Paper or The Screen?

            There really is no other feeling like reading a good book. Sometimes I miss the times where I could just sit back and relax with a good book, but nowadays with so many distractions it's hard to find a long enough period of time to actually spend enough time reading any book. In this increasingly digital age, the pleasures of reading books are lost on the internet and its articles.

            Although distractions from books were present before in the form of magazines, comic books and graphic novels, they don't even compare to the distractions that the internet brings. Reading magazines and comic books weren't considered really "reading" because you usually just flipped through the pages as will, there was really no concentration or thinking involved because you were mostly looking at images and skimming through words. In the case of books, you really need to pay attention, and for a long period of time. You need to read every word, imagine every scenario and it really requires you to interact with the piece of writing instead of just flipping through the pages.

            The internet has become just like the comic books and magazines, it requires no real attention span, you can just flip through websites and pictures, skimming through words, and creates the illusion of reading. In the New York Times Article by Rich, he mentions that "reading in print and on the internet are different" because readers can just skim through articles, perusing through sites that have no correlation to one another and they can start and stop their session whenever they want, while books have a certain path the reader has to follow and they cannot just turn pages at will as they need to start at the beginning and work their way to the end. A book requires a long attention span and plenty of imagination which the internet has eliminated in the most recent generations because we are able to read whatever and how much ever we want and change topics with just a click of a button.

The Status

Personally I do understand what the big deal is about accepting your mom or your dad on Facebook will do. Although I don’t care about the social implications of being known to have friended one or both of my parents, it’s the security issue that could be potentially problematic. Today’s blog is about the Facebook Status. This is probably what I changed the most about my Facebook use once I friended my parents. I act a certain way at home and I act a certain way around my friends and those I am friends with on Facbeook and they are not similar. I don’t voice my every thought at home and I don’t swear at home. Those are the two things that help me communicate to my friends my “status” at any particular moment. 99% of these statuses are not suitable for my parents because it’s either about them because they wouldn’t let me do something and I didn’t want my parents to know my every thought.

The article in the Washington post talks about kids who are having similar problems and people vent by communicating through “No parents on facebook” groups. I eventually learned to live with the change and never really panicked or acted out by writing on such groups to vent my frustration, I exclude my parents from any incriminating photos because I have an image to uphold to their standards and that is basically the only thing people are worried about. I became a more decent human being on my statuses and stopped reporting useless things, so actually it made my behavior improve! I think its just an age barrier that one has to cross before they become friends with their parents, before Facebook it was an emotional barrier that had to be crossed, and now it is an electronic barrier where you can literally “friend” your parents. The status on Facebook was really the only thing that was affected in my usage, and it was affected for the better so I have no complaints to adding my parents on facebook.

The Professional Photographer

So what is the difference between a photographer and a the average Joe with a multifunction point and shoot camera which takes great pictures? According to croteau and hoynes the basic answer is talent, but we can’t stop there because how do we decide who gets the status of photographer nowadays when everybody has a camera, which can do everything. Today’s topic is about cameras, being quite a large tech buff I absolutely love cameras. Cameras allow us to capture moments in time and save them for however long we want, it allows us to capture a moment in time in specific light, angle and position we want to remember it in. Whenever we travel, one of the main things we carry is a camera because we want to document these trips. In essence, it also allows us to share with our family and friends these points in time when we travelled and allow them to experience second hand what we experienced (through photos).

With that being said, because of the progression of technology through the years and better and better cameras being released into the consumer market, I believe the gap between a photographer and an average Joe with a camera keeps getting wider, and not narrowing. The average Joe will probably take an excessive amount of pictures to try and capture that one moment or try to capture that one moment multiple times to have different views but a photographer is able to take just one picture and capture the moment because he has a vision, he knows exactly what he wanted and he did not have to experiment with multiple shots, instead just waits for the perfect moment.

Movie Mind Games

Movies have a distinct effect on many people. In this day and age the majority of the masses are addicted to movies and television, there are an abundance of television programs filling the cable networks such that they are able to fill every spot, every hour every day with something for people to watch. Movies are a similar issue, there are just so many movies. It is either amazing the creative talent that Hollywood has inspired to churn out movie after movie with multiple new movie premieres every week but all these movies also make incredible amounts of money at the box office.

Sure the movie industry takes advantage of the holiday seasons and all the different holidays and times of year to release movies that are appropriate to that particular time but are movies released at that time in order to generate more money at the box office because it would be more suitable to release Christmas movies in the winter season rather than the summer or is the influence the other way around? Are movies released in order for people to be in a certain mindset and psychological state around those particular times of year?

Sure summer blockbusters are released in the summer, with an abundance of action movies, CGI movies and a slew of movies that just increase your heart rate in order to keep the summer energy alive. Around Christmas and thanksgiving time we get many romantic comedies, and cheerful movies to keep the holiday season happy and a slew of romantic movies release around valentine's day to keep that holiday alive as well. Now my question is that is the movie industry just trying to exploit the times of year in order to make a killing in the box office or are we being manipulated into thinking certain things at certain times of the year? like being incredibly excited over the summer, being compassionate, kind and family oriented during Christmas and being romantic at valentine's.

According to Croteau and Hoynes, there are certain forms of media that have to work within political constraints, but they could be working inside these political constraints that have been constructed by the existing media because of the agenda setting theory. Sure there are political constraints but only because people are led to think a certain way through different types of media and are lead to think certain things are unacceptable. The main method of determining social norms is through observance and usually people are influenced to think and act a certain way so is it safe to say that the movie industry both creates these constraints as well as exploits these constraints for a box office killing?

Ridiculous Influence

There is no doubt that media does have influences on people’s lives, it might dictate how people act, it might change how people think and feel, but could it get us so sucked in that it makes us want to replicate scenarios we see/experience or live with or like people in the movies and characters in video games?

There have been numerous instances of people becoming so addicted to video games that they play too much and because of the stress and the continuous play without taking care of their daily health it eventually leads to them passing away. Most recently, and probably the most ridiculous a “Tokyo man marries video game character”. In a Nintendo DS video game called ‘Love Plus’ players are allowed to create characters and is characterized as a Dating Game.

In our TV Delinquency Debate reading, there are three basic propositions of the influence of media on delinquents which all say there is a strong correlation between the amount of exposure and influence on children making them delinquents. Apart from people marrying video game characters, which does indicate a high level of influence on that particular individual, what about all the other violent and irrational games that exist? GTA is one of those games which are extremely violent and vulgar where players are required to drive irrationally, kill, have sex and run away from the police.

Though the companies who release these games have the age warnings and disclaimers, they are rarely ever followed, how can we be sure that kids these days won’t be taught how to live life by these video games? How can we be sure that kids won’t run around killing, having sex with prostitutes and run away from police? How can we be sure that they won’t drive incredibly fast and irrationally as they do when they have fun playing video games?

Tokyo Man Marries Video Game Character: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/12/16/japan.virtual.wedding/index.html

Facebook Inbox-ing vs. Email

Facebook has infiltrated so many people's lives. It has made it easier to communicate in this technology filled world. One specific part of Facebook seems to be a substitute for email these days. Before the days of Facebook, I used to send out many emails, for personal reasons, to keep in touch with family back in India when I lived in Indonesia and to contact teachers and other professionals. After I joined Facebook, I noticed a significant decline in my use of email to contact friends and family.

Most of the time my family back home would be enraged in my lack of communication with them but my response would be "just join Facebook". For some reason I avoided the use of email because it seemed more of a hassle than to simply click the inbox button on Facebook (even though the procedure was the same, I still had to choose a recipient, subject and type out the message). The effort level would have been the same regardless of using Facebook or email but for some reason I had developed some sort of mental block and because 99% of the people I wanted to stay in contact with were on Facebook, it was a mental hassle to long into a different website to contact a select few other people.

Media has infiltrated our lives, much like the hypodermic model which states that media has been injected into our bloodstream, it is also the case that we have been given a bigger dose of certain types of media than others. In the case of Facebook, I think we have been given quite a large dose. The procedure for writing a Facebook message and an email is exactly the same, search for the recipient, type a subject and type the message, but I would much rather send it on Facebook than use my email.

Glasses, am I better off without them?

I got glasses at a very early age because I probably watched too much television or played too much game boy and I now wear them to aid with my vision problems. My glasses clarify the otherwise blurry world I would have to experience 24 hours a day, not being able to decipher anything, would not be able to pay attention to anything the professor writes on the board, I couldn't see who people were, and I would only be able anything within a few feet of my eyes. So I thought I was pretty grateful for this marvelous invention.

Over the years we have discovered how much of an impact media has on our lives. It is literally everywhere. Many studies conducted say we are exposed to anywhere between a few hundred to up to 8,000 advertisements and opportunities to be an observer of any type of media. We see media everywhere we look, they range from the logos on everybody's clothes, billboards, television ads, and the incredibly annoying pop-ups and sidebar blinking advertisements on all sorts of websites. We are exposed to more media than we should be, and our generation especially has endured probably the most exposure because we grew up during the time of the tech boom and we probably spend the most time in front of the television or the computer.

The problem starts off with the political socialization theory where they target the young audience, adolescents who are just old enough to make up their own minds about the nature of politics and social movements and falls into the cultivation theory which is the cumulative impact of the media on the public. This definitely talks about our generation, we grew up with media screaming in our faces, who is to say that we are not shaped by the media? Theorists say that it is this extensive and long term exposure to media that has the real effects, and I think being exposed our entire lives qualifies. What could we do or what can we do in order for us not to be taken prisoner by the media? It is possible to avoid such influences and be mentally stronger, but there are so many different people who are susceptible and easily influenced by anything.

I ask my question again, was it worth it to get my glasses and be able to see clearly the incredible abundance of media around us?

Stand-up Comedy

                Everybody is used to stereotypes. It is usually the first thing that comes to mind when you meet new people, they are those little preconceived notions everybody has about everybody else in order to define certain people's characteristics or just simply define them into a certain group. The fact is that many people are often upset when they're stereotypes are confused or don't come true.

                When I was at Indiana University at Bloomington before I transferred, the first thing that people noticed was that I did not have an Indian accent when I spoke. The first reactions I got out of people was the astonishment that I did not fit the criteria for an Indian international student. The stereotype there was that all the Indians had an Indian accent, they all hung out with the rest of the Indians on campus. Being on the receiving end of the confusion was an interesting experience, but I have been on the other side as well, I never actually thought of how strange it is when you hear something you don't expect to hear coming from certain people.

                These stereotypes are usually formed through the mass exposure to different types of media. I know one big influence for me was listening to various different stand up comedians and hearing people tell jokes about what the comedians were talking about. The basis for many comedians' material are exposing the different stereotypes that we all know about but giving it a more entertaining factor. The stand-up comedians I most listened to were Russell Peters and Robin Williams. Their material revolves around exploring the different stereotypes that emerge from all the different nationalities in the world. For example, Russell Peters usually makes fun of Indians, and in one clip he talks about how Indians are usually lazy and are not fit for manual labor, but can do math very well and he makes a joke about how if an Indian were a slave, it would be counterproductive but he would offer to do your taxes instead. The bulk  of Robin Williams' material revolves around similar topics. My question is, is it ethical to exploit these stereotypes for humor? Will people take it the way it is meant to be seen or will people take the jokes too personally?

Russell Peters - whole world's mixing

Russel Peters - Indian Slaves in South Africa

The SmartPhone

                Smartphones have infiltrated our culture as being one of the most useful items around and embedding themselves into our lives to become essential tools of communication. Blackberries and iPhones in particular have become the most prominent and used hand phones around. Not only do smartphones enable the average user to make calls, but they also allow them to check their email, show the time, allow them to send messages instantaneously back and forth between the respective devices, take pictures and listen to music. The connectivity function in particular allows us to synchronize our lives with the world and stay in touch with everything that is happening that instant. In the Technology and Ideology reading, it mentions that daylight savings was only a recent invention. Before all the times were synchronized according to time zones, each town or city would adjust their times according to where they were positioned in the world and noon would be when the sun was highest in the sky and the shadow was the smallest on the sun dial. People did not seem to be in much hurry at all or too concerned about what was happening in the next town, or the next city, state or continent for that matter. As the technology improved, and people were traveling to different places and communicating across significant distances, the concept of synchronization became more important. As mentioned in our reading, once the railroads spread across the continent, there was enormous confusion with scheduling which made it difficult to run the trains. Technology progresses to satisfy people's needs, the progression in technology also creates a new culture, usually of getting things done faster, in a shorter time, and efficiency becomes more important. The emergence of smartphones has satisfied our need for increased efficiency in communication and being able to synchronize ourselves with the rest of the world even better.

Defining Media

            In general, the perception of media is such that, the first thing that people think of when they think of media is what they see on television, what they hear on the radio and the other visual attractions that are generally associated with the entertainment industry. In fact, that is only a very small proportion of what media actually contains, according to Marshal McLuhan media is anything that man can relate to any of his five different senses as well as the form of the media itself to convey the message to its public. There are several ways to think about the what media does to the world but media itself is simply a way to convey a message from one community to another.

            Many things have evolved into the most efficient forms of their being over time, similarly, it can be thought that the definition of media through different media theorists could have evolved into the most efficient definition, from McLuhan's definitions in 1964 to Croteau and Hoynes' definition in 2003. Croteau and Hoynes delve into the actual word media and split it apart into its root forms to get a definition that seems the most accurate for our times. They find that "Media is the plural of medium" which is "derived from the Latin word medius, which means middle" (Croteau & Hoynes, 2003) and they come to the conclusion that media is nothing but the way of communicating a message and the transference occurs through the medium. In current times, this is the most prevalent in areas of business such as marketing and advertising, as well as the entertainment industry. Marketing and advertising is built on getting a message through to their target market or niche market in order for their product or service to be known and purchased. In order for them to accomplish this task they have to find the most effective way of communicating with their selected audience. In this modern world, the media is often exploited for monetary benefit, there are numerous examples where by using a medium, communities have been helped in certain situations, the UN uses mediums to create awareness and many different other NGO's use mediums to create awareness and ask for assistance. Therefore, Media is combination of ways to convey a message across to different communities of people, as defined by Croteau and Hoynes.

             Nearly 5000 years ago, the world was granted a sacred religious text called the Vedas. "The Vedas are the primary texts of Hinduism," (Sacred-Texts¹) these are the texts that used to govern life in India thousands of years ago and these are the religious guidelines everyone usually adheres to. The way the Vedas were born was that the Hindu priests used to believe that they heard the prayers from around their lives. They used to hear it in the wind, they used to hear it when they prayed, and soon enough they were learning these new prayers through their sense of hearing. Through their sense of hearing they used to say the prayers, transferring from one sense to another. Marshal McLuhan's perception of media contains the method in which the Hindu priests were able to learn the sacred Hindu prayers because "Media [are] the extensions of Man." (McLuhan 1964) and therefore Man uses the extensions of himself, his senses, to absorb any and all messages that are transferred to him and around him. Also, McLuhan's second perception of media was that "the medium is the message" (McLuhan 1964) and the Vedas, the message, were the medium through which they were created because the medium was the sound that was heard, which was the prayers, and the prayers were the sound, therefore the Vedas (the prayer) was the message.

            Croteau and Hoynes have the most efficient definition of media that encompasses all its uses in the modern world and the corporate world where mediums are used for entertainment and advertising, to create the well known word we know today, "The Media", while McLuhan gives perceptions of the media that are linked to everyday life where messages are passed through anything and everything, including our own body's senses. Therefore, media, simply put, is an information transfer highway where messages are sent and received through various different mediums.

 ¹ Hare, John B. "Sacred-Texts: Hinduism." Internet Sacred Text Archive Home. Web. 12 Sept. 2010. <http://sacred-texts.com/hin/>.