Saturday, June 27, 2009

Naked News Became a hot issue in Korea

Naked News is a real television newscast featuring naked newscasters. Naked News started in June 2000 in Canada as a web-based news service featuring an all-female cast. The concept was shocking enough to catch audiences’ attention. The audiences, mostly males, liked it because they could enjoy looking at naked females while they were watching news. Thus, it became popular.

Recently, Naked News became a hot issue in Korea because Naked News started its service on June 23th as Naked News Korea. Naked News Korea divided its service into two versions, an adult version and an adolescence version. The adult version targets audiences whose ages are over 19 years old and features topless female casters. The adolescence version targets audiences whose ages are between 15 and 19 years old. It does not violate the Korean law to broadcast on web. However, I think that this is a great example of objectifying females.

I may say as a man that this type of news is welcomed, but if I look closely into this, this is merely selling sexual content to make money. For example, the nudity of attractive female caters will attract audiences, mostly males. Many audiences mean many advertisements to advertise. Eventually, it will result a lot of money to earn.

Moreover, it is consistent with John’s study on two major magazines that are showing an illustration of objectifying females on their cover and cover lines. It is also consistent with the content of the video, “Killing us softly” that demonstrates that mass media keeps portray females as sex objects and sells the concept of sex. Objectifying dehumanizes females and leads to violence on females eventually.

Overall, I think that this type of a problem cannot be solved just by setting naked males on their show. I think that Naked News should be properly monitored by censorship even if it does not violate the law. It should be distinguished with porn not to give any wrong idea to adolescence for their proper education. I hope that Naked News find a way to combine news and entertainment to create a new genre that can be loved by all audiences without objectifying females and males.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

About me

My Name is Kwon Namkoong. I am from Korea. I was born in Seoul which is the capital city of Korea. I am studying abroad in Ohio University for a bachelor’s degree. I am a senior and a digital media major. I came to Athens 8 years ago. I had attended the OPIE program for 2 years in Ohio University. OPIE stands for Ohio Program of Intensive English. This program is for international students to learn English. After 2 years in the OPIE program, I had taken academic classes for another 2 years as an undecided major. However, I could not continue to study because I needed to go back to Korea to serve the Korean military. As a Korean citizen, I must serve the Korean military for 2 years at some point of my time after the age of 18. It was my time to go there. Thus, I decided to go back to Korea and finish my duty as a Korean citizen. It was very hard time for me. After 2 years, I came back to Ohio University to finish my degree and decided to go for a business major. After a couple of quarters, I found my interest in animation, so I changed my major to a digital media major recently. I feel pretty confident studying animation, and I am enjoying it. One thing I feel unfortunate is that I have lost some English skills while I was in Korea because I could not continue to speak or use English in the Korean military. I am trying to recover English skills. I think that this class is a kind of class that I am looking forward to help recover them. I expect to improve my writing skills through the class.

In addition, I have not experienced much as a writer. When I was young, I used to write a short story for fun. However, I just have writing experiences in classes for writing essays. Moreover, prior to this class, I took English 151A. This English 308J class is my second English class. As a reader, I enjoy reading novels, especially scientific fictions. Unfortunately, I have not read any books recently.

Moreover, I have some weaknesses as a writer and reader. The main problem is obviously my English. Because English is my second language, it is hard for me to translate all my ideas when I write, and I have problems in correcting grammar. I also have difficulty to get ideas out of my head. It usually takes time to get ideas regarding a topic. However, I think that I feel confident in structuring and supporting ideas.

Again, I am looking forward to improve my writing skills through this class. Definitely, I hope not to fail this class.