Class Response #4 (Radio)

   Am I really the only person that still listens to the actual radio? Now that there's youtube, pandora, iTunes radio, 8tracks, and probably a lot more resources that I don't know about, most people don't listen to the radio. But, back in the day, it was a huge hit.

an early radio (wow amazing)

   Nikola Tesla invented the radio in 1892, but it first became extremely popular around 1924-1930. 1930 to 1939 was even considered the "golden era" of radios. Radios revolutionized live media, which was something people had never had before. Instead of going to get a newspaper, they could just flip on the news on the radio. It was better for people who couldn't read, and children too, because all you had to do was sit and listen.
   Radio was also the main source of entertainment during this time, with shows like The Lone Ranger and Popeye, and families would gather around their radio to watch their favorites together. But, it didn't last forever, and soon TV was going to take over.
  TV demassified radio not by taking their advertisers, like it did to magazines and newspaper, but by taking their talent. They offered the radio show people spots on TV, where they could not only be heard, but seen too.
  Now, Radio is basically only targeted at
niche audiences, and that's why the commercials are usually specified to whoever is guessed to be listening to that station

Class Response #3 (Movies)

   From the picture camera being invented in 1888, to The Jazz Singer in 1927, to The Breakfast Club in 1984, to Thor 2 today, movies have been a part of people's lives. I never really understood, before the class discussion, why people still went to movies, I always assumed that that was the way it was and the way it was going to stay. But, now that I know I have a better understanding of movies and the cultural impact they have on us.
   I hadn't really considered why it was deemed weird to go to a movie alone, but now I realize it's because a movie is considered a social thing within our culture, and we all want to go together as a group. Another thing is the immersive experience, with the gigantic screen, the surround sound, and (usually) no distractions.
   I never was one of those people that had to be at the movies the day they came out, or to wait in line for hours to get in, but I know some people that are hardcore moviegoers like that.
   So, another thing that ties in with the hardcore moviegoers is that they have to be first. And I don't mean like the day it comes out or maybe a couple days after, I mean like midnight premiere dressed up as Katniss Everdeen and shooting arrows in the theater first. It's a thing, you know? You get to tell everyone you were there, and you went to that midnight premiere with all your friends, you were first, and it was so awesome.
   So, in conclusion, I don't think that movies are going to go anywhere, despite the fact that they are now available on different websites for free, even youtube.

Classmates blogs (Skye Spalding)

   Skye's blog is all-around really great. In both of the news media critiques she's done (1 & 2) she gave really good examples of news stories that proved her points exactly (that they were not newsworthy or violated one of the yardsticks/principles). I really enjoy Skye's writing voice, because it's not too stiff or professional, which I personally enjoy. Her class response on television (here) was very well written, and it gave a lot of information without being too long or wordy. It was also exceptionally well-organized which my OCD side thanks her for. Skye really gets her point across in every one of her posts, and you're never left with the thought "what did I just read?", "what was she even talking about?", or  "why is she in this magnet?". So A+ for you Skye. You go, friend (everyone better read her blog. I'm watching you.)

Classmates blogs (Morgan Johnson)

I'm not even going to choose one post for this, because Morgan's blog is just great all around. She makes very valid points, it's well written, and some of the things she mentions I wouldn't have even thought of before. One such thing was when she mentioned that the Courier is taking up more space with headlines and pictures than with actual stories, which is something I never would've picked up on (it's the newspaper, there's words and pictures and I don't pay any attention to the size of said things, but now that she mentions it I can definitely see a difference). She expresses her views and opinions very well through writing, and I suggest that you all go read her blog for some thoughtful and insightful posts.

David Camm fan club (a.k.a local news stations)

   During the 10 weeks that we followed the news, there was a trial going on of a man named David Camm. And we heard every possible piece of information they could possibly scrounge up on it. Why? Who knows. Was the story newsworthy? Not to the extent that they covered it.
   I can understand them updating us on the trial when the verdict was reached, but did we really need daily updates on the subject? This clearly violates the principle of make the important interesting, because this isn't really important to anyone's life besides the families of those directly involved.
   This also violates the yardstick of newsworthiness, because as I said before, it doesn't affect anyone really, and especially not for any significant amount of time.
   As for my news station, they were the worst about it, even setting up an entire twitter account dedicated to updates on the trial. David Camm was our lead story three out of ten times (which means that it was our lead story 30% of the time, which is ridiculous).
   I think local news has a lot to work on when it comes to newsworthiness and making the important interesting, and this is just one example of it. Is the David Camm trial really that important? No, but TV news made it out to be the trial to end all others.
   Also, it wasn't just WAVE. The other stations covered David Camm just as much, or at least close to as much as WAVE did.

Wave 3 (did you even try)

   During the news study, I followed WAVE 3, and the news on that station was actually a lot worse than I expected. My mom has always watched this station for news, and so when I started watching it I expected it to be a good station in general. But, unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that it is most definitely not. There was an average of 8 stories per show. Eight. And you'd think that because there were only eight that they would do more in-depth and newsworthy stories, but they weren't really. A lot of their time was taken up with sports and weather, and there were always a ton of commercials too. Every other news source (besides WHAS) had more stories than us per show/issue for the Courier.
   Before doing this project I had no idea that local TV news was as bad as it is. I knew Mr. Miller talked about it, but I hadn't really taken any time to actually think about the news I saw every morning before school. On average, about 40% of the show was crime, which is clearly violating the principle of inclusiveness.
   Why do they think crime is so much more important than other things happening in the world? We may never know.
   Besides not including other varieties of stories besides crime, they also did not do nearly enough reporting on the national and international scale. There were four national stories in the entire ten weeks we followed it, and there were no international. I do realize that this is a local news station, but I believe that national and international news should have a place there too. I don't know about others, but I want to know what is happening in my country and in the world.
   If they couldn't find any newsworthy local stories, why not report on something thats happening nationally? I'm sure most people would rather hear about our government than David Camm again...and again...and again.

Class Response #2 (The Internet)

   Ah, the internet, where I spend 75% of my time. Before we talked about the internet all I really knew about it was that I spend too much time on it, procrastinating what I really should be doing. But, as always, Mr. Miller's lecture enlightened me to a whole new world of knowledge.
   Although the internet hasn't demassified any other forms of media yet, I believe it will start to soon, as we have seen its affect on other industries, regardless of demassification. Why pay for cable when you can stream all your favorite shows? (either legally, using things such as Netflix and Hula, or illegally). Why pay for music when you can download your favorite album for free? The internet is eventually going to demassify all other forms of media, since most everything is now available digitally.
   About 1/3 of Americans get their news from the internet too. The internet has in-depth stories like newspaper, or you could on YouTube and watch a news type show on there. The news on the internet is free (as long as you don't pay for an online newspaper subscription) and it's easier to get to too (just sit down in front of your computer).
   Internet also has made people very interconnected with social networking. Social networking can be a great way to keep in touch with old friends and family that lives far away, or to meet new people that share a common interest, but it can also be a not-so-good thing. Recently, people that are hiring for jobs have started checking out their potential employees social networking sites, and if they don't feel like you are a positive reflection on their company, or you aren't the kind of person they want working there, they won't hire you. Whatever you put on the internet will be there pretty much forever. Once you put it there it can be saved, retweeted, revined, reblogged, or whatever. You can delete it, but it probably isn't really going to be gone. Social networking has also made it so that there isn't really such a thing as a complete stranger anymore. You may not have met someone, but you could have heard of them through a mutual friend on Facebook, seen their picture on your friend's instagram, or seen something that was retweeted from them. It's actually pretty weird to me.
   The last thing I'm going to touch on is the lack of an underground culture in our society (something I find just a tad bit depressing to be honest). In the 60s there were the hippies, (the 70s were some awkward mix of hippie and punk and androgyny), in the 80s there were punks, in the 90s there were grungers, and what is there now? That's right. Nothing. There is no underground culture because everything is so easy to find on the internet. Even if I song isn't popular and doesn't get radio play it probably has a million hits on YouTube.
   The internet is mostly a great thing, I mean, what would we do without it? Book Research? ...ew.

Class Response #1 (Lecture on Televison)

what are they wearing why would you ever

    Television. My favorite way to waste time (yes, you're talking to the girl who watched an entire season of American Horror Story in around 16 hours). Obviously before Mr. Miller's class I knew that television was the biggest form of mass media out there, but I had no idea it had as much of an affect on us as I realize now. Why do we dress like we do? We probably saw it on TV somewhere first. Why is pop culture so widespread and why does everyone know about it? TV. Why are American becoming lazy homebodies who don't leave their couch all day? You guessed it, TV.    I hadn't even considered that pop culture was due to TV until we discussed it in class, but now that I come to think about it, it most definitely is. From the Beatles in 1964 to whatever it is the kids are watching nowadays (Dog with a Blog?? Sam and Kat? Who even knows anymore) we've all been influenced by TV. What's up with some of the questionable fashion choices I've seen on younger girls? They've probably seen someone they thought was "soo cool" on TV and wanted to imitate them. Whoever decides what goes on TV ultimately decides the next big thing

that's right friends I won

   TV also demassified about every other form of media there was out there, from newspapers to radio. It took all of the talent from the radio, forcing them to serve a niche audience. As for newspaper, most Americans get their news from television, as it was easier and quicker, you could get the news with just the click of a button (and you didn't even have to work your brain by actually reading anything, wow!)
   Another thing TV majorly influenced was politics. Every politician out there who doesn't have a strong TV advertising game (provided that their opponent does) is probably not going to end up in office. Barack Obama is a good example of this. His people were on their game, and he got his advertisements out there, and they had good, new information in them, and look where he is now.

   So, in conclusion, TV is a huge part of most people's life at this point. Some people have it running all the time, some people are in front of the TV at exactly 8:59 on Mondays to catch the next Supernatural, some people use it to get the news, but no matter no matter how you personally use it, you are.

Jamie's blog is super rad (a.k.a 2nd link to a classmate's blog)

Jamie's Blog: http://jamiefightsbadjournalism.blogspot.com/

Jamie's blog is really groovy (yes, groovy). She has really well written and thought out class responses, and she's really funny while also giving you the facts. Her media critique is amazing and the title is perfect : "I'd tell you to get to the point but there isn't one." She found some really great pictures to help prove her point in her posts, and I like that because I like to have some sort of visual. I also particularly liked her response to the music lecture, because it gave many different ways that people get their music, including online piracy, which Mr. Miller didn't seem to think was as big of an issue today than it was in earlier years, but I can assure you that many, many people use that as a way of getting music. (My personal favorite thing on her blog is "French bakers tell Kanye West that good croissants can't be rushed")

Media Critique: Obamacare

picture that accompanied the fox news article

photo that accompanied the cnn article

Now, The Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) has been all over the news lately, and it is honestly hard to find unbiased reporting on the issue. In some articles, such as this one from Fox News the reporting is obviously leaning more towards the conservative side, whereas in this on from CNN the reporting is generally on the liberal side of things. It's even possible to tell this from the picture/video they included at he top of the articles. These were both front page stories too. The Fox News story focuses mostly on how it is (supposedly) hurting the job market, and they also used words with negative connotations to them such as '"Obama tried to counter "misinformation" about the law, and noted: "If you already have health care, you don't have to do anything."' The CNN article focused more on the positive aspects, and only told about the good things coming from it and they told a story about that woman in the picture and how she would be able to afford healthcare with Obamacare. They should have listed some pros and cons, and let people decide what they thought about it themselves. This clearly violates one of the seven basic yardsticks of journalism, fairness. This yardstick "measures whether reporters get at least one other side in controversies or reports of wrong-doing." These rules should not be that hard to follow, and yet we see reporters and the media as a whole breaking them all the time.

Fairness in the media seems to be a much larger problem than it should be. Journalists need to stop putting forth their own political opinions in their writing, and leave their audience room to interpret the facts any way they please. Something these journalist could have done to improve these stories is to list the pros and the cons, even though they might believe one way, they need to be loyal to their readers and the reader deserves the whole truth, and not just an opinion-soaked version of it.

(In case you are interested, here's an article that I found on USA Today that has the pros and cons of Obamacare)




Response #4 (Lecture on Newspapers)

Ok, so my last response is going to be on newspapers. Now, although I don't read the newspaper and my family doesn't even have a subscription, I still feel like they should stay around. I'm really not a big fan of any kind of change, and discontinuing newspapers would be a huge change. Imagine, if you do get the newspaper, having to either watch the news or get on the computer every morning instead of being able to just read the newspaper.

Now, to be honest, when Mr. Miller first started talking about newspapers, I had the same reaction as a lot of people nowadays might have-"Oh god, why don't they just stop making them? It's such a waste of paper and no one reads them anyway." Some of you are probably gasping in absolute horror right now (including you, Mr. Miller), which is understandable. I didn't realize how much easier, more accessible, and more affordable newspapers are than other forms of mass communications such as the internet and television news.

Here's just a couple of reasons that I now understand to be why we should keep newspapers:

• They are affordable (sometimes only 99 cents)
• They are non-linear, meaning you can skip from article to article, and section to section, and you don't even have to read the whole thing (wow, amazing!)
• They are one of the first forms of mass communication, and to stop making them would be sad, and a disgrace to the world of journalism
• you don't have to be smart to use a newspaper, it doesn't require any prior knowledge or skills (other than knowing how to read)
• some people just like having the physical copy of the newspaper
• The articles are able to go into much more detail than those on TV news (can't say the same for the internet, but that's a different story)
• people generally find newspapers more credible and trust them more than other sources

And so, friends, I have learned my lesson. Newspapers are awesome. And they shouldn't go anywhere, at least not for a while.

Repsonse #3 (Lecture on the invention of the printing press)

Moveable type printing press

Ok, I'm almost certain that pretty much everyone will do this one, but here's my two cents. I think the printing press was one of the most important inventions of all time. If I didn't have books, what would I do with myself? Go outside and socialize? I think not. Not only do I personally thank Mr. Johannes Gutenberg (a.k.a swagenberg) for this fabulous invention, so do millions of other people every day. Probably. If he had not come up with the moveable type printing press where would we be today? Probably not even in Kentucky. (Maps, remember?). Only the richest of us would be literate and the rest of us would just be out of luck.

The printing press is extremely important for reasons I will now list:

my favorite book

• It helped the spread of literacy by making books more easily accessible and affordable.
• It helped education  become more widespread, and the now more readily available books could be used as teaching aides.
• If the printing press hadn't been invented we would all probably be catholic, because there would have been no protestant reformation, and no founding of other religions.
• The printing press helped in the spread of political ideas because the people could write things about their king/leader that could lead to him being kicked out (although people used to get arrested for libel and slander a lot more back then than they do now).
• It helped people start to discover new places because maps could be copied, and there were no errors (unless the person drawing it by hand when they explored made a mistake) because the printing press made an exact copy.
• Books are a huge part of mostly everyone's lives (and if they are not currently a large part of your life you should change that immediately, because books rock).
• Books help give people different views on things, expand our horizons, entertain us, and if you read a book instead of watching TV, you are exercising your brain and getting an awesome story
• So basically, I really think that the human race would be extremely undeveloped as an entirety, and most of our civilizations would not even exist if the printing press had not been invented (that's a lot of credit to give to one guy)

And that, dear friends, is why the printing press is one of (if not THE) most important invention of all time.

Response #2 (Lecture on conglomeration)

(We're going a long while back for this one). One of Mr. Miller's lectures was on conglomeration. One of the things that I got out of this was the lack of diversity of content. There really is very few original TV shows and movies anymore, its all sequels and remakes (although I enjoy some of them, I do wish there was an original movie every now and then)

 

Here's a list of the highest grossing films of 2012(x):

 

Who's ready for Avengers 2? (to be honest I am)

1. The Avengers ($1,511,757,910)

2. Skyfall ($1,108,561,013)

3. The Dark Knight Rises ($1,084,439,099)

4. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($1,017,003,568)

5. Ice Age: Continental Drift ($877,244,782)

6. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn-Part 2 ($829,224,737)

7. The Amazing Spider-man ($752,216,557)

8. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted ($742,110,251)

9. The Hunger Games ($691,247,768)

10. Men in Black 3 ($624,026,776)

 

Of these 10 films, 7 are sequels, remakes, or part of a saga, and 3 are based off of books. There are legitimately NO original movies in this list AT ALL. Why? Because when something is successful nowadays we milk it for all it's worth until some people can't even stand to hear the word, for example, "Twilight".



Also about TV shows, what exactly is the difference between How I Met Your Mother and Friends? (Personally I like HIMYM better but it's just my opinion). Honestly there is barely a difference between the two shows. And all of those crime scene, forensic investigative shows are pretty much the same (Psych and Bones being outliers). NCIS, NCIS L.A, CSI, CSI Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, I mean I have no idea which one my mom is watching at any given time.

These are the reasons I think we either need to stop conglomerating too many companies, or get more creative people on the job. (I mean, conglomeration only benefits the businesses anyway, we don't get anything out of it).











Stephanie's blog makes mine look bad (a.k.a 1st link to a classmate's blog)

Stephanie's Blog : http://crushthe-patriarchy.blogspot.com/

Wow. Stephanie's blog is really terrific...her responses to the lectures are very well written (as is the fantastic media critique she wrote on rape culture). She uses pictures to her advantage in all of her posts (so far) and everything on her blog is thought out and cohesive. Don't even get me started on how good her media critique is...it's a very relevant and important subject that she chose and I think she handled it very well and presented a lot of information on the topic. I couldn't have done it better myself. Oh yeah, and if you haven't already gone to her blog and this isn't enough incentive for you, she has a picture of Johannes Gutenberg wearing pink sunglasses. Just do it. Go read her blog. Now. #swagenberg

Response #1 (Lecture on music)

Edison's first phonograph (1877)

Woodstock (1969)

    Being a huge music junkie, I absolutely loved Friday's lecture. I loved hearing about how music progressed from Edison's first phonograph to Ipods today. I was surprised to learn that music used to be a way of spreading news, as I had always thought it was just a form of entertainment. But, now that I think about it, music has held important political messages before, such as in the 60s, to protest the Vietnam war and to promote peace and love. In the late 70s and 80s, punk emerged, and it was all about rebellion and questioning authority. Now popular music is usually meaningless, but a ton of people enjoy it nonetheless. Music has defined entire generations of people, and I don't know what else is powerful enough to do so. Take, for example, the hippies of the 60s and the grungers of the 90s. Without music, those generations may not have had any kind of defining factor. I think the music industry will have to demassify due to the prevalence of online piracy and music streaming, but it will remain a big part of everyone's lives, because music is a universal language. Although I may be one of the last people out


Some of my albums

Recently released record (yes they still make them)

there buying vinyl (One of the few I guess, record stores stay open for a reason) I even think the vinyl industry will stay around. There's just something about holding the hard copy of your favorite album. I'm not the intended audience for any of these albums in the picture ((Clockwise from left) The Beatles' Abbey Road, Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, The Doors' The Doors, and Nirvana's Nevermind) But I am able to enjoy it because of Berliner's invention of the gramophone. I think music is one of the most important forms of communication, as you can bond over liking the same music as someone, and some music has been enjoyed from generation to generation. It is unifying, and with the right words, can hold an extremely important message.