Christmas Media

I love Christmas music!!!!!!!!!!! I love it. Love love love it. I get so excited when I listen to it and I just feel happy. I think one of my favorite parts of Christmas is all the music that goes along with it. Thank you, media, for making my favorite holiday so awesome :)

Letter

Dear Senator Hatch,

My name is Krista Emrich and I am currently a senior attending Brigham Young University. I am enrolled in a class on the media and we recently discussed the topic of books and the fact they do not have ratings. This issue is of great concern to me, and I believe we should and can do something about it. One study we looked at found there were more acts of aggression in an hour of reading a novel than in an hour of watching television. Television programs have ratings, so books, which can contain more violence, should logically receive ratings. By giving books ratings we will be helping those people who would like to be informed before they stumble across something they may not want to read, just as is done with television programs.

As a reader of books I would appreciate knowing the content of what I will be reading. Titles may be misleading, and there is no warning as to profanity or sexual content in a book. I have personally read books that have had this content that I did not expect by the blurb on the back of the book nor from the title. I do not appreciate this type of content in the books I read and would like to be warned before I pick up a book to read it.

I also feel strongly that parents would benefit from book ratings. Parents want to know what their children are being involved with and should be able to have the benefit of being informed as to the content of different types of media, which includes books. Parents have restricted or cautioned their children from seeing different ratings of movies because they do not want them to see the content of the film. I believe parents also want to caution their children with books the same way they do with movies but are much less able to do so in the absence of ratings. If parents could be informed they can talk with their children about what is in the books they are reading.

Because ratings are not a restriction and are simply a caution to the reader there is no reason to not put them on books. I believe it would benefit people, such as myself, who would like to be aware of the content of books before reading them. For those people who do not want ratings, they are not required to read them and access is not restricted by ratings, so ratings can simply be ignored by these people.

I appreciate your consideration of this issue and hope you see the importance of book ratings for book readers as well as parents. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the issue further, please feel free to contact me with the information provided above.

Sincerely,

Krista Emrich

Musical Memory

Tonight I went to an enrichment activity and we were making Christmas crafts and listening to Christmas music and just had a blast. As I was singing along to all the different songs I was kind of amazed at how many lyrics I know. It's amazing how many lyrics to songs are just bouncing around in my brain somewhere. Something with music helps us to remember the lyrics much differently than we would a lecture or a conversation with someone. When we put some sort of tune to it, it's much easier to remember and lasts a lot longer than something that is just spoken. I think it's pretty amazing the way music aids our learning and memory.

Media Saturation

I was thinking about the term media saturation and an experience I had. Yesterday as I was driving to my internship I turned off my music and just tried to listen to the spirit. I received some impressions and thoughts that brought a lot of peace and I am very grateful that I took some time to "unplug" from the world of media to listen to the spirit. I know it makes a big difference when we show the Lord that He is important to us.

Kanine Krunchies

Last week I watched 101 Dalmatians as part of our Content Analysis project and I've had a song stuck in my head ever since. The part where the puppies are watching the TV right before they go to bed there's a commercial for Kanine Krunchies, and the little jingle goes "Kanine krunchies can't be beat! They make each meal a special treat....." Well, I eat a bowl of cereal every morning for breakfast, and recently I have been eating Cocoa Crunchies (knock-off of Cocoa Puffs) and every day I sing to myself...and sometimes out loud..."Cocoa Crunchies can't be beat! They make each meal a special treat!" Ridiculous, I know. But pretty funny. Media definitely affects us :)

The Proposal

This weekend I watched The Proposal with my husband and I really liked it. It has a really cute love story, and it's even funnier for me because I'm from Canada and know how crappy it is to deal with immigration stuff.

However....I feel there were quite a few scenes, and language, probably about half the movie....that they could have done without. Most of the scenes/comments etc. were of a sexual nature, which I did not appreciate, and I hate profanity, it just drives me nuts. If you can say the same thing without swearing, what's the point of swearing? It just makes you sound unintelligent, in my opinion. It's kind of sad, but that's pretty much what movies are like these days. I did like the movie, it was totally cute, and maybe I was more aware of sexual content since we just talked about it in class.........:)

World's Strictest Parents

As I was watching some TV for our sexual content assignment I came across this show called World's Strictest Parents and found it interesting so I watched it. It's like those shows where there are "troubled or problem teens" and they send 'em to boot camp, but in this show they send them to live with this family with strict parents to help shape up their attitudes and behaviors. This family they sent them to was ridiculous! The mom and dad were addressed as sir and maam out of respect. I'm not so sure that kind of respect is what I would want in my household. One of the kids that was sent to the house rebelled against the rule and said that "normal" people don't do that! And the parents were very firm in their belief that normal people said yes sir and no sir to the parents. WHAT?! Did I miss the boat, or do you really call your parents sir and maam? Mom and Dad work pretty well for me. Another thing they did was spy on their children to make sure they were exactly where they said they would be. They would literally hide in the trees and peek around. Another thing they did was rummage through all of their belongings so they would know exactly what they have, making it easy for them to tell if they would lie to them or not. What ever happened to granting kids some autonomy and trusting them a bit? If I lived in this household I would have been pushed SO far from those rules and also far from my parents. I will say that the family were very hard workers, the parents did display some love for their children sometimes, and they did have good values. I would definitely agree with most of their values, but they take it to the extreme in most of their behaviors. Very nice people, just a little crazy. I just wonder if that is reeeeally the best idea for shaping their attitudes and behaviors......and what people think when they watch this show! Are we promoting super strict parenting?! I hope people watch it and realize they need to do what works for their family and also see how these people are pretty extreme in a lot of behaviors.