Final Essay Argument

New media has taken massive amounts of criticism from various sources. It seems every American has some idea about the negative effects of new media whether they be true or false. The idea that new media has no real-life benefits to help instruct and grow our workforce has been derived from this state of mind. On the contrary, research has revealed that this statement is not factual and new media is actually doing the opposite. As technologies grow so does the educational system in order to cope with the ever-changing world. The learning system today is much different from the traditional school. Much of what we see is through online interactions and an education that is personalized for each individual. This has been shown to be highly successful and the rate at which children are advancing is much greater than what had been seen before. There is skepticism surrounding this argument as well. The fact that the traditional way of teaching has worked since the founding of this nation carries a fair amount of weight. This also relates to the reality that the new media educational system is still very young and though early results are successful there is no indication that it will continue this way. Both of these arguments have truth behind them but there comes a point where the idea of change can have the potential to become greater than before and further progress our society. This change would not be a quick and subtle one but given time the integration of new media styles into the traditional school will allow for an easy transition into the new form of education. Complete isolation of every child into their personalized educational journey is not the goal of this either. Interaction with peers is a necessity in order to develop group skills such as communication and working together. In order for the face-to-face interactions to coexist with personalized learning a new system would need to be created. A system where the students are able to go and work on their own material but also be able to interact with other students through a recess or lunch. Possible group projects would be established in order to show the students how to fairly share a workload and work together to reach the desired goal. Though this style of education is fairly new research results are already proving its success. Soon the traditional school will be changed and a new future will be molded due to the beneficial learning of personalized education.      

Response Essay #4

            The 2012 election is coming to an end and there has been much stated by both parties. Soon we will see either an extra term from Barack Obama or an entirely new president through Mitt Romney. Throughout both of their election campaigns there has been quite a battle of attack advertisements in order to persuade the audience not to vote for the other candidate. This type of campaigning has become favored over the years and now politicians rely on it in order to gain votes. This is contrary to many other elections in which the candidate used their own beliefs and ideas to gain votes instead of sabotaging the opposing politician. There has been an ad released against Obama saying that he has allowed 4 billion dollars of debt to accumulate everyday he has been in office. The title reads, “We have seen storms in Virginia, but none like this…” This may be correlated with hurricane Sandy saying Obama’s term has been more destructive. Along with media, the popularity of attack ads, and the effectiveness they have been known to acquire all reveal the beliefs and values popular culture has placed upon mudslinging.             

Media has changed the process of traditional elections. Now it is impossible for candidates to escape the spotlight. Anything they do is watched and analyzed by people looking to find fault anywhere at any time. With this pressure and constant watch it is nearly impossible for a politician to be error free. When they make an error it is instantly blown out of proportion into a countrywide situation. There is no such idea as a secret when a political icon gets close to the top.

Now that people have discovered the entertainment aspect of attack ads it has become the go-to weapon in any campaign. The popularity and attention the ads get from voters has caused candidates to resort nearly entirely on them. Without the use of attack ads most candidates do not stand a chance. The fact that their opponent is revealing all of their flaws, true or not, without any retaliation causes no reason to vote against the other competitor.

Along with popularity comes effectiveness. It is highly easy to win anything if the competitor appears to be much worse for the whole than oneself. This has led to many victories in comparison to the traditional way of only explaining the position and beliefs of oneself. Few competitors rely on the traditional style of campaigning and should be praised for their efforts because it is a cleaner more proper way of campaigning but put against an accomplished mudslinger it is nearly impossible to win.

Throughout election history new ways of campaigning have become aware to the candidates. As this continues it becomes harder to come up with new ways of gaining votes. It has now transformed into only degrading the opposing side instead of focusing upon oneself and the beliefs and ideas that should be known. Through media, effectiveness, and popularity the traditional styles of campaigning are over and now attack ads are the only way to become an accomplished politician.   

     

Response Essay #4

The era of new media has taking our society by storm. The amount of time it has been around and the amount of people it now effects on a daily bases is simply unbelievable. With the capabilities the Internet now has, new media has expanded exponentially, significantly integrating itself into our society.  With social networking and smart phones any person can always be connected to new media. It can be addictive and time consuming yet people will continually absorb themselves in it. Since the invention of the smart phone new media took on a new shape and changed our society completely. From the immense amount of applications, the capabilities it has, and the easy to use software we see in smart phones its no wonder why it changed the idea of new media in such a drastic way. It also makes one think of the possibilities to come.

The invention of applications has led to the popularity and usefulness smart phones now have. Apps now range to nearly everything and continue to grow in productivity and entertainment. The common saying has become “There is an app for that.” This has wide reaching effects such as new companies are being born purely based on creating applications. Also people are able to do many tasks they couldn’t before. The apps do nearly anything one needs them to do. GPS, creating music, sharing through social networks can now all be done in the palm of a hand through applications.

There is a reason these phones are now considered smart. A function on the Iphone is called Siri who is an artificial voice one can have an entire conversation with. They can learn their owner’s voice, suggest applications based upon past purchases, and hold thousands of megabytes of data. With applications being added daily it is easy to see the capabilities of these smart phones is limitless. These phones are hand held computers with the same processing power and efficiency as a normal desktop.

Along with the capabilities smart phones have they designed them to be as easy to use as any other phone only with many more possibilities. The applications are easy to download and usually will have a tutorial on how to use them properly. With distinguishable icons for each application and the arrangement on the phone makes it easy to find what app is needed without much effort. Also with the millions of apps that are now available simple key words or description will lead the user directly to the app they want.

Within the last ten years smart phones have made a dramatic presentation and now are influencing a vast majority of the American population. With our new media frame of mind smart phones could not have come at a better time. Social networking can be done anywhere, our quick paced life is mirrored by our use of simple applications to finish objectives as quickly as possible. It is hard to believe that in such a short amount of time smart phones have advanced so much. The thought of the next big thing is nearly unimaginable because of what we already have today.    

News Headline

News today has become more powerful and revealing, showing nearly all of the important events that happen daily. It allows for quick, precise information for all who watch and helps pass along important info, such as weather, to the people that need it. In regards to the event that happened on September 28, I believe that it was an accident and has been blown out of proportion. I have yet to see the actual footage but based upon the movies and violence we see today in the media this news video is most likely tame in comparison. The job of the news is to retrieve the whole story yet there are good reasons for not showing the shooting but accidents happen. This story definitely grabbed the spotlight though showing people are interested in the untold parts of a story. That is one reason I think the news broadcasts live car chases because the excitement of not knowing what will happen hooks the audience and leads to better ratings. They were only doing their job and if they did not show the suicide they would have needed to talk about it anyway to satisfy the curiosity of the audience. What should be shown on the news has become a controversial subject in many cases. People desire to know what goes on around them and in the city yet are repulsed when they witness the reality of what they desire. Basic topics such as weather, sports, and politics will soon be the only subjects discussed on the news. Ratings would go down since there are no high end, attention grabbing stories to watch. Though this shooting is tragic and should have not been aired it shows much of what we expect news to be like. We want the rush of watching a live police chase but choose to avoid the after effects of what took place.       

Trends

Marketing continues to evolve, what once a simple poster has now turned into dramatic commercials and infiltrative spies trying to figure out what sells the best. We have virtually no control over what is seen and heard today because these companies have purposely caused it to be this way. The advertising battle between the companies has made it so that no matter where you are there is a way to sell you something. Now companies have to target certain types of people because of how much advertisement is out there. Without targeting certain crowds many of the advertisement would fall in the shadows of others since there would be no purpose for it to reach, nor direction in which it is trying to follow. This forces advertisers to create the most pleasurable, exciting, attention-grabbing ad they can imagine while targeting a large enough crowd to sell their product but also make it personal enough to be highly noticed by that targeted group. As we see many of the beer companies fit their advertisements to middle age men mainly because they have found that men tend to drink more beer. There are many scenarios in which advertisements are targeted towards broad groups of people, yet this still is not quite good enough for many companies. They now have the capabilities of tracking our spending habits and statistically figuring out what we might want to buy next. In today’s technological lifestyle companies, such as target, can gain access to your computer and other devices to see what products you have recently purchased or even talked about through Facebook or Twitter. They then create a personal shopping list that is based upon your passed purchases and designed to sell you the products you may need next in the future. This has its benefits by saving time not having to look through articles and coupons to find what you need, instead it already knows what you are going to get and creates a personal list that you may use. This also has many privacy issues though. The idea that a store can know so much about you that they already know what you are going to buy shows how much access they have to your personal lives. To me it doesn’t seem worth the convenience it offers.      

Advertisement Blog

The BC SPCA created a commercial showing several animals in need of help. The animals in this commercial came from abusive households and it shows the struggle and pain in the eyes of the helpless pets. As the commercial plays there is a highly emotional song repeating in the background called “Angel.” This grabs the audience’s attention and creates a sympathetic feeling towards the animals. As I watched the video for the first time I immediately felt the pain and sadness the animals were experiencing. It made me feel that if I didn’t help I would be allowing this to happen to the pets. They do an excellent job of selling the emotions of sympathy but also allow for hope if the viewer decides to make a small monthly donation for just pennies a day. In the beginning of the commercial, as it shows several small clips of abused animals, it keeps the viewer locked in wanting to help then supplies a way to help which worked in a highly persuasive way. The idea that if you don’t help with the donations you are letting these animals continue in their abusive conditions has many people running to the phone. The animals need help and this is an excellent way to save countless numbers of pets.  Since animals cannot defend themselves in many situations it lends to the idea that if someone can help they should. This is one of the few commercials that has actually created a desire in me to respond to the advertisement and I am sure it has worked on many others as well.   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc

Post #1

Jake Gifford

Leroy Ashby’s “The Rising of Popular Culture: A Historiographical Sketch” is a wonderful article that explores the ideas and changes of pop culture throughout the twentieth century. He discusses theater, opera, television and many others that shaped the society and created an eyeglass into the varying cultures throughout the 1900’s. One quote that stood out the most in my eyes was when he compared Mickey Mouse to Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression saying, “if we want to know how people experienced the world, FDR had his role but so did Mickey Mouse.” This reveals the power of media showing that even a child’s cartoon can be used to determine how people felt and acted decades ago. He also brings up another issue of which he quotes “Popular art confirms the experience of the majority.” The idea that what the majority enjoys can show what was of importance during their lives and that students, years later, can look back on that and learn much about the culture and society.