Our last day.

Well, sitting in class the last day is kind of weird. I actually think i'm really going to miss a school class for once in my life. I just finished my last word, and I think it pretty much states what I am going to say here on this blog. Finishing up this blog is kind of sad too considering i spent so much time working on the posts that I might even keep up my posts once in a while. Here is a clip of the letter I wrote to Mark, maybe it will say a little bit morea bout what I think.

"The blogs were obviously the most important part of the whole course because of its weight. I have to admit, by the end of blogs I heard a lot of people moaning and groaning about it, but I wasn’t to stressed. I am in the image arts stream, but I enjoy writing too, and the blogs allowed to me to a lot of critical thinking, self-reflection, and in general writing. I actually think my writing has improved because of this course, and I’m not just saying that because I want a good mark."

Maybe I will write on here in a bit...

The End.

Short Video Experience...

For our video group project, we decided to make a video about a topic and concern everyone has with themselves and with others. We decided to pick a question and get people to answer it on film; If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? We each came up with different questions originally, but decided that this was the best one and that it would be great for people to answer. We thought we may even be able to get some interesting comments about people and what they really thought of themselves. Here is a list of some of the answers we recieved.

- Love Handles
- Big Feet
- Want to be more athletic
- Younger
- Taller
- More outgoing

Most of the answers we recieved were about peoples physical self, but nothing drastic like being fat and wanting to get skinny, or not being anorexic etc. The one answer I personally thought was really good was the last one on the list; to be more outgoing. The impact was big because the person getting interviewed was on the co-ed study floor, and it seemed like his personality was really outgoing just by talking to him for a second. I liked how he was serious about his answer, and was really honest about everything. I think the actions people do show their personalities more than their personalities show themselves...if that makes sense.

In the end, we had some computer and file compatibility issues and did not even get to create the video, we were just left with the clips of these indivduals which made us a little mad after all the running around we did to get the clips.

Technology rules...but it sucks sometimes too!

Podcast....On The Subway!

Script:

Kevin: Welcome to the tour of the TTC, the subway addition
Kyle: TTC stands for Toronto Transit Commission and its been running since 1925 beginning with trains, but the subway itself was built form 1949 to 1954
Katie: The Younge Street line was the first subway in Canada, but it only came into commission was in 1964!
Kyle: And, it was the beginning of postwar Toronto's effort to accommodate the demands of the city's prosperity and its future.
(Subway chime)
Kevin: What you just heard was the sound that prepared the passengers that the doors are about to close.
Kyle: So here we are on the subway riding south towards Union Station.
Katie: The Yonge line has 16 spot going from Finch Ave. all the way to Union Station in down town Toronto.
Kevin: There are 3 different lines so it is possible to get any where in Toronto. And they are currently planning on extended the Yonge line into York Region, by York University and into the city of Vaughn.
Katie: So while we’re on our subway ride, we’ll give you a few tips about the subway and some other stuff.
Kyle: Here’s an interesting fact, the subway has had over 25 billion riders since 1921.
Kevin: That’s almost 4 times the world’s population.
Kyle: So we started at the Finch station and now are at Bloor and Yonge. This is the station where you can switch subway lines if you need to go east to west when going north to south.
Kevin: But since we’re doing our tour from Finch Station to Union Station we are continuing on this subway.
Katie: Oh look at that guy over there, he’s playing a violin!
Kyle: Yeah, they’re called buskquers.
Kevin: In 1980, the TTC began a program called Subway Musicians Programme.
Kyle: The TTC allows musicians to audition and the ones who make it can perform in the subway entrance and as people walk by they throw change into their instrument case.
Katie: Oh cool!
Kevin: Yup, there are a lot of cool things that happen in the subway. It’s not just a way of transportation.
Kyle: Well there’s not much more to say on this tour.
Katie: Yeah the only thing left to do is enjoy the ride.


This is a script of a podcast that we worked on. We decided to use the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) as our sort of guide to the city. The subway is used daily by thousands of people around and in toronto, and really is behind the scenes, an important part to Toronto's history. Thousands of people rely on the subway to get them from one place to another, and at the same time don't even think about the conveinience of it.

One of the most interesting facts we found was that over 25 billion people have rode the subway since its opening, which is an incredible amount of people to be going from one place to another.

Overall, I think this project was a great success, and we really did explore a lot to do with both transportation in general and the TTC specifically. The project was worth doing for sure.


Script:

Coming to the End!

Well, There is only one Mass Comm class left and to tell you the truth im happy in some ways and sad in others. I learned a lot this semester, and like Mark said at the beginning of the semester, he figured and from previous responses that this would be one of our hardest and most interesting classes throughout our whole university experience.

So Far, it has been great, this is defenetely the most interesting class I have been a part of and I am happy for the most part on my success thus far. Hopefully these blogs will be a job well done, as I have spent lots time, effort, and thought on making each one of these posts unique for myself and sort of interesting for others to. The whole point of blogs is self reflection, so although this blog is in essence for Mark Lipton, it is not essentially geared towards him. My thoughts are true to what I think and nothing is made up. I personally am not a fan of liars, nor fake people, I despise celebrities, reality shows, and pop icons because they are all fake. It's stupid to lie in this world and at some point it will catch up with you. I Have friends none the less that live by this fake crap and I can't take it, it changes their lives whether they think so or not.

So! getting past that, I just hope that everything I have written has been a true self reflection, and that my effort in all my writing will pay off!

It's Crunch Time!

A Timeline of Social/Media/History

This project asked our group (Katie, Kyle and Myself) to investigate some of the most important inventions, and map what they were and how they've changed. We began with making our poster vey simple, and outlined the major ideas followed by similar ideas, inventions, and other things that have come from each of these major inventions or revelations. Each of us contributed a different invention, and I think each one of us knew what they were before we even discussed it. Anyways, here is the breakdown of what we thought.

Language/Speech (50,000 yrs ago) - Language was probably one of the most useful invention of all time. Language and speech are so important because they can effectively communicate our words and sounds up until this very day. Humans no longer had to draw pictures or grunt or act out what they were trying to communicate, they were able to use words. Although it may not be the same kinds of languages we use today, without this we my have never become so intelligible to actually speak.

The alphabet (over 4000 yrs ago) - from the alphabet came the invention of spelling and grammar which eventually turned into books etc. The alphabet has made it easier for humans to learn and read about new information and effectively communicate with each other through reading and writing.
The Printing Press (1430’s) - the printing press gave humans the ability to mass produce books and newspapers not only once but millions of times. The printing press has given most people the privilege of books and learning how to read. The world has become a lot more educated and informed because books, newspapers and magazines can be mass produced.

Typewriter (1886) - Books no longer had to be hand written when the typewriter was invented. The typewriter allowed work to be completed a lot faster then before. It also provoked inventors to later invent the computer etc.

Semiotics Paper....Oh the Humanity!

Well, today, we talked about a few important things and ideas but one of the most important things we talked about was our marks on our semiotic analysis papers, worth 30 percent of our mark. Mark talked about how 69 (our class average) was the highest average on the papers he had in the last few years for the Mass Communications class which was pretty good to hear. I was still scared. I had worked hard on it, but i didnt think i worked as hard as a possibly could on it because I had a lot of other things due the week i submitted it. Ever since I came to university, I have been working a lot harder than I did in in high school because now I have to pay for it myself, and why waste money on something that I am going to use in my future!

SO, when i received my paper back at the end of class, I took a quick look and on the front page the word thesis was followed by a question mark. THESIS? That sure as heck did not seem like a good sign, but then there was also a checkmark after. I didnt know what to think, so I continued to the back and saw my mark; 69; the class average. Although this was not as good of a mark as I wanted to get, I was happy that I did as well as a lot of other people, and even some of my friends got really low marks.

Now all thats left to do is finish these blogs which are obviously the biggest part of this whole course, and to write the last word to Mr. Lipton. I'll write again in a bit to give some updates on how I am doing on these blogs and the last word.

Coming Home

When I went off to school, I was very excited about living away from my parents for long periods of time and being able to control everything in my life. After a couple weeks without my family I began to realize what they did without me knowing it, and what I now need to do for myself. They always cleaned the dishes, washed my clothes, made great home made food for me, bought me things, and above all were always there for me if say, I got a bad mark on a project. Now, whenever I am at school I have to do these things for myself, and it kind of sucks but I am getting used to it. Coming home for a weekend here and there really helps, and reminds me how much I really miss my parents. The Christmas break will be fun, having a month to see friends and spend time with family while managing a job at my local Bestbuy. This weekend particularly was spent catching up with a few friends, doing some homework, and contacting my managers at work to see where they can fit me in for the holiday season. Christmas is an exciting time, and I can't wait until it comes but before then it is going to be a busy few weeks, and it is beginning to start now. At the end of November I am heading to Ottawa to see my best friend for his birthday, so it should be a really fun time because I here it is really nice in the winter up there.

The Media and its Ridiculously Outrageous Influence

For the Mass Communications writing portion or writing assignment, everyone had to do a semiotic analysis of a certain commercial, advertisement or something media related. We were told we had to relate this to at least 3 different texts we have had to read throughout the course. To start off, I think this assignment is great even though it took a while, because it encourages to use the new knowledge we have learned through the readings and apply to an actual media.

I began looking across the internet on different websites, including YouTube, Google Videos and Yahoo Videos just to name a few. Then through searching, "Media Commercial" on YouTube I found on the 5th page of videos one advertisement for a Superbowl Commercial that was appealing to me, and I knew would be great for my paper.

For my semiotic analysis, i decided to base my opinions and relations of the texts and course related media to a Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears as the main attraction. The three course readings I based my relations on were Amusing Ourselves To Death, Ways of Seeing and Understanding Comics, all of which could be related to this one Pepsi commercial in a substantial way. I think i did a good job of combining the ideas of technology, women, and color from the ideas found in these three texts in to a satisfying and compelling argument about the sexiness, color, and advertising in the commercial. My paper came together as such: intro, 1st and 2nd paragraphs general ideas, 3rd Postman relation, 4th Berger relation, 5th McCloud relation, conclusion. I think the way i organized my paper was an important part of delivering my message clearly and more effectively with starting off general and leading to more specific texts which not everyone has read.

Here is the video:



Overall, I worked pretty hard on this project, and I think my relations, the commercail i picked, and my ideas were solid enough to get a pretty good mark, and coming out of this project I have learned more on how to look for underlying ideas in media.

Activism is KEY

For Mass Comm, everyone has to do an activist project for one of the seven group projects, and i think this is one of the best out of the 7. It is good because it allows everyone to get together and form a sort of alliance and do something good for a change. One of the biggest concerns recently in the world has been pollution within cities and large factories around the world. There are so many different products in our society that are easy to make, cost basically nothing to produce, and are convenient, but definitely do not contribute to the environment in a safe and healthy way. When we first got together we all thought of this as one of the major concerns in the world that we as residence students see every single day when we are down in the cafeteria. STYROFOAM. Everyday as residents get their food, they are given Styrofoam containers without having the choice of that or a plate. This, although very cheap to do is horrible because styrofoam has been proven to take nearly 500 years to decompose. 25 billion styrofoam cups are thrown away just by americans every single year, none of which can be made in to more styrofoam therefore making a process which is uncureable until it is completely stopped. For our project we decided that we would each make a poster with some facts and other options in order to fix this ongoing problem we have in the residence. The day after these posters went up, our group went down to get some food and see what the deal was on our idea, and it seems there actually were noticeably more people with plates. This was fantastic, and let us know that just doing one or two good things can actually change the world just a bit and maybe save it for another couple minutes.

Group Media Map Layout...

Today, our group (Kyle, Katie and Myself) got together to start and finish our media map. We each had sort of read over the ideas of the project and what it was supposed to turn out like, but all in all we were all pretty lost on what to do. When we got together and started putting our heads together, we began to realize the task at hand. What we had to do was find a certain company or big gun branch that owned a variety of companies that people would never know were actually owned by that one big company.

After some thought, our group decided to go with CTV (Canadian Televison Network) which we began to search for information on www.yourmedia.ca. We found some relative information regarding media ownership, and then continued on to other sites such as wikipedia and ctv.ca in order to find who the company actually owns. The information we found was pretty astonishing, and it turns out CTV actually owns the Globe and Mail, many radio stations, and even has a relation to the Toronto Maple Leafs (not like that is a good thing!)

Out of this project, our group learned that not only is there more than meets the eye when it comes to girls, but media ownership as well and that it is a compound thing that we need to understand or else in our future things may go wrong when we do not give credit to who really deserves it. This was a successful project in the end even after all of our debating on what we really had to do or make for this assignment!

Boring = Useful

Well today, we had the day off from Mass Comm, and frankly i was looking forward to have another heather debate for a couple hours. Ever since i was a kid i loved having arguments about things i truly believed in; just ask my parents. Every week in Mass Communications different topics arise and fall and some good debates and arguments are presented by different students. This is what makes it interesting to come to class every week; the student body participating in what really matters. I think the we are privileged to go to university as Lipton says, but i think we are even more privileged to be able to speak our own thoughts in a comforting but subtly conscientious environment. Everywhere around the world there are places that kids cannot go to school, but even in places where there are schools, speaking our minds is sometimes rough or hard to do.

Today, i was bored and started to begin writing some blogs, working on a photography essay, and catching up on some sleep. Everyone in residence is starting to get anxious because it is halloween tonight and there are apparently going to be some sweet parties happening, so I am looking forward to that after a long day of writing. This weekend is going to be critical for me because i need to stop procrastinating on work and start my semiotics paper which has been staring me in the face for the past week.

Readings, The Future, The Media, Bibliography.

In my future years at Guelph Humber it is going to be important that I have a list of texts and books i've read and want to read over the years. So, Heres the start to this list!

1)Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War by Ashley Gilbertson

2)Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames by Ian Bogost

3)Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

4)Five Myths of Television Power or Why the Medium Is Not the Message by Douglas Davis

5)Getting the Message: A History of Communications by Laszlo Solymar

6)www.nationalgeographic.com

7)Ways of Seeing by John Berger (re-read)

8)www.engadget.com

9)Facebook.

10)100 Days in Photographs: Pivotal Events That Changed the World by Chris Johns

Understanding Comics: What's Important

I always do a first look at a book when I buy it at a bookstore, and I do the same thing with magazines. I do not know if this is a common thing, and I don't even think it helps, but I do it every time no matter what.

When I bought all of my books for Mass Communications I flipped through every one like I do with any other book. Obviously one stood out because it was purely black and white comics. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud was this very book, and right away it took me by suprise...why is Mark asking us to read a really long comic book? This is what I had to figure out, and after I had read two other necessary books, Understanding Comics came along and I started to read it.

I guess you could say right away the comics explained what the book was going to be about. The third comic box in the introduction told me, "An examination of the art-form of comics what its capable of, how it works."

Two parts throughout the book interested me specifically, the first part beginning on page 24 and continuing on to page 27. These pages are all about the icon, and it starts off by talking about the painted Magnettes Pipe with a simple caption reading this is not a pipe. This is a very famous painting that deals directly with the media, because people simply think; uh yes this a pipe! When the semiotics of it are that it is a painting of a pipe which was originally a drawing of a pipe which was originally just a piece of blank canvas. In my opinion the idea of this is that their is iconic imagery in everything to do with the media today. This is what McCloud goes on to talk about on pages 26 and 27, and these two pages are simply just a bunch of icons saying that they are not what they really are. I found this effective especially because I am in image arts, icons and images are especially important to success and portrayal of images.

The next part I really liked I actually used as a reference in my semiotic paper, there is one part of the book that is all in color, and through flipping and eventually getting to this part, it just seemed more interesting and more effective. Chapter 8 talks about how colors are more effective, and using them in comics and such is more pleasing to the eye, and this is particularly true in my vision of what is a successful image. I love black and white photography and I love the classic sense to it, but color images are where photography is going, and where it always will continue to go.

Understanding Comics was a great book to read, and it really opened my eyes to the different portrayals of images in different medias and how they differ from writing...very effective!

Technology is MORE than you would expect!

Today, was one of my favorite Mass Communcations days, because there were a bunch of different ideas brought up that sparked interest specifically in some of my favorite things.

The first topic brought up was about how so many jobs are changing due to technology and its advancements. Mark mentioned how even some of media's jobs including journalism are being taken over by server's, and online news sources such as msn.com and google are completely computer controlled and can actually pin point each computer or users most common topics of interest by which web pages they have viewed. This seems outrageous! but, I knew this before we even started talking about it, because of course I am really interested in technology and how it has been changed so much throughout the past years. By writing these blogs, I am changing the way people view web pages and other blogs without even knowing it! By sitting right at this very computer and in this very webpage space, my ip address is being traced through servers which then send the information to other servers all over the web. This told me a bit more than I knew already, and frankly it told me what my mom has been telling me all these years; BE CAREFUL ON THAT INTERNET!

The next thing Mark began to discuss was the change in technology throughout the past few years and how each of the products has been such a huge factor in both the media and technology world we live in today. I thought the video shown in class was really cool, and it had some special way of locking me in to it and it did not let make take my eyes off of it once. It actually was one of the coolest videos I have seen in a while that actually meant something. My reactions from seeing this video are basically just my thoughts right off the bat and how each product changed the world and the media. For the most part, each technology changed the world for both good and bad. My example of this would be that ICQ is an awesome invention, and if i didnt have it I would not have as many friends or as much of a social life as I do, but on the bad side, a lot of bullying and other situations have come out from messenger programs such as ICQ and I have had first hand accounts with them. All in all, the video inspired me to think more about the effects of technology on the media, and myself as well. Considering my interest in technology, if feel as though this topic kind of effects me directly, and it inspired me to think even more about what insane future technologies will change the media even more drastically than they do today.

Documentary: March of the Penguins

For our group Documentary project we decided to watch a popular documentary that is completely to do with the lives and struggles penguins go through every year to reproduce. When we first got together and started talking about what documentary we should watch, we thought about doing documentaries by Michael Moore and some one the really popular criticisms on society which would be easy to relate to the media and so on. We chose not to watch one of these documentaries because we felt like we wanted more of a challenge of relating back to the media and its influences on everyone and everyones influences on each other.

We began by watching the film and discussing it a little bit afterwards about what is was about and such, then we took a break and went for dinner to sort of gather our thoughts and then return to the discussion after. So we came back from dinner heads held high to each give our opinions on how we each thought a group of penguins reproducing each year could possibly relate to the media. As everyone knows, the media is one of the biggest influences and factors in changing peoples opinions with or without them even knowing it. When I watched this documentary I began to think about how easy it is for peoples opinions to be changed, and i began to wonder whether mine had been changed. I began to think about how the media has changed our thoughts to think that the only really important things in life are celebrities lives, making money, and how much trouble Brittany Spears is getting in each week. This film made me really think back to what life used to be like when there was no forms of communication for the media. When everyone sat at the dinner table and had there dog sitting beside them (bingo-fallawfall) and they each told each other about their days at work, and everyone just had a good old conversation. Now from what I can see, and what i know most of my friends and my families do is just sit around the tv with their food in their hands, and watch an episode of family guy or some other family oriented tv show that of course has media's advertising all over it.

This film, as you can see inspires a lot of thought about how a group of penguins each year deals with the cold and meanwhile no one cares about them even though they are still God's creatures just like us and just as important as us. Yet, we being the supreme being (movie: the fifth element) are changing rapidly and beginning to simply forget about the rest of the world; which to me (being in image arts) is extremely important to keep thinking about as they do have effects on us we cannot even understand.

We The Media! and....The Glorification of Violence

We The Media was a really interesting read, there were so many different ideas about the media, and thoughts from hundreds of different authors, journalists, hobby writers and more. I think having all these different people corralate their ideas in to a piece of writing is great because there are so many different aspects and possible solutions for different media realted issues that arise.

One part I thought was really interesting, was the part on Violence Glorification. An author named Jon Carroll wrote a part of this section with his part entitled The Fear Years. Jon talks about how the television is the number one source of news for people even over newspapers. Through television, it is easiest to understand violence and the true scariness that people CAN die. Carroll talks about how viewers strive for blood and guts on television but really it is not that they actually like this content but rather that they are scared all the time and therefore do not see the reality of things.

At the end of a few of the sections in this book, there are true or false or other versions of this, and in this section a scary but true section describes some facts.
One fact mentioned that even children shows contain close to 26 violent acts or things within each our of it. THIS IS SCARY! When I was a kid I know I believed pretty much everything that I watched, and from the Flinstones to Leave it to Beaver, I know now that there really are violent acts in pretty much everything we watch. The problem with the media however is that it has pursuaded us enough to not even think about it as we watch it but rather let it soak in to our brains invisibly effecting us later.

There were a lot of ideas in We The Media, and I truly will use this as one of the once in a lifetime books I have read that I know I will use in the future.

Week 6

Today was an interesting class because we talked about one thing that would be the basis of our big paper to come near the end of the semester.

Semiotic analysis seems like an interesting concept, and after taking part of the discussion in this class, it seems completely logic. We discussed how the universe is a closed system, and that everything derives from something else originally. I think this is true because everything evolved from either the big bang or from any of the other ideas containing information on how humans got to earth. Semiotics deals with signs and text in the media, and the main thing I got out of this discussion is that we need to be skeptical of things different commercials, advertisements, and figures are telling us because it may just be in order to pursuade us to buy a product or something else.

From watching just a few commercials on youtube or on the television I really saw different things in the commercials just by taking a second look at them, and it is important for me to be able to see these things in the future of my media studies career!

Communication in the Media and Concepts

Today, was a really interesting day in class, and it was defenetely one of my favorite so far. When we were all settled in class and ready to go, we started to watch a commercial for one of the big jeans and clothing companies; GAP. I had seen the commercial before, so i knew what company it was advertising for as soon as i saw it. After we watched it once we sort of discussed lightly how celebrities are used to promote products for companies and such which already was something i had not thought about every time i had seen the commercial. As we watched it again, Mark told us to look for symbols and other little things that were sort of behind the scenes or in places we wouldnt usually look when watching the commercial originally. As we took a second view, and responded to Mark's questions a few different things were brought up and some things were noticed in the commercial that no one had even noticed. This picture on the right signifies one main proposition we brought up about how the left is always more dominant than the right and everything to do with Madonna in this video deals with things on her left side or for example her turning to the left. On the other hand, Missy Elliot seems to do everything with the right side including turning and even to the little things of the way scenes behind her move from the the right to the left which isn't as effective for the viewer. To begin to think about things like this is I feel is really cool because i am beginning to see different signs and look directly in to the media rather than just coolly observing it.

Week 3: Knowledge and Learning

Well, today was a very interesting class, and we learned a lot. Mark started off by talking about a couple different important ideas in Amusing Ourselves To Death about knowledge and learning. Postman's argument is that people have to work for knowledge, and that it does not just come from nothing; the same with learning. In my opinion, for the most part people have to learn in order to become knowledgeable, but I do believe in baby geniuses, and that people can really be born more knowledgable as others.

The next thing we talked about that I thought was pretty interesting was hierarchical knowledge. Hierarchical knowledge from what I learned is basically the building of one idea to the next, and the impact of one idea to the next. Original ideas are derived only from perceptions, and that is how everything begins.

A hirearchy if you didnt know is represented easily by a pyramid.

John Bergers Ways of Seeing is obviously a very controversial book, and there were some things I liked, some things I didn’t, and some things that I’d just like to talk about.

I’ll tell you the good first. All in all I thought the book was very well written, not just because Mr. Lipton said all the books we would be reading are good writing, but because I actually thought his way of persuasion and thought was smart. Whenever Berger discusses something or is getting a point across, he uses down to earth arguments, and agrees with both sides of the story in order to let the reader know that he knows what he is talking about. It is cool the way he uses his knowledge in order to persuade the reader in to thinking he knows what he is talking about, and then agreeing with him. It is sort of like scientists in the past, they simply come up with a formula that makes sense and everyone believes it.

The major thing I didn’t like about this piece is not technically the book itself but that it is from 1972. It is somewhat outdated, and although I did like some of the opinions and thoughts expressed in the book I felt like his views of women were misleading although I would completely agree with his view twenty or thirty years ago. His thoughts on the way men, “Act” and women, “Appear” seems completely agreeable if we were not in this decade, and with the way things are going women, “Act” just as much as men do, and from what I’ve seen men, “Appear” just as much as women do. Certainly some of his thoughts are feasible to this day but it seems just a bit too unbelievable.

Overall, I thought the book was VERY interesting, especially the essay about the nudes (no kidding eh?). I liked Bergers content and ways of portraying information, but like I said before some of his opinions were outdated.

Image Curation Group Task

For our first group project, my group decided to do the image curation project. Our slideshow includes images of sexy women from the past and present as well as nude photos from the past and present that each depict different meanings and visual portrayals of the media. Before writing my own blog, I took a look at Mark’s comment on one of my group members blog posting, and noticed that he did not think there was that clear of a message. I do agree with this, because really our slideshow is not that effective in portraying what we meant it to mean; skinny is sexy, and nude is crude. We established an idea that went along with sort of a feminist side of the story which agreed with women’s typical view of what they believe should be shown in the media and what should not. In my own opinion, I think our project was more a refelective of how the women and the photographers of each time period are influenced drastically to go by the standards of media in that period.

The slideshow in my subtle opinion was somewhat effective because it did show the differences and drastic changes that have gone through the way women dress and such, but it did not have a strong base argument that could have made it a lot more effective. This just goes to show you, practice makes perfect, and for next project we have more background information and more opinions to go with, making an even better, more effective project!

First Project Presentations

Today, was the first day of presentations for everyone. For this project, we were asked to create something that portrayed our understanding of the media, something that was self reflexive. As mentioned in my first post, I decided to make a newspaper article depicting three different gadgets that have or will have an impact on the media in the both the society and my life. When people began to go up to present, I seemed a little scared because although my project was creative and had a lot of though put in to it, bigger always seems better. With all the different videos, posters, and other big physical projects i felt overwhelmed with my 20 sheets of paper sitting in front of me. SO WHAT! I knew my project was good and I knew i would be fine so i continued watching and began to notice how creative some of my friends are and how some projects had such a strong point compared to others that did not seem to prove anything or be self reflexive at all. I think to most of my friends reactions as well, the two strongest projects no doubt the one with the banana on the piece of bristol board and the one that depicted different types of people in different situations including the jocks and cheerleaders as well as homosexuals and labels put on different people. Personally i thought the best one out of the two was Jeremiah's sock puppet presentation because it had such a clear message and such a creative sense to it that just engulfed me in to believing whatever the hell he said. THATS GREAT! if you can get at least one person to be completely understanding and believing of your project i think your successful. This to me was such a great presentation because it ended with a bang and at the end perfectly and very clearly re-stated the message being explained throughout his presentation.

When i got back to my residence room, i quickly Googled the word "Stereotypes" because i wanted to see what else i could find on the subject because i was so intrigued by Jeremiah's presentation. This is the first image that came up. I think it's awesome and just wanted to include it in this post. It describes his message and my feelings perfectly.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman is one of the required readings for our Mass Communication class. It is on the other hand a reading that in my honest opinion anyone in the media field should read. Sure it starts out pretty damn boring, but it does pick up the pace around the second half, and even in the dry parts there is something to be said. This sort of social criticism piece is effective in displaying the way the media is perceived by society and the way society perceives the media. This tandem arrangement works well in this piece because it gives Postman the opportunity to give support to both sides of the argument as well as stay focused on a specific point and I think because of this, it is effective writing. When Amusing Ourselves to Death was written, TV was not even that prominent yet Postman’s main argument is basically that anything that tries to take the upper hand on T.V and physical media will fail because it simply is not visual and not as appealing to the typical body. I completely agree with this, and being in the Image Arts program at Guelph Humber, a big part of my credibility comes from my images, and my feeling by going in to a stream that deals a lot with the physicality of proving points and giving opinions through photographs is my belief that the physically attractive arguments are more interesting and more appealing than writing. Sure, I love writing, and I know it is a BIG part of being successful in an image arts/media stream my main goal coming here and in the future is to prove my points through my photographs, and that’s all there is to it for me.

One part I liked in Amusing Ourselves to Death was part 5: The Peek-a-boo World. This section deals with my opinion and point exactly, talking about both photography, as well as T.V. Postman discusses how photography “shows” and how that is effective as well as how when people watch T.V they simply accept it and take it for what is; that is the simple but most easy to understand reason why T.V is so effective.

The Media Autobiography

Our first project. The first 10 percent of our final mark. Our first chance to make a good impression.

The Media Autobiography was an interesting project, which seemed valuable to the course and to our own sense of media because it allowed us to convey our own sense of media. For this project, i decided to make a magazine/newspaper article about some of my favorite forms of media: gadgets. This allowed me to go all out and explain in my opinion why i think certain gadgets and technologies are what are shaping the future for all of society. This project was worth taking my time on because i learned a lot more about the products, as well as how to somewhat assemble my own article. in terms of the writing portion, it was kind of hard writing for someone without having a bit of feedback or practice writing before doing a major assignment. On the other hand, i guess that is why we are in university, to learn how to do things for ourselves and to form our own opinions and ways of writing. I feel like i left enough time to work on this project significantly, and it did take me longer than most of my high school projects did, so it was a great introduction project for university!

All my information for the project was gathered from these great sources for technology.

www.engadget.com
www.cnet.com
www.gizmodo.com
www.macrumors.com
www.cnn.com

Kevin.

The First Session.

Well, last week was our first day of Mass Communications, and to tell you the truth it kind of scared me. There seems like a lot of projects, and within the first five minutes of Mark telling us it would be the hardest course we ever had at Guelph-Humber and the rumors i had heard before about Mark Lipton being a tough teacher, i was freaked. Although, first impressions were great, he seemed very helpful, and with his background in teaching it seemed like he will be very knowledgeable and we will learn alot over the course of these next twelve weeks. One of the main things we talked about that interested me was how with everything comes entropy (a word i learned in class) meaning all things end in chaos, and that with every intended purpose comes and unintended function which is what a lot of the media is today. With someone like the girl on Youtube who was representing South Carolina in the miss teen USA contest. This girl came up innocently to the stage and tried to answer a simple question and was obviously nervous and made a few mistakes. Her intended purpose was obviously trying to answer the question with her best abilities and relate it back to important things going on in the world like all the competors do in competitions such as this one. From there, came an unintended function which brought over 18 million users to view her making the mistake, and then all the way to her making fun of herself on tv shows just to make up for her stupidity. I think this is ridiculous but it is was media does to you, and i think its a great example of what we talked about in class! I thought i would post the video just to make it a bit easier to see what I am talking about.