The Last Winter Break

Not at all what I expected but I guess that's when you learn the most about yourself. 

Declaring this the official song of Winter Break '09/'10.

self declared

sound of winter '10 - g.crew

Top 10 Media Revelations

1. Entertainment Media - A Shift in Public Discourse

Neil Postman discusses the idea that the advancement of television began to turn everything from religion to education into a form of entertainment. On pages 93 - 118 of "Amusing Ourselves to Death", he discusses a preacher who delivers sermons that are broadcasted on television as lacking a true religious experience and that they are more interested in number than in what God has to say. As the text "Media/Society" shows us, when we look at the television shows that are receiving the most views in todays culture, we can see "reality shows" ranked at the top. These so called "reality" shows are just forms of entertainment that don't really construct a true reality at all.

2. Words to Images - Pictures and Images Become More Important Than the Words Behind Them

In the third paragraph of the text "With Friends Like These..." by Tom Hodgkinson, Tom talks about uploading a Facebook picture of himself with strategy to construct an artificial representation of himself, one that will get him sex or approval. Facebook wouldn't be Facebook if it wasn't for images that allow others to judge who we are without words. Neil Postman discusses this same idea with the invention of photography and television around page 96 of "Amusing Ourselves to Death". When a presidential debate would occur, it was more about the impressions through body language that the candidates gave off rather than their actual ideas and thoughts as even politics were becoming a beauty contest.

3. The Live Feed - Updates in the Blink of an Eye

When you log into Facebook, one of the first options you have is to view a "Live Feed" of your friends status updates, photo uploads and even relationship statuses. In the text "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy", author Clive Thompson quotes Mark Zuckerberg the creator of this new feed by saying that we now are allowed to view "a stream of everything that's going on in their (our friends) lives". The text also discusses how when this feed was first started on Facebook, users didn't like it, they found it to be too "stalker-ish" and non-private. After getting used to it however, Facebook wouldn't be Facebook without it. This idea of a live feed updating users on all their friends activities reminds me a lot of the characters in the book "Feed". Not only were Violet and Titus getting updates about their friends through their feed but the newest fashions, weather updates and sports scores as well, all built directly into their brains.

4. Media Ownership – Who Decides What Gets Through the Filters

As the early pages of “Media and Society” by Croteau and Hoyness tells us, the easiest trend to spot these days when it comes to media ownership is the fact that it’s concentration is being put into fewer and fewer hands. Only six multinational conglomerates dominate the mass media industry. (34) Under these six corporations, smaller sectors can be found but still the media formats and delivery systems that send their messages are watched closely by the big six. The three tiers of companies as described in the text “Rich Media/Poor Democracy” flow as followed, on top there are the major corporations that dominate such as Disney, then there are the medium companies such as Comcast and finally the small, local companies. As we studied the text, “Propaganda Model of ‘News’”, I discovered the five filters “news” travels though that these corporations use in order to feed us the information in the way they want us to view it; 1. Ownership 2. Advertising 3. News makers 4. News shapers 5. Flak.

5. Media Conglomeration – What Happens as They All Join Forces

As these top tier companies begin to buy out smaller ones and join together, a form of synergy begins to appear that can’t be beat as integration and self-promotion become easier and easier across multiple platforms. The film “Rick Media/Poor Democracy” explained, media conglomeration, the joining of forces, allows cross promotion, cross production, leverage over advertising and blockbusters. Cross promotions allows movie promotions to appear on television and on radio ads, cross production allows for a company such as Disney to have theme parks, movies, book, and endless amount of products all tied to the same themes and characters. This is proving to be a dangerous trend because in the past news media wasn’t expected to make a large profit but rather to simply inform as a public service. Now, because of conglomeration and the 24-hour cable news channels that are taking over, more independent, once reliable stations are expected to turn a profit by attracting audiences that owners expect and advertisers demand. This can be seen in print journalism as well as newspapers begin to focus on the color pictures and news about celebrities that will sell rather than the important but not always entertaining details. (Media Society 46).

6. Web 2.0 – The Pros and Cons

The Web 2.0 world allows users to connect and obtain information within seconds. Conversations that used to be impossible without a long distance phone bill can now occur in live time through a screen, opinions about products or a restaurant for dinner can be reviewed and updated by thousands, showing a personal shift in the way we obtain information. These all seems like pros of the constantly changing Internet platform but in the article “With Friends like these…”, Tom Hodgkinson describes this as a new virtual world where we have conquered nature and that value now exists in imaginary things. I also see the negative aspects of the Web 2.0 world in the text “Feed” as Violet shouts that they no long have the feed but rather are the feed (202). As of right now we seem to have control of the Web 2.0 world and know how to use it to our benefit as we decide what is out there as far as content and what we want to search for. However as companies such as Google trace our every steps and learn everything about us, it’s only a matter of time before the computer really is smarter than us.

7. Cultural Shift – From Privacy to Surveillance

I find it only right to talk about the cultural shift we are currently facing as all our media user data is being monitored, collected and analyzed made easy by the Web 2.0 world. In the text, “Feed” as the characters walk around their local mall unsure of what they want to purchase, their built in feed tries to help them by giving them suggestions and listing prices. (31) We are starting to see this in our own world as Amazon.com gives us suggestions to things we might be interested in purchasing based on a past purchase. Every website we visit online, every search we type into Google.com is being logged, remembered, studied. Facebook privacy options are changing all the time as we learned about in the article “With Friends like these…” we really have no privacy on Facebook and as the author states, the creator of Facebook has essentially created his own country, a country of consumers. Ads lay to the right of the page that are specifically targeted to you using information such as your hobbies and interests right from your profile page.

8. The Impact of Advertising – You Have My Next 10 Seconds

As we studied the parts of the brain that play a part in how we interpret media messages, I find it important to note that we are only conscience of 2000 out of the 400 billion bits of information we are receiving per second. As we saw in the text “The Persuaders”, living in part of today’s culture we are bombarded with more advertisements than we can process and in order for those putting the message out there to get their message across, they need to know the right techniques. “The secret of all persuasion is to persuade the consumer to persuade themselves”. Our emotional/feeling limbic brain is triggered when advertisers use certain music, pictures and images to hook us in. Sex and violence sell because it goes straight to the reptilian brain, where our fight or flight notions come into play. We are getting more and more used to ignoring these techniques and therefore creating effective advertising is an ever-changing skill in today’s culture.

Although I'm never a fan of car commercials, my love for this song attacked my limbic brian the moment it came on TV and I paid attention to the rest of the commercial. 

9. Politics in the Media – How Much are we Really Seeing?

As “Media and Society” explains, we in a democracy need adequate information to make informed decisions when it comes to taking political actions. In today’s news, after the 6 major corporations filter down news stories, are we really obtaining genuine political information? Neil Postman discusses how the focus shifts away from the topics of political conversation to how the candidates look and act. I personally know more about Michelle Obama and their family dog rather than bills being passed and what ideas are being discussed because that is what media outlets cover, it is considered more entertaining. Also, so much political information is censored from American’s eyes, we would never see it on television or read about it on the cover of the paper. Reading the book “Censored 2010” really shed some light about how much information we really aren’t getting through our typical news sources such as the fact that there’s a secret contract that we aren’t allowed to see that is signed by both presidential candidates before a debate. Even the first censored story, “US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street” makes me wish I was a bit more informed about political actions before I am expected to cast a vote.

10. Hyperreality – Leaving as Quickly as They Come

Postman begins to discuss this hyperreality world with images becoming to imbedded into our consciousness that we lose our ability to think and realize the difference between image and reality. His thoughts only become more apparent in today’s culture with the Web 2.0 world and thousands of television channels. As “Media and Society” explains, appearance, not substance, is what matters because that is what people remember, it’s what sticks with them and it’s what sells. (310) Reality television shows gain high rating numbers, why is this? We now have images with no real-world referents. Fast paced entertainment is the new model for our society, we are in fact experiencing a “peek-a-boo-world” where things come and go with little backing or coherence.

Check it...

ghostcrew.blogspot.com

Media Mediatation #8 Isn’t Everything News to Somebody?

Why not blog about blogging in my blog? First off, about this video I found, “Blogs in Plain English”. The video is just that, it simplifies (simple solutions!) the whole idea of blogging and why people do it pretty simply. The production techniques used are pretty simple yet they were probably pretty time consuming for the producers to put together. A voiceover speaks over pieces of paper that are labeled and color coded symbols to get across the point. A real live finger can be seen moving the pieces around in a logical matter while a marker draws paths connecting necessary points. 

I wasn’t so much into the idea of creating a blog for myself in this class because I wasn’t sure who (other than Rob) would read it. I never thought I was very interesting to read let alone had interesting things to talk about but as this video points out, that’s okay. “People like you have the power of the media, a personal kind of news that appeals to a high number of small audiences.” In this web 2.0 world, blogs allow us, anyone, to get a message out there. It’s amazing that we never had this power before; Neil Postman wouldn’t know what to think about it! When he was writing his text, the "news" was chosen and writen by a reporter and then went to a tiny group of people who decided what would be broadcasted to the masses. While we still see this way of reporting today, it's not the only method we have thanks to things such as blogs.

I don’t follow too many blogs other than some of my fellow classmates, teachers and friends that I know personally. I feel as though people only read blogs if they know the person writing them or if they care about the content. I find myself skimming through Tweets clicking on links of blogs that sound as though they have an interesting new post up, often the topic has to do with social media. Next, I find myself not only skimming that blog, but clicking on hyperlinks they have and other sites and authors they recommend. Before too long, I have 10 windows open and don’t even remember which Tweet I started at.

Here's a cool list of 25 Social Media Blogs.

Media Meditation #7 Burton Does It Again

So the first thing that really got me about this video is the fact that it is a video at all! When I think about clothing lines, I think right away of catalogs, glossy, paper catalogs that I find in my mailbox, technological shift to be able to see a catalog on youtube.com. In this video, Burton is showing off their 2010 women’s line. What better way to showcase these jackets than to allow customers to see exactly how they fit on someone, how they move and how they zip or button up. No words are spoken, just images, an epistemological shift. The production technique used in this video is pretty unique as well, each girl puts on a jacket and then takes it off and tosses it out of the camera shot, the next scene, showcasing a totally different back drop has a new jacket falling from the angel the previous girl threw it. Cool tricks, simple yet clever.

The 4 minute long video catches the attention of my limbic brain right off with the repetitive beats that are playing in the background, Davey Rocket's “Upbeat Heartbreak” to be exact. Another thing that catches me (and my limbic brain) in the video are the gorgeous backdrops that change every time the jacket changes. I would expect to see all snow but Burton is keeping it fresh by showing that their jackets and apparel can be sported not just on the slopes with their shots of fields, tunnels and streets in the flick. (Tapping into people’s emotions here with a bit of emotion transfer as they view each scene? I think so)

I found out about this video via Twitter when not only Burton Snowboards tweeted about it, showing us a personal shift but some others who had worked on it or were just giving shout outs to some of the girls in it. Another case of Twitter being a great marketing tool and way to spread a link around the Internet. The girls in the video are professional riders on the Burton Women’s Team along with some of the Shop Girls. Pretty cool to see people you look up to modeling a coat you could be wearing… persuasive technique of using beautiful people. 

Rad. Corporate. Good day.

Media Meditation #6 Is What You See Really What You Get?

Food, everyone loves it. So much so that there is even an entire television network dedicated to it, Food Network. On this channel shows vary from how to cook a certain recipe, to how certain foods are made and packaged in a factory to what restaurant you can find the best cheeseburger at. There are even reality challenge shows over food where multiple chefs will battle it out to be judge on their final products. 

Often these shows use production and persuasive techniques such as humor and beautiful people (see Paula Deen above) to make the food and cook process more entertaining. Neil Postman talked a lot about turning things into forms of entertainment and the Food Network has certainly done so when it comes to the kitchen.

With my brother being a culinary major, my family has taken a particular liking to the channel. Also, we thankfully (my parents especially) have the opportunity to travel a lot so we look to the station for different dinning ideas. The fact that we can do this and use the Internet is certainly a technological shift rather than just getting a recommendation from a friend or seeing an advertisement for the place in the paper. The past Thanksgiving break we traveled to Buffalo, NY to see family and tried to eat at a place called Grovers that was featured as an awesome burger joint in the show, Diners, Drive Ins, Dives.  

  The small restaurant ended up having a huge wait, something my dad pointed out that he had read on a message board online. Apparently after the show featured the place, they had a huge increase in customers, so much so that they stopped doing take out orders!

I asked my parents if they have ever made special trips to check out some of the places they see on TV or read about in books but the answer was not usually. They will however know that they are traveling somewhere for a conference, vacation or family and pay special attention to see if any places from that area are featured. My dad, who loves planning things ahead of time, will often check out the website RoadFood.com (pictured above) to get idea on places to eat while we travel.  

Although my brother and I always pick on him for planning ahead, we’ve always been really pleased with the outcome. One of my favorite places that we have gone after seeing it featured on the Phantom Gourmet was the East Coast Grill in Boston, MA… check it out on the video below and tell me you wouldn't be tempted to try it!  (Come on, they have a make your own bloody mary bar!)

Here are some of the other places they have tried out and where they learned about them...

Paula Deens – Savannah Georgia (Food TV Network Show)

Grovers – Buffalo, NY (Diners, Drive Ins, Dives)

Holy Canoli – Worchester, MA (Phantom Gourmet)

East Coast Grill – Boston, MA (Phantom Gourmet)

Super Duper Weenie – Fairfield, CT (RoadFood.com)

Peter Lugers Steakhouse – Brooklyn, NY (Steak Paradise)

PJ Clarke’s – New York City (Hamburger Heaven)