Strawberry Kiwi

Advertisers have started sending ads and offers for sponsored programs to preschools and day care centers. Although some preschools need money to buy supplies, getting supplies with company names on them through sponsored programs doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. Why can’t supplies be donated without any company markings? Some sponsored programs offer incentives for kids to complete the activities, but that doesn’t seem necessary to me for preschoolers. With kids that young, they probably can’t tell that they are being advertised to, and making them want or use something from a certain company when they don’t know any better seems like a kind of brain washing.The main points in this article seemed to be that marketers are trying to expose their  product and its name to young children so that they will recognize it and keep wanting all their life. Also, marketers seem to be advertising  to preschools  for the parents too. They want the parents to have a warmer reaction to their product when they see their little kid learning from a worksheet about it.Some passages that stood out to me as I was reading were the passages that talk about how some companies claim that their sponsored programs are not designed to market products but just to help the kids. That doesn’t seem like the truth to me. Why would they actually bother doing the sponsored programs if they weren’t trying to advertise?

A survey was done recently that shows that some kids actually think that foods like carrots and milk that is wrapped in a McDonald’s wrapper tastes better than foods in unmarked wrappers. I think that some people like food better when it comes in a McDonald’s wrapper because of all of the ads that they see everywhere that tell them that McDonald’s food tastes really good and must be good because it’s called a “Happy Meal”.  Advertisers build brand name loyalty so that kids recognize McDonalds, and like it. The ads teach the kids to be loyal to McDonalds, and want to eat there. This type of advertising to children as young as 3-5 is really a terrible type of brain-washing because the kids are young enough that they can’t block out the advertising and make their own decisions. 

Advertisers use psychology to know what makes kids “tick”. Physcologists can give them information about what children want socially and emotionally at certain ages. To use psycology in their advertising, advertisers use what they have learned and market those things to children. For example, if children of a certain age want to fit in, then advertisers might advertise their products as being cool.Advertisers build brand name loyalty by trying to make young children recognize their  brand.  The advertisers hope that kids will want to buy from a brand they are familiar with. Also, companies try to get young children to recognize their logos to help build familiarity.Buzz or Street Marketing is when advertisers go out into a community and try to find the coolest kids and trendsetters. They then give these kids their product to use or wear in hopes that other kids will then want it, and there will be a “buzz” around the product.Some advertisers market adult and R-rated entertainment to kids by putting ads in magazines that are read by younger children and TV commercials during times when young kids are most likely to be watching. Music containing “explicit content” is also often marketed to kids using popular kid’s websites, radio stations, and TV shows.    

Immersive advertising is when advertising is incorporated into the entertainment content of media, like a “lucky charms” game on a Neopets website. It could also be when  a character in a TV program wears something with a particular brand name on it, or uses something from a certain company.

Neopets uses immersive advertising in their games, like ”Limited Too Mix and Match” and “Berry Lucky Charms Triple Track”. The users are in front of the products the whole time that they are playing the game, and since they play with them and use them on the web, they are more likely to want to have the products in real life.

Immersive advertising appears to be effective because kids have quite a bit of influence on what their families buy. If a child sees a character from a TV show wearing clothing with a certain brand on it, if they want to be “just like” that character, then they will want to buy that same brand of clothing. Unlike pop-up ads, you can’t just click and close immersive advertising. Most people automatically block out pop-up advertisements, and can easilly figure out that it is advertising. With immersive advertising though, it is a lot harder to mark the content as advertising.

I think that immersive advertising is unfair to young children because they don’t know any better than to go along withth eadvertising. The children can’t distinguish immersive advertising. In my opinion, immersive advertising is not the best alternative because many kids have no way to avoid it. 

Police officers in China have decided to patrol the internet using animated characters. Every once in a while, these characters will appear and move across the webpage, giving a message that warns users to stay away from “illegal internet content”.” Illegal internet content” can be things like articles that criticize the chinese government, and anything that the Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening, or obscene. One strange thing  is the fact that although there are so many controls, there is still a good deal of illegal gambling, pirated music, and the like. It doesn’t seem like the government is very concerned with things that won’t hurt it. The idea of the virtual police was announced on August 28th to control the amount of “illegal internet content” and to prevent it from being seen by the public. These characters are supposed to appear on every registered web site in Beijing servers by the end of the year.I think that it is a good idea to patrol the internet for things like illegal gambling and pirated music, but I also think that it is all right to criticize the government. I think that if the government isn’t criticized, then things that you don’t like won’t change. Because of this, I think that the animated police officers aren’t really necessary, and aren’t going to help very much in keeping people from putting “illegal internet content” on the internet and trying to view it. 

In Pakistan, President Musharraf has established emergency rules which he thinks will help him have better control over his country. Main Points in the Article Who? The Pakistani government, President Musharraf, and the military (which Musharraf controls). What? Musharraf and the military are trying to close down the media to prevent flow of information to the people. Where? Throughout Pakistan, but primarily in the city of Islamabad, in Pakistan. When? This particular crisis started on Sunday, November 4th, and is still continuing today (November 7th). Why? President Musharraf is trying to close to media so that people have no access to information regarding his actions. Interpret President Musharraf is attempting to shut the media to keep information from getting to his people and to make it harder to figure out what is going on. Also, this helps prevent people from publicly ridiculing him and saying bad things about him or the way he is ruling and decisions he is making.The reason that Musharraf gives for establishing emergency rules  is to control the pro- Taliban uprising in Pakistan, but he seems to be more concerned with the media.The other side of the story presented in this article is the president himself  and the Pakistani government who support the decisions being made and think that shutting son the media and prevent information from circulating is the right thing to be doing. My Opinion I think that President Musharraf is shutting down media outlets to try to prevent information from getting to is people. I think that he might be afraid of people publicly criticizing  his actions and decisions, and by closing the media, people have no easy way to give out information to the public. The effect of his action is that people are unsure of what is actually happening, and are revolting and protesting in the streets. It has also cause some to start working outside the law to distribute information.   

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Our digital children’s book is called “Lights Out”. It is the story of twins named Pam and Sam who overcome their fear of the dark when they learn that monsters are nice.

1. I think that our book turned out quite well. We did a good job incorporating music into our story to make it more interesting, and I think that we did a good job telling our story and getting our message across. For the most part, our story came out as I envisioned it, except that we sort of changed our story along the way. Overall, I think it was a success.
2. To work suspense into our story, we used music, screaming, and “pitch black” pictures. To create the scary mood that we wanted, we added scary music and we had Pam and Sam scream. To create the happy mood that we wanted at the end, we used happy music, and had our characters act happy. I think that we were able to create the “overcoming your fears” theme that we wanted because at the beginning, Pam and Sam are scared of the dark, and at the end, once they learn that monsters aren’t scary, they aren’t scared of the dark anymore. We used hyperbole in our story when the monsters come into the room, and there are GIANT hands reaching down to grab Pam and Sam.
I think that turning these children’s stories into digital books is worthwhile because they are easier to see in a digital format, and many more people can watch the movies. Also, when you create the children’s book digital, you can add music, which makes the stories seem much more professional.
This assignement helped me better understand the concepts from the word wall because I got to use them in a way the is educational and fun.
3. Next time, to make an even better story, we should develop our story some more, and maybe add more music. Maybe we could also make our slides last longer, and add transitions between slides. Overall though, I think we did a good job.