Looking back at MC101

My first semester of college went by very fast, and I feel both proud and relieved. I learned a lot so far, not just about academics, but also about being more independent. I had a journalism class in high school where we also learned about different types of media, but sadly it had no real structure. I actually liked my MC101 class because we did a lot more in depth studying of all the different kinds of media.

One of my favorite parts about the class was the structure, and really learning about each medium individually and in order. It really put stuff in perspective of how far media and has and how far it can keep going. I learned a lot of vocabulary in my high school class, but it was nice to have a continuous timeline as well. I always liked having guest speakers in high school and I liked having them in this class. I think they bring helpful information of what it is like to really work in these professions and share some of their stories with us. Another thing I thought was super creative was using Twitter and blogs for class. I've had a blog and hardly used it and this gave me a reason to remodel and try to post more stuff in the future. I've also had a Twitter for a while, but did not get into it as much until this past summer when I got my android phone. I like Twitter because, unlike Facebook, it is not changing what it is and I can see it being used for leisure and professional uses more and more in the future. The studies were also something new to me, but I liked those as well because they made me feel more involved and gave me something to relate to when we talked about the media studies that were done in the past.

The only thing I really did not like about the class is that it could be very mundane at times. I know the class was big, but I think the University could benefit in adding one more class and spreading out the number of students in each. I think learning the book work part of media history is very important, but I also think that having more hands-on activities with the types of media would be a good way to learn too. I guess I was expecting to learn about the University's side of each medium since we have a newspaper, radio station, TV news station, etc. I think talking about how each are changing and having someone from each department come talk to us would have been good to learn about as well as see how students could get involved.

I love the internet and I love my android phone. I do not think I could imagine a day or even a week when I could not talk to my friends. I think social media is very useful to keep up with people, but I also think it keeps trying to change to become more complex when it does not really have to be. As far as newspapers and books go, they will never die. Yes, the internet is good, but what if there is a fallout? People want a hard copy of news and events. And in my opinion, I do not like eReaders. The constant back light strains eyesight, and I am sure future studies will show that too. But of course, it is like that with computers and phones too. News will be news and advertising will be advertising. They both will always be more biased to whoever gives them more money. I do not agree it should be like that, but this is a business and businesses revolves around money. The class did not necessarily change how I view media since I already have a pretty set mind about different things, but I did get more insight. I want to go into Public Relations, and I was excited that we spent a day talking about it. It kind of gave me a taste of what I will be doing since the only information I ever got about it is from my own research. I do not really want to work with politics, but rather a small firm that communicates between businesses.
I am looking forward to what the next few years at the University will bring and I am very happy that the school of communications has so many opportunities for students.

The Persuaders (MC101)

What is advertising? Is it informing the public about a product or service, or is it just a fancy way of persuading them to buy it? I think it's a mix of both. We watched a movie in my MC101 class called The Persuaders which talked about different theories advertisers had to successfully get into the consumer's mind...
The first was Clotaire Rapaille who thought he had a way to figure out the consumer's hidden desires. He said no one can ever really know why people do what they do. He had a theory that people have three parts of the brain, the reptilian brain that controlled all the basic instincts, the limbic brain that controlled emotions, and the cortex that controlled higher reasoning. His theory stated that the reptilian brain always won. Always. When interviewed, he used the example of small cars versus big ones. He said even if environmentalists urge people to buy smaller cars, they will buy the bigger ones because the small ones are too small. I don't really believe that because I think that some people care about the environment too and want small cars. After all, everyone has different taste.
Frank Luntz was another man who said advertisers should tell consumers what they want to hear. He said, "Eighty percent of life is emotion, and only twenty percent is intellect." He elaborated by explaining that he could always change what people were thinking about, but he could never change what they feel because that is something deeper. He talked about word choice and how that is an important factor of gaining consumer trust. His example was politicians using "climate change" instead of "global warming" because it made the public feel more comfortable.
I agree with Frank Luntz more because people rely more on their personal feelings and want the producers to make them feel special and like they need the product. However, I also believe in the right for the people to know what exactly the product is that they are getting. I don't like those cell phone or insurance commercials that just say how they are better than the other. They should spend more time trying to be there for the consumer and trying to be genuine than just competing.

A Night of Television (MC101)

Television. It's the good ol' way to waste a few hours of spare time. I couldn't imagine what it could have been like to only have a few channels like my parents did back in the day, since I have over 500 of them. News, cartoons, movies, radio, etc. So many options! But are all these options really a good thing? I think so. Yes, on some shows or channels the content may be too graphic for the younger audience, but there are channels dedicated to just them as well. Many people believe that television content should be more censored, but I don't see the point. For example, I love the show Sex and the City. Of course it does not come on HBO anymore, so I watch the syndicated version on Style Network. Most of the cuss words and other choice words are bleeped out and whatever nudity was it in it edited out as well. My guess would be that no children are watching the show and the people that are are either grown up enough to not care about the content or are the same people that watch the trashy girls on Jerseylicious. Not a big deal if you ask me.
Then there is CBS. My favorite show - The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - comes on that channel. I am a huge fan. He is my favorite comedian and I like how he uses social media to interact with the viewers. He has a special segment every night dedicated to "tweetmail," questions viewers tweet or email him and his awesome robot sidekick (who also has a twitter). The show comes on at 11:35 at night and I would hope that the parents who don't want to their kids to watch the show already put them to bed. So why bleep out some curse words? He's allowed to say "balls," "penis," and "damn." I guess the channel is trying to uphold their reputation no matter what time the shows come on...
Another show I watched the other night is Tia and Tamera, the twin sisters' reality TV show on Style Network. My brother is the production assistant and the show and he lets me know how much of the show is actually reality. Let's just say, not much is. There are writers that make up the storyline of the season and they are told to be very dramatic with each other. The whole show is a roller coaster that goes from sisters who love each other to crying cat fights and back again. They cry at least every ten minutes, and even though my brother said they do cry a lot, they really caked it on for the show. I understand that this is to make money, but being portrayed as over-emotional on national TV does not sound good to me.
People look at television for entertainment, and the amount of time each person spends watching it varies greatly. I'm not a big fan of censoring TV content because I believe that the parents should be the refs between their kids and what they watch. Besides, most channels, at least in my opinion, censor the wrong thing. Craig Ferguson has fun with it by inserting fun words, like "tutti fruit" or "ay caramba" instead of curses, but what are a few curse words opposed to the extreme partying shown on Jersey Shore? The cultivation theory states that the "constant exposure to the same images develops a commonality outlook." I am a fairly liberal person and I understand that cursing does offend a lot of people and that seeing it on TV may influence some kids to do it, but they have plenty more exposure to it than just TV, like movies and video games. This generation is way more uncensored that the ones in the past, that's obvious, and that is because our exposure to violence and sex in everything we watch, but I think that people need to take a closer look at what exactly they censor rather than how much of it.

Deathproof Critique (MC101)

In my opinion, Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest directors of all time. All his movies are very unique and he presents his stories with great details and finesse. Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds are among my favorite movies of his, but Death Proof (2007) is still top of my list. The movie starts out in Austin, Texas, where four girl friends meet up at a bar to hang out before going to the lake for the weekend. At the bar they meet a former Hollywood stuntman who refers to himself as Stuntman Mike. As the night goes on, he offers one of the girls, Pam, a ride in his “death proof” stunt car. Soon after, Mike’s sick secret is revealed and he finishes her off right before going after her friends too. Fourteen months pass and the story picks up in Lebanon, Texas. Four girls are riding around, having fun, and are unknowingly spied on by Stuntman Mike. One of the girls, Zoe Bell, finds a guy who is selling a white 1970 Dodge Challenger that she wants to test drive. As the girls are taking it for a spin, Zoe decides to play “ships mast,” which is basically her riding on the hood of the car, only holding on to two belts fastened to the doors. Mike drives up to them, on an otherwise empty road, and tries to throw Zoe off the road. The girls become enraged by this, and decide to have some fun with him as well until they, at last, finish him off.

Death Proof was presented in a double feature named Grindhouse, along with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. I think this was a unique idea because it honored the double feature movie presentations of the past. The reasons why I love this movie are the story and its underlying insight, and its vintage-ness. The story is very original and I feel, in a way, that Tarantino is standing up for women by giving them the last laugh. Typage was obviously used during casting, for characters like Zoe Bell, which is the selection of actors based on their looks to properly convey the type of character the actor plays. Not only were the actors cast carefully, so were the cars. Stuntman Mike drives a black 1971 Chevrolet Nova rigged with a protective box around the driver’s seat. One of the girl’s drives a yellow with black stripes 1972 Mustang whose paintjob is a reference to the Pussy Wagon in Kill Bill. My favorite car in the film is the Challenger Zoe rides on, which is also the same car as in the classic movie Vanishing Point. These pretty cars are used in a classic style car chase, not seen since the 1990’s in movies like The Terminator. The numerous shots and stunts come together to result in the over ten minute long chase scene. Tarantino tried to make the film seem true to the time period of double features by adding occasional tears in the film and even adding a “missing reel” bit during the lap dance scene. I am not the biggest fan of the transition to digital movies, and I appreciate the attention to such detail. Although it is true to its R-rating, it also has some cheesy moments of past filmmaking, as, for instance, the leg hitting the road was purposely made to look fake. It is action-packed and keeps one of his/her toes.

Death Proof contains very detailed cinematography and an unique story, and is my favorite Quentin Tarantino film. I definitely give this movie an excellence rating of five out of five stars and recommend it to anyone who loves old-style movies or just plain exciting ones.

A Dying Art (MC101)

So, it is obvious that newspapers are dying. More and more businesses are shutting down because there just isn't a need for printed media like there used to be. Most people, including myself, are either turning on our TV's for news or using the internet. Social media sites are the main flow of all different kinds of news, from politics to celebrities. All TV news sites and a majority of newspapers have an internet site too that is more accessible to people. Although many papers are going out of business due to lack of money flow, I believe they will never fully die because there will always be some people that like something more tangible. After all, technology isn't always reliable and there might be a day when the internet crashes. Simply for the sake of keeping records safe, there will be written documents needed.