The two readings for this week looked at the philanthropic activities through active consumptions of consumers. I think both of the articles gave interesting arguments because we don’t often realize that charities that we do through our simple generosity are in fact heavily influenced by our consumerist culture.

Michael Elavosky’s article looked at two music live events Live Aid and Live 8. Live Aid (1985) was held by a singer Bob Geldof to build civic awareness and donations for famine relief in Ethiopia. Elavosky said that even though the event was successful in generating donations, it did not succeed in raising people’s consciousness in the issues in Ethiopia. In 2005, Bob Geldof again launched another concert charity called Live 8. This time, Bob paid his attention to addressing the economic inequalities in Africa rather than raising donations. The author argued that although the event gained big media attention, it didn’t necessarily lead to audience’s deep engagement in the issues. He concluded that music has potentials to change the world but it needs to create listeners’ symbolic associations with the issues.

Payam Akhavan’s article looked at GAP’s Red Campaign, which was an attempt to raise money for AIDs cures in Africa by donating portions of sales from its products. He argued that it is important for us to be aware that the campaign had motives for the economic benefits of the corporation, and he also criticized the campaign because it bracketed together many African countries as one thing without considering uniqueness of each country and failed to report what the money was actually used for, and so on.

The third reading by David Hesmondhalgh had some relevancy to the topic of our discussion this week as it talks about media corporations’ strategies (ex. using stars) to increase monopoly and effects of commerce on shaping our culture.

What I found very interesting in this week’s readings and Monday’s class discussion is that why many charities are targeted toward international issues more and less toward domestic issues. One argument I would make is that we like helping people that are considered economically and socially inferior to us more because it helps us maintain our high sense of selfesteem. I learned from another comm class that whenever a tragic happens, media are more likely to portray people in poor countries and people of color as helpless victims who need support and can’t do anything by themselves. So we feel like we need to help them because it makes us feel good. On the other hand, when that happens to people similar to us, we are less willing to help them unless we get social recognition by helping them or feel empathy towards them (like probably because you have been in a similar situation before).

This week’s first reading, United as One by Elavsky, was very interesting to me because I was aware of concerts and records being used to raise money and awareness for different social and political issues throughout the world.  However, I was unaware of the backlash and criticism that came along with these concerts and records.  I found it shocking to read that the English band, Chumbawumba, released an album titled Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records, in an effort to criticize the music charity trend that was gaining popularity.  It had never occurred to me that the media coverage of such events could create a misconception in the minds of the public when it comes to these developing countries and humanitarian issues.  The reading did a great job of explaining the differences between the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, which was a lot of new information to me.  The fact that Live 8 had a lot of political influences and its connection to the G8 was very significant and drew a lot of criticism.  By the end of the reading my thoughts on these concerts and albums aimed at raising awareness and money had changed significantly.  I could not help but think about the ulterior motives after reading about corporate sponsorships generating profits and the expensive gift bags performers at Live 8 received, which were valued at $3,000 to $12,000.

The second reading, Ownership is only part of the Media Picture by Hesmondhalgh, explained how there are more problems in the media industry than just the concentration of ownership that is usually focused on.  It pointed out that the media industry faces higher failure rates than most other industries, which can be seen in the music industry where less than two percent of the 30,000 albums released each year sell over 50,000 copies.  I had never realized just how low the percentage of albums that sold more than 50,000 albums was.  I thought it was interesting to learn about the different strategies the media industry uses to cope with the high levels of risk they face.  Overall, I enjoyed this article because I thought it did a good job at showing both sides to the argument.

The third reading for this week, Compassionate Consumerism by Kuehn, was based on the different African causes that various celebrities have turned into popular culture.  It had a specific focus on the product RED campaign by Gap, Inc and how the use of the sale of commodity goods to raise awareness affect the culture and society.  I found this reading to be particularly interesting because I had heard of RED before but I did not realize is was started by Gap.  I know that I typically do not buy products advertised for things like this because from a personal standpoint I think some of the companies do it in an attempt to increase their sales by targeting people who truly just want to help others.

         There are several foundations and charities in our society that we never question what the actual meaning behind these campaigns are. The readings for this week all discuss the actual impact companies like GAP and fundraising campaigns like Live 8 have done to not only the countries they are supporting but to our own society.

            In Kuehn’s article, Compassionate Consumerism, she analyzes the RED campaign by GAP. She goes into debt as to how the company has used celebrities to further their cause and how they have designed the shirts to their own eyes the representation of the entire continent of Africa. For every item RED item sold, there will be a hungry child or family being helped. There is nothing wrong with fundraising and making campaigns such as these but it is not necessarily pure philanthropy if they are helping themselves increase profit. In my opinion, there should be no reward when a company wants to be part of this sort of thing. However, that wouldn’t be capitalism is they didn’t have anything to gain besides a good reputation.

            Then in Elavsky’s article, United as One, he explains the difference between Live Aid and Live 8. Live Aid was more focus on the money aspect and then in 2005, they focused more on the awareness. Personally, I love music and I got the DVD of the Live 8 concert for my dad who also shares my love for music. It is a great deal to have five cds with acts from all sorts of genres and they are all highly acclaimed artists. But we have to admit, the despite that the whole reason for the events was to raise money and awareness, the people that attended or bought the DVD were more interested in seeing their favorite artists along with other acts perform one stage.

            In class we brought have the question of why help other countries first before focusing our energy on improving our country? Well, after reading these articles there are still a sense of placing our country first before everyone else. Yes, it might not be directed toward education, healthcare or the fact there are still areas in the United States sleeping at night hungry. Instead, the benefit that the Americans are probably seeing from these philanthropies is that there is the idea instilled in us and the rest of the world that we can help others because we have the power, means and the resources to do so; therefore, no other country can challenge the power and maybe even the generosity of the United States.

            This thought is absolutely alarming and there is nothing wrong with campaigns and the concerts. But we have to make sure that someday when we are in that position, we can make it better and less greedy. According to the article by Hesmondhalgh, Ownership is only part of the Media Picture, it discusses that there is more a person can do to improve these movements. Owners will fund what they like and what they think will increase their income; however, we need to propose a better plan.