Final Project

Mass Media and the Internet
By: Amber Drake

(A) The internet is anything you could ever want or need to know all at your fingertips. Its media focus isn’t really a focus, the internet is one huge compilation of every kind, version, and “side” of media you could ever want, and you can search up any of it at any given time. There are Ads, blogs, news sites, archives, videos, and almost every other kind of version of media you can think of, and it’s everywhere, again, at any time you want. You don’t have to wait until “after the break” to hear the latest news story, you don’t have to wait until tomorrow morning for the paper to appear on your front step, and you don’t have to wait for…really, anything. Unless of course, your internet is slow.
I chose the topic of Media and the Internet because depending on what your favorite style of media is and how biased, or not, you feel like being for the day, you can search the whole internet for whatever version of whichever topic you want to read about. I love the idea of searching a topic and finding multiple blogs filled with average people’s points of view on the matter as well as the formalized news station-type versions. This is also one of the reasons why I love YouTube and the video bloggers. When they have something to say, they just make up a video about it and suddenly anyone can see it and it’s such a great way to get multiple points of view out there.
The internet has its ways of getting certain news out fast no matter how important most people think it isn’t. It’s definitely a great source of media.

(B) Over time I have learned that the internet is one huge, sometimes overwhelming source of information. While you can just about anything you want to learn more about, you have to be careful and check your sources. Anyone on the internet can say anything they want making things sound like facts when really they aren’t. Thankfully it’s really simple to search things you find by, let’s say, putting it into Google and seeing how many results you get that say the same thing. Then you can most likely conclude it’s a true statement.

(Learning Outcome 5) Obviously the internet can be viewed as a problem in that it’s too much information all at once and, like the article “Is Google Making us Stupid,” are we losing our ability to focus on one thing all the way through or do our minds jump ten different ways at once because of how things on the net are constructed. That being said, I don’t believe there has to be a solution to this beyond the fact that individuals just have to control their minds the best they can and focus on the things they want to focus on, but remember how important it is to focus on things they have to focus on.
In my experience of the internet, certain types of news, information, or group related jokes can spread extremely fast so that pretty soon, even the most uninterested in the internet type of people still know what’s going on. For example, I wonder how many of you have heard of the popular subtitled cat pictures called “lolcats.”
http://icanhascheezburger.com/
These pictures of cats are often subtitled with the “internet” way of typing as you can see quite a few words appear to be misspelled but this is just the internets own grammar and spelling! They even publish actual picture books of these cats, I own one!

(Learning Outcome 6) When using the internet to find any source of media, it’s very important to try and find valid unbiased sites, however, even if you come across extremely biased websites, you might only recognize that because you think the opposite. So, be careful that unbiased sites aren’t just unbiased because you agree, and remember to think about things from all sides!
The blog I did that most exemplifies my final project topic is the one I did entitled "Assess the Functions" where I went into more detail about the internet and why I like it.
http://jrn131amberdrake.blogspot.com/2009/11/assess-functions.html

Links related to my project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media#Internet
-Jump down to number 8 - The Internet. Remember to take Wikipedia facts lightly as anyone can edit these pages at any time!
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol1/issue4/morris.html
-While this article is rather dry, it seems to have quite a detailed assessment of the internet.

Here's a helpful hint when searching for something on a webpage! Hit ctrl+f and it will let you search a certain key phrase or word and it will search the article for you highlighting the areas where the phrase you searched for shows up!

Thanks everyone =)
-Amber Drake

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

You wanna know the real test? Getting through that article. I feel like the author tried to make his point but he tried too hard or...something, because I didn't have fun reading it.

The way I see it is that while this guy and whoever the other guys he talked to say that they could no longer make it through laborious texts, essays, and blogs like they used to, I have no problem reading things all the way through, and I grew up with this so called Google generation. That is, reading things that I want to read and who knows, maybe this is all that I know so I don't know what it was like to read these kinds of essays and books they are talking about but I can assure you that the kind of person I am, I would never have wanted to read War of the Worlds anyways. Again, I don't know if that's my generation or my personal interests.

A friend of mine used to play a trivia game with me over msn messenger and basically, he said, it was "battle of who can Google the fastest" to find the answer because the trivia was obviously beyond our skill level or interest level. So with things like that, you know, I don't think Google is making us stupid, I think searching around for trivia or random bits of news or whatever interests you makes you a little more knowledgeable than you were before.

All in all, if Google is doing anything, it might be messing with our attention spans. I think that people will always be willing to read complete texts of things that interest them, I know I do. I will admit though, that coming across something I thought I wanted to read but having it turn out to be something I find boring, I will not endure it, I will search for a more interesting or easier version or point of view of the same text.

Gaining money from science "facts"

I don't know if this counts exactly but this is one of the many commercials put out there by attorney's trying to get money from people and I guess for people because of bad side effects from medications. It's not that I like these commercials, it's that I think they are interesting and funny because of a few reasons. First of all, how are you going to sue someone if your side effect was death?

But anyways, I happen to be on one of the birth controls very similar to the ones listed in this video and I don't see how attorney's like this ever have a valid case because these horrible side effects that are listed in the commercial are not only side effects that most doctors BETTER tell you about, but they are in all of the literature that comes with your prescription and in most cases even your pharmacist will tell you a little bit about them.

My point is, I think these attorney's are rip offs because how is someone going to get money when they knew all along the possible side effects. I have known ever since I've started taken it that I could one day get a blood clot all of a sudden and I take that risk because the chances aren't that great but if I did ever get one, I would have to say that I can't blame anyone else because I knew the possible side effects and I chose to keep taking the meds.

When companies release a drug that is proven to work way more often than it hurts anyone, and they release valid warnings of side effects, I just assume this clears them of any harm because it's not their choice to keep you taking the meds.

YouTube Parodies of Life

The entertainment aspect of YouTube often includes it's vloggers doing various parodies of things such as their takes on movies and shows and often, life itself. One of my favourite people on YouTube is a girl named Hayley, screen name hayleyghoover, I think she has a creative and funny take on things.

Here's her parody of Small Talk:



And I don't know how many of you know much about the Twilight Series but here's her making fun of the character Edward Cullen:



and here's another one about how annoying gas stations can be:



I think that Hayley is unique because she really has her own point of view. She takes these things that are either way over rated like Edward Cullen or every day things we have to go through that are actually more annoying than we ever tend to think about, but she points it out which is nice and she does it in a funny way.

You Need This Product

Ad 1. Levis Pioneer Commercial

I don't normally like commercials, I mean who does, really, but this one is just amazing in my opinion. It's the voice that speaks and the amazing imagery and the places and people it represents. The first time that you watch this commercial it isn't clear what it's selling so, either along the way when you might notice an excess of jeans or at the end when the Levis logo shows up, you're like hmm...well that was interesting.

I believe that what Levis is doing in this commercial is that they are trying to sell youth, adventure, courage, and patriotism and they are stamping jeans onto it to say that these things are way more possible to obtain if you wear Levis jeans. I wondered at first if the speech that is being recited was actually a presidential speech or something because it sounds very patriotic, but it's actually a poem by Walt Whitman and it is very poetically recited and honestly, it made me want to buy jeans.

I can't see this commercial relating to older people very much, it seems to be more of a twenties age group focus. It's sort of revolution type thing, the start of a new era but it can still relate back to older times in America. I really love this commercial.

Ad 2. HTC

Again, I found myself really liking this commercial. I like the music that is playing and it didn't really make me focus on the technicalities of a phone but rather the personalization of the people in the commercial. This ad is selling the fact that you can't do any of these things without this phone. You can't talk to who you need to find, you can't talk to who you miss, you can't record memories or distract yourself or locate places without this particular phone.

I can see this Ad reaching out to any kind of person becuase of how it tries to relate to any of the average person's needs. Even if you're someone who doesn't think they need a phone, you can watch this commercial and probably still think "wow I can do so many things with this phone other than use it to...talk...to...people..."

Ad 3. The Cube

I don't particularly care for the look of this car or anything but this commercial always struck me as something out of the ordinary. This ad is trying to sell the meaning that you are new aged. This ad uses technology that mostly compares to social networking sites like facebook. It has terms like "upload" when the guy adds ice to the car and "add friends" when everyone gets in the car and I think the ad is really trying to convey that this car can be like a computer, like a social networking site in itself.

I especially like when the guy opens the back of the car and you see all of those "green" bags with the recycling sign on them. The Ad is saying you can be new aged and you can save the planet and you can embrace technology all while maintaining "coolness" if you have this car.

I would say that it appeals to any of the younger generations, those of us who are technologically savvy. I think that people who don't know what facebook is or who don't think of technology as that important will really understand the message. Also, the car is just plain goofy looking and I don't think that appeals to a lot of people either I mean, I get the message and all but it doesn't make me want to buy the car which is the ultimate goal of the Ad so who knows, maybe it works on some people.

Assess the Functions

1. The term "Mass Media" is a very fitting phrase to describe what we have going on in America. It describes the many many ways we can receive information and how much media is released and how wide it is spread and how many versions of the same story we can hear and how many different opinions and biases it can be delivered in. Let's take a look at the internet as a media outlet. Not everyone gets a newspaper delivered to them, not everyone listens to radio news and with how much technology there is, who even knows how many people actually watch the news on a tv. I don't do any of the above, but I do, like many, many other people, have to go on to the internet at the very least, once a day.

The first thing I see is Yahoo news, and then the second thing I see is YouTube where there's often video bloggers talking about recent news, and then there's people on my chat lists (msn messenger, etc) who will send me links of news stories, it's in my email, there's even usually some form of news on the Yavapai College website. Pretty much, if there's anything you ever need to know about, you can find it on the internet, but you have to be careful, a lot of what you can see may not always be true. Just like you find anything online, anyone can make up whatever they want you to see. There's things like photoshop where people can alter images and make you believe something is real and you can get into the habit of believing things without real sources.

The internet is my favourite outlet of media because with newspapers, tv, radio, etc, you can only hear what they are telling you at that particular time but with the internet, you can search so many differents sources of the same stories so really, you can get as many different views as you want and generate your own ubiased truth. I think that with many of the other outlets of news like from tv or newspapers, people tend to habitually watch or read one certain station, paper, etc. With the internet, you have more control over this.

2. The impact of these categories of mass media on American society is actually extremely more powerful than we probably like to think it is. My favourite example, one I brought up in class once, is that once presidential debates became televised, the more good looking candidate often won presidency, even if he was a bad speaker. =P

A more recent heavy impact of something has been, of course, the economy. It's not just everywhere you look in person, it's always got several top stories on the news and as an impact, I really think it scares people, or at least saddens them, depresses them, makes them less happy in some way because to me, it's never good news, there's hardly ever any hope in these stories, it's like why not, though, can't politicians ever influence a story of some kind of good news, or, would that be wrong cause they are lying as there really is no good news...hmm. Just one of many reasons I stay away from tv news stations, it doesn't make me any happier and I've survived this long without having to know any of it, so, I won't let it reach me in these ways.

3. What came to mind for me on this one is that as the media has grown, the American society has grown in the sense that we are more accepting of something the more we hear it. If accepting doesn't describe all situations, we become more, lets say, used to hearing bad, strange, horrible things and yes, while we aren't happy that they happen, I think most of us have the attitude of thinking that these things just happen all the time and there's nothing we can do about it. I don't think we'd have this attitude if the media hadn't of grown so much but...which way are we better off? Knowing, of course.

It's probably weird to hear me say that we need to know more things after I've told you all I try to stay away from hearing it, but, that doesn't mean I completely ignore it all. =P When you think of something less depressing that is broadcasted a lot like stories on gay marrige and gay rights, the more that people discover these things and hear about them, the better of an opinion they can form and I'm a believer that people will be more accepting of something when they see the rest of world change as well.