Black-Box

The idea of a “black-box translator” is the main point that stuck with me after I read “Revolution in the Revolution” by Andrew Joscelyne. I find the concept of what actually happens when people react to media very interesting.

It is interesting to study why and how different forms of media are able to start cultural revolutions nad ideologies. I would love to know exactly why the Bible has had such an influence on past societies, as well as the present. It is just a book with words, why do people develop faith in it? Could it be only because people need a general sense of faith in ther lives? That they need something to believe in and a reason for why things happen? Or could it be because the power of the book is so overwhelming that no one knows it’s true potential?

I am a religious person. I believe I am because I was raised in a religios home, but that does not truly explain why I keep my faith. When I read the bible, I am usually lost and confused with it’s content and maybe that is why I continue to believe. It might just be because I am driven and I want to understand the Bible’s meaning. I have never thought that it could be the actual technology of it being a simple book that keeps me reading, but it is a valid point of view that is worth analyzing.

I have never understood why my father and brother get so excited over watching a football game on television. They are not actually playing the game and they are not feeling the sensation of getting knocked to the ground. Maybe in this case it is because of the medium that they are using to experience the game. Maybe there is a power behind the television that somehow makes my father tell everyone to shut up when the ball is thrown. It is almost as if the TV is controlling them without even physically affeting them. Maybe it is just because the "images rule [their] dreams," (Debray, 2) but I will never understand what is going on when their eyes absorb the light projected from the television screen, and I will never graspe the full ‘black-box’ concept, but from now on I will not stop thinking about what is really happening in my mind when I see media.

Sender

Message

Encoder

Transmitter

Channel of Communication

Receiver

Decode

Cited Work:

Regis Debray, "Media Manifestos:" Wired Interview with Debray
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.01/debray.html>.

Faith In News Media

My group’s film/video production turned out much better than I thought it would have. We decided to make a short clip with a series of interviews, telling people that there were many new laws passed and asking them their opinions. We decided to do this because we wanted to test how strong people’s faith in news media was. We figured, if the people we interviewed took us seriously as reporters or journalists, than they would believe our so-called new legislation and would react accordingly. In other words, we wanted to see if most people believe what they are told by news media.

After my last group project, Project: BURMA, I learned the importance of a stable group. Robert, Elisha, Caitlin, and I discussed this project thoroughly and I stressed my frustrations with what had happened with Burma. We all were fed-up that in our past groups the workload was uneven, so we were determined to make this project work fairly. We decided to give everyone certain tasks that they were responsible for and must complete for the group’s sake. We decided that Robert would come up with the idea for the video. He had a great idea about judging people’s faith in media – I was very impressed. Elisha would write up some questions and false legislations, and conduct some of the on-screen interviewing. Caitlin would do the filming of the interviews and help me do the editing of the final clip. This worked out fabulously! We all did our jobs and we got the project done! :)

When I was editing this video, I did not want it to become my project. With Project:BURMA, it felt like I was running the show and that had I to call the shots. This time I wanted everyone’s input on how the video should be laid out and what type of theme it would have. Having Caitlin work with me made this task easier because I had another opinion and I was not left to make all the decisions myself.

Through this project, I learned how good Elisha, Robert, and Caitlin are to work with. I have worked with them before and they consistently come up with good ideas and complete their share of the work. I prefer a closer group such as this one compared to Burma, where there were too many people in the group to count on two hands. I also learned a lot about news media. Based on the responses from the people we interviewed, it was hard to judge how much youth know about Canadian legislation. I was not present for the actual interviewing and I am not sure if the people that were interviewed knew Elisha and Robert were lying to them, but I do not want to know. The responses were varied from complete faith in what they were told to knowing instantly that it was a lie. I find this interesting because it shows how uninformed some may be about what is going on in their country.

I really enjoyed this project because it was fun and the extra footage is hilarious!

Project: BURMA

For our activist project, our group decided to hold a benefit concert to raise awareness of the problems occurring in Burma, past and present.

Our concert idea was sprung from our documentary that we watched, Human Rights In Burma. The issues faced by the Burmese people are immensely brutal, yet overlooked. Before I saw this documentary, I had never even heard of Burma. We thought that what the documentary taught us about Burma was terrible and we wanted to make people aware and conscious of what is going on. We wanted more people to know that the Burmese government is corrupt, only allowing a chosen handful of its citizens to work. We wanted more people to know that thousands of people have fled their homes, that monks have gone missing, and that the level of poverty is one that needs direct attention from more powerful countries.

I can admit that at first I was not very involved with this project. Katrina and Erin seemed to be the strongholds by arranging bands to play and finding a hall for them to play in. I was very impressed when I found out that they had come up with deposit money for a $700 bar room to hold our concert in, it was superb. So now we have bands and a place for them, we just needed to get people to come. I feel this is where I came in handy.

We set up a Facebook group/event to help advertise Project: BURMA. It came in handy to help estimate our attendance and it also helped spread the word of the event. It was previously arranged that one of our member's boyfriends would do print advertising stuff, like ticket design, posters, ads, and selling of tickets. He kind of dropped out, and we were kind of screwed. This was my time to shine! I made many versions of possible tickets and asked the group their opinions, than after approval I took it upon myself to get the tickets printed. We wanted fancy tickets, so I took them to Staples and got them printed professionally on thick glossy cardstock.

Now we needed to sell the tickets. Elisha, Robert, Caitlin and I took this part seriously. We made flyers and handed them out in the residence and we went door-to-door in res. selling tickets. We also set up a table in the Atrium of GH between classes and made announcements during our classes about the event. It was very important for us to sell as many tickets as possible because the rent money for the bar hall was dependant on ticket sales and we really wanted people to come and be aware of Burma.

Concert time came, and we were all worried that no one would show up. Not only that, but no one in the group had made up a plan for the night. I took this upon myself to do because the task of making videos and showing clips of the DVD was thrown upon me; therefore it made sense that I make a plan for the night according to where the videos I made were designed to play. I felt like the event co-ordinator. At first I was not involved at all, and all of a sudden I was telling people what to do and when to do it. I didn't know if this was a good thing or not. It was nice that I was able to get things my way concert night, but I also felt taken advantage of because no one else seemed to have done as much work as I did. It felt as if they all knew I would handle it, and just handed me more work to do last minute. I was asked to make videos to play at the concert the night before, as if I was their last resort. Having a lot of responsibility felt nice and at least I work well under pressure, but I did not appreciate how many important tasks were thrown on me when it seemed that some members of the group only participated by attending the event.

I designed the tickets for the event, got them printed, designed and printed flyers to hand out, helped selling the tickets, ripped the documentary DVD and chose clips to show at the event, made introduction and exit videos for the event, and gave a big contribution of effort event night by getting things organized and making sure there were no down times in the show.

I learned from all of this that group work is harder that expected. It may have just been because we had a large group with a lack of communication or that we were not all compatible with each other. I will now in the future deeply consider whom I work with based on what I have witnessed thus far.

All in all, the night was a success; we pulled in about $1000 in attendance and had an overall profit of about $200 that we will be sending to a charitable organization in support of Burma. Awareness was raised and we were able to get most people in attendance to sign petitions and a banner to remember the evening.

Cited Work:

Human Rights in Burma. Dir. Burma Issues, Witness. DVD. Witness, 2007.

In The Arms Of An Angel. Sarah McLachlan.

My Own Prison

Wow, I definitely have created my own prison this time. I completely screwed myself over for my semiotic analysis. I do not know why I do this to myself... But I did.

It took me forever to decided on a topic. I was considering doing something on why I wear the clothing that I wear, but I never got around to it. Then I was going to do Creed music videos. I have their greatest hits CD and it came with a DVD with all of their music videos. After watching them all numerous times and not finding anything, I realised that in their last 3 videos (the videos released from their 'Weathered' album (their album released after switching record labels)) had many signs of Americanization. In all the 3 videos there were numerous American flags and I found it suspicious that there were no American flags in their videos prior to this album. BLAH! Not a good topic. I soon discovered that in one of their videos there is a strong sense of the female objectification. BLAH! That was cliché. At this point, a week before the essay is due, I haven't decided on a topic and am thoroughly frustrated with the assignment. I tried again by trying to make sense of the opening credits for the movie 'Se7en' with Brad Pitt (What a babe!). Once again, I'm lost in a world of semiotics. I gave up, I wrote about how a music video by Creed illustrates that technology holds humans captive. I had no idea what to say and it took hours just to write one paragraph. I was very disappointed in myself and confused about what I was doing and whether I was doing this whole thing right or not.

I was just about ready to print it off Wednesday morning and hand it in. I did not care that my paper did not make any sense and strayed away from the topic. I did not care that my essay was crap. I just wanted to be done with it. In my ranting about my paper, I commented to myself that the character in the Creed music video was stupid and evil and reminded me of Hitler.

EPIPHANY! - A sudden moment of realisation. It hit me! This video is about war. Here I am, the morning before the paper is due and I'm re-writing it all. WOW! I was very surprised with myself. I had motivation and determination to prove my points about war in this video and I still cannot believe that I re-wrote my entire paper that evil Wednesday morning.

After re-reading my essay today, I am satisfied. I feel I have good points and that I completed a quality semiotic analysis. My biggest problem with this essay was elaboration... I think. My paper was short and I believe this was because I simply stated my arguments. I really am not sure about what grade I will receive and I truly am worried about it.

I do not know how I feel about this essay anymore; it frustrated and continues to frustrate me to this day.

Creed - My Own Prison

Cited Work:

My Own Prison. Dir. Stephen Scott. Perf. Scott Stapp, Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall, Scott Phillips. DVD. Warner Music Canada, 2004.

Technology Kills

A couple of classes ago, we received a hand out with 10 beliefs about technology. Below is the 1st belief and my response.

1) For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage.

Agreed. The invention of machines to produce clothing for us is amazing, but it also brings great despair to the ones in sweatshops working hours and hours for little pay. The invention of money itself is also amazing yet terrifying. Where would this world be without money? No one can say, but for people to realise this concept of a negative reaction to every invention is a step towards a better world – if people keep this in mind while inventing.

Blogging

At first I did not believe that by keeping a blog I would be contributing to media, but now that I have been blogging for a bit, I understand how I am contributing to media. By blogging, I am offering a different point of view, and from what I have learned, different points of view are always important in regards to media. And for you, Mark Lipton, I am providing you with my point of view on the readings, class discussions, and how you are helping me learn. Knowing that you will be reading these (Ian as well) makes me want to be a better writer.

It's Britney Bitch

In my other class, Media Writing, we discussed and read a chapter from our book about what is news. In the section ‘What Makes News’ on page 13, there is a list of qualities that can define what news is. There has to be Timeliness, Proximity, Prominence, Consequence, Conflict, Suspense, Human Interest, Novelty, and Progress. The next class, we had a pop quiz concerning news events in the media that occurred in that week. Besides my low grade of zero on this quiz, I am shocked that the quiz did not include the release of Britney Spears’ new CD entitled ‘Blackout.’


Maybe I am just not understanding the concept of what news is, or that I am just so in love with Britney that I consider anything she does news, but correct me if I am wrong, the release of her first studio album in over 4 years must qualify as headlining media news.

In response to the chapter in the Media Writing book, I believe this qualifies as news. The release of ‘Blackout’ has timeliness because it is not every week that Britney releases a new CD. This also has timeliness because of all the hype surrounding Britney lately with her going bald, and loosing her kids, etc. It has Prominence because it is about a well-known name and celebrity. Consequence because Britney Spears is a pop icon all around the world and her CD can potentially affect everyone in the world. Human interest because people like to read about other people, and Britney has “been American Dreams since she was just 17” and people still talk about her. There is Suspense because everyone wanted to know if her CD would be a flop or not. This story has most of the requirements to be considered news by the book, and I do not understand why it was not in the pop quiz, when stories that no one had ever heard of were in the quiz. I can confidentially say that the class average on that test was 20%, and the pieces of media news chosen were weak.

Maybe I am just rambling, but I was shocked that my other teacher did not consider this news.


Cited Work:


Whitaker, Richard, and Janet E. Ramsey, and Ronald D. Smith. Media Writing - Print, Broadcast and Public Relations. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.

Blackout. Dir. Various Directors. Perf. Britney Spears. CD. Jive Records, Zomba, 2007.