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.