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Ms. Greenfield concluded that "every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others." Our growing use of screen-based media, she said, has strengthened visual-spatial intelligence, which can improve the ability to do jobs that involve keeping track of lots of simultaneous signals, like air traffic control. But that has been accompanied by "new weaknesses in higher-order cognitive processes," including "abstract vocabulary, mindfulness, reflection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking, and imagination." We're becoming, in a word, shallower.

If you look at the application from this website (http://www.cwtv.com/thecw/topmodel-cycle20-casting), there is a requirement that you had to be 5 foot and 7 inches at the absolute minimum to be a model, but I was only 5 foot at the time, so wouldn’t be eligible. I always had hope, though, that by the age of 18, I would be tall enough to apply. I think that’s where the show starts to become bad for people, especially women. It makes us want to look different, in order to do the career we dream of.

it’s really altering their views on what an attractive woman looks like, and what kind of woman the media wants to see

The show is also teaching girls that you should want to be objectified, because all of the model contestants want so badly want to be a model, when models are really just a “thing” used to sell. When young girls see models on TV or in a magazine, they are seeing beautiful, air-brushed, computer altered women, who are actually not real. But since many girls believe that they need to look like those models, it’s making them have very poor self-image.

In the Ideal to Real TODAY/AOL Body Image survey, teenage girls revealed something unexpected: 65 percent said seeing their selfies on social media actually boosts their confidence. And 40 percent of all teens say social media helps "me present my best face to the world." 

Selfies seem inconsequential or goofy, but they can actually be incredibly important to teenagers, because they give teens a way to control the image of themselves that they’re showing to the world, experts say.

Still, for all that's empowering about selfies, teens — especially young women — naturally have mixed feelings about them. As long as young people are in control of the image, they are confident. But, in the TODAY/AOL body image survey, they acknowledge social media's power to make them feel bad about themselves, especially when confronted with glamorous, mostly happy, pictures of other people's lives.

Within these contexts, the act of arranging objects, images or sounds into an order that may or may not have meaning has proliferated throughout the creative and cultural industries. The curator is now a producer: you might curate your Flickr feed, your mates playing records at a bar or an exhibition in your own apartment – a trend showcased by the Serpentine Gallery's co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist, a master orator of what he calls a "global dialogue… in space and time".

A space has now opened up – both physically and online – where anyone can give curating a go.

What, then, if we're looking in the wrong place for qualified, ground-breaking curators? Perhaps they are no longer in museums, galleries or cultural institutions, but instead in front of a screen – sociable and connected. Curating in the age of the internet is the act of responding to social and technological developments: their usability, instability and the various networks of communication in which they are presented online.

"The cult of the selfie celebrates regular people," says Pamela Rutledge, Ph.D., faculty director of the media psychology program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

"There are many more photographs available now of real people than models." And posting selfies is an empowering act for another reason: It allows you to control your image online.

But let's be real: The most common selfie is the one where you look cute, partially because it's a quick way to get positive comments about your appearance. "If I feel pretty, I take one," says Maryland native Paris, 23. "When other people Like it, it's a mini boost of confidence.

fan clubs become more than simple, isolated groups of individuals with a particularly strong attachment to an individual celebrity or media text. Indeed, fan clubs as a medium serve specific, though different, functions for both fans and the music industry: they act as a conduit through which the fans' desire for contact with the artist is channelled, at the same time as they serve as a means for the promotion of tours and commercial releases. They can be used both to create a sense of identity and belonging and as a means of direct marketing.

popular culture is, by definition, "of the people," and it works against commodification (1989). In the present context, however, the fan clubs appear to operate in a more complex modality, with fan interests and industry interests feeding off of and reinforcing each other, rather than acting in opposition

In March, Pandora hired local sales staff in St. Louis as part of its strategy to court local advertisers, and it’s had success out of the gate landing customers. Don Brown Chevrolet, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis University and Panera Bread Co. are just a few of the advertisers that have booked ads on Pandora so far this year.

It’s spent the past two years expanding its sales staff nationwide.

Its regional sales staff of 60 employees nationwide is growing, and Pandora plans on ultimately having an office in each of the top 50 radio markets.

Accommodated as we are to mass media, we must work to imagine the impact of commercial radio broadcasting in its early years. From the late 1800s, new electronic devices had been expanding the realm of shared human experience — people conversed on telephones, sent news through telegrams, played records on phonographs, and enjoyed films in local theaters. But until the radio, nothing offered such widely shared simultaneous mass experience. By turning on your radio set, you could listen to a jazz band, baseball game, religious service, even a president’s speech, live, along with millions of fellow listeners.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang finished his four country tour of Africa, making stops in Ethiopia (including the African Union headquarters), Nigeria, Angola, and Kenya. China’s activities in Africa are increasingly gaining media attention around the world, particularly as speculation heats up about a competition for the continent between China and the U.S. (or even China and Japan).

Li promised to devote “more than half of its foreign aid to Africa,” with no conditions attached to the funding. Li pledged China’s friendship to Africa, and reiterated Chinese support for Africa playing a larger role in world politics as it continues to develop. Li also stressed that China “will never attach political conditions to its assistance to Africa and will never use its aid programs to interfere in the internal affairs of African countries,” a tacit criticism of Western countries who often refuse to provide funding to countries seen as human rights violators.

Li Keqiang also acknowledged in a speech that China-Africa relations have encountered some “growing pains,” a nod to tensions in some African countries over issues such as illegal Chinese mining operations and resentment against local Chinese traders. But Xinhua was quick to emphasize that these “growing pains” are “problems that inevitably occur during the development of relations” — meaning no one (especially not China) is to blame.