Assignment #13

As the semester comes to an end, I have begun to realize how much I have gained from this class. I would have never thought that in my lifetime I would have written over 5,000 words on my own online blog. This just goes to show how technologically advanced our society is becoming. Instead of writing the traditional, boring 10 page paper we have all learned how to be “bloggers” and become part of a new trend.

Coming into this class I knew very little about blogging. The only thing I knew was that anyone could do it, because a couple of my friends occasionally write blogs about sports. I would have never known that blogging could be so easy if I didn’t take this class and I think that if more people knew how easy it was, they would be blogging also. The definition of blog is a website maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events or other material such as graphics or video. Although textual blogs are the most popular, there are several different types of blogs, so I’m sure people wouldn’t have a hard time finding something they are interested in. other than textual there are; artlog (art), photoblog (photographs), sketchblog (portfolio sketches), vlog (videos), MP3 blog (music), podcasting (audio). Just recently my friends started their own online radio show on Blog Talk Radio . They basically talk about nothing important and have people call in and act like morons, but it’s a type of blog, because they have a website with weekly entries of commentary.

Not only have I learned about blogs in this communication class, but in COM 217 we also discussed blogs. We learned how blogs are an important tool in organizations, because companies encourage their employees to blog. I also learned that blogging is a major part of convergence. Blogs are a part of web 2.0 and they just go to show you how all types of technology are coming together. A blog can connect you to videos, pictures, audio clips or songs, and also a blog acts as a social network. Its amazing to think that any person has the capability to connect all of these types of technology and media and put them together in their own way to express their thoughts and what their feelings are on a certain topic.

In the end, I would never regret taking this class. I am going to take away so much from this class and hopefully will never forget what I learned. I feel that I now have the ability to help people understand media and how it affects everyone. I also hope to continue on with my blogging career and start a sports blog where I can express my feelings about current topics and events in the world of sports.

Assignment #12

While watching the channel 7 news, some of the stories that were covered were the Pope visiting the nations capital, the laptop that was stolen from Buff State containing important information, the arrival of FBI agents to the scene of the abduction of the 12 year old girl in North Tonawanda, and channel 7 sports teaming up with Time Warner to offer more exposure for local high school and college sports teams. These were the major stories that were shown on the news. When I picked up the newspaper and looked at the front page, only one of these stories was shown. There was an article about the Pope visiting Washington D.C., but none of the other stories that were addressed on the news were on the front page of the paper. On the front page of the paper there was an article about the presidential debate in Philadelphia, an article about Mexican restaurants being raided in an alien sweep and there was also a picture of the Virginia Tech tribute that was held on Wednesday.

I think that it’s surprising that the stories that are on the front page of the newspaper weren’t the top stories addressed on channel 7’s news broadcast. I would have thought that Channel 7 would cover the topics on the front page then move on to other topics. It seemed to me that the news only covered the smaller topics. Instead of covering the Presidential debate in Philadelphia, they covered smaller stories such as a girl being shot and other things that aren’t unusual to hear on the news. I think that the news should have addressed less of the small topics and more of the large topics. If I watch the news I would rather watch stories on large issues like the Pope and the Presidential debate and the Buff State laptop. There could be more in depth coverage of these topics if they didn’t waste their time on a shooting on the West side. There are shootings everyday in Buffalo, and its no new news to me that they happen, so I don’t think they should get much television exposure. It’s surprising to see that there was no coverage of the presidential candidates on the channel 7 news. As we get closer and closer to knowing whom the presidential candidates will be, you would think the news would have more coverage. I was also surprised to see that there wasn’t anything about Time Warner and Channel 7 news offering exposure for local sports teams. This is important, because many people feel that Buffalo needs to increase the high school sports exposure, because as of right now it is very minimal. The reason why some of these topics aren’t in the paper is that they only print a morning edition, so events that happen in the early morning and day wont get into the paper until the next day.

Assignment #11

One of the most important problems that America is facing today would be the increase in gas prices. This is a major problem, because almost everything we do involves gas. Unless you ride a bike or walk everywhere you use gas in your car. When you want to travel whether it’s on a bus or plane, you are using gas. Everything you buy at the store was shipped to that store by a truck that used highly priced diesel fuel. Everything we do is affected by gas. I work in a restaurant and when we get our food delivered, all of the companies now charge delivery fees because the gas is so high. I came to believe that this is one of the largest problems, because of personal experience and media influence. You can almost bet on turning the news on or reading the newspaper and hearing or seeing something about gas prices, so media definitely plays a large role in this being a problem. I know this from experience, because of my job at the restaurant and seeing that the prices for everything are going up because of the price of gas. I feel I am not that dependent on the media for knowledge of this topic, because without the media I can still see how gas prices are increasing and how everything else is also becoming more expensive.

The second problem that America is facing today would be the War in Iraq. Even though the news coverage on the war has toned down since the start, this war is still a problem. Most of the news about the war is dealing with the presidential election. What president will pull troops out of Iraq and what president will keep the war going. This is a big issue, because people who are against the war will want a president who will end the war no matter what. I think that I have both personal experience and media influence when choosing this topic as one of the major problems facing America. I have two friends in the military and I know that whenever the news does have a story about soldiers dying or missing it makes me nervous. You never know what’s going to happen and one day I could turn the news on or open the paper and see that one of my friends was killed or missing in action. I would have to say I am very dependent on the media for this topic, because without the news I know nothing about the War in Iraq and the media is where I get all of my information on the topic.

The third problem that America is facing today would be our economy. This problem has been brought to my attention only by the media. Every time I watch the news a new corporation is going bankrupt or our country is digging deeper and deeper into debt. I know in my other communication class we have learned about the recent news of Bear Stearns. This just shows how we are in debt, because bear Stearns tried to invest in people’s debt which is very risky and obviously they failed. The media is the only place I receive information about the economy, besides my COM 217 class, so I would say I am very dependent on the media for knowledge on this topic.

Assignment #10

I believe that email has certainly improved people’s ability to communicate and receive information.  It has never made me believe it wasn’t fast and reliable. The only way I see it not being fast is if someone chooses not to respond for several days after receiving your email, but when you send it, it gets there rather quickly. The only way I see it not being reliable is if you give somebody the incorrect email address or accidentally type it wrong. I like to keep certain emails separate from others, so that is why I have two different email accounts. I use the UB email account for school related emails and also for emails from my bank. These emails I update more frequently, because they are more important. I also have a Yahoo! Email account. This account is for the junk emails and for my accounts with Apple, Buffalo Bills and other stuff. Keeping all of my emails separate improves my ability to receive information, because if they were all together, there could be a better chance that I miss an email and accidentally delete it.

I think that there are many ways that email improves people’s ability to communicate. For instance if somebody has a speech problem or a heavy accent an email would be a better way to communicate, because there is no evidence of a speech problem or accent when you are communicating non verbally. Also, if you are communicating with someone who speaks a different language you could type your email and put it through an online translator, this way you can send them your email in their language and also when you receive theirs you can translate it into your language. This would make it easier, because instead of trying to understand what they are trying to say you can clearly read it in your own language. If you were speaking to each other on the telephone or face to face, you would not be able to use a language translator.

Negative aspects of email would be that you don’t get to enhance your face to face communication skills and also grammar skills. When you are writing emails, you tend to use slang and abbreviated words. This could affect your grammar when writing something that is important. Also, you are not truly interacting with the person you are communicating with. By not seeing the person and talking face to face, you don’t see facial expressions and you cannot tell if the person is using sarcasm or not. I have had many unnecessary arguments over instant messaging, because I was being sarcastic and people took me seriously. When you are using email you cannot hear the person’s voice and the tones they are using, so you do not know how to react to what they say.

Assignment #9

In a way I would say that yes I am a gamer. I’m not the kind of person who subscribes to gaming magazines and logs on to gaming sites to read the latest news, but I play my Xbox 360 and if I’m bored I play BrickBuster on my cell phone. Maybe in some people’s eyes I’m not a gamer, but I see a non-gamer as somebody who doesn’t use any form of electronic gaming.
I would say that I don’t necessarily fit the mold, because I am not an avid gamer. I only play my Xbox 360 occasionally and when I do play I am not playing for hours on end. I typically play sports games and once in a while I’ll play a War/Shooting game. I think that if I was an avid gamer I would have more of a selection with the games I would play and I would certainly play them more often, but I don’t have the time and I choose not to, because I believe there are more important things to be doing.
My favorite type of game would have to be the EA Sports NCAA Football and Madden NFL Football. Seeing that football is my favorite sport it is fitting that my favorite video games would involve football. Every year I buy the latest version, NCAA first then NFL. I like to play both of these, because to me it’s fun. I like playing with UB and the Buffalo Bills, because they are my favorite teams and I like to see how well I can do with playing with them. I also enjoy playing EA Sports NCAA March Madness, because next to football, college basketball is my other favorite sport. Occasionally I will play war related games, because I feel they are more challenging and I like to see if I can beat them, but other than that I like to stick to the football and basketball games.
When I play my games, I notice that for the college football there is product placement, but I feel that without it, the game wouldn’t seem as realistic. There are some places in the game where there are fake ads and to me it looks stupid, because they had to make up an ad to put on the game inside the stadium. I think that real ads make the game look better. The spikes the players use have Nike and Adidas logos on them and the football and jerseys have logos on them too. These things do not go unnoticed, because I am not even looking for them and I see them. I know in real life hockey there are ads on the boards and if a video game didn’t have them it would look kind of ridiculous. Advertisements are all over, so why wouldn’t they be in video games too? I think that the ratings system is a good idea, because it allows parents to see what a game consists of. I just don’t understand why everybody makes a big deal about it. If a parent has a problem with a video game then they should just not allow their child to play it. The video game companies can produce whatever video games they want. If there is a demand for violent video games then that’s what they are going to produce, because they want to make money. If these parents would just keep an eye on their child and restrict what games they play then it shouldn’t bother them. I believe they are just games, but at the same time I like them to be more realistic. I like seeing the ads in games, because that’s how it is in real life. I do not think I spend too much time gaming, because I know that there are more important things to be doing. I like to play when I have nothing else to do and when I want to play. I only play occasionally, so I don’t feel I spend all of my time playing games.

Assignment #8

For my blog this week I chose to watch the internet series called Art of the Drink. This is a series about bartending and making different drinks. Every week the bartender introduces a new drink and he makes it once going through each step then he has his female assistant make the same drink again. I chose this because I occasionally bartend at HSBC Arena and I thought it would be helpful for work and also for leisure.
Compared to normal television I think that it is very similar. Because this is a show that teaches you how to make drinks, I compared it to a show on the Food network where they teach you a new meal and go through the steps of how to make it. The only thing that would be different between the two types of shows would be length. For this bartending show, the episodes were only about ten minutes long where some food shows are a half hour to an hour long. When I went to the site and tried to watch the videos, I learned that I needed to subscribe to the Art of the Drink podcast, so instead I searched for it on YouTube and right away tons of episodes came up. So, it wasn’t very hard to find and if you don’t feel like downloading the podcast for your iPod, you can just go to YouTube and watch the episodes. I feel that this series can be very interactive, if you have all of these liquors and juices and the other supplies at hand, you can make the drink along with the show, so you can actually make it while learning from the show. I think that this type of series is more enjoyable than some television series, because you learn something that you want to learn and not some nonsense that you will never use in your life. If you intend on being a bartender or enjoy making new types of mixed drinks, this is a good series to watch.
The Quarterlife TV launch on NBC was extremely unsuccessful. The series only lasted one episode, because of the poor ratings it received after its premier. It received lower ratings for teen demographic and general household than the democratic presidential debate did on MSNBC. After being cancelled on NBC they decided to air the remaining episodes on Bravo. It also aired on the E! channel in Canada and due to its poor ratings, the E! website in Canada removed all reference of the show off of their website since it was cancelled.

Assignment #7

In the past twenty-four hours music has definitely played a role in my interactions with other people. I know that whenever I hear a song that I know the words to, I always have to sing it. I work at HSBC Arena for the Sabres games, so last night during the intermissions and timeouts when they played a song that I know, I would sing it. When my friends at work hear the song and hear me singing they also start singing and we have fun and it makes us get through the night. When I am driving down the street and I can hear someone else’s music and bass, that really bothers me. I am not impressed by how sweet someone’s system sounds, I could care less actually. Yesterday I was in my car with my windows up, window defrosters on and my stereo on and I could still hear someone else’s music. It makes me mad that I can’t enjoy my music without the interruption of someone else. Usually I listen to my iPod in my car, but my car was being fixed yesterday, so I was using my dad’s car and didn’t have access to listening to my iPod and only had the radio. This made me aggravated while driving to school and work, because with my iPod I can listen to whatever song I want to, but with the radio I have no choice. Whenever I hear a song I don’t like I have to change the station and sometimes there are commercials and I can’t hear any music. These rides would have been much more enjoyable is I would’ve been able to listen to my iPod. Also, whenever I hear certain songs, they might remind me of an event that took place in my life where that song was played or something I watched where I heard that song. Whenever I hear the song Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, I think of the movie Fever Pitch and whenever I hear the song Shipping Up to Boston by Dropkick Murphy’s, I think of the movie The Departed and when the Sabres have a power play at home Sabres games. I think that music definitely influences my mood. If I just got done listening to a depressing song, I probably don’t feel as happy as I would if I listened to a more upbeat song. When I played sports in high school, I always played music before games to pump me up and get me in the mood. Without my music I wasn’t as excited to play as I was when I listened to my pre-game playlist.

Assignment #6

For this assignment, I searched and found a website for the Saw movies. The official site’s name is http://www.officialsaw.com/. On this website, there are many different features. The design on the page is a circular saw and the creepy music from the movie is playing in the background. The home page allows you to buy the Saw IV DVD and it also gives you information on the upcoming Saw V movie that starts filming on March 17th. On the left side there are different interactive options. There is a link named “House of Jigsaw.” This has information about the background of Jigsaw in the movie and has the traps and victims in each of the movies. From this option you can also download Saw desktop backgrounds and buddy icons for instant messenger. Another option labeled “Fans” lets you read the latest Saw news and also post on the Saw blog. There is a link labeled “Auction” that takes you to EBay and bid on different props, costumes and other items from the Saw movies. This option also lets you register to become a member in the Saw fan club and gives you information on contacting the website and movie. Another option is the Saw store. This takes you to http://www.officialsawstore.com/ where you can purchase the four movies or any other merchandise such as t-shirts, hats and miscellaneous collectables. On the right side of the circular saw, there are four links to pages of each of the movies. For each one there are options to read about each movie, videos, galleries, features on each of the DVD’s, the soundtrack and an option to purchase the movie. The video options let you watch different scenes from the movie and the soundtrack option allows you to listen to each track and also allows you to purchase it.
From just seeing the movie, you would not be able to gain information on upcoming movies and news about the movies. Also, if you watch the movie and hear the music and want to download it, you can check out this site and it lets you know the name of the song and the artist. By watching the movie you cannot purchase the DVD’s or any other Saw merchandise. Overall, this site serves for a good purpose, because fans that are really into the movie and want to know more can benefit from this site extremely. This site serves as a way of participation for fans when there isn’t a movie in theatres. You can buy the DVD’s from this site to watch and you can keep up to date with the news it provides. It also leaves you excited for the next movie, because it gives you updates on the filming of the next movie. This site informed me that filming for Saw V begins on March 17th, so by the time fall comes around it should be in theatres.

Assignment #4

While reading over the online and printed editions of today’s (Friday February 8th) Buffalo News, I saw similarities and differences in the two. While looking at the front page of each there is an article focusing on communications technology. The article was about how members of the military in Iraq are never out of reach and keep close in touch with their computers, through email, cell phones, text messaging, blogs and social-networking sites. In the Sports section, stories about Demetri Kalinin of the Buffalo Sabres missing the Sabres skate with the flu and Jeff Parmer, former Niagara Falls High School basketball player and his troubles with winning in college. On the front of both City and Region pages, there is an article about the historic Hayes Hall clock and how its restoration will soon be completed. There are also Classifieds and Obituaries online as there is in the printed newspaper.
On the online site for The Buffalo News there are breaking news videos and news that just came out that did not when the paper was printed. Online, you can search the archives for past articles or search a topic and see if there is an article about it in that day’s paper. Also, online there is a Buffalo News blog section. These blogs are separated into three groups: Sports, News and Opinion, and Entertainment and Lifestyles. These three categories are also split up into groups that narrow the topics of the blog.
On the online edition, you can search for articles and watch video. Obviously it would be impossible for there to be a search engine and a video player to be available with every printed newspaper, so that is why it would appear online and not in print. The online version does have a section for latest news updates. This would not appear in the print version, because the Buffalo News only prints a morning edition and no longer prints an evening edition. So, any event that happens during the day that would make news headlines wouldn’t make it into the print news until the next day, but with an online version of the news, you can update it whenever news breaks and the readers can be informed right away. Also, the blogs are not available in the print newspaper.
I found that on the online version of the newspaper it seemed that there was a lot more advertisements than there are in the print newspaper. On the front page of the printed newspaper, there isn’t a single advertisement on the page, but when you pull up the front page on the online version, there are seven advertisements throughout the page. However, when you read a print newspaper on the weekend you will find tons of ads for different stores with their sales and products printed right inside. I am not sure why today’s version of the print newspaper didn’t have that many advertisements on it. I would think that more people would read the print newspaper and not the online version, because they are more used to it, so I would think people would want to put ads in the printed version. At the same time, the advertisements online are all links and if you click them will take you directly to the page, so it is easier for readers to access the advertisement.

Assignment #3

I personally think that schools should be allowed to play whatever music and read whatever books. I feel that censoring the children from these elements is not fully preparing them for life as an adult. When you grow up these books and music certainly aren’t going to be censored for you any longer. I’m not saying that children in schools should be listening to explicit Snoop Dogg lyrics, but in high school the church plays a major role when learning world history, so I don’t see why there is such a big deal about religion in schools. Children should be taught about different religions, so they are more familiar with other people’s culture. Everyone has learned about all of the different religions in their high school world history class, so I don’t see why censoring Harry Potter books is different. Just because the kid is a wizard and it involves witches doesn’t mean it is bad for them to read. Would these parents ban them from watching The Wizard of Oz because it has a wizard and witches in it? If these people want to censor a children’s book like that, then they should change the history curriculum to not teach their children about different religions in the world. These parents should be pushing their children to read, not punishing them by taking these books away. Other books may have extreme violence and sexual content, but these books most likely aren’t available in an elementary or middle school library.
I believe that rating media is appropriate, because you don’t want younger children watching movies or television shows where people are killing people and swearing left and right. But also, the parents shouldn’t have to rely on these ratings. Parents should know what shows are appropriate for their children to watch. You don’t want these younger audiences to watch, so their parents will know by the ratings whether or not to leave it on. Older children should be able to know right from wrong and they should know that the events that happen in these shows are not something to imitate.
In my days in middle school and high school I have read many books. After reading these sections and looking at the diagrams in the textbook, I found that three of the books I had read are on the list of books that are the most frequently banned books. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Outsiders. After reading all of these books and seeing them on this list, I can understand why, but completely disagree. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird is a book that teaches children to not make judgments about someone before you actually know them. It also teaches the effects of racism. Tom Robinson was put on trial for raping a white woman in an all white community. Atticus stands out and defends him and teaches that people should do the right thing. While these books are somewhat violent, they teach a greater lesson and shouldn’t be banned from schools. When I read this book I was a freshman in high school, and I don’t think that this books would be inappropriate for a high schooler.

Assignment #2

As of right now I could not think of any more ways that the internet could provide more people with a voice. Some examples that come to mind are Facebook, Myspace and YouTube. The internet allows a variety of people to show who they are and what they believe. When I first made an account on Facebook they didn’t allow people that were still in high school to sign up, but now after having an account for only a year and a half, my little brother has one and he’s only fourteen years old and still in middle school. Also, when I first got a Facebook, they didn’t have all of the special applications and extra things they have now. The internet is changing at such a fast pace that who knows how people will be able to express themselves online within the next year. Myspace also advanced at a quick pace. These sites are a good way for people to network. I know that on Myspace there are a lot of bands that have an account so that they can keep up with their fans and post pictures and songs so that the fan can interact. Another example of a way that people can express what they have to say is blog sites. Quite a few of my friends write for sports blog sites and I couldn’t really think of any other way to truly express yourself than by writing it and posting it on a website. My friends write on important issues in the world of sports and people that read them comment about how they agree or disagree. For someone who would like to pursue a career in writing, blogging is a cheap and easy way to start. You don’t have to pay to post a blog and you don’t have to worry about hiring anybody to help you. Even by commenting on a blog I believe you have a voice on the internet, because you are expressing your reaction to what the author of the blog said and you are letting your ideas be known to the whole world.
I do not think that corporate domination will take over and limit public dialog, because if they were going to do it, they wouldn’t have allowed for these sites to grow so much in the first place. We live in America, where people speak their opinions and aren’t afraid to do so. Whether the outcome is positive or negative, no corporation will limit what people have to say. If a corporation tries to control what people do, the people just find another way to do it. For example file sharing sites like LimeWire. I don’t know how many times I heard that people were going to go to jail if they illegally downloaded music off of the internet, but I know that I have been doing it and nothing has happened to me. If one site gets in trouble for doing it, another site will emerge and it will continue, because people do not want to pay iTunes $1.00 for every song they want to download when they can download it for free. Corporations will not take over unless they feel an extreme threat, and I do not see that happening in the near future.

Assignment #1

I think that overall, most media content increases your level of media literacy. By most, I mean media located in respected newspapers, magazines and on respected television news programs. These sources tend to give you the facts unlike Us Weekly which gives you gossip about celebrities and make a big deal about pointless topics. If you were to pick up an issue of the USA Today you would not find continuous articles about how a certain female celebrity keeps gaining weight, because in reality she is still skinnier than a normal sized woman. If you were to read TIME magazine you would not open every issue to find pointless gossip that fills each and every page. I’m not saying that some people don’t think that these things are important, because I know they do. I’m saying that if you only read the tabloids and nothing else you are not increasing your media literacy. To increase your media literacy I feel you need to be familiar with more than one source. If you only read the tabloids, then you should try watching the news every night or pick up the business section of the newspaper and read a couple of articles. I feel that you need to be well rounded in order to increase your media literacy and you can’t just stick to one type of media. Technology has become advanced that you can have every aspect of media at your fingertips anytime of the day, so it isn’t very hard to broaden your horizon.
One reason you should be familiar with different forms of media is that you may not be able to portray the same message from a magazine or newspaper article than you would from a commercial or news program. If an article is printed that I describing an event that took place, you might not be able to understand it as well as if you saw the news and there was a video clip of it taking place. This might lead to confusion, because if two people have a discussion about an event and one person read an article and the other watched a clip on the news, the person who watched it might be more educated about the story. Not only did this person hear the news, but they saw the event take place where the other person did not. If one person were to read an article about a certain celebrity in the Life section in the USA Today and another read one on the same celebrity is Us Weekly, the person who read Us Weekly could be miss informed, because the articles tend to stretch the truth and contain gossip. If these two people were to have a conversation about this celebrity, the person who read Us Weekly could give the other false information and not know it is not the truth.
There are many different forms of media in the world to choose from. As an educated college student you should be able to choose which forms give you truthful information and help increase your media literacy, like the World News and USA Today and which forms confuse you and decrease the chances of becoming more literate, like Us Weekly and other tabloids.