Assignment 1-4-4

Assignment 1-4-4

College Football “Hero’s/Celebrities”

            Anyone that is scene on a national scale could be tagged as a hero or a celebrity.  In college football many of these athletes are in the national spot light week in and week out.  Each week the celebrity status of these athletes grows as they perform in the game.  Many young children look up to these college athletes as hero’s and role models as they watch them perform. 

            College football athletes are celebrities not hero’s.  After this weeks FranklinLive session we talked about what defined a hero and what defined a celebrity and for most college football athletes, they are grouped as celebrities not hero’s.  To be viewed as a hero, a person has to do something heroic not play football each week as college football players do.  The reason that they are celebrities is because what they are doing for themselves is what allows them to be recognized on a national scale.  Young children do not understand this and this is why they view the athletes as hero’s. 

            Depending on your definition of a hero depends on who you classify a her.  With the exception in my opinion of Tim Tebow, there is not a college athlete that is or was a “hero” for anyone other than his own team.  In reading his book you see how he changed fellow teammates lives for the better just by being the person he was.  This alone I feel gives him the title of “hero”.  An athlete can be a hero for their team but until they do something heroic for someone they are viewed as celebrities by everyone around them.     

Assignment 1-4-3 "College Football"

Assignment 1-4-3 College Football

            In my topic of college football for this assignment there are many different ways that the information can be presented and comprehended by individuals.   With the sanctions that have been brought about in the last year to Ohio State, Miami, Penn State and USC these programs have become stereotypes in a way. 

            Knowing more about Ohio State than any of these programs, people who are not Ohio State fans group the team as a whole to be rule breakers and think that they all are guilty.  This is where the stereotype name comes into play sense they are grouping the entire team of being guilty even though it was only 8 players and one coach out of almost 100 players and twenty coaches.  The stereotypes that are presented are not fair to the players that are innocent and have done nothing wrong.  With that being said I think with the way that they are viewed has directly impacted them due to popular culture and they will do a better job to not break any rules in the future.    

            As for the standpoint of rituals that come from college football and the teams that have had sanctions against them, the NCAA is using these teams as examples for future teams to come if similar problems would arise.  This is not the best example of a ritual but the only one that I feel fits the topic well enough to mention. 

            In the last year many teams have had problems with rule violations in the NCAA and the stereotypes that have grouped them together have made other teams realize that they have to have a closer watch over what is going on within their program.  This is due largely to popular culture and peoples opinions towards the program.  

Icon Analysis

I chose three different icons that stuck out to me.  They are FDNY, ESPN and the military.  All three of these icons are things that I have a special interest in.  This is why I picked them as icons for me to talk about here.

The symbol of FDNY I feel is an icon because before 9-11 FDNY was popular to all firefighters but not so much everyone else.  Since 9-11 FDNY had been put on a national spot light and now everyone has a greater respect for them as well as all other firefighters.  I could be a little biased on this one being a firefighter but fire jobs have been in high demand since that day.  Second I chose ESPN because it represents a broad range of topics from sports stories to athletes (make a wish foundation) spending time with children who are ill with diseases.  ESPN also brings in stories about what things athletes have done when breaking the law or other problems.  Sports swarms our nation and most people have at least one team that they follow and watch on ESPN.  Lastly i chose a picture of our military forces.  I did this because everyday that we go about do what we do is because we have them protecting our freedoms.  I feel this is the most important icon that I picked because without them who knows how our lives would be on a daily basis.

All of these icons are close to me and are a big part of my life and make me who I am.  ESPN is the one that I could go without but sports are a huge love in my life.  FDNY is part of my brotherhood of being a firefighter and the military allows us to have the lives that we live and love to live on a daily basis.

Popular Culture Blog Assignment 1-2

1.  To me there are many different things that mean popular culture.  Popular culture to me means any of the things that surround you on a daily basis.  For me they are work, sports, and traveling.  Those are just a few but the main ones.

2.  Understanding popular culture will allow you to be able to what is going on in the world and how it affects your job or career today and into the future.  

3.  The popular culture picture that I have posted here is dealing with traveling.  I love to travel and I feel that traveling allows you to view different areas that have different views and types of "popular culture" ideas than where you are from.  Everyones view is different but this is how i personally view popular culture.