Impact
This change of the two stereotypes has come about through society from both sides of the spectrum, society has changed to some extent to mold what we see in television with stereotypes and television and media has molded around society. With the audience models, Cultivation theory and Reinforcement model being key in this change. The shift in society was probably however caused by technology changing how we live today, the fact that internet is now common place, that everybody looks to achieve higher and get better jobs and the idea that the 'geek' you picked on in high school is now your boss with people like Bill Gates, whom is a technology geek through and through is publicized by the media as the richest man in the world.
The fact that being intelligent and not relying solely on sport today has changed significantly the aspect of sport, that there is a significant amount of people who play high end sport that don't want that as their life choice, but would rather like Matt Saracen, go to an Art School in Chicago. Today, sport after the completion of year 13 in New Zealand or Senior year in America is not necessarily top priority as further education may be of higher priority. For most, getting a degree at university or starting to work due to help pay rent for the family for those with lesser circumstances may come first over taking a shot at making it big in sport. This is the reality in life today that making a living sport isn't the pathway for high success.
Furthermore as an incentive to move away from professional sport and focus on academics post high school, is that that sport is becoming ever so highly more competitive and challenging with the bar continuously being raised and the use of drugs being common place in athletes lives to get the most out of their careers. This is reflected by the likeness of Smash in the Friday Night Lights, as he resorts to using performance enhancing drugs to improve his level of football. Recently there has been significant use of illegal doping or use of performance enhancing drugs as everybody aspires to be better than the rest. With the likes of 100m sprint event, nineteen runners have run under 10 seconds this year, compared to six in 2007. This shows that the level is getting higher and some are resorting to drugs to keep up. David Howman, the chief executive of the World Ant-Doping Agency, believes that one in 10 athletes are cheating.
Lastly is the idea that sport, as a life choice or path is in fact extremely risky and therefore many are moving away from being overly committed to their chosen sporting code. Injuries in sport, as the level has increased so dramatically have also increased dramatically. Some of which can be career ending, life changing and in extreme cases even life ending. This article shows of some of these injuries which truely change lives of high level athletes. This is represented in Friday Night Lights through the character Jason Street, as his life will never be the same again after his injury. He will be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.
This reinforcement theory leans on the character of Matt Saracen, we believe what the media is portraying him because he really in genuine as a character and we see that in ourselves today as it reflects our own life goals, values and life choices. Matt looks out for his family and puts his grandmother first and instead of being a high school football star he pursues other life choices, because he is not a superstar, whilst being a talented individual he does in fact play football for fun. Which today is hard to come by with those whom take high school sport seriously the term fun. It shows that there needs to be a balance in life.
Friday Night Lights is a perfect example of the cultivation theory, we subscribe to it and watch it so intently because it shows us what we want to see, which is more complex in depth characters than the typical stereotype that is so often portrayed in other media texts on the Geek and Jock. This is evident by its reception of the television series, despite it not having a high viewership it was met with critical acclaim and has a strong fan base which really was how the show was marketed, with Universal strongly pushing it for its on demand service as a show which it gathered most of its fan base. This further reflects the cultivation theory, that people go out of their way to view the text because it has such well developed characters which you can feel close to over the typical stereotype and therefore the show has succeeded where others have failed because it is a better representation of society today and shows that characters on television can be complicated just like us with reviewer Alan Sepinwall said "Few shows are as willing to so directly confront the emotions of its characters, aided by central performances." and magazine Salt Lake Tribune saying "For five seasons, Friday Night Lights was both the simplest and most complex show on TV. It felt like real life, and real life is complicated."
The fact that being intelligent and not relying solely on sport today has changed significantly the aspect of sport, that there is a significant amount of people who play high end sport that don't want that as their life choice, but would rather like Matt Saracen, go to an Art School in Chicago. Today, sport after the completion of year 13 in New Zealand or Senior year in America is not necessarily top priority as further education may be of higher priority. For most, getting a degree at university or starting to work due to help pay rent for the family for those with lesser circumstances may come first over taking a shot at making it big in sport. This is the reality in life today that making a living sport isn't the pathway for high success.
Furthermore as an incentive to move away from professional sport and focus on academics post high school, is that that sport is becoming ever so highly more competitive and challenging with the bar continuously being raised and the use of drugs being common place in athletes lives to get the most out of their careers. This is reflected by the likeness of Smash in the Friday Night Lights, as he resorts to using performance enhancing drugs to improve his level of football. Recently there has been significant use of illegal doping or use of performance enhancing drugs as everybody aspires to be better than the rest. With the likes of 100m sprint event, nineteen runners have run under 10 seconds this year, compared to six in 2007. This shows that the level is getting higher and some are resorting to drugs to keep up. David Howman, the chief executive of the World Ant-Doping Agency, believes that one in 10 athletes are cheating.
Lastly is the idea that sport, as a life choice or path is in fact extremely risky and therefore many are moving away from being overly committed to their chosen sporting code. Injuries in sport, as the level has increased so dramatically have also increased dramatically. Some of which can be career ending, life changing and in extreme cases even life ending. This article shows of some of these injuries which truely change lives of high level athletes. This is represented in Friday Night Lights through the character Jason Street, as his life will never be the same again after his injury. He will be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.
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| Jason Street |
This reinforcement theory leans on the character of Matt Saracen, we believe what the media is portraying him because he really in genuine as a character and we see that in ourselves today as it reflects our own life goals, values and life choices. Matt looks out for his family and puts his grandmother first and instead of being a high school football star he pursues other life choices, because he is not a superstar, whilst being a talented individual he does in fact play football for fun. Which today is hard to come by with those whom take high school sport seriously the term fun. It shows that there needs to be a balance in life.
Friday Night Lights is a perfect example of the cultivation theory, we subscribe to it and watch it so intently because it shows us what we want to see, which is more complex in depth characters than the typical stereotype that is so often portrayed in other media texts on the Geek and Jock. This is evident by its reception of the television series, despite it not having a high viewership it was met with critical acclaim and has a strong fan base which really was how the show was marketed, with Universal strongly pushing it for its on demand service as a show which it gathered most of its fan base. This further reflects the cultivation theory, that people go out of their way to view the text because it has such well developed characters which you can feel close to over the typical stereotype and therefore the show has succeeded where others have failed because it is a better representation of society today and shows that characters on television can be complicated just like us with reviewer Alan Sepinwall said "Few shows are as willing to so directly confront the emotions of its characters, aided by central performances." and magazine Salt Lake Tribune saying "For five seasons, Friday Night Lights was both the simplest and most complex show on TV. It felt like real life, and real life is complicated."
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