6/4/2009 Readings

Seiter, “Wrestling with the Web: Latino Fans and Symbolic Violence”

1. It was interesting to see in this research that the boys, Edwin and Andres loved wrestling, but professional wrestling only, when a helper of from one of the researchers college class seminars came to interact with the boys he told them about his Greco-Roman wrestling, the boys were clearly not interested in this. My question is, do the boys know that in the WWE that this wrestling if fake, would that impact their interest and passion for writing about it if they knew it was? What kind of reactions would we get from the young boys, and then would the interaction between Edwin, Andres and the college student Hunter be completely different, or would their passion for WWE stay the same and lack of interest for the other wrestling stay the same as well?

1. The idea that the “fake” stuff was more interesting to this group of boys was a little disturbing, does the way the media portrays wrestling have an affect on violence of younger kids in today’s America, like back then it was WWE that kids acted out stuff from, but now is it violent video games that could cause kids to act out violently, what does the impact of media, specifically things geared towards young boys have on them?


Coleman: The Menace II Society copycat murder case and thug life:

1. Throughout this research how does Coleman use his three discussed themes, masculinity, viewing style, and desired representation?

2. Do you think that if Coleman hadn’t gained one of the most important things to have in an ethnography study, or any research, trust from or be truthful towards Caryon this research would have failed? Think of the ideas of trust in previous readings, and what it really meant in this particular research as well. How did Coleman secure Caryon’s trust?