Final Project

Movies have changed a lot since they were invented almost a century ago. Starting out as simple, shaky black and white 15 minute shorts that played in double speed with piano music played in the theater itself for a soundtrack, the industry evolved and grew with incredible speed as people ate it up. Film evolved into the era of sound, real-time speed, and with it into the age of Bogart, Hitchcock and Sinatra. Then, it continued into color and more mature content with directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorcese putting out groundbreaking film after groundbreaking film. Currently, we're in the age of CGI and astounding special effects. We can do virtually anything that the mind is capable of imagining with film now. It's come from black and white into vibrant color, silence into swelling soundtracks and from men in rubber gorilla costumes into realistic CGI. This evolution took decades, but an evolution which rocketed forward in the last 20 years has been the way that people watch film. I don't mean how they sit down and interpret a film, but rather the way that the film is delivered to the viewer.

Before 1976, if you wanted to watch a movie, you went to the theater, or made sure to watch it on television. This worked just fine for the movie business, studios were raking in the cash and their films were in high demand. Then, a company named JVC in Japan developed the VHS videocassette tape, which would change forever the way people got to watch movies. It launched an entire new concept surrounding movies, one we take for granted today, and that is watching movies at home whenever you wanted. A new and lucrative type of business, the video store, was spawned from this development, and the VCR sold like wildfire. Studios made even more money, and were still happy about it. People could take their movies home for the first time ever, and watch them whenever they wanted to. The VHS tape enjoyed huge success until 1995, when it was phased out by the DVD.

The DVD boasted many significant upgrades over the VHS tape. Better quality of both sound and picture and the ability to skip to scenes, and the smaller design gave it a huge advantage over the bulky VHS tape. DVD versions of movies often had special behind-the-scenes features and subtitles too, and this upgrade eventually completely replaced the VHS tape and the VCR. From there, the disc-format film progressed into Blu-Ray, which boasted even sharper picture and sound, and simply claimed to be better as a whole. And the studios keep making money.

But now, the film medium is starting to move beyond the physical format. Films are now being transferred from disk to computer in a process called ripping. The movie itself is saved to the computer as one long video clip. This method has pros and cons of its own. Usually, ripping results in a decrease in video quality and there are seldom subtitles or special features included with a ripped movie. However, watching a movie this way is as easy as going to where it's stored on your computer and double clicking the icon. It's virtually instantaneous. This format also takes up a tiny amount of physical space. You can store hundreds of movies on the average computer's hard drive this way and accessing them is effortless. And, in the past couple of years, quality of rips has gotten better and better. With an encoding system called x264, Blu-Ray quality can be achieved without a Blu-Ray disc. Now, video ripping isn't something everyone does. In fact, the great majority of people never rip their own DVDs. Instead, they rely on a process called torrenting. In this process, the film is downloaded through the internet by an interconnected system wherein up to thousands of people share a single file. To do this, a .torrent file is downloaded from a host website such thepiratebay.org and then from other computers you "leech" or download the file from "seeders" or fellow downloaders who have already finished downloading that particular file and are now reuploading it bit by bit. The more people that seed a file, the quicker it downloads for everyone else. This is where the studios stop making money. You know all those FBI warnings at the beginning of DVDs? Well, this is one of the things that they're talking about. But, it's become too big to possibly shut down now, and people are only getting more enthusiastic about it.

The biggest drawback to getting your movies this way is that it can take hours to download the file, especially if seeds are sparse. As we know, we live in a culture where instant is best, and thus we have Netflix. Netflix boasts one of the most efficient and flexible ways to watch movies ever. In a nutshell, Netflix gives you unlimited watching time from it's extensive database of films and TV shows for about 8 bucks a month. It takes seconds to choose your movie and begin watching it. You can use Netflix on a computer, on an Xbox 360, on a Playstation 3, on a Wii, and on many other devices as well. The only real con to Netflix is that if you have a slow internet connection, you'll experience problems with quality and smooth video playback.

So, to say the least, the medium in which film is presented has changed a great, great deal. And it's going to keep evolving, too. At some point in the next twenty years, maybe we'll come up with a way to instantly watch movies in perfect quality with no hitches or problems in playback. Maybe we'll make the perfect Netflix. The whole industry has come forward by leaps and bounds. Who knows where it'll go next?

Akrea

Lebenslinie, (a German word which translates to "lifeline") is the name of Akrea's first album, and the album art is deliberately surreal. The picture is one which shows a woman from behind who is standing in the palm of a giant hand, and on the hand is pictured a road, which the woman is standing at the beginning of. The way she stands seems reluctant, uncertain and a bit afraid of the unknown. Obviously, this is not a picture that was taken without being retouched. It seems that the hand is a real picture which has been retouched to fit the style of the rest of the picture, and everything but the hand has been illustrated/painted. The color of the picture is mostly earth tones (brown, tan, green) and inky black in the background. Interestingly, the hand seems to radiate light.

The picture uses blank space only in the background, which is completely dark and serves to bring the objects/subjects into the foreground. In the foreground, we see the aforementioned girl, hand, and road. The girl may symbolize innocence, given her body language and white dress (the white dress is a symbol which is especially powerful in western culture, usually used by the bride in a wedding). The hand is meant to seem huge and powerful, and it reaches down into the darkness, radiating light and lifting the girl up from the darkness. All around the hand and the girl fly huge black crows, which swoop and scream at the girl as she considers taking the road. It seems that the path is one that leads out of darkness, as the path is surrounded by decaying trees and dry dirt, and as the path stretches on the foliage becomes more green and lush, meaning a path out of corruption and decay into purity and life. Even on the greenest trees, the leaves are more yellow and rotten towards the edges of the hand, implying a safety only in the very hollow of the hand, completely seperate from darkness. The view of this scene is on eye-level with the girl and the hand, implying equality, which may mean that the option of moving away from darkness is also open to the viewer. The view is also from a distance, but this seems to be purely so that we can see the entire hand, as it is so large in proportion to the girl. As stated before, the lighting is such that we have a sense of dwelling in despair. Even though the hand is reaching down and radiating light, it is still in the midst of darkness.

The second track from the album is called Imperium, which simply translates to Empire. The reason for this is because the song is a historical story about an empire (presumably the Romans) that eventually spans the known world. The song, in essence, is like a song that a bard would sing hundreds of years ago, romanticizing the exploits of an army or warrior. So, in this spirit, the song praises the empire, talking about how it rose from a small group of nations to a grand conquering force, saying that "It grew, on the water as on land" meaning that they mastered both land and sea. The song attributes this dominance to the leader of the empire, stating that "He serves as a vital force" and the eagerness of the army to go forth and conquer "We would see new fields, And reap our reward". The entire song is a song of praise to the dead empire. It should be noted that when the Romans conquered a country, they "civilized" it by putting in structures like aqueducts and standardizing economy. This could be seen as a form of lifting the conquered country up out of darkness, which ties back in to the album cover.

Click for German lyrics.

My Role

I think that if I were offered a role in a movie/TV show of my choosing, I would choose a comedy similar to Modern Family or Community, one where the comedy is funny without a constant stream of canned laughter and the situations dealt therein differ from standard comedy fare. I think that I could play a straight-man type the best out of all the standard comedy roles, mostly because I can keep a straight face through almost anything when the situation calls for it. I can also pull off classic straight-man reactions quite well and can be extremely dry if I try to be. It's not hard for me to suddenly have explosive reactions or extreme over-reactions to situations. My voice lends itself to the character of a straight-man and I have good command of verbal tone, which is important in a serious character who relies on subtleties of expression and tone to be funny.

My Favourite Media

Despite the fact that I enjoy a good action movie, a fine piece of music or a sci-fi novel, historical fiction is far and away my favorite type of media, in any of its forms. This was probably due in part to HBO cranking out some of the most watchable things in the past decade. John Adams, Band of Brothers and The Pacific are probably the three best miniseries adaptations of historical fact to come down the tubes in the last ten years, and probably the most historically accurate. You have other gems as well, like The Tudors and Rome which are presented in 50-minute episodes and also allegedly follow the history books somewhat faithfully. Now, that's not to say that historical accuracy is imperative to my enjoyment a historical blockbuster. I enjoyed Gladiator to no small degree, and 300 and Troy both got more than one viewing from me even though none of these three films were especially (or even slightly) accurate. I find the concepts and realities that made up this world's past to be fascinating. I like that people have launched a path that history has taken simply by the fact that they did what they did, that they existed and achieved during their lives, and without the comforts and conveniences we take for granted. People survived and thrived and built empires and tore others down and did it all without electricity, industrialization or even simple hygiene systems. The world simply doesn't naturally produce such strong people anymore, people who can function completely at a level of existence that we would consider catastrophic. They lived in tiny, dirty, damp, smoke-filled huts and killed if they wanted to eat and stood face to face with another man and looked into their eyes as they defeated him in combat. I love to read about this lost part of our humanity and watch movies about people who existed then. We've gained much since then, but lost much as well. Some people don't like to be reminded of this fact, they are put off by the ugliness, dirtiness and brutality of our past, but in this past I find a purer kind of man, although he's filthy and mangy, because he has instinct. It's been bred out of us by modern society, and I relish any chance to be reminded of it. I like reading books by authors like Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell because they don't spare the details that may be unpleasant. Cornwell and Iggulden will describe a battle scene in all it's disgusting glory, the smell of blood and sweat and human waste that makes it reek, and the wonderful all-consuming joy and fear that control and direct a man in the crush of the shield-wall, and the everyday mud and sickness and toil of ancient life. It's this frankness that many people don't like about historical fiction. But the people that like it, love it.

Clip from Troy, embedding disabled by request. (Watch in 1080p, it's worth it.)

Conflict Resolution

The conflict resolution I have chosen is the Battle of Foy, depicted in HBO's Band of Brothers series. As it is a battle taking place in World War II, the characters depicted are young to middle aged, and exclusively male. Everyone in this particular conflict is either an American or German soldier, and this is essentially the basis of the conflict. The town of Foy is being held by German forces, and the 101st Airborne is sent to root them out. At first, the Americans have to cross a large open space made extremely dangerous by German artillery and sniper fire. They take casualties, but cross the space, reaching the outer perimeter of the town.

Here they run into a conflict within a conflict; their leader, Lieutenant Dyke is essentially useless in combat, unable to adapt to a changing situation and locks up completely when under the extreme pressure of combat. Due to the command lockup, the advance into the town stops almost entirely and the 101st begins to sustain heavy casualties. The Executive Officer, Captain Winters, orders Lieutenant Spiers, an officer in a company not currently participating in the attack to assume command of Lieutenant Dyke's company. Spiers takes command and swiftly pushes into the village, and the 101st take the town in a decisive victory, capturing many German prisoners and neutralizing the town. As they believe the battle to be over, one undiscovered sniper begins to shoot again and Sergeant Carwood Lipton is forced to run out of cover to draw the sniper's fire while Private Shifty Powers, renowned in his company for his accuracy, picks off the sniper, bringing a final close to the battle.

Obviously, violence is the main method of resolving conflict for both an attacking or defending force. To systematically destroy as many enemy as possible as you advance is the surest way to a total victory. For a defending army, a similar concept is true. The best way to win defensively is to set up a situation where the enemy has no choice but to move into your gunsights and hopefully be killed. We see both cases very clearly here.

Characters In Television

The IT Crowd (click for video) is a comedy made in the UK which follows the exploits and daily tedium of a billion-dollar corporation's absurdly small and completely under-appreciated IT department composed of just three people: Roy, a computer expert from Ireland, and Moss, a socially dysfunctional genius who can operate any piece of technology, but is painfully unable to function in everyday society. Finally, these two close friends are kept in check by Jen Barber, who holds (to her dismay) the IT department's third (and arbitrary) position as Relationship Manager.

The three share very similar cultural values, which are much what one would expect from an English show. The differences come at a personal level. Roy plays the average slob with a heavy sense of enmity and disrespect for anyone who works at a level higher than the IT department's crowded basement. He views almost everyone at the company besides Moss and himself as utterly helpless when it comes to computers, even going so far as to answer the phone with the phrase "Hello IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?" in a bored and exasperated voice each time it rings. Roy shares the limelight of the show fairly evenly with Moss and Jen, and exists as a foil to Jen's technologically incompetent and hard-working ways, and vice-versa. He is also very close friends with Moss, and supports him whenever he can, as seen in the given clip.

Jen is in the IT department purely because she lied on her resume about having experience with computers and various other forms of technology in order to get hired at the company, expecting her personality and other qualifications to place her somewhere in middle management. Instead, she is now in the IT department where she worries consistently about her career advancement and the nigh-complete lack of work done by Roy and Moss on a day-to-day basis. She views her work as being one of the most important things in her life, whereas Moss and Roy hold a polar opposite view of their occupations. Because of these differences in personality, she holds a strange and complex relationship with the two, calling them "Friends... but in a special way that means... you can't come into my house"

Moss is made of contradictions. He is very socially awkward, although by nature he is very polite and courteous. He possesses a high level of natural skill when it comes to extremely complex electronics, but lacks a basic knowledge of self-reliant behavior (he still lives with his mother, depending on her to cook and clean for him). Moss loves order on an obsessive-compulsive level, needing to know at all times how many staples he has left. However, this really only extends so far, at which point it drops off completely. In the first episode, he has a nest of baby birds living in the open disk tray of his computer stating that "I don't know how they got there, but I don't have the heart to put them out, Jen" and letting the room which he and Roy occupy during work hours fall into an utter state of disrepair. He is in his mid-to-late twenties, as are Jen and Roy.

These three, as a team, play the role of heroes in almost all of the show's conflicts, commonly ignored and let down by a faceless company. They largely envy the lifestyle of the people who work on the floors above the basement because the company is comprised of, as the CEO puts it "Attractive people not doing much work... all having affairs." Their greatest triumphs typically go unnoticed by anyone outside the three, and their contributions to the company go completely unappreciated. They exist as the company's absolute bottom rung socially, with the exception of Jen, who is treated with a civility and respect not usually extended to Moss and Roy.

Bonus Clip: Roy and Moss tries to come up with an intentionally off-putting personal ad to prove the point to Jen that "women love ba****ds"

Commercials

The first commercial is a McDonalds advertisement that was made in Egypt. The ad opens with a young, attractive, obviously loving Egyptian couple that are most likely chosen to reflect what most young people would like their lives to be like; the two depict a very nice life. The affluence of the boat, coupled with the young man's retrieval of the rose suggests that the life they have together is desirable and to be coveted. We percieve them as an ideal of romance, and are led to believe that everything about them is valuable, with their love being the most valuable part of their lives. Then, as they enter the McDonalds, the woman attempts to take some of the man's french fries. Food sharing is often seen as a primal act of love, because on a primal level, we understand that food is one of the most important things to survival. Thus, to share a means of survival implies a very strong connection. Therefore, as we have seen the couple being very attached thus far, we assume that things will go as they appear. Instead the man grabs both her wrists and restrains her forcefully, she reacts violently, and he kicks the chair out from under her. The idea being communicated is that McDonalds is more important to this couple than their relationship.

Next, we have an ad for the new line of Honda Civics. In this commercial, it's vitally important that the characters are who they are. We have five distinctly different people, a luchador, a monster, a zombie, a lumberjack and a ninja. Obviously, each of these five are meant to be completely different from any of the others. The ad purposely focuses on the fact that these characters are very different, and the ad relies entirely on the differences between the personas. The tagline of To Each Their Own is meant to showcase the versatility of the new line. Without the varied identities, this is pointless.

The final ad is another foreign one, an Indian advertisement for Camlin permanent markers. This advertisement features an Indian couple in their 30's, and the man is close to death. This ad relies heavily on the Indian cultural practice of a married woman's necklace, bangles and vermilion spot on the forehead being a sign of her marital status (this is explained before the ad begins). When the husband breathes his last, the professional mourners rush in, stripping the woman of the symbols of her marriage to the now-deceased man. First, they remove her necklace and bangles, but when they attempt to remove the vermilion spot, the greatest personal aspect of the married woman's appearance in respect to her husband, it will not come off. The vermilion spot is said to be connected to the man's lifeline, meaning that when it is erased for a final time, they are truly separated by death. The advertisement shows the man making the spot on his wife's forehead with a permanent marker, which means that when he dies, the mark cannot be erased. Because of this, he springs back to life at the end of the ad. The fact that the actors/actresses in the ad are Indian is very important, given that without the allusions to Indian culture, the entire point of the ad would be lost to the audience.

My Favourite Personalities

One of my favorite personalities in any form of entertainment is Conan O'Brien. Conan worked on several different comedy/late-night shows after his graduation from Harvard University including The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, and most recently his self-titled show Conan. His quick witted style of humour and his distinctive appearance have made him one of the most recognizable figures on television, and his show has been rated as one of the most popular talk shows. His show Conan opens with a monologue, frequently studded with his reaction to the audience's reaction to his jokes and short discussions with co-host Andy Richter. The show then hosts two special guests, with whom Conan trades anecdotes, experiences and witty banter. The show then closes with a live performance by either a band/artist or a guest stand-up comic. All things considered, the way his show is structured is very much like any other talk show, but it is Conan's unique treatment of this formula that has boosted his show into the limelight.



You can catch the most recent episodes of Conan on the CTV website, updating daily.

As for female personalities, I really enjoy Jodie Foster, who I've only seen in two movies, but enjoyed very much in both. In Taxi Driver she played a 12-year child prostitute who the protagonist was obsessed with saving. In Silence of the Lambs she put out an amazing performance as Clarice Starling, a junior agent with the FBI who is assigned to catch a serial killer and must collaborate with another captured serial killer (Dr. Hannibal Lecter) in order to catch the killer. Her performance in Silence of the Lambs impressed me greatly because she played a very complex character, and had to feign an accent that resulted from her character's desire to hide her country-style West Virginian accent. Her psychological interactions with Hannibal Lecter were intense and disturbing, and without her, the movie would have suffered very much. I respect Foster's talents as an actor very much.

A trailer from Silence of the Lambs

Hugh Dillon: decent Canadian, fine actor, extremely bald

Hugh Dillon, born in Kingston, Ontario has proved something of a jack of all trades throughout his entertainment career. Starting off in 1987 with his hard rock band Headstone, he and the band successfully toured and produced albums until their break up in 2003. After the band broke up, he formed another band in 2004 called Hugh Dillon Redemption Choir, which has released one album, and Dillon released another solo album called Works Well With Others.

Although Dillon may be fairly well known to Canadians over 25, with teens he's recognized by his acting career, especially from two shows in the last 5 years, Durham County and Flashpoint. In both shows, Dillon plays the role of a Canadian police officer. In Durham County, a serial thriller that lasted for three seasons, he plays a Toronto detective who returns back to his home town of Durham after his partner is killed and his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer, eventually discovering that the town may be harboring secrets he never would have suspected in his youth. In Flashpoint Dillon portrays a sniper for the SRU (Strategic Response Unit, a fictional Canadian branch of SWAT) who faces deadly situations day to day while dealing with the guilt of being forced to shoot a crazed man in front of his son to save a hostage. He also had a role in the first Trailer Park Boys movie. While Dillon has played many non-Canadian characters in his film career, his last two major roles have indicated a return to his Canadian roots.

Flashpoint

Yes, of course it does.

The first example of violence being used (and sensationalized) in media I'd like to look at is the 2006 release "300", which was unrelentingly violent for violence's sake. This clip shows what I'm saying pretty well: (embedding disabled, watch here) I'd actually like to tie into three points instead of two because I feel that the movie connects with all three quite strongly. First, and most primal, is that we love movement, and one of our favorite types of movement is combat. It's exhilarating, and we're biologically built to think so. The frenetic and vicious pace of combat appeals to us on a very basic level right down to our Sympathetic Nervous System, which creates our fight-or-flight responses (note: both of these options contain copious amounts of movement). So, when we see 300 Spartans absolutely shredding this giant Persian army, flowing around in their crimson cloaks, slowing down then speeding up and cutting into a foe with pinpoint precision all while preparing to slay another, it excites us because movement is exciting.

The second point that this ties into is that movies can portray violence to an amazing degree with special effects. We see this in incredible detail in various parts of 300, especially in scenes of combat, where a favorite technique of the director's is to slow down the action about a 3rd of a second before the kill and then just as the blade strikes, it actually speeds up past normal speed for a brief second as we see the enemy being viciously torn apart by the strike, then returns to normal until the next kill. Also, the movie contains decapitations, an unusual amount of maiming, and many especially brutal kills where you can see a spear plunging into one side of an enemy and then coming out the other, which are all done with that same movie magic we all know and love.

Third and final is the point that says in so many words, heroes and villains don't just talk, they fight. This is absolutely true in 300, with the Spartan side being painted as the heroes that defend their homeland against impossible odds against a foreign invader come to destroy everything they've ever known (and I'm not saying that the portrayal is unfair, look at history) whereas the Persians are portrayed as heartless animals that go into another country and plunder and murder and destroy. In one scene, we see an in-depth view of what goes on in the Persian king's tent, and it is portrayed as rife with hedonism and corruption. At a different point in the film, the Spartans come across a village that the Persian "Immortals" have completely destroyed, and have even gone so far as to spike the villagers to a tree. With this, we have a pretty clear setup of hero and villain, and then they fight. By God, do they ever fight.

There's another point that I feel is pretty important in our culture that 300 really couldn't address, and that's the concept that certain types of violence are engineered purely for comedy, and in the cases of animated movies, mostly for children. To show this, we'll look at the most classic of all classics, Looney Tunes. Ever since it's debut in the early 1930's, Looney Tunes has been the icon of animated violence. Most of the episodes seem solely based around the violence that occurs between two characters, (in this case Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny):

As we can see, Elmer takes most of the beating here and in the eyes of children, that's great because they want to see the bad guy lose (this is also a type of hero versus villain). This particular episode is violent, but we don't get into the trademark Viet Cong-like killing devices that many episodes feature (like grabbing a dummy filled with straw that looks like Bugs Bunny, which then pulls a rope that drops a giant anvil), and for some reason, that's insanely funny, usually with the greater attempted murder getting the bigger laugh. In Looney Tunes, hero always trumps villain and villain always takes a darn good thrashing before the end. Children love it, and always have. I know I still do.

Reporting on Nielsen

There were many things that surprised me in the 2009 Nielsen Report, but chief among them were the two interconnecting facts that adults watch more online videos than per day than teens, and the fact that teens watch "less than half as much as the typical user". Culturally, we assume that teens spend their time on youtube, phones and facebook and nothing else. Obviously, this is wrong, and while teens do favor all three of these things, it seems that youtube (and other video sharing sites) are dominated by the adult world. Now, converse to our cultural assumption about teens, we tend to view adults as hardworking and absolutely devoted to their job, and assume that they never get the desire to stare out the window for 20 minutes or neglect their work for something with a little less tedium and a little more lolcats. But, now more than ever, that's wrong too. The study states that while the average day for a teen is tightly scheduled and organized (at least until 3 PM) and with less access to computers in general, whereas adults who work with computers are left alone from 9 to 5 with their PC, tasked with finishing a task by a deadline instead of going from task to task at an appointed time. This opens up a window of opportunity for adults to watch a good deal more videos, and to browse more in general than their teen children.

One thing that I definitely connected with from the comment sheet was "I don't recall life without the internet". That's not to say I was born with a high-speed wireless card clutched in my hand, I do remember running a cord directly from the back of the phone to the computer and hearing the dial-up signal, but I don't have many memories from before my family was enduring that particular screech (It's probably one of my clearest memories because of the sound).
Another comment from the sheet that I thought was pretty descriptive of how my life has changed since the internet is "Because of the internet I never buy or rent movies", although never is a bit exaggerated. With the advent of torrenting (file-sharing) I haven't paid more than 15 dollars for a movie for quite a while. On the whole, although it may take 5 hours to download a movie, it takes a lot less fuss than going to the store. This, combined with the potential of theoretically infinite digital replication (if a friend wants this movie, I can copy it to a thumb drive, give it to him and still be able to watch it on my computer) makes it a much more preferable alternative to buying/renting. It's a simple matter of convenience and long-term effeciency.
If we were to create a boiled-down version of the Nielsen Report for Blackville School, two subjects I would like to compare Blackville's results to the report are their TV v.s. online video habits, and how much they text, to see if they approach, match, or exceed the North American average.

Critiquing Blogs

1st Critique: Aspect Studios

The Photographic Aspect is the mainly photographic blog of Mark Alan Meader, a nature/landscape photographer from Idyllwild, California. I go into such specificity about his location because it's very important to the content of the blog itself. Basically, the blog consists of photographs (and a brief description of each) taken my Meader that were shot near/a reasonable distance from Meader's home in Idyllwild. Each shot is of a purely natural setting, yet untouched by human hands. The photographs are all of pieces of beauty found in harsh surroundings, such as an oasis found in Palm Canyon, which is located in a desert (see his February 7th post).

2nd Critique: Et tu, Mr. Destructo?

"The official blog of notorious former African dictator Mobuto Sese Seko" is a blog which has very little to do with Africa, or Mobuto Sese Seko. This is probably for one huge reason: it's not actually his blog. The notorious former African dictator died in 1998 from prostate cancer. While the reason for this obviously false impersonation isn't stated outright, it may be because coming up with an interesting blog name is one difficult trick (I've been wracking my brains since Thursday, no luck). Whatever the case may be, the blog is consistently a good read. It covers many different topics, from books to sports to world events in a light hearted and jesting tone that conveys a sense that he's not talking at you like a lot of bloggers do, but rather to you. It also doesn't shy away from possibly offensive topics, whether that's for better or for worse. All in all, as stated before, a consistently good read.

The Key Roles of Mass Media

1. Supplying information

Egypt has been huge in the news lately. People love hearing about a good cause, and they love few things more than hearing a good revolution, especially when said revolution is morally justifiable and ethically supportable. Thus, information coming from Cairo is very important to the average news aficionado. CBC is going about their reporting on this on a very strategic, almost tactical level, providing coverage in all formats on all fronts. They have a live feed, articles in text format, photo galleries updating daily, as well as videos, and even an article showing many twitter postings from Egypt in the midst of the chaos. This kind of coverage is a shining example of supplying information on an international level.

2. Influencing what we talk and think about

One thing that is baffling to me is the success of one particular TV show, and that show is called Jersey Shore. Despite its purely asinine and shallow premise, the bizarre nature of the show's characters and the incredibly irresponsible lifestyles depicted may allow some people to live vicarious wild lives, and for others, may simply be something to laugh at. In any case, the show is nothing less than a phenomenon in terms of popularity, and for a long, long time had a huge influence on places like Twitter, and on days of scandal, it dominated those places. Constantly, someone was tweeting a quote from DJ Pauly D and his ilk. There have been few times in the past when a reality show has taken such precedence in the hearts and minds of the public.

3. Allowing us to expand our personal experience

Tying back into the first point, we love something that takes us outside of our comfort zone. Many TV shows are entirely oriented around this concept, such as Survivorman, Man v.s Wild, etcetera. One notable example is the series "SAS Jungle: Are You Tough Enough?" which before filming even begins, takes 1000 of Britain's most physically fit civilians and boils them down to the double digits, and then puts them into the jungle where many integral parts of SAS training take place. Throughout the six part series, they are put through the many grueling physical and mental tests that members of the UK's Special Air Service are subjected to, trying to see if they can hack it and weeding out the people who can't one at a time. Although anyone can drop out any time, it's definitely a show that even to watch would take one out of their comfort zone.

4. Showing us accepted normality

This particular part of the media is pretty cut and dry, not in a direct way, but in a thoroughly indirect way. The media seldom comes right out and says (for example) "graffiti is just awful" themselves, but instead in the way that they portray graffiti, getting quotes from disgruntled members of the "vandalized" community. The way that media tells us something is bad (or good) is not necessarily in what they say, but how they say it. A good example in the news recently is President Obama's decision to quit smoking. While some people would fight to the death to defend smoking, the article is clearly against smoking as a concept, even though it never comes straight out and says "smoking is bad, we hate smoking". The article refers to Obama's former habit as an "issue", refers to quitting as "doing the right thing" and so on and so forth. As with all writing, everything hinges on the tone.

5. Advertising and public relations

This one is even more obvious from the last. Basically every moment of every day, we are bombarded with advertising, whether it's the product on a billboard or the logo on a sweater. Advertising has become a huge industry, and soon after the invention of the printing press, people were using movable print and type to sell their "fine gelding, hooves intackt, bones stronge, see Gwennyd Dagfaddyn of Hertfordshire i' the dell". In more recent centuries however, advertising has become less of a personal thing for and more of an industry. There have been some shining examples of advertising in the past, such as the iconic "1984" commercial that Ridley Scott directed for Apple. In fact, Ridley Scott, who has directed many movies that people are familiar with and become a large figure in the film industry said that he has worked on approximately 2,700 commercials. Advertising has become an unstoppable and ubiquitous entity.

6. Entertains us

The list of examples for this point is virtually endless. The list could include anything from genre-defining films like The Godfather series to a light-hearted newspaper article about cats. However, one of the things that entertains us most is a continuous series like Grey's Anatomy, where one episode follows another in a continuous, branching storyline. With shows like this, people tend to connect with one or more characters that are central to the plot and follow them and pay attention to them more than the other characters, often drawing parallels to their own personalities and experiences. Other times, we're looking for a one-shot film that gives us a single, definite, deep and complex experience, like the movie The Shawshank Redemption, one that makes us ask questions about ourselves and how we live our lives. Sometimes, we're looking for a book like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, that makes search our souls and consider topics like desperation and living in constant fear. But most of the time, we're just looking for someone to fall on their face and make us feel better about being ordinary.

Materialism and the media: an introduction to media studies

First of all, it's important to understand what "Media Literacy" means. Robin Reiske explains the term as meaning how we learn to critically look at whatever media we happen to be dealing with, and as well as accessing and creating the media. What the video addresses next is how our society is completely immersed and even submerged in the media, whether that's for the good or for the bad. Rob Williams says that media is progressing in two trends, one towards "corporatism, consolidation, centralization" and the other towards "diversity, localism, independence, and embracing new media technologies to create new stories that challenge the dominant status quo." Williams then says that it is the public's job to challenge the first trend while encouraging the second, and asks the question "...how do we maximize the good in our media culture... and how do we minimize, mitigate the impact of this corporate commercial onslaught.



The second video deals with 5 main questions of media literacy.

1. Who sent this message?

2. What techniques are used to attract my attention?

3. How might other people understand this message differently?

4. What values are represented or omitted from this message?

5. Why was this message sent?

Each of these questions are paramount to successfully understanding and analyzing the media.

The video then deals with how teachers can help upset the current cluelessness that pop culture media today has about it's lack of values and abundance of offensive qualities (racism, sexism, etcetera). Teachers must instill in students "respect of differences" if the students, who are the media manufacturers of the future are going to change these negative qualities one day. The video then discusses how pop culture media is instilling different, negative values such as materialism and poor habits that lend themselves to profit for companies, but less positive effects for the people consuming the products and services, and how this begins very, very early on in life, as young as elementary school age.

Specifically, what I would like to look at in Media Studies this semester is the materialism that was discussed in the second video and just how pervasive it is in our society nowadays. Also, I would like to explore is how the internet is becoming a massive part of the media, and furthermore the massive difference in culture between the real world and the internet, specifically humor, common courtesy and human interaction.

Much Ado About Transparency

I'll say this right off the bat: it's tough to deny complete transparency without looking like you're supporting the kind of people that kill reporters from helicopters, but I'm going to anyway. I believe in Wikileaks, that what it's doing is good, but I can't just say "okay, let's put every single thing the government is doing in plain view." It's just not feasible. Quite simply, the concept of complete transparency borders on irrationality because people don't want to know everything the government is doing. They want to know all the bad things the government is doing. Complete transparency simply can't work because there are bad things that work towards a greater good. But, at the same time, there are more than enough bad things that amount to a greater evil. War crimes must be dealt with harshly and severely, but I really don't think that they should be broadcast for all to see. Back in the Vietnam War era, when John and Jane Q. Public were introduced first-hand to the horrors of war for the first time through the media, North American morale took such an incredible hit that, as a society, we're still feeling the effects of it. This cannot be allowed to happen again. War is already an atrocity, and when that atrocity is willingly pushed beyond all rational limits (i.e. American soldiers killing reporters from an Apache attack chopper), these things must be dealt with so fiercely and remorselessly that everyone knows that they are not safe from repercussion no matter how many guns are on their metaphorical chopper. However, although such crimes are hideous and lamentable, they cannot be treated as just another news story, because stories like this do more harm than good, not to the government, but to the people who read them, their morale, their spirits. For most North Americans, soldiers are a symbol of strength and justice, and if stories like this are reported openly, we will demonize all soldiers based on the actions of the heartless few. Complete transparency is not the answer.

As for the hypothetical scenario of me being a journalist with a USB drive full of leaked information, it all depends on the information I'm carrying. If I'm carrying a USB filled with war crimes, I certainly won't be taking it to the press, for the reasons stated above. If I'm carrying a USB filled with information about companies causing mass contamination of forests and rivers through their dealings, that information is going to every major news outlet from here to Japan, because these are the things that the public must know, and must stop. Let the army deal with the crimes made in war, but let the people condemn the corrupt who dwell among us. Now, information like the Guantanamo Bay Manual is more tricky and less black and white than the two examples above. Housed in this facility are suspected terrorists, that if they are guilty, deserve no sympathy, but if they are innocent are being brutalized beyond belief. The most convenient thing to say is "it would be best if Guantanamo Bay didn't exist," but it does. Facilities like this are at best inhumane, and at worst inhuman. If pressured by the government to censor the information, there could be absolutely no capitulating on my part to their wishes. Leaks like this have to be known, because they represent the absolute worst of what people with too much power are capable of. Information like this must be very carefully handled, and only released to the most trustworthy of news sources, with absolute assurances that no spin will be put on the facts, but that the facts will be reported for the people to decide upon for themselves.

If I had information that the public had to know, I would take it to Openleaks, not Wikileaks, and this is for one reason. Wikileaks has a political agenda, and though I hold very strong opinions about certain things, the public must decide for themselves what is sweet and what is sour, and not have Wikileaks deciding for them. In conclusion, information should be made to the public without slant, without spin, but instead given as pure, raw information unfiltered by expression, and must be allowed to make up their own minds. The dwindling of reason is the death of the mind, and so the people must be given the chance to reason for themselves.

Lastly, I feel it necessary that even though I've said that war crimes should not be published, their existence must be made known. We must have no illusions, but have no prejudices either. With this full 39 minute video of the Baghdad chopper killings, we have to remember to judge each and every individual by their own deeds, and not to judge a whole by a single portion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik&feature=player_embedded

Looking into the future: the crystal ball goes digital

If there's one thing on this guy's list that I agree with, it's his seventh prediction. Apple is dominating the tablet market, and they're going to keep dominating it as long as their competitors have little ambition or ability to overtake them. Apple is already leaps and bounds ahead of other software/hardware companies in terms of tablet technology, and this is because they didn't launch a product that would be considered copyable. They held off with the release, slowly but surely building a machine that was so remarkable that no other company could just rip it off or repackage it as their own in a few months. And, clever little devils that they are, they did it partly by creating other, more minor marvels like the iPhone. While all the other companies were sitting around trying to copy their lesser creations, they created a full-blown nonpareil.

Another good prediction that this particular writer has made is that television is dying out because of the internet. It's already happening, and for one reason: computers are starting to eclipse the usefulness of television. Our family doesn't even own a TV, and one of the biggest reasons why is that anything you want to watch, you can watch on the internet. With the advent of streaming TV and the gargantuan following that file sharing already has, TVs are swiftly becoming obsolete. I've watched every single episode of Frasier, and I've never seen a single one on TV.

If there's one thing that's very obvious throughout this article, it's that Robin Bloor(the writer) has one incredible man-crush on everything Apple. He seems to worship at the altar of Steve Jobs, and frankly, it's skewing his judgement. Even if he doesn't realize it, his predictions are very biased. First of all, his prediction that Microsoft must run with Kinect or slowly die off is ludicrous. Even before Kinect launched, Microsoft has been boasting insanely high figures, with sales of their products through the roof. Go to almost any home, and look around. Sooner or later, you'll see the PC sitting there. While Macs are enjoying huge popularity, they're not going to annihilate Microsoft anytime soon. Kinect is fantastic, but even before it's release, Xbox 360 sales worldwide were already over 50 million. With Kinect, even in it's basic form, those sales are going to see massive growth as even many casual gamers will be purchasing 360s because of Kinect's possibilities. Microsoft stands strong, and will for a very, very long time.

Let's go back to tablets for a second. I'm going to start this point off strong by saying that the notion of tablet computers overtaking laptops is ludicrous. He's comparing the two as competitors, which they aren't. No one wants to type a document or play a video game or edit a sound file on a tablet, because it would be painfully awkward. I'm not entirely knocking tablet PCs. My father owns an eReader (which basically handles like a tablet PC even though it isn't one, let's not split hairs here) and as easy as it is to carry around and lay on a couch and use, etc. it's the devil to type on. Can you imagine typing a 3000 word essay on a tablet? Trying to play a first person shooter? I know I'm reusing the same arguments that I used a few sentences ago, but trust me, these are the things that young people are worried about today. In case this fact isn't painfully obvious, young people are the future of this planet, and what's important to them is going to be important to the future. The laptop is made for function, but the tablet lacks utility in too many areas to make it a laptop killer. Robin Bloor says himself that he made "the most outrageous estimate of iPad sales" last year. Well, he's still doing that in 2011.