Social/Media/History

For the Timeline of Social/Media/History, our group decided to do a PowerPoint presentation. We were not too sure if we were doing this project right as it was confusing, but we feel our outcome was successful.

We interpreted the project as if we were supposed to choose a topic that is relevant to current culture and media, and choose 4-5 key technological inventions that have made that topic relevant. After brainstorming for a couple of hours, I thought of multiculturalism. So now we asked ourselves, which inventions from the beginning of time until the 19th century has made current multiculturalism possible. We thought of many ideas, and after starting our slideshow, we realised that our ideas were simply ideas, rather than technological inventions. We had to re-think our strategy, and finally we came up with the four inventions that have made current multiculturalism possible. We decided on Weaponry, The Alphabet, Farm Equipment, and Electricity.

We decided that on a timeline, Weaponry would come first. We decided this based on what I learned from ‘Understanding Comics’ by Scott McCloud. There is a chapter on human’s two basic instincts, one of which being survival. After I mentioned this to Robert and Elisha, we concluded that humans were defending themselves and killing animals for food before humans were having civilized conversations. In terms of more technological weaponry, we believe that guns are partly responsible for current multiculturalism. When the Europeans took over what is now known as Canada, they used weapons and rifles to take the land from the Native peoples. Guns were used heavily in the world wars, and this lead to more land being taken over.

Next came the alphabet. We believed that this invention helped multiculturalism because the ability to understand one another is necessary to live together. We realise that there were forms of alphabets in pre-historic times such as hieroglyphics and cave paintings, but we believe that the phonetic alphabet is what has enabled worldwide communication. People were able to write to each other, write books, and read after the alphabet was invented hundreds of years ago. Through the various readings created through use of the alphabet, people were able to learn about different cultures and places and enhanced the desire for people to travel and move to foreign civilizations, creating multiculturalism.

Farm equipment also relates to humans’ basic instinct of survival. We decided that the ability to produce crops and to harvest them is important for multiculturalism because in human’s history, many peoples have re-located because of food situations and the invention of the hoe for example, has enabled people to sustain a living standard where they are.

And finally, we have Electricity. We believe that electricity is an important invention that enables multiculturalism because it is what has enabled the world’s most common forms of communication and transportation. Without electricity, the people in North America would never have known anything about what is going on in China or Iraq, thus people may still believe that where they are living is the only land out there and would not have moved to different places.

When making the slideshow in PowerPoint, I was the technical one using the computer to do the actual slideshow. I found the images and got proper citations for the images that needed it and contributed valuable ideas for our topic. We all are responsible for the brainstorming and initial ideas of this project, but Elisha impressed me a lot with her ways of thinking. She just shot out multiple superb ideas, one after another. It came in handy when we kept getting stuck or found ourselves starting over. Robert was also very handy in this project because he was able to elaborate on Elisha’s thoughts when I did not fully understand. We believe that clear communication is attributed to this project’s success.

Through doing this project I learned the importance of invention. Mark Lipton’s saying, that when something is invented it doesn’t create a world with an invention, it creates a whole new world, is one that I now have a strong belief for.

In regards to the ‘Ecology of Media,’ I believe that all of these inventions have contributed to our media because in the 21st century, all forms of media are trying to be multicultural. I would assume the real reason behind the need for multiculturalism is money, but it is still nice to think that the media and multinational companies really care about everyone. Seriously though, I believe all the attempts at multiculturalism are to make more money. Companies advertise in a way to appeal to more people, more cultures, in order to sell more products and produce more revenue. Is that not what the media is all about these days? Targeted advertising? Creating Revenue?

All in all, I feel this project was a success.