Class Highlights

When I read the description for this class, I honestly didn't think that I'd enjoy it as much as I really did. But it went beyond just the history of media, and how it may have impacted societies in the past, but it really talked about how media affects our society and our lives. Somethings that really led me to think were:

1. When I realized that correlation may not necessarily mean causation; it makes you think qualitatively and not just quantitatively. It forces you to really look at the why, as well as the what.
2. That countries like our with really liberal freedom of speech/press laws have so much power in our words. I think if the media took proper care of their responsibilities and stopped caring about what ideas will sell, we'd be much better off. It's a shame that we have all this freedom from our first amendment, yet we hardly use it on much that matters. Because I don't care if Kim Kardashian has a baby or not, quit giving a whiny baby like herself more publicity.
3. Advertisement is almost evil. There is SO much product placement in movies, it's really hard to not to recognize it when it's there after the veil has been torn. I really can't enjoy a movie without a cynical thought to the company that the movie has been advertising for.
4. Because T.V. has been around long enough that the character the television show broadcasts to its likewise adolescent viewers to are so over exaggerated that it's redefining what kids should act/think like. I think we'd have a lot less people pulling the same stupid stunts in real life if it wasn't present firsthand on television.
5. You can't trust everything that you find on the Internet. There are some serious trolls in the world and the Internet is their bridge that they exploit. Enough said.

I think these were the key "Aha" moments that I got from this class that I'll be holding onto.

Media Ethics

There was a lot of controversy about a Facebook photo that had been circulated by a Steph Strayer, stating, 

"If this is your husband, I have endured a 2 hour train ride from Philadelphia listening to this loser and his friends brag about their multiple affairs and how their wives are too stupid to catch on. Oh please repost..."

Although Strayer is not a professional journalist mandated into following media ethics, I do believe that she invaded a certain kind of personal space regarding the relationship between a man and his wife. Granted, that man was a infidel imbecile who deserved to be shamed, however I do not think that his wife should be involved in that kind of humiliation. Regardless of whether the man was telling the truth or not, this act of posting on a social networking media the internet, where it will never be erased, is obscene and it's not any stranger's moral duty to let such a fragile piece of information be delivered to a person in such an insensitive way.

Advertising: Propaganda Techniques

Looking back, I remember as a kid I got annoyed by commercials. I mean to an extent, everyone does, but I was SO infuriated by them that the level of anger and frustration I felt by commercials were irrational. I guess I just loved Pokémon too much.

Say hello to Pikachu!

I guess to a certain level that my reaction did make sense, because some advertisements really are meant to annoy the living fecal substances out of you, until you have some kind of unholy resemblance to Mr. Hankey, of the comedy TV series South Park. In all seriousness, here are some of the propaganda techniques that you definitely have seen at least once when watching commercials, otherwise I'm thinking it's safe to think that perhaps you were of amish background. I'm not here to judge.

REPITITION
The trick to this line of advertisement is as simple as creating an earworm of a jingle and overstating your products name so that you make sure your product is as remembered as the names of immediate family members. Par example:

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
Now, the title to this technique is a little overstated, especially with the example I have posted below. To emphasize the company's ethos, they use popular celebrities or beautiful people that appears as if their lives have made drastically better by using this product. But to refresh your memory, here is awkward prepubescent Justin Bieber telling you about Proactiv:

INTERNET: SHOPPING

Have you used the Internet for shopping, gaming or dating, or do you know someone who has? Do you know anyone who has developed an addiction (or time-consuming habit) of one of these activities? Explain how it affected their lives and how they put a stop to it, if they did. Include user-friendly links to any specific sites you mention.

 Personally, I prefer Internet shopping in some ways compared to shopping out in public; there are just some many more conveniences when it comes to shopping online. Although shopping online hasn't escalated to the point of an addiction, there were definitely some times where I felt like it had gotten out of control.
When I first got a job, I was so excited that I would finally be able to budget for myself and buy all of the things that I wanted. One of the things that I was especially fond of, and particularly excited to buy were clothes.
I had gotten a tip from a friend a while ago that it's easier to save money if you have a bank account, because it's so much easier to regulate your spendings –– due to the fact that when you physically do not carry money, you're less likely to just spend freely without knowing how much you'll have leftover. Wanting to be wise with my spending, I rarely carried cash with me, to discourage buying stuff.
But while browsing online on a blog, I noticed that someone started advertising for one of my favorite clothing stores: Urban Outfitters. Out of curiosity for the sale, I started to browse online developing a less favorable habit of wanting basically everything that I liked. Because I knew that all of my money was in the bank, the temptation was palpable.
Thankfully this habit didn't last too long, because the repercussion of my wreckless spending led me to cry every single time I actually needed to buy something. After nearly two months of not being able to buy necessities, I got the slap across the head that restored some sense of responsibility that I really needed.

Television

Length: 3:02
Description: This is a video by filterfoundry in partnership with STASHMEDIA.tv about the history and effect of magazines. This video talks briefly about the founding of magazines, and how varying genre and volumes had different effects on society in different times in our past, due to it's vast variety of topics to explore.
Chapter Relations: Chapter 1: Introduction, and Chapter 5: Magazines
Quiz: In what year did men's magazine take a sharp left turn, and what generation came into birth because of it?
Answer: 1994; The Loaded Generation

MOVIE TIME

Hands down, my favorite movie in 2012-2013 would have to go to.....

WRECK IT RALPH

Let's face it. This movie has EVERYTHING. Adorable and witty characters, unexpected movie plots, and is basically an AMAZING montage of all your favorite childhood video game characters, and MORE. I had first watched this movie magnificence in the theaters itself, and actually convinced my friends who had already seen this movie to watch it again –– it is THAT good. The main character is a villain in a video game named Ralph. Scorned upon, he set on an adventure to show that he could be a hero for once, instead of a villain. This is the movie that has restored my hope for actually decent, clever, heartstring-tugging family films, in contrast to the declining quality of movies we dare to call entertainment.

The movie that forever has my heart would be:

Spirited Away

To begin with, I LOVE Studio Ghibli films, which would  be the Disney equivalent of America in Japan. (But as far as I know, the closest thing they have to a theme park is a Studio Ghibli Museum Tokyo, Japan)
I remember when I first watched this movie, it was in 2003, I sat bundled on the couch of my sister's ex-boyfriend. He had lived in Japan for a huge majority of his life, and so he was very in touch with Japanese culture. One day when he baby sat me, he asked if I wanted to see a movie, and that was the biggest mistake of his life because it was this movie.
This movie had not come out in America in 2003, so the copy that he had was in Japanese. I didn't understand a lick of Japanese, as I was Korean, so I had him translate the entire movie for me. Every single time in his miserable existence of babysitting me, he had to translate this film for me. And I fell more and more in love with the movie because it's just AMAZING. I felt like I had a very strong similarity to the main character, and practically memorized all the lines, songs, and even the inflections and intonations of the characters' voices when they spoke! Speaking about the movie does not do it justice, YOU MUST WATCH IT. But if you're vanilla, it's basically about a girl who gets spirited away and forced into labor in a bath house in order to save her parents.
I later found out that this movie actually holds some very dark implications and symbolism, but more could be read about that here.
In short, this movie is a masterpiece, and any other opinion will lead me to say, "as a merciful princess, I hereby degree, that anyone who disagrees with me shall be.... EXECUTED" (See what I did there?)

Magazine Proposal

The magazine idea I'd like to propose is ENGAGE.

ENGAGE focuses primarily on everyday interactions between ordinary people found in communication, action, and/or ideas. The communication that they talk about could vary from a spouse/significant other, friends, family, and/or other primary and secondary relationships. ENGAGE would explore different mechanics, and varying effects of communication. A secondary goal of ENGAGE is to engage them to different events occurring around the world.

The great thing about ENGAGE is that the readers could vary from young to old, male to female, and different ethnicities, because everyone interacts with each other in different ways; this magazine has something to offer to all. People who are very conscious about what they are expressing to others could use this magazine as a way to understand how different people would react to what they are saying, men and women having communication problems with their significant others could finally demystify the kinks within their relationship. More than that, they would educate the general public about current events all around the globe, and how to get involved with the people that we share this earth with. What's great is that this could be a popular subscription to all sorts of psychological doctors in practice for patients to understand the different things about communication. Very simply put, ENGAGE is a magazine that has varying key demographics, as well as piquing simple reader's interest.

While other magazines with a different goal of appealing to reader's interest by putting a short article or two about communication may seem like a positive addition to their consumer magazine, ENGAGE offers all-around, in-depth research, articles, and opinions about something that everyone always does: communicate. People want to be in control of situations, and if they know the right way to speak and appeal to people, they will. ENGAGE will offer exclusive research, offers, and ideas to help master the art of communication, observation, and accommodation.

I know at least five kinds of advertisers that would like to partner with this dream of ENGAGE:
Local psychiatric and therapeutic offices/clinics that would like to advertise their businesses; speech therapists and possibly well-accredited psychologist in the area could help boost the credentials of ENGAGE, as they also benefit from being featured in our magazine.
Authors and publishers with a common theme of better communication could also contribute to the multitude of advertisers needed. Their purpose would be similar as the clinics and offices that would be listed in our ads.
In the sample magazine cover shown in the very top, there is a portion of the cover dedicated to offers on how to get a perfect vacation. Each issue could explore a different kind of communication project, such as home-making for a perfect romantic ambience, or different kinds of fashion to show who you are as a person. Through these small kinds of projects, we could advertise differing kinds of objects, offers, and places that would best support the said projects.
Different kinds of mediums reflecting communication could be advertised. I want people to think beyond the ideas of cellphones, and technology to communicate a message. Through this magazine we could slowly revive the dying movement of art forms such as photography, and painting. We can finally become a literate society once more!
We could promote online blogs and sites; I believe that part of becoming communication literate is through the exposure of different kinds of communication with different kinds of people. We could feature unfound talents, and bring people in to being more culturally diverse.

And for the finale, we could include five different articles about what ENGAGE is really about:
First would be the most basic forms of communication: body language, oral speech, and written. We would dive into the different messages that could come from a tapping of a foot, or the heightening of a tone. We could teach others to listen; to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
A way we could address the broken idea of what love should be, is through how to speak to a significant other (or people with differing primary relationships) through their specific love language –– communication will finally be revealed as meeting a person at their level instead of broadcasting opinions in a way that can only be described through speaking loudly. People in relationships will see that it is not that their love for each other that is dying, but rather their communication skills.
Another article could address that people are essentially different, through the covering of stories all around the globe. They could talk about different cultures around the globe and how people of that society communicate, as well as just general education to events around the globe.
We could include varieties of personality quizzes to help narrow down what kind of person the reader is. The more they know about themselves as a person, the more they're able to understand why and how the message of one person affects them differently.
And purely for entertainment, we could have a do's and don'ts of communication; we could tell horror stories of sheer embarrassment, or pluck on the heartstrings of how someone's day was made through the simple messages of busy spouses doing acts of services, or different kinds of affirming words.