My Aha Moments!

My first aha moment came when I realized that Benjamin Franklin has been a part of almost every aspect of the media.

He is located on pages 21, 61, 89, 96, 120, 121, 128, and 402.
I thought he was just famous for electricity!

This was a really cool moment because it made me aware of the full effect of media. For an entrepreneur/scientist/inventor to be so intertwined with the media, means it really is important.

Another, not so happy, aha moment came when I was told (in all of my classes: news writing, mass comm, feature writing, and la voz) that I dont matter, just the reader. Man! What a blow to my ego. Oh well, at least I know now!

A little help?

Can you guys please do me a favor, and VOTE on the poll I created for my newswriting class?
It would be really helpful. Cecilia would appreciate it too, thanks! You guys are the coolest.

Week 10: Media Ethics

The story of professor Weiler is one about a case of international libel gone bad.
It goes like this: a professor makes a statement (which some find to be inaccurate) on a website. He makes his statement by means of an Amazon book review to be more precise (what happened to free speech right?) Anyway, from what I gather, free speech laws are non-existent in France, but libel laws are more stringent. Which is the opposite of what happens in America (where the NYU professor is from)

So, I guess this story has been going on for awhile (since 2008) but he is just now being prosecuted. I dont get it, I dont ever want to study media law.

Week 9: Public Relations

-bandwagon
this commercial is a really extreme version of bandwagon, it literally has some dude walking through the streets singing:
-repetition
"I'm a pepper, you're a pepper" pepperpepperpepperpepperpepperpepperpepper.
-slogans
"I'm a pepper" is (or was?) one of Dr.Pepper's slogans.
-maybe a little euphoria?
I don't know if I'm just making this out to be more than it is, but this random, really cheerful guy skipping through the streets made me pretty euphoric.

Week 8: Research Project

WOAH, look at all the info. I have never seen so much in a youtube video info box. I am doing my media research project with Kat and we decided to look at Chinas ban on Google. The topic deals with censorship in the media. One of the more interesting pieces of information we cam across was about the controversial artist and blogger Ai Weiwei.

Week 7: Internet

-wow, yeah right, i am not about to count all of those!
-i have a accounts with: deviantart, facebook, flickr, had a friendster, last.fm, livejournal, myspace, okcupid, and twitter. i havent really heard of any of the sites that i dont belong to.
-melodramatic.com is a website that i used to go on, its like a cross between livejournal and myspace. it was also directed towards artists. its where jefree star first showed up online.
-vampirefreaks.com is supposedly really controversial. the goth based community site has been the cause of murders, rapes, and age inappropriate relationships between its members.
-you use social networking by signing in and using whatever outlet the website gives you to chat, anything from a webcam to a text message.
-i am friends with my mom on facebook and i am CONSTANTLY getting in trouble with her for cursing over the internet. i love my mom but how can she honestly tell me what to do online? i am not hurting anybody, just expressing my feelings. i think she spends too much time on farmville, its warping her mind.

Week 6: Television

The length of the video: 1:51

A description of the video in your own words: this is a typical Family Guy episode where the family sings about something controversial, in this case they are singing about the FCC after Peters starts his own unregulated television show in which he has content that the FCC would not approve of.

The name of the corresponding chapter in our textbook: Ch.9 Television mostly, but all the chapters mention the FCC.

A course related quiz question to go along with the video: Should books ever be censored by government?

An answer to the quiz question: Never! Books are media and the job of the media is to be the fourth estate of government. censored books would limit if not completely rid the media of that responsibility.

Week 5: Recordings

My favorite sound recording of 2009 was Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home.
I loved it because in my opinion there were only two good NEW bands to release albums that year.
I was SO excited to finally have something decent to listen to besides Phoenix.



My favorite oldie of all time is I Want You, I Need You, I Love You - by Elvis Presley.
Elvis is my first love and favorite recording artist of all time.
I like this particular song (and video) because the lyrics and performance are raw and sexual in an Ed Sullivan kind of way.

Week 4: Magazines

NAME:
Waif Weekly
CONCEPT:
Skinny girls need love too! Most women's magazines deal with average sized or curvy women, this is a magazine for anorexic and bulimic women.
DEMOGRAPHICS:
Women ages 16-29, mostly white, models, California and New York with body issues and eating disorders who wish to keep up their lifestyle.
COMPETITION:
Any fashion magazine will be competition but hardcore pro-anorexic's will be glad to finally have a magazine that publishes "thinspiration."
ADVERTISERS:
recovery centers
pharmaceuticals
pro-ana websites
lookbook.nu
this one is just a joke
ARTICLES:
"diet tips"
"helpful pro-ana websites revealed"
"BMI calculator"
"interview with Kate Moss"
"15-pages of thinspiration"
COVER:
All of the covers have some sort of waif model, this issue is a popular one in the anorexic community, its a skeletal model and her makeup artist getting ready for the runway, the red background just emphasizes how skinny the model actually is. the title is bold, but the rest of the writing is thin, obviously.




P.S. I dont promote eating disorders, or condone them. That's your deal, I'm not judging.

Week 3: Books

The three books that have most influenced me are:

Plato's "Apology"
I read and reread this book constantly, its like a bible to me. Plato is my idol and I look to him for inspiration and advice in times of need. Sometimes I find myself being attacked or my values being questioned, all I have to do is quote Plato somehow the argument ceases to exist.

"I met a man who has spent a world of money on the Sophists, Callias the son of Hipponicus, and knowing that he had sons, I asked him: "Callias," I said, "if your two sons were foals or calves, there would be no difficulty in finding someone to put over them; we should hire a trainer of horses or a farmer probably who would improve and perfect them in their own proper virtue and excellence; but as they are human beings, whom are you thinking of placing over them? Is there anyone who understands human and political virtue? You must have thought about this as you have sons; is there anyone?" "There is," he said. "Who is he?" said I, "and of what country? and what does he charge?" "Evenus the Parian," he replied; "he is the man, and his charge is five minae." Happy is Evenus, I said to myself, if he really has this wisdom, and teaches at such a modest charge. Had I the same, I should have been very proud and conceited; but the truth is that I have no knowledge of the kind."

Bukowski's "Love is a Dog from Hell"
This is the first book by Bukowski that I ever read. It is a book of poems in which the style of writing is so simple, anybody could fall in love with it. However, he uses great symbolism, imagery, and allusions to other works of art, music, and literature that only a cultured reader would be able to understand and relate to.

Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"
I am guilty of being a student who used to only read what was assigned. This book was the first to break me out of that stereotype. I read it in sophomore year of high school, I will never forget learning about all of its wonderful imagery and harsh criticism of 1920's lavishness. Our class even had a "Gatsby" theme party in which we all tried caviar, learned the Charleston, and dressed like flappers, it was so much fun to pretend to be from that era for a class period. After reading this book I picked up all of my grandfather old Fitzgerald books (complete with dogeared pages and personal notes and observations) and read every single one.

Week 2: Media Impact

As an avid reader I am going to take the Kindle and apply McLuhan's theory of "Technological Determinism"




Object: Kindle
Amazon.com - Kindle
Enhances: Access
You can have a large number of books at any given time because it is so portable.
Reverses: Bad eyesight
News sources, doctors, friends, they have all informed me that gadgets like kindle, the iphone, etc. can cause deteriorated vision.
Obsolesces: Books
There is something about the smell of a book, the flip of its pages, the wear of its binding, that is lost with the invention of the Kindle.
Retrieves: Story time
Maybe with this new device the age old practice of reading your children a bedtime story will become more convenient and more widely performed by parents.

Week 1: Media Autobiography

Here is a list of the 8 types of media that we learned this week in order of importance, according to me:

Books
-I try to read everyday for leisure, that usually doesn't happen when I am enrolled in school.
-I am reading The Da Vinci Code, it is a fantastic book.
-One of my goals in life is to make enough money to afford a house in which I can keep a library
-Along with my collection of 500 or so vintage books passed on from my grandfather [he was a Unitarian minister, he left behind THE BEST selection of books ever] and my old high school library [when they remodeled they stocked up with all new books too] I spend about 50 to 100 dollars a week on new and used books from used bookstores and Amazon.com.

Magazines
-I have 2 magazine subscriptions, National Geographic and Nylon.
-I am a photojournalism major, nature magazines like NG, fashion and culture magazines like Nylon, and travel magazines like NG's Traveller magazine are what made me want to pursue photojournalism as a career.
-The only reason magazines are second on my list is because I feel that my generation is getting lazy, they need to start reading more, since when did 200 pages in a row become too time consuming? This media A.D.D. excuse that our textbook author offers is very true, but since when could people not overcome A.D.D.? Last time I checked, it was completely possible.

Recordings
-Music is very important to me, my first CD was Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill."
-At this moment in time I have 21.61 GB of music in my iTunes alone.
-I hate to say it but I am the type of person who will judge someone based on their musical preference, not in a musical elitist way, but because I believe that taste in music can say a lot about someones personality.

Newspapers
-Daily newspapers are very important to me because it seems like they are going extinct even though everybody I know and love still reads them every single day.
-The layout, the immediacy, the text, the length, the cartoons, the columns, the ads, everything about a newspaper comes together so beautifully.
-I cant stand when something so aesthetically pleasing becomes yet another member of the cultural endangered species list, and that's why newspapers are number 4 on my list.

Internet
-I hate myself for putting the Internet so high in my list but no one can escape the importance and convenience of it.
-I have a blog, a myspace, like 10 emails, a facebook, online banking, flickr, twitter, you name it.
-When I was 7 I was dancing around in the living room to my favorite TV show. I fell down and broke my wrist. My family had not heard me, or chose to ignore me screaming because they were all huddled around our new personal computer, complete with- INTERNET.
-I made it to the hospital 2 hours after I broke my wrist.
-Maybe I'm just bitter.

Movies
-I am a huge film buff too but movies have always been more of an art form to me than a form of media, that is not to say that I don't consider music, magazines, and newspapers art however.
-If I let myself view movies as media more than art, I would never watch a movie again. I would be so agitated by the over the top Michael Bay and James Cameron advertising that I would boycott movies for the rest of my life. The product placement, the big name celebrities, the prices of the popcorn at the movie theater, these are all aspects of movies that I loathe.

Radio
-I don't listen to it, I don't see the point.
-It's really restricting. Why would I wait to listen to a good song when I can Grab my iPod? Why wait for a talk show when I can read about a hot topic in the paper, a magazine, or online with the touch of my index finger?
-Think about this too, how much alone time do you really get everyday? I love to drive with my windows down and let myself think without the pressure of conversation or unintelligible background noise.

Television
-The 20th anniversary episode of The Simpsons is on right now, my parents are watching it, do I care? No.
-Anything worth seeing on TV is worth seeing again and again and again, that's why I have a Planet Earth and Metalocalypse seasons 1 and 2 on DVD.
-Does that still count as TV? It probably does, but I don't have cable in my room so I am sticking with my original argument.


♥ Kelsey