The Use of Product Placement in E! Television Series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians"

I chose to watch Episode 2/Season 1 of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians." The reason why I chose to watch one of the early episodes is because I wanted to see how evident product placement was in a new show. Now that the show has been on for 7 seasons it has gained a lot of publicity and  everywhere you turn there's nothing but product placement. The episode that I watched was mainly about Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner, and how Kim was considering on firing her mother as her manager because she felt like she was unorganized and lacked communication skills. Kris's lack of communication skills and being disoriented in her worked traveled over to her personal life regarding other members of her family, especially her youngest children Kylie and Kendall and her husband Bruce.

In regards to product placement I spotted quite a few things. Some showed up a lot and some showed up very little. The products I noticed the most were "Smooch - A Children's Boutique," "DASH," and ""Range Rover." These three products I believe are examples of product placement. I say this is because those were the three products that showed up the most. The reason why they showed up the most (I believe) was because those were the things that the Kardashians owned and they wanted to bring the most attention to them. "Smooch" is a clothing store owned by Kris  Jenner and her daughter Kourtney. "DASH" is a clothing store own by Kim, Khloe and Kourtney, and both Kris and Kim own Range Rovers in the show.

There were other products shown throughout the show but none were as prominent as the ones I named above. The other products include: Entertainment Weekly, Gucci, Apple and ThiBaiant, which is a Spa that Kris Jenner went to. All of the products were shown very briefly, and most of them were shown only because one of the characters may have been using it at a point in time. For example, Kourtney was looking through Entertainment Weekly at a Gucci advertisement, Kris was using an apple computer when Khloe walked in her office to talk to her, and one of the spa workers wore the spa logo on their uniform. So since these products had little air time and wasn't reinforced by the characters through speech, I think that they aren't examples of product placement.

Does Comedic News have a Positive or Negative Impact on Society?

 

On October 15th, 2014 I sat and watched the most recent episode of "The Daily Show with John Stewart" that aired on Comedy Central last Thursday October 9th. Throughout the episode John's main focus was on the government. He began the show talking about how the largest shareholder (at the time), Hank Greenburg, former chairman and CEO of insurance company AIG, was suing the government. During this "financial crisis of 2008" AIG was just "hours away from going bankrupt," the government gave them 184.6 billion dollars in exchange for 92% of AIG's company value which was originally only worth 15.4 billion dollars.

Next he discussed how Republican leaders know that if they want to succeed in elections that they have to broaden their horizons and stop bring so close-minded. How now they've decided to put their focus on another group, "people who love gay people." He brings attention to how the Republican party is no longer running in opposition of same-sex marriage because it's a "political lost." Lastly John wraps it up with an interview with actor Jeremy Renner about his new role in the movie "Kill the Messenger," and how that movie reflects the government in various ways as well.

Overall the show was very entertaining; surprising it was very informative too. Before watching this show I was a bit skeptical about entertaining or comedic news. I believed that they were only making a mockery out of serious issues that people needed to know about. However, after watching this episode I changed my mind.

The way John Stewart runs his shows are excellent. The comedic examples he gives keeps the audience interested. He states facts and provides visual evidence to back up what he is saying. He explains the issues in a way that can be understood better by being able to understand and relate to the examples he gives. I think that by using this style it'll be able to grab the attention of younger audiences (20 - 35 yrs.) because he's comfortable in his own skin, he's having fun with what he's doing, and giving his commentary on the topic, making sure not to impose his own opinion on the audience.

I believe that comedic news is beneficial to society and that it doesn’t make serious topics less serious, because at the end of the day it still is news. It keeps you interested and it keeps you laughing, and nine times out of ten a person will remember the things that made them laugh and forever reflect on it.