm and Amanpreet's journey home would take more than an hour. We had a quick look in Schuh at shoes for graduation, there were some beautiful shoes including some red glitter ones that were exactly like Dorothy's in the Wizard of Oz, it was just disappointing that they all cost around £80, but knowing me I will still buy a pair nevertheless, if I want something enough I will fork out for it. After our visit to Schuh, we headed off to Asda as Amanpreet had to get a bit of shopping before we started our journeys off home. We then went to the bus station and departed. When I got home on Thursday night I just took things easy and watched an episode of Sherlock which I soon discovered was one I'd already seen, one from the pilot series that BBC aired last year, I still enjoyed it nevertheless. 

On Friday (yesterday) I helped my mom to do the shopping at Asda and that's pretty much all there was to my day. I bought a new book called "The Spy" by Cussler and Scott, it's a detective story that's set in 1908, I read a chapter last night and it's pretty intriguing so far, I shall read more later on. Yesterday I also emailed someone who lives somewhere miles away about tracing someone on our family tree, apparently this woman who is some kind of distant relative has information about the specific person that we're looking for, and maybe other family members, this should be interesting if my email gets a response. 

Today is a pretty average Saturday for me, the kind of day where I take things easy but also get small jobs done at the same time. 

I'll update soon,

- Jodie

Rant Rant As Fast As You Can

All I seem to do these days is rant on about things, but things I care about nevertheless. Surely if I didn’t rant so much I would feel much happier, but do I ever stop ranting? … Well no. The more I rant the older I feel, kind of like a positive correlation, I can imagine what the plot would look like now. Rant, rant, rant, rant, rant … Ok I’ll stop it now.

Yesterday my friend Lucy convinced me to join Tumblr, for those who don’t know what it is, it’s a blogging website but for a few reasons I’m not that keen on it. The main reason being that I feel that posts should be short and a bit rushed, otherwise they clog up the newsfeed, another reason being that most people use if for media sharing rather than blogging, it’s used for sharing pictures, video, music, quotes and text. It’s blogging but not in its traditional sense, traditionally blogs should be lengthy and wordy, often informative or a place for people to express themselves in as many words possible. Tumblr is basically an extension of Twitter and also a bit like the old bulletin feature on Myspace. With all of that said, I do like messing about with Tumblr as you can just post random crap such as short thoughts, quotes and songs. So, I guess Tumblr is ok for when you’re bored or have something to share that’s either too lengthy for Twitter or meaningless to your Twitter followers.

Moving on the happier times. I got an email today telling me that the transaction for my Macbook had been taken out of my bank account. I know the idea of having £844 taken out of your bank account is kind of frightening, but for me this means my Macbook will soon be here and I can be all smiley and have a cool new gadget to play with, I also have £65 for the Mac App store, so I’ll have a field day (or two) with that. You don’t know how excited I am about going from Windows to Apple Mac. Obviously I’ll review my Macbook once I’ve received it and tell you about all of the nice apps that I download for it. Sometimes I feel that this blog is a technology blog but it isn’t intended, I seriously just write what comes to mind here.

I think the only way to make this blog more personal and less technology focussed is to report what I do each day and then maybe it would demonstrate that I do actually have a social life. On Thursday I’m meeting up with two girls who I went to college with, it’s kind of like a mini college reunion. We’re going to have food, do a bit of shopping and catch a film. I’m not sure which film yet but it will probably be the final Harry Potter, which is a bad thing for me as I’ve only seen the first one and only read the first two books. I’ve never really been a Potter fan, I guess that fad just skipped me. Either way I’m still happy to sit through the Harry Potter film if I have to. It should be a wonderful afternoon / evening out as I haven’t seen either of the girls for about a year now. I’ll write a lengthy blog post about the outing on Thursday evening. It’s kind of sad that I just realised that I’ve planned out Thursday and Friday’s blog posts, ah well, I suppose it give my (few) readers something to look forward to. It’ll be a change from me ranting on about various social networking websites and applications that I have recently downloaded for my phone. I promise that one day my blog posts will get more interesting. When I start my Masters degree maybe! I’m sure my blog posts were more interesting than this when I was actually at university.

I’ll catch you sooner or later depending on when something worth writing about comes to mind. Meanwhile have a good time doing whatever you’re doing.

All the best
- Jodie

Mind Unwind

It's stupid o clock in the morning and I haven't even ate anything for about fourteen hours. I've spent an hour exercising in that time yet I still feel very alert. I suppose sport is good for you psychologically, so maybe it got some of the old synapses firing. What ever the explanation is, i'm still sitting up in bed at the moment blogging away on my phone.

I suppose I should just use this post to write down what comes to mind as the title suggests. I often wonder who actually reads this blog, so I suppose I tend to be on guard most of the time but then again I do feel safer on here than I do on Facebook, this is possibly because I know that people check my Facebook status updates and profile. I guess Twitter is where I feel most comfortable, it's the only social network where I can be nerdy and get credit for it.

Okay, less of the mumblings that are vaguely about cyberpsychology! At the moment I feel that I should turn my life around. I feel that i've hurt people just lately, all because of my indecisiveness. I also feel like the least productive person on the planet at times. Also i've gained 9lbs in weight which is a sign of being lazy, stressed and going out for meals too often. I want to be happy, healthy, productive and nice to people. I'm so determined to take action and change. I just expect a few relapses in the matter.

I'll let you all know how I get on
Night night
- Jodie

Quick Post out of Boredom

Hello all,

I've decided just to post a short (or maybe long) blog as I'm feeling quite bored today. It's one of those days where I have quite a bit to do but procrastination seems to have set in and it probably doesn't help having some kind of bug and hayfever at the same time. I can't say I feel ill as such, just a bit down in the dumps, so I guess I need rest until I feel ready to do what I need to do. 

I haven't blogged since Friday so I'm guessing that this post should be about the weekend. To be honest, I didn't do all that much over the weekend. On Saturday I went into town for a few hours and yesterday I visited my Nan. All I can say is that I had a very uneventful weekend. I suppose I did get a book from the public library on Saturday, I was on the reservation list for "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for about a month and finally managed to check it out. I'll let you all know my thoughts on the book once I've finished it. 

So in other mumblings on (not quite news): I've just joined Google+ which has been described by a friend on Facebook as "Google's answer to Facebook", I'm not sure whether I agree with that statement but I like what I've seen of Google+ so far, I just need more friends on there. I like also how it automatically links to this blog in the information section of my Google+ profile, this means that more people might read my blog ... this also had its downfalls I suppose.

Also you should all know that the delivery date for my Macbook has not yet changed, the estimated delivery date is still the 21st July, I have to wait more than a week! I suppose this is because I ordered it with pre-installed software on it though, I'm guessing it takes longer to dispatch. Also I ordered it on Friday close to 5pm so I had to wait the whole weekend for the order to even be processed properly. I just can't wait for it to arrive now, I've wanted a Macbook for quite a while, also it's a nice change from Windows, I just feel that Apple Mac could be more efficient for what I'm doing, they kind of suit my personality too. As daft as it sounds it just feels like a fresh start for me technology wise, maybe my behaviour pattern with technology will change too, I find when you can get little snazzy apps (for example Twitter apps) I don't spend so much time messing around, hence I'm more productive. There's probably no cyberpsychology behind that whatsoever, to my knowledge it's just a personal theory.

I realise that this post has mainly been about technology (again). I really need to get a social life, but I do have things planned over the next few weeks =P

Speak soon,
Jodie

T.G.I.F–Nah I’m Not Cool Enough to Use That Expression.

Hi guys, I just thought that I’d post a quick update before I head off to the land of nod! I suppose I have a lot to write about but whether or not I’ll actually include it all is another matter entirely.

Following yesterday’s blog post (the one about the News of the World) I’m pleased to report that the last issue of the News of the World will be published this Sunday! As much as I despise the newspaper I am actually going to buy a copy just so I can look at it, smile and rant for years to come. Actually, I might get two copies and sell one on ebay on Monday, some poor sod will forget to get their copy, why not take advantage of this? haha.

Despite writing that lengthy blog post yesterday I actually felt quite ill. I spent most of the day in bed wishing that I had someone to talk to despite having a very sore throat. Luckily I felt quite a bit better this morning but I still have a sore throat! I’m hoping I don’t lose my voice. I’ve figured out that it’s some kind of summer cold or just flu symptoms, don’t worry it’s not some deadly Plutonic disease or anything.

So, today I woke up at about 8am and the first thing I did was switch my laptop on. For some reason today was the day that my 24 month old laptop (Archibald) started to annoy me with its constant over-heating, dodgy mouse buttons and slowness. Today it had problems connecting to WiFi and that was the final straw. To be honest, my laptop is fit for use and probably will be for a year or so yet, but it doesn’t work to my standards so I do get easily annoyed with it. After the problems with the WiFi I decided to look at Macbooks. I’ve wanted a Macbook for a while now, I needed a new laptop for September anyway and I have enough savings. I finally found the Macbook that I wanted on the Apple website but couldn’t decide whether to have iWork preinstalled on it or have it come with discs for Microsoft Office for Mac, or maybe both. I was running out of time as I had to go and meet my friend Sandeep, so I left the thought with myself whilst I was out.

I met up with Sandeep at noon, after not seeing her since May we really did have a lot to catch up on. We walked around town for a few hours just talking about anything and everything. It was rather fun even though the weather was quite miserable and I still had a cold and a sore throat. At about 2:30pm we both headed off home. When I got home I made the decision to order the Macbook with iWork preinstalled as iWork software is very compatible with Microsoft, £20 cheaper, produces better looking documents and runs much more efficiently than Microsoft Office. So yes, the estimated delivery date of my Mac is 21st July, I really can;’t wait to be honest, it’s like a dream come true for me lol.

After ordering my Macbook I just had a relaxing evening, I’m sure where the time has gone to be honest with you. Also one final note (mainly because I’m too tired to elaborate at the moment): My academic / professional life looks like it’s going to be on the upside again soon, it’s about time I got motivated properly!

Post soon,

- Jodie xx

Thoughts of NOTW

Hello all, I’ve decided to take a slightly different tone with my blog today as the ethical values of the News of the World and journalism are really sticking in my craw recently. Since 2005 the News of the World (and other newspapers, I believe) have been hacking mobile phones of people in the lime light in order to gain access to personal and private information. I know journalists do this because it’s in the interest of the public, but really where do you draw the line? Is journalism forgetting basic moral principles?

You can argue the toss with me as much as you like, you’re probably thinking that I’m basing my opinion on psychological research ethics where informed consent and confidentiality are essential, I suppose I am but I’m basing this on human rights too. The majority of ethical codes are supposedly in line with the Helsinki Act which is an Act that outlines basic human rights. If I’m not mistaken, people of public interest are still people, privacy is a basic human right, so why should people of public interest have a basic human right taken away from them just to potentially satisfy others. Peoples feelings are hurt all at the expense of a trashy news story that will be forgotten by next week. Lets put this into a non-media context, for example in the context of a friendship group. Imagine that you’re popular in your place of education or employment, you know everyone and everyone listens to you. One day a new student or colleague emerges and they seem a bit quiet. At lunch everyone is talking about the new student / colleague yet nobody knows much about this person. You see this person alone so you ask them a bit about themselves, they disclose a small amount of information about themselves to you (e.g. they got thrown out of their previous school / workplace). You tell your friends about this and they show interest and start devising theories as to why the person was thrown out. You don’t know the reason why the person was thrown out and the person won’ tell you so you decide to hack into the person’s mobile phone and email account. You read every message they get for a few days and then something significant comes through, you find out that the person was thrown out because they had a relationship with someone in a senior position. Shocked at this information you start to spread it amongst your friends and anyone else who cares to listen, you even blog about this information and spread it on social networking websites. Does all of this seem wrong to you? in the context given this would be classed as harassment and invading someone’s privacy, you would get some kind of disciplinary for your behaviour and your “victim” would feel extremely hurt. So how is this justifiable in a media / journalism context? A stereotypical journalist would argue that it’s ok because it’s in the public interest (I know so because I had an argument with a journalist on Twitter about the whole Andy Coulson affair).

I know I said that I wouldn’t dig too much into psychology with this one, but I feel that Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement (1999) can explain how journalists justify what they are doing as morally / ethically acceptable. Lets take a look at each mechanism in turn and apply it to the situation:

1) Reconstructing Conduct:
This is the mechanism where the individual (in this case the journalist) portrays inhumane behaviour as though it has a moral purpose in order to make it socially acceptable. Journalists often portray their privacy invasion as exposing information that is in the interest of the public making it seem like they are doing good to the public by exposing what Cheryl Cole ate for her dinner yesterday evening, do the public really need to know this? would it even be in the public interest if journalists didn’t report on it in the first place? Privacy invasion is only morally acceptable if someone is trying to get hold of information that could potentially put society at risk, for example information about a planned terrorist attack.

2) Displacing or Diffusing Responsibility:
This is simply when the responsibility of the inhumane behaviour is displaced or diffused. Newspapers often employ lots of journalists who all shift the blame for privacy invasion onto someone else. Lets take the phone hacking scandal for example. the News of the World journalists all shifted the blame onto Andy Coulson who at first denied the allegations but later said that other newspapers hacked phones to gain information too, thus diffusing the responsibility, everyone does it so it’s ok!

3) Disregarding or Misrepresenting Injurious Consequences:
This is the mechanism where explanations of the inhumane behaviour minimizes harm or confrontation is totally avoided. This is perhaps a difficult mechanism to apply to the journalism situation but invading privacy to gain information “in the publics interest” is certainly minimizing the potential harm of their actions, they claim that their actions fall into their code of ethics which makes the behaviour ok, forgetting that the code of ethics is really lose and has loads of loop holes anyway. The journalism code of ethics could literally minimize any action and make it seem ok! I suppose avoidance is easy for journalists because it’s usually their job to publish explanations of inhumane actions to the public, they’re not going to expose their own inhumane actions now are they? Thus confrontation is successfully avoided.

4) Dehumanizing or Blaming the Victim:
This is the mechanism where the victim is dehumanized, thus not seen as a person. Journalists often forget that celebrities are people too, they have emotions and feelings like everyone else. They also have the basic human right to a private life. Celebrities are just something of public interest according to the stereotypical journalist. The blaming the victim mechanism is perhaps hard to explain in this context as I can’t think of an example where journalists have blamed celebrities or people of public interest for their own inhuman actions, if I ever come across an example I will let you know.

You can find a copy of Bandura’s paper here if you’re interested enough to actually read it, trust me it’s worth it:

Bandura, A. (1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review. Retrieved July 7th, 2011 from http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Bandura1999PSPR.pdf

Can I just take time to say that everything expressed in this blog entry is my personal opinion (I’m not shifting the blame for my actions onto anyone else here =P). Also my opinion only applies to journalists who invade peoples privacy, I know there are some good journalists out there, so if you’re one of these journalists no harm is meant. I’m also interested in YOUR thoughts of this post, feel free to comment or email me.

- Jodie

Blogs, Bravery and Boredom

Hi guys. This blog entry is going to be a bit of a mixture in terms of topics that I want to discuss. First of all, you’ll probably guess that I’m actually writing here because I’m slightly bored, yet I have so much to do. I’m either using this blog as a procrastination tool or a motivational tool, to be honest with you it’s a bit of both! I’ve been awake since 8am this morning and I haven’t done much, apart from emailing my best friend and messing around with my desktop. I’m becoming ever so technology dependent and I feel that things SHOULD change soon and hopefully they will.

So, what’s new with me then? Well yesterday I found out that one of my university lecturers is climbing the highest mountain in Europe to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care. I just want to drop a few lines here to say how amazing she really is. She was diagnosed with a dangerous skin cancer back in February (just four days after booking the trip to climb the mountain), she then had to have an operation on her arm to remove cancerous skin. Even though she was so ill she was still determine to regain her fitness and confidence in order to take the challenge of climbing the mountain. I think that she is so brave and such an inspiration. To read more about the fundraiser and to make a donation (remember that every penny counts) please visit:
 http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=WendyNicholls . This is for such a good cause, all donations will be appreciated.

On another note I have started to seriously think about my Masters research project. The only problem is that I now have about five ideas that could all potentially work and all link to each other in some way or another. The key theme in my ideas seems to be perceptions of technology, the ideas include parental perceptions of children’s video-gaming, parental perceptions of teenagers social networking use, general perceptions of internet addiction disorder and OAP’s perceptions of technology. Most of them assess how much these perceptions come from general perceptions of technology that the media write about (e.g. Facebook causes suicide in teenagers). I’m not saying that any of these projects will end up being my research project, but these are just ideas that I have at the moment, I just thought that I would share.

On a less academic note the last episode of Waterloo Road is on at 7:30pm on the BBC, it’s kind of exciting but I feel that the ending of the season (within the series) will be disappointing as the plot of Waterloo Road is often too predictable and straight forward.

I’m pretty tired now, so I suppose I will blog later on (or at some point). See you soon, Jodie xx

OMG How Long Has it Been?

I know I start pretty much every blog entry by saying that I haven't blogged for ages, but this time I suppose it's been too long since I last blogged. The last time I updated was at the end of April and now it's the end of June. A lot has happened in two months, so I thought I'd just post a quick update to let you all know what's going on (even though those of you who care probably know already).

So, since April I've: finished classes at uni, handed all assignments in (I think I mentioned this in my last blog), got individual assignment grades back and got official confirmation of my degree classification. Guess what .... I got a FIRST CLASS DEGREE. I'm so pleased of the progress I made at university and can't wait to move on to postgraduate study.

Right, so I'll stop bragging about university and my career plans now. Last night I realised that I don't have much else in my life, but I suppose this is by choice, I realised that I should actually get out more and have fun before I move away for a long year of postgraduate study in September. So even though I do have some work to do in prep for my masters degree I've promised myself that I'll take time to relax, I know a lot of you are always telling me to get out more and have more fun, so that's what I'll do. I actually feel like going out tonight with my best friend James, but that's if he feels up to it, he's been feeling pretty stressed of late, but I think it's time that we hit some kind of wine bar and have some of the old girl-to-gay gossip, it's been too long and I miss James terribly.

Failing being able to go out tonight, "Waterloo Road" is on TV, it seems to be my new addiction television-wise. I also came to the realisation that the only TV shows that I watch are made my the BBC, maybe that indicated my intellect .... or maybe I'm in a bubble here, can you really consider Waterloo Road as being intellectual .... well it is set in a school ..... meh I thought not lol. For the psychologists out there, I've recently came across a film about Milgram's experiments, it's a film from 1975 and at the moment it's free to watch on YouTube, here is the link: http://ahp.apps01.yorku.ca/?p=1051. Also, if you're interested the first six series of Waterloo Road are also on YouTube ...

So, what else is new in my world? Well I learnt how to make pizza without using yeast for the base. My cooking skills are getting slightly better, I've now branched out to making savory dishes from scratch as well as deserts. I'm hoping to acquire some more cookery skills over the summer and maybe host a dinner party for family and a few friends before I move away. So far the menu consists of soup for the starter, pizza for the main and chocolate mint cake for dessert .... all made from scratch =] . But who knows, the menu could change depending on what fabulous dishes I learn to cook. I shall keep you posted on this.

I think I'll leave my blog here for now, I don't have much else to say, well apart from that I won an £100 iTunes voucher in a psychology-themed photography competition. The theme of the competition was stress and finalists were chose based on creativity. Instead of explaining what my picture looked like, I'll just upload it here =] and yes ... I have noticed the spelling mistakes!

Laters,

Jodie

xx

I'm back

It's been a month or two since I actually updated my blog as I stopped blogging in order to get more university work done. I'm pleased to say that I've now completed all of my assignments for my undergraduate degree, so now I kind of feel de-stressed and ready to live life a little bit more. It kind of feels odd having no academic work to fiddle around with and also spending a lot of time socialising, but I guess it's been nice for me.

So a few of you are probably wondering what I'm actually doing next. Well, in September I am going off to Nottingham Trent University to study for my masters degree in psychological research methods, to be honest I'm pretty excited. I like the idea of moving away from home and meeting new people, also I get chance to carry out more research, make more professional contacts and sort my career plan out a little bit more. I have the feeling that it will be the best year of my life (so far). So I suppose I'll spend some of my summer getting ready to go to Nottingham, but I'm also looking for some temporary work as I find it hard to just sit there and do nothing and I don't exactly have the funds to go out socialising every day.

Failing being able to get a job I have a few back-up plans. One of which is writing more! I recently started writing a story which could either turn into a short story or a book depending on how it pans out, I'm aiming for it to be a book though. Also, a friend told me that I should start writing an academic book, I'm unsure about this but I might do some academic writing over the summer and see how it goes. I would also like to learn how to cook a wider variety of meals and treats, so I'll make time for that too. Other than that I need to geek up on my research skills a little bit more and if I get the opportunity I would like to do a bit of volunteering that actually helps people (i.e. not charity shop work, even though you're helping people indirectly). I've decided that I would like to do the majority of these things anyway even if I am successful in getting a job. One can only continue developing skills.

I think I'll leave this entry right here, and I'll blog again soon! I promise =]