UMS Abstract of Three Articles Pertaining to My Topic of Interest

The Mediated Body: Cosmetic Surgery in Television Drama, Reality Television and Fashion Photography
Anne Jerslev
Nordicom Reivew
Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 133-151

Purpose
This article works from the premise of film researcher Vivian Sobchack's notion of the “digital morph” to make the case that an altered body is now the accepted “natural” form of the human shape in both the media and in reality.

Design/Methodology/Approach
Jerslev analyzes episodes of reality television: ABC's “Extreme Makeover” and FOX's “The Swan,” as well as the drama “Nip Tuck” and a series of fashion photographs titled “Makeover Madness” from an Italian Vogue's 2005 issue.

Findings
Reality television shows have played a significant role in normalizing plastic surgery to an extreme point of reinforcing that the physical “natural” body is without transformational limitations. The portrayal of plastic surgery in the mediums chosen for analysis (reality television, dramatic television series, and fashion photographs) ultimately encourage consumers of these visuals to think these surgeries are always speedy.

Research limitations/Implications
Analyzing one medium instead of cherry-picking a variety of media genres might have made this proposed evidence more concrete. There is not enough quantification in Jerslev's methodology. Instead, it is more a first-person narrative type of analysis.

Originality/Value
This article augments previous, older analysis of boy modification's representation in media and provides a more modern examination through its use of reality television programs.

Keywords: body modification, cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery, the body, makeover television shows
















The Rhetorical Limits of the “Plastic Body”
John W. Jordan
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Vol. 90 No. 3, pp. 327-358

Purpose
This article aims to rename the “natural body” as the “plastic body” as a result of modern-day plastic surgery culture and its effective rhetoric.

Design/Methodology/Approach
Jordan carries out a content analysis of he rhetoric of doctors' and patients' rhetoric within the current plastic surgery discourse. He examines three “rhetorical phenomena” in the realm of plastic surgery: 1) the marketing-style efforts to convince the public of the body's limitless ability to be quickly and easily modified 2) the “rhetorical work” those seeking surgery do in order to be chosen by surgeons and 3) challenges to the medical community's notion of the “better body” by those who seek amputation, also known as “Wannabes.”

Findings of the Three Phenomena
1)Plastic surgery culture has used language promoting itself as an elective surgery people of any socioeconomic background can undergo, emphasizing its democratic quality.
2) Those seeking surgery take part in an effort to highlight the negativeness of their bodies in hopes of being selected for surgery.
3) “Wannabes” – those who desire to amputate a healthy limb – are often turned away since they do not fit into the ideal plastic body surgeons in the plastic surgery culture wish to promote.
Jordan's concludes with the notion that the “rhetorical inventions” are just as important as the technological advances which mediate the “natural body” into a plastic one.

Research limitations/Implications
There is no quantitative analysis in this article. Although Jordan alludes to the marketing-style rhetoric surgeons have used to obtain more applicants for surgery, he fails to quantify the terms these doctors use in the plastic surgery discourse.

Originality/Value
The value of this article is precisely they way Jordan describes his own research:
A rhetorical analysis of these texts yields important insights into the ways that the borders between technology, medicine, authority, and body image are managed through the production of plastic bodies. Statements regarding the “proper” uses of plastic surgery do not limit the body alterations surgeons can perform but the kinds they will perform, which in turn influences the
kinds of bodies prospective patients should ask for.

Keywords: Plastic surgery, body modification, body image, the body








TV News Coverage of Plastic Surgery, 1972-2004
Sooyoung Cho
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Vol. 84, No. 1, pp 75-89

Purpose
To determine the ways in which television news coverage has differed and/or has treated health news stories related to plastic surgery during the past 30 years.

Design/Methodology/Approach
Cho performed a content analysis of the 265 news story abstracts (found on the Vanderbilt TV Archives Web site) on various types of plastic surgery from the five major television networks from 1972 until 2004.

Findings
Cho found that television news stories covering plastic surgery topics included experts from various fields along with doctors from the field – this occurred in particular with breast implant stories. The trend of using additional experts as talking heads differed from other health news stories because those stories solely used medical experts from the specific field relating to the story. Also, in these plastic surgery stories involving breast implants, news organizations sought activists' opinions more often than with other health news stories.

Research limitations/Implications
Using abstracts to explore media framing of this topic might not have yielded the most precise findings. Using the Vanderbilt Archives was useful because it chronicled further back in time compared to other archive portals.

Originality/Value
The value in this analysis is in its quantitative findings. This article also sheds light on the different ways in which television news has covered varying health news stories.

Keywords: media, plastic surgery, television, cosmetic surgery

Assessing My Pursuit of a Master’s Degree with a More Discerning Eye

I have always wanted an M.A. In fact I’ve always wanted to hold a Ph.D., too. I am the first person in my immediate family to complete an undergraduate degree, and I always knew I never wanted to stop with just that. Earning a B.A. in journalism and pursuing a career in that field often makes others ask me why I would even continue with formal education. Among aspiring and seasoned journalists alike the assumption is that either one immediately seeks an M.A. after undergraduate school, and therefore misses out on real world experience, or one forgoes higher-level education for the purpose of immediately gaining resume-worthy experience within the field. I always wondered, “Why not have both?” The only part of my Master’s journey I could have never anticipated was that it would be in “New Media” since I did not grow up with a wealth of technology. Because we had little money – and because my dad was significantly older – I listened to music on a record player and did homework on a typewriter.

Personal and Professional Influences

There isn’t enough space to list the influential people and experiences that have led me to where I am now. Without the English teachers who inspired my odd fascination with grammar and syntax to the professors who stimulated my fondness of Emerson and Thoreau, I certainly would be on a different trajectory today. In my high school, English and literature classes had the strongest teachers of all the courses taught. And because of those proficient teachers, I was sent off to college with a lyrical foundation that inspired me to love words, to use words thoughtfully, and to tell engaging stories with them.

In my first year at Emerson College, I was introduced to Nellie Bly – the first American investigative journalist. She intrigued me because most women in the late nineteenth century were hardly ever hired to write and be published. I liked that this young woman was “not content with the usual women’s articles – stories of social gatherings and parties – [so] Bly immediately began her investigative career” with her story “Ten Days in a Madhouse” (Mills 99). In her compelling expose, Bly visits the Blackwell’s Island Asylum in order to uncover the conditions women suffered there. For me the words, phrases, and literary style made her story completely palpable. Immediately I knew this was the kind of journalism I wanted to do. Having grown up abroad in Latin and South America, I witnessed much political turmoil. This unrest led me to believe that there must be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people whose stories have yet been told. Reflecting up these memories, I thought that one day I could be a Nellie Bly of Latin American political strife, but only after I had obtained adequate the tangible – monetary – and the intangible – knowledge – to do so. Although a dangerous objective, so too was Nellie Bly’s.

Additional – and more modern – influences in my journalistic journey have been my professors from The George Washington University. They introduced me to a world of production to which I was immediately hooked. With long hours and much patience, they taught me how to make my stories materialize in a way that was palatable to a mass audience. They also taught me the basis for my New Media interests – operating content management systems, building Web sites from scratch, using programs like Dreamweaver and Flash, and editing with Final Cut Pro. Additionally I honed an instinct for non-linear storytelling, which I feel, is key to journalism’s future within the context of New Media tools. I was first subjected to non-linear storytelling when a professor at GW showed us an online interactive map which detailed the events of Hurricane Katrina. Instead of being made to learn the details in a chronological order, the user could click on different areas-of-interest on the map to experience the story in the order he/she desired. Another example this professor showed our class was a site about 9/11 victims' families. The site looked like a grid, and in each "box" was a person's picture. The user could click on any picture in any order to learn about the person's story. I couldn't believe I had never thought of this earlier in my journalistic career. Instead of forcing a reader/audience/user to access a narrative in a particular way, I could -- as a non-linear storyteller -- allow them to have options.

Being part of the Facebook generation has also affected my desire to pursue an M.A. in New Media Studies. In the future– when we are further removed from the beginnings of the iPod-Facebook-Twitter era – academics will critically discern what effects the whirlwind of media and technology changes meant and continue to mean to our society. With this Master’s degree, I anticipate being one of those academics participating in that discourse. While the process of that debate has already begun, I believe as years pass the analytical lens will be clearer, more diverse and perhaps more provocative. Earning a New Media Studies M.A. will certainly augment my capabilities for significantly impacting that exploration.

Anticipated Contributions to My Field
Pondering the future as to what contributions I will make to media and/or journalism is mind-boggling. At this point it’s hard to imagine that I could have any significant impact in the media field. With role models – whom I aspire to be like – including Nellie Bly, Lynn Barber, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Roger Mudd and Peter Jennings – it’s hard to think I could compare or even come remotely close to the contributions they’ve made. Some of their niches (i.e. Cronkite, Mudd, Jennings) have become obsolete now and therefore unlikely and unnecessary to be filled. Instead, my goal contribution for the moment will be to heighten women’s presence in the realm of media production. Having worked in the past as the sole female on many shoots and editing processes, I feel as though my presence of “making it” as a producer will surely pave the path for prospective female producers. As of now it seems to be “a man’s world” in which men operate cameras, manage operating boards, produce award-winning shows, and rise in the production ranks more quickly than women. Perhaps that disparity will diminish as more women, like myself, make way for other women to feel comfortable in such occupations.

My ultimate career contribution, though, is to undertake my “Nellie Bly” style story regarding Latin American political unrest. To this day many are clueless about “La Guerra Sucia” in Argentina in the 1980s or even the whole dynamic between Panama and the United States up through the late 1990s. These are the types of stories I wish to generate eventually – most likely ten years or so from now when I’ve been in the media business a significant time and have established adequate resources to do these stories justice. I believe that I am the right medium through which these stories should be told. And perhaps with the wealth of technology at my fingertips today, I might have he ability to report them in a non-linear, new media style way.

In a decade or more from now I imagine I might also be an adjunct professor. Part of the lure of earning my Master’s now was so I could teach later and be part of an academic ritual – passing on to others the nuggets of knowledge that were taught to me which had been passed down to my teachers and their teachers. Teaching, to me, is the ultimate contribution since knowledge is the ultimate and most fundamental intangible. And because I value it so, I have continued my higher-level educational journey and will continue to do so throughout my life.

WORKS CITED:

Mills Eleanor and Kira Cochrane. Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Rwiting and Reporting by

Women Journalists. Perseus Books Group; Berkeley, CA; 2005.