How Barbara Ehrenreich Portrays The Day To Day Lives

There is no doubt that television holds a purpose in our society today, but is that purpose brain-numbing or actually beneficial to our brain development? The television, also known as: TV, the boob tube, the idiot box, as well as many other nicknames, has been around for almost a hundred years. Ever since cable TV became popular in the 1950’s, there has always been a worry that people watch too much TV. Most people believe that with exorbitant exposure to the popular media both dumbs us down as well as makes us more likely to tolerate acts of violence. Dana Stevens’ “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” argues that television does not make you smarter, directly

Unfortunately, this utopian argument doesn’t account for the countless studies correlating film and television viewing to perpetuated hate and stereotyping, and unhealthy lifestyle choices. Declining SAT scores and library check-outs over the decades have lead critics to believe that film and television are aiding in the international "dumbification" effort, in which individuals are losing the ability to think without direction. This phenomenon is closely related to the more recent "couch potato syndrome", in which laziness, lack of physical fitness and a passive attitude combine, producing the ultimate unhealthy lifestyle that is currently sweeping the majority of modern America. More important, however, are the two great faults of film and television. First, film and television establish false

Since television came into existence, it has evolved into a useful tool to spread ideas, both social and political, and has had a great effect on the generations growing up with these heavily influential shows. To these younger generations, television has taken the role of a teacher, with the task of creating a social construction by which many of us base our personal beliefs and judgments on. This power allows television shows take the opportunity to address problems in a manner that many audiences can take to heart. Many television shows present controversial topics in a comical matter, in some ways to soften the blow of hard-hitting reality at the same time bringing attention to the issue being addressed. In the television show,

In “Life According to T.V.” written by Harry Waters and published in Newsweek in 1991, Waters examines the effect that television has on everyday lives. He says that TV has given Americans an unrealistic view of how life works. From jobs to minorities to how women are portrayed to crime rates nearly all aspects of TV are unrealistic or exaggerated. George Gerbner was used to back up Water’s theory on how television impacts people. Water states that heavy viewers of TV are more unrealistic in their view of the world than light viewers because they are exposed to more of the unrealistic ideas portrayed in TV shows than light viewers. The jobs on TV are often expressed as high ranking jobs like lawyers, doctors and athletes rather than blue collar or service jobs such as small businessman or teacher. According Waters the elderly are depicted as being sick and weak when they are actually the opposite. Women are also portrayed as mothers and lovers more often than successful working women.

The world is not a replica of what is portrayed on television, and it was never proclaimed to be, however, Barbara Ehrenreich advocates “The worst years of our lives” which reflects the 1980’s in which is believed couch potatoes did not exist, yet. Ehrenreich implies the idea that modern people aren’t “real people” anymore, as they would be in the 1980’s era because they actually performed the activities presented on television. To a certain extent, I concede with Ehrenreich’s theory, because Americans have become inactive, the youth generations are being brainwashed, and we portray ourselves to the virtual world.

Barbara Ehrenreich 's showed that she didn't have the mind set or worries of a working class person by reminding us as readers the fine line between the kind of performance she is doing and the kind her fellow coworkers do every day on the job. Time and again she lets us sink into her new world of a low-wage worker, only to pull us back with a reminder of the act. 1 She does this experiment to determine whether or not she could both live off the money earned and have enough money at the end of the month to pay the next month's rent. Working class people depend on the money they make on these jobs to survive and provide for their families. She could drop all these jobs she experimented with and go back to her real life without a worry in the

Barbara Ehrenreich uses very specific techniques (“moves”) to convey her message to her readers: for instance, the approach she uses in the first part of her essay is an ‘objective approach’ which relied upon citations from published works. She drew upon statistical data and information and used extensive quotations extracted from experts who have written on the subject. The other important device used in her essay (the other side of the same coin, so to speak) is the ‘subjective approach’ that she undertook to convey her message of “white-collar downward mobility.” Examples of the objective approach is found in this passage taken from the published work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: “In Late 2003, when I started this project, unemployment

While out dining with a friend Barbara Ehrenreich, a bestselling author of many books had came up with a question which would mark the start of a whole new life experience. Her question was, “how does anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?” The topic of poverty had greatly fascinated Ehrenreich but not to the point that she would actually want to experience poverty herself. However, this changed when the friend she was dining with suggested she should be the one to go out and experience the unpleasant lifestyle that is poverty. Upon starting this experiment she knew she had to construct a plan so she sat and began to plan out how she would be living throughout the experiment When concluding her experiment Ehrenreich argues

Barbara Ehrenreich is a successful American author that conducted an experiment of living in a life of low wages. She documented her experiences and thus made the book Nickel and Dimed. This story involves a woman named Barbara Ehrenreich who goes undercover to experiment living in a life of low wages and sees if she can survive from it. Ehrenreich effectively captures her argument of showing that it is almost impossible to provide the basic needs for one’s self by working a minimum wage job. The part of the title of the book that states On (Not) Getting By In America; the word Not goes with her argument being that it is very hard to provide for oneself under the employment of a minimum wage job.

Imagine, if you will, a time that seemed innocent... almost too innocent. Imagine a nation under whose seemingly conformist and conservative surface dramatic social changes were brewing, changes as obvious as integration and as subtle as fast food. And imagine, if you will, a radical television show that scrutinized, criticized, and most importantly, publicized these changes, making the social turmoil of a nation apparent to its post-world war, self-contented middle-class citizens. But what if this television show was not as it appeared? What if it masqueraded as simple science fiction, and did not reveal its true agenda until viewers took a closer look? Let us examine how

Society uses manipulation to divert people’s attention every day and oftentimes people do not realize that they are being manipulated. An advertisement through television is one of the many ways that people are manipulated. TV uses advertisements daily by incorporating subliminal messages to get people to do things that they would not otherwise be thinking about doing. The following articles “Can TV improve us?” by Jane Rosenzweig, On Sale at Old Navy: Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies!” by Damien Cave and TV’s War of Words” by Deborah Tannen exemplify instances where manipulation is being showcased at its best.

In the novel Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehnreich, there are many hurtles she must overcome to experience the life of a low income worker. She sets some ground rules for herself, such as always having a car, and starting out with a certain amount of money for her down payment on an apartment. Although the rules are doable, she admits that she broke all of the rules at least once. Even though Barbara didn 't hold to her original plan, she was still able to reveal her appeals clearly.

In an effort to expose the epistemology of television, which Postman believes has not been effectively addressed, he examines the effects of TV on several important American cultural institutions: news, religion, politics and education.  All four institutions, Postman argues, have realized that they have to go on television in order to be noticed which, in turn, requires them to learn the language of TV if they are to reach the people.  Therefore, they have joined the national conversation not on their own terms, but on TV's terms.  Postman contends that this transformation of our major institutions has trivialized what is most important about them and turned our culture into "one vast arena for show business" (80).  In the case of broadcast news, we see visually stimulating, disconnected stories about murder and mayhem along with a healthy dose of infotainment delivered by friendly and likeable anchors that remind us to "tune in tomorrow".  In the case of politics, we have discourse through distorted paid TV commercials and "debates" in which the appearance of having said something important is

In the opening paragraph of her work, Ehrenreich describes the negative aspects of modern day Americans resulting from the hypnotizing modern day shows. For example, in the first paragraph Ehrenreich states " I mean something so deeply 10 obvious that it's almost scary: when you watch television, you will see people doing many things-- chasing fast cars, drinking lite beer, shooting each other at close range, etc." In this quote Ehrenreich is listing/naming all of the ridiculous activities performed by the characters on T.V.. After line 17, Ehrenreich begins to talk about how great the televised programs were in the 1980's in order to compare them to the modern day shows and emphasize how unrealistic and "scary" today's shows are. For example, in line 18 Ehrenreich states " Way back in the beginning of the television era, this was not so strange, because real people actually did many of the things people do on TV, even if it was only bickering with their mothers-in-law about which toilet paper to buy."

Ed Koch, a lawyer and politician, once said, “Stereotypes lose their power when the world is found to be more complex than the stereotype would suggest. When we learn that individuals do not fit the group stereotype, then it begins to fall apart. That quote was given over almost years ago by Ed Koch, yet the society that we inhabit today not only embraces stereotypes, but perpetuates them, especially through the means of media. What is to be said about a nation that has made leaps and bounds in the areas of racial equality, gender equality and even marriage equality in just the last fifty years? What is to be said about a society that has made all of these advancements in equality, yet still sustains stereotypes that have been around for over a century? To me, it says that we haven’t made that much progress at all. Little to no progress can be made when scripted television shows are perpetuating negative stereotypes of people to sheltered audiences. So, ultimately, fictitious television shows that follow a script, whether it be reality television or not, does uphold and spread negative stereotypes about marginalized groups, while painting a near-perfect portrait of those that are considered to be in the majority. This essay will focus on both the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of African Americans, Latinos/Latinas and people belonging to the LGBT community, within scripted television shows.