Manipulation Of Images In Media Texts Media Essay

Manipulation Of Images In Media Texts Media Essay There are many arguments and concepts towards manipulation of images in media texts. The manipulation of images is seen every day by everybody who picks up any kind of media text from newspapers and magazines to internet articles, retouching photos is happening. Whether its changing how a person looks, changing the dominant characters surroundings or deleting parts of the image this all adds to the audiences perception of the text which the media has given them. There is no right or wrong answer unto whether the manipulation of media texts is actually something that should happen and should carry on happening throughout texts, some people think it is wrong to change the way people look, however some people believe that the changing and manipulation of media texts is all part of the media process. There are more arguments throughout the world of media which say the retouching their images is misleading for young people and manipulates them to believe this is how you should look. I want to see regular girls that look like me in a magazine thats supposed to be for me. For the sake of all the struggling girls all over America, who read Seventeen and think these fake images are what they should be, Im stepping up (Bluhm, 2012) Julia Bluhm is a 14 year old American teenager who understood the manipulation of texts and how the retouching and development of photos will influence teenage girls lifestyles and make them change the way they look at themselves because of the fake images portrayed by the media. For young girls like Julia photo manipulation could potentially make them change the ways they look at themselves due to the retouched images, young girls tend to idolize celebrities and icons in magazines. The retouched photos which may lead them to believe their own imperfections are abnormal influencing them to even turn to anorexia and body issues. Many people believe that the manipulation of images in media texts also leads to many people having low self-esteem issues which may also cause self obsessions and body issues within ones self. Theres no end of studies that show that consistently seeing airbrushed images makes women feel worse about themselves. (Crisell, 2010) There have been many articles written to show how the retouching of images affects the lifestyles and health of people, especially women. Many psychologists have studied the effects of the manipulation of media texts and how it reflects on a persons health; many say we are more likely to compare ourselves to these images due to the excessive exposure we have to them. We live in a current society which consists of a high percentage of people living with high body dissatisfaction and manipulation of images in media texts could potentially increase this percentage. Some people may disagree and believe that the retouching of images in media is a normal thing to do and is all part of the media process. No longer is it about  just  taking pictures.   Editing is involved. (Boutwell, 2012) Today, many photographers and people involved in the media believe there is a lot more behind an image and it isnt about just taking a photo anymore, editing is used in the images in media to enhanced the beauty of the image and to potentially get the most out of it. My opinion is that Photoshop is a major reason why photographers make so much money. (Boutwell, 2012) From getting the most out of the image that is possible some people say, like Allison Boutwell, that this is how photographers and the media make more money and sell more which is a process that every worldwide business want to do and this is just the way the media achieve this. Every business and company wants to make a profit, and by selling the manipulated images is the way the media do this. Arguments can show that the manipulation of images in media texts is just the way the media are trying to earn a living so to say. The retouched images seem to show more public interest than the non retouched images due to the public wanting to see the eye catching beautiful celebrities on the cover of their favourite magazines. Beauty-retouching is a quite deceptive art. (Metzmacher, 2008) Like Metzmacher some people disagree that the manipulation of images is wrong due to the idea that retouching images is only enhancing beauty of people and is seen as an art form. Today, 23 percent of women ages 25 to 29 now retouch their own personal photo and even more concerning, 41 percent among those ages 18 to 24 now retouch their photos too. Figure like this now may begin to suggest that women now begin to feel compelled to retouch their own photos due to manipulation of media images in order to fix their own personal self-esteem problems that the media have persuaded them into. Research shows that many women globally have all started editing their own photos in order to try and fit their own personal needs. Although only 43 percent of women agree with retouching photos, higher figure show that women edit their own photos. The media assist in this process subconsciously to the public, but it may lead to potential problems in the future like women becoming too obsessive with having the perfect figure and generating the perfect photo to feel they are meeting the need of the media also. Overall, the manipulation of images in media texts and be misconstrued in both directions, there are many positive and negative aspects to retouching photos. In my opinion, i do think that redevelopment of images can be seen as an art form and is only trying to enhance the beauty of the image in order to grab the audiences attention. I think that the media have in somewhat gone too far with the retouching of photos and can convey ideas to young girls and change the way they look at themselves to try and can potentially cause them problems like anorexia and low self-esteem because of the fake images which are too perfect to even be real.

Diary of Wimpy Kid Evaluative Essay Essay

Abstract The Diary of a Wimpy kid is a book about adolescence who have dealt with emotional struggles and social acceptance in middle school. The book highlighted areas of struggle which included: bullies, emotional responses in both positive and negative ways, friendship, and family dynamics. The book was intended was readers of age seven and older but could be used a discussion book with children and dealing with social issues. The book genre is comedy and humor and is full of illustration to help the reader understand the concepts and lessons of the book. It is written in simple words and would be a good read for children and early adolescence. The book, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, written by Jeff Kinney discussed many literary elements while its ultimate theme was humor. The book included topics about friendship, family, middle school, peer pressure, social acceptance and faux pas, and morality issues. The book had been written in the genre of comedy and was intended for readers between the ages of seven and older. The book approached adolescence from a relatable standpoint with kids who attempted to gain a sense of value and self worth through social acceptance. The book was written very well and taught several valuable moral lessons that could be used for children to gain understanding about peer issues and consequence of actions. The book had several strong characters that influenced the main character’s life. The first main character was Greg Heffley and the second was his best friend Rowley. The story began with a diary that Greg had received from his Mother. Although he had been embarrassed by the gift, he decided to write down the stories of his daily life so that he could share it with people once he became rich and famous. Greg was portrayed as an extremely insecure kid who was desperate to be recognized and gain popularity. His insecurity manifested into his closest friendship and relationships through arrogance,  criticism, lying, jealousy and pride. An example of this was when Greg befriended Rowley. He reached out to him under the pretense that Rowley would be so blessed to be friends with him and befriended him out of a place of pity. Greg treated Rowley as a lesser and often times would do things to put him down just like his older brother would do to him. Rowley was completely the opposite. He happened to be very naive and childlike in many ways. He was a kid that was very secure in who he was and was not concerned with fitting into anything. He was genuinely loving and humorous, and because of that it attracted friendships and sometimes the occasional uninvited ridicule.The boys lives intertwined and eventually their friendship was tested. Greg lied to Rowley which had been motivated by jealousy because Rowley had become popular while Greg continued to go unnoticed. The author included the real emotional high’s and low’s of adolescent friendship through the two main characters. The author wrote the book in a way that expressed the dynamics of friendship and social acceptance through comedy. Kinney made the characters very relatable and expressed the problems with adolescence trying to make sense of their emotions and solving their own problems (Kinney, 2010). In the story, Greg wanted to become popular and was doing everything he could to make that happen. With many failed attempts, constant bullying, and social ridicule he eventually joined the safety team with Rowley. Once they were on the team together they had been given the responsibility to to walk children home from school. The boys took ownership in there jobs but circumstances had interrupted Rowley’s service to the team. Rowley was not able to walk the kids home that afternoon but lent his jacket to Greg and insisted that he do it. Later a kindergartener had been chased down while on Greg’s shift, but because he had worn Rowley’s jacket, it had been reported back to the school that Rowley was the problem. Later, Rowley received punishment and was no longer allowed to be a safety patrol kid. Greg was blinded by jealousy and so desperate for acceptance he figured he would do the â€Å"right thing† by covering his mistake and allowing his friend to take the fall (Kinney, 2010). His need to be accepted resulted in him betraying Rowley to maintain his small portion of position in the social scene. Later he  confessed to Rowley that he had been the one to blame and did not apologize for what he had done but justified it. Greg felt entitled to his position and because they were friends he felt he could use Rowley and that would be accepted (Kinney, 2010). The safety story did an excellent job of portraying how emotions can rule a person in a negative manner. It also demonstrated the desire for social acceptance and how people are willing to sacrifice the most valuable relationships to to gain popularity. The particular story was written in a way that really gave an accurate portrayal on the depth of the heart of adolescence when they are not properly guided and taught by the parents to help them understand the emotional issues of the heart (Park, 2009). The author used the portion of the story to help the reader discern good friendships from bad friendships and what character attributes friends should look for in one another. Once Rowley was informed of the truth he discovered that Greg was not a good friend. He recognized that Greg was selfish, jealous, prideful, and a person that would betray him. The revelation resulted in Rowley walking away from their friendship. The unveiled truth about friendship left the reader to ponder the questions about their friendships and also the question of what kind of friend they are to other people. As the story continued the author showed the power of standing up for your friends and the power of forgiveness. The story picked up where Rowley and Greg were about to fight but were cornered by bullies that were going to force the boys to eat the slimed cheese from the basketball court. To touch the cheese would be social suicide to any student, but to eat it meant far worse. The bullies forced Rowley to eat the cheese but were chased off from a teacher before Greg had too (Wimpy greg, 2004). Once the students on the campus saw the cheese they began to crowd around Rowley to judge him and make fun of him. At that moment, Greg stepped up and took the fall for Rowley by telling the classmates that he had been the one that had touched the cheese. The kids fled from Greg but his relationship with Rowley was restored. Once Greg was free from trying to fit in was when he became a real friend  and a person of good character. The final portion of the story brought redemption to Greg’s character and demonstrated to the reader that it is never to late to do the right thing. As a result of making the right choice, Rowley forgave Greg, and Greg received the lesson that one good friend is more important that crowds of superficial people (Family, 2010). The portion of the story left the reader with the moral lesson that it is better to be yourself than trying to fit into a crowd and be someone you are not. The book would be very appropriate for middle school kids because it discussed relatable issues and conflicts that could arise from trying to fit in or become popular. It gave several moral lessons to help the reader understand the dynamics to friendship and insecurities with school and growing up. The author did a great job of keeping the reader engaged by the comical illustrations and dialogue that happened between characters. He also portrayed the reality of common struggles in middle school and how critical it was to be true to oneself. The author summarized the book by having the two main characters resolve their conflict and accept who they were. This book is a perfect example of societies condition. The story line may have been intended for middle school children, but society is the same way as adults. There is a need to be accepted, powerful, recognized, feeling entitled to things, people have used others as scapegoats, betrayal, jealousy, strife, revenge, and many other negative things. However, there was also the reality of forgiveness. Even today, when people forgive others, defend them, take accountability and ownership for mistakes, gain the wisdom that what they chase is not as important as money or fame, there is a place of resolution and resolve in peoples lives. While trying to chase after fame and sacrificing what is important there is a misery that follows, but the contentment comes after forgiveness and the understanding of what it important. I think this book is a good read for kids. There are character issues and sin issues that I did not like, but it is a book that kids could read and grasp the moral roots of it. I think it would be beneficial for a parent to discuss the moral failures of the main character and give insight into what  they should do to handle situations with similar circumstances. With older children, this would be a great book to read as a family and have a book study that would help kids recognize their own areas of weaknesses and temptations. I think the author did an excellent job adapting himself into the adolescent world while bringing humor and practical ways to make right decisions. Bibliography: Kinney, J. (2010). Diary of a wimpy kid: a novel in cartoon. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/diary-wimpy-kid Family, F. (2010). Focus on the family: thriving family. Retrieved from http://www.thrivingfamily.com/Family/Media/book-reviews/d/diary-of-a-wimpy-kid.aspx Park, A. (2009). Diary of a wimpy kid: concept analysis. Retrieved from http://novelinks.org/uploads/Novels/DiaryOfAWimpyKid/Concept Analysis.pdf Wimpy greg. (2004). Retrieved from http://wimpygreg.weebly.com/index.html

Definition and Examples of Root Words in English

In English grammar and morphology, a root is a  word or word element (in other words, a morpheme) from which other words grow, usually through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. Also called a root word. In  Greek and Latin Roots  (2008), T.  Rasinski et al.  define root as a semantic unit.  This simply means that a root is a word part that means something. It is a group of letters with meaning. Etymology From the Old English, rootExamples and Observations Latin is the most common source of English root words; Greek and Old English are the two other major sources.Some  root words are  whole words and others are word parts. Some root words have become free morphemes and can be used as separate words, but others cannot. For instance, cent comes from the Latin root word centum, meaning hundred. English treats the word as a root word that can be used independently and in combination with affixes, as in century, bicentennial  and centipede. The words cosmopolitan, cosmic and microcosm come from the Greek root word kosmos, meaning universe; cosmos is also an independent root word in English. (Gail Tompkins, Rod Campbell, David Green, and Carol Smith,  Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach. Pearson Australia, 2015) Free Morphs and Bound Morphs Because a root tells us more about the meaning of a word than anything else, the first thing we ask about a complex word is often: What is its root? Often a complex word has more than one root, as in blackbird. . . .In our native and nativized vocabulary, roots can usually appear as independent words, for which reason they are called free morphs. This makes it particularly easy to find the roots of words like black-bird, re-fresh, and book-ish-ness. In Latin and Greek, roots most often do not occur as separate words: they are bound morphs, meaning they can only appear when tied to other components. For example, the root of concurrent is curr run. which is not an independent word in English or even in Latin.(Keith Denning, Brett Kessler, and William R. Leben. English Vocabulary Elements, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2007) Roots and Lexical Categories Complex words typically consist of a root morpheme and one or more affixes. The root constitutes the core of the word and carries the major component of its meaning. Roots typically belong to a lexical category, such as noun, verb, adjective, or preposition. . . . Unlike roots, affixes do not belong to a lexical category and are always bound morphemes. For example, the affix -er is a bound morpheme that combines with a verb such as teach, giving a noun with the meaning one who teaches.(William OGrady, et al., Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction, 4th ed. Bedford/St. Martins, 2001) Simple and Complex Words [M]orphologically simple words, which contain only a single root morpheme, may be compared to morphologically complex words which contain at least one free morpheme and any number of bound morphemes. Thus, a word like desire may be defined as a root morpheme constituting a single word. Desirable, by contrast, is complex, combining a root morpheme with the bound morpheme -able. More complex again is undesirability which comprises one root and three bound morphemes: undesireableity. Notice also how, in complex words of this sort, the spelling of the root may be altered to conform to the bound morphemes around it. Thus, desire becomes desir- while beauty will be transformed into beauti- in the formation of beautiful and of the increasingly complex beautician. (Paul Simpson, Language Through Literature: An Introduction. Routledge, 1997) Pronunciation: ROOT Also Known As: base, stem

History of the Violas Role in Part-Writing for Chamber Music

Carolyn Hunter Music 700 November 1, 2009 Mini-Research Paper #2 History of the Viola’s Role in Part-Writing for Chamber Music There is considerable debate amongst scholars as to whether the birth of the viola preceded or succeeded that of the violin. However, iconographic and documentary evidence indicate that the violin, viola, and cello most likely evolved together as a family of instruments very early in the sixteenth century and almost certainly in northern Italy. Part-writing for the viola in chamber music has changed dramatically over time. By the end of the seventeenth century, while the violin had remained popular in chamber music, the viola was very much neglected. It was not until the end of the eighteenth†¦show more content†¦The end of the eighteenth century marked a change in the treatment of the viola in chamber music. The change â€Å"came about partly because a basic concept of late eighteenth century chamber music was that a single player played each part (thus setting chamber music apart from the orchestra where each string part . . . was played by several players).†[2] A greater equality of part writing can be observed in the mature chamber music, especially string quartets, of Mozart and Beethoven. In Mozart’s last string quartet (K. 590, 1790), the part writing is equalized, and solos are given to the viola, with a considerable degree of virtuosity demanded of the instrument. In the passage below, the first violin states the melody and then two bars later the viola plays the same passage just an octave lower. Example 1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, String Quartet no. 23, k. 590, 1st Movement, mm. 51-54[3] [pic] This example clearly demonstrates equal part-writing for the viola with that of the violin or the other instruments. In conclusion, it is difficult to answer the question as to why the viola fell out of favor in chamber music from the time period following its birth in the early sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. One possible reason is that no parts of