Ethnographic introspection: fantasy football

Unlike when our league began 15 years ago, there is nothing rare about participating in a fantasy football league. Where it once was an appendage to football itself, fantasy football has become a separate entity. No longer is an explanation of it required; people know fantasy football.

That, I have found, is what makes the league I run - and more importantly, its members - stand apart. As far as any of us know, our league is the longest-standing among our generation. When a few of us started the league in 1995, we were middle-school students who still went door-to-door collecting players for a pick-up game of football after our homework was done. For our members, the league hearkens back to our boyhood, and with that comes a sense of pride.

Thoughts on my own media use

In high school I was definitely ahead of the masses on media use, mostly because my high school was blessed with so much new equipment. We had digital cameras, various editing suites, a weekly newscast ... we had options, mostly because the school was new and had money. So that was helpful. I did a lot of editing and video production for broadcasting, history and English classes. It made projects much more enjoyable and challenging, and we were able to produce these projects at a time when they easily impressed teachers.

Proudly, I joined facebook when it was still "thefacebook.com," in 2004. Since I have remained a passive user, fearing games as the sinkhole of all my free time.

In my first foray into the professional world, I maintained a blog and recorded weekly podcasts for our sports department, and in 2006 that was about on the curve for newspapers. It was a valuable skill to learn, though it admittedly required extra time (but you always do what the publisher tells you to do).

So that's a basic profile of my digitization. To look at facebook again - I think it is a bit scary that we are leaning more toward the stance that everything should be public unless you close it off, rather than the other way around. I see it as a tool for networking and for sharing bits of information about myself, but I find it hard to keep up with all the privacy settings. This bothers me, and yet facebook has become so integral to our generation - it is my primary means of organizing events and communication with large groups of people - that we cannot help but use it. What power we have given to that site. And that concerns me.

But, it is here to stay. Best to figure out ways to utilize it. And I am not yet to the point where I will use it in my class - at least not with me as an active participant. I want a buffer still between myself and my students.

Analysis: Car ads in TIME

Perhaps more so than any other major advertising niche, cars are well-designed and attuned to the priorities of their target audience. Using VoiceThread, I cobbled together my thoughts on a few such ads in TIME magazine during the past four years:

Car ads in TIME

Also, check on the previous post for a lesson plan idea using car advertisements.

Activity: media representation of automobiles

Good readers of my blog -

A happy day to you all. I've conjured up an activity that I am sure is not completely original but was, in this exact form, previously unpublished:

Activity on media representation - Dan Thompson

What do the cool people drive?

Purpose: This activity asks students to analyze automobile ads for as many decades as the teacher can find (either TV commercials or print ads) to appreciate what has changed in how the media represent automobiles - and hopefully why it has changed.

Process: Present students with a number of ads from different decades. Ask them what kinds of vehicles are prized and what aspects of them are emphasized. Is it horsepower? Efficiency? Size? Cup holders?

This could lead to a discussion about whether car ads reflect or suggest what we value in them and what value we place on our vehicles. What will the next generation of automobile ads say? Why will they say that?

Time: Class period
Age: High school

Nissan's ads through a rhetorical lens

Nissan’s goal: Everyone drives a Maxima.

For the purposes of this writing, I am going to use the following definition of rhetorical/audience response as posited by Dr. Beach: “analysis through the lens of how texts seek to gain an audience identification to a brand, idea, cause, etc., through the use of images and equations.”

With that in mind, I took a look at a couple different ads for the Nissan Maxima. Notice the two main audiences here and how the car is presented as desirable for both.

Maxima for the single man

Maxima for the married man

In the first ad, the Maxima is the fulfillment of a James Bond fantasy (which it assumes, correctly, that all hot-blooded men enjoy nightly): fast cars, beautiful women, the elusion of bad guys, and tuxedos as everyday-wear. Men are asked to connect with the commercial by living out a fantasy, out of which they are jolted by the final seconds of the clip. But the Nissan is presented as a pathway to these dreams.

In the second ad, the Maxima is the fulfillment of BOTH the man’s dream sports car and the man’s need for a family car. In this scenario, the car maintains its cool status but is also big enough to accommodate his needs as a father – and again, he can experience both in style. The visuals of this ad are intelligently designed toward that end: As his Herculean strength allows him to widen the car (all men want to be strong, right?), which doesn’t change in appearance, only in substance. It is also presented as a parallel to him, a new father, because having a baby need not wrench away his “cool.”

With these two ads, Nissan is accounting for a significant chunk of its target audience. It wants single and married men (with or without children) to see the Nissan as the essence of cool. That is the response it wants to draw out of its viewers – who hopefully have the money to afford a Nissan. The price is not discussed in either ad, merely the aesthetic. But the creators of the ads are presumably hoping that viewers will respond first to how enjoyable and functional the car can be. Then they can deal with the financing.

And now, a lesson idea from this ...

Lesson plan: Cars as the fulfillment of self

Objective: Students will be able to better identify the target audience of an advertisement and to recognize the response the advertiser hopes to elicit from the audience. They will be able to give two examples from each commercial that support their assessments.

Materials: Access to YouTube or video copies of car commercials (or any commercials of your choice)

Procedure: Explain to students that you will be asking them to identify the target audience of each ad and what the advertiser wants the audience member to glean from the ad (best to define “glean” for them first). Then, watch the clips as a class. After each, discuss what they saw and ask them to support their answers with textual evidence (might be a good chance to point out that advertisements are also texts for literary purposes).

Also, in intersex small groups, ask the boys in the class and the girls in the class to compare their reactions to the commercials. Are the ads targeting one sex more than the other? Why do they think that is? How could the advertisers better target the other sex?

If possible, have them spend time looking for these clips on YouTube. As an in-class assignment, ask them to find another commercial and identify the following: the target audience (by gender, class, age, or any other specific they deem important), the product or service being offered, and the intended appeal to it. These are all questions that were modeled in the previous class activity.

Time: 30 minutes without additional assignment, 60 minutes with it

Frasier through a social-class lens

The title character of the award-laden sitcom Frasier is not always likeable, but we as audience members are almost always asked to at least sympathize with in and those within his privileged circle. Watch the following clip through a social-class lens, and look for how “Seattle’s elite” are portrayed in relation to others. What does this say about us as viewers? About the characters?

Frasier, “Hot Ticket” (middle scene)


Throughout the scene, Frasier and Niles sling insults at those outside their own class. Niles is surprised that waiting in the cancellation line – portrayed as a shameful place where people who can’t afford to pay full price – “isn’t half as humiliating as I thought it would be.” When Roz arrives, she fulfills her stereotype of a promiscuous middle-class woman by not knowing the name of the esteemed actor in the play. Niles calls her a Philistine.

Then we meet Susan and Steven Kendall, members of the elite, who are worried Frasier and Niles are waiting in the cancellation line. The brothers deny it, rather than lose face. Susan and Steven even hesitate – albeit clearly for a laugh – to say hello to Susan’s parents who “could only get balcony” seats.

But the portrayed distance between Frasier and the Kendalls is convenient, because by distinguishing them we can both sympathize with the former and mock the latter – while still placing them in the same social class. Their ambivalent characterization reinforces the social roles. The audience is not expected to challenge the class system portrayed; it is expected to abide it, if for not other reason than that the rich are humorously petty and judgmental – which is better than being just petty and judgmental.

Throughout the series, Frasier is able to balance this loveable/lamentable quite well, though there are episodes where he topples into the latter. But in episodes such as this one, his desire to be regarded well among the elite is innocent. We laugh at his shallow words and actions, and because we laugh, we fortify the stereotypes of the social classes.

A suggested lesson plan to work off this:

Lesson plan: High society, as portrayed on TV

Objective: Students will apply a social-class lens to television sitcoms so as to better understand how they present or refute stereoypes. They should become more familiar with the social-class lens and be able to analyze future texts through it.

Materials: YouTube access or clips from TV shows (suggested Frasier and The Cosby Show) and synopses of the shows, if deemed necessary

Procedure: Choose clips of about 10 minutes from each show that highlight social class (with Frasier this is really easy, as they live to be among high society and focus on it often; I am not as familiar with The Cosby Show). Before watching each, offer setting, scene and character briefs for the shows – perhaps printed synopses. Tell students that as they watch the clips, they should write down adjectives to describe the characters from each social class as portrayed. After watching one, discuss as a class some of the words they wrote down.

Then, watch the second and ask them again to write down adjectives. How do they compare to the list from the first clip? This can lead into a conversation about how classes are portrayed in media, and whether these shows challenge or reinforce the stereotypes. Is it television’s job to fulfill either role?

Either as homework or perhaps a free write, ask them to think of another show they watch with some regularity. (If they do not watch TV, they could use a book, a video game or some other form of media.) Does their program reinforce these social stereotypes, or does it portray them in a contrary manner?

Time: 45-60 minutes