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.