For my final paper I have decided to address the ways in which technology has replaced the social aspect of people’s lives. My main theory being that the internet, along with other advanced forms of technology have replaced the amount of social interaction people participate it.  Moreover want to investigate the ways that technology has affected people’s relationships with one another, whether it be negatively or positively.

Furthermore, providing information on how the internet has become the main medium used to communicate with people around the world.

 

Additionally, I want to explain the different ways people use technology to develop and continue social relationships. I want to discuss the use of facebook and myspace, explaining the ways the use of the site has provided college students, alums, teachers and most recently outside affiliates to communicate with others around the world. It has been  a key medium for college students to keep in touch while they are attending school.

While researching I found an article by  Corey Anton where he describes how the use of technology and all the advances we have made over time has resulted in humans acting as machines.

I want to also address the possible problems of communicating through the internet, such as interpretation and intention of the author. There is an element of social interaction in person that provides the receiver the ability to interpret the message through their five senses, as opposed to through a computer screen. 

In Gaming, Galloway explains how for over the past 20 years video games have been central to mass culture. His main goal being an attempt to analyze the ‘aesthetic and political impact of video games as a formal medium’. In the article, he describes POV (point-of-view) which is basically showing what a person would see, providing their perspective. This provides a somewhat realistic representation of reality in films. When reading Gaming I found myself questioning: how powerful are video games in influencing certain actions?… is it true that video games have the ability to brainwash individuals into acting in certain ways? Should violent games be held responsible when a kid is involved in an act of violence and rage? 

it seems that not often do people hold themselves responsible for the actions they take, or the choices they make. Galloway provides the reader with insight into the different qualities of film and video that stimulate a sense of reality. He explains how video games are designed to provide the subject with an acurate, real life experience.But when video games are designed to make the player feel like the game is real, should the companies be condoned for violent acts which occur in society that mimic their games?

In response, I think it is ridiculous to say that a video game company should be held accountable for violent acts that mimic their games. it is such  a far fetched claim to say that kids act the way they do based upon the video games they play. Well, if that is true, they why are they allowed to play the games in the first place?

game designed to provide a real-life experience of shooting

 

 

Its crazy that people in society continue to blame everybody but themselves when things don’t go as they wish, or when something bad happens. I was thinking of examples of the different ways people don’t assume responsibility for their actions and listed them below. 

example 1) often after a night of drinking which resulted in a few bad decisions, and no motivation to be active -the common phrase is “oh it was the alcohol, I was too drunk to know” (blame the alcohol for ones behavior while under the influence)

consequences of eating fast food

example 2) how about blaming fast food restaurants for America’s obesity problem… hello?!?! Do you not have a choice when you go through those doors? And I can’t stand it when people claim they didn’t know that greasy deep-fried food was bad for you… It’s these kind of people that make American’s look like complete idiots

So my point is that we cannot hold video games responsible for acts of violence. it is our responsibility to monitor the amount of participation in the video games and regulate at what age kids start playing games.

Where the Global Meets the Local

where the global meets the local

When the question raised is how does the loyalty between two cultures vary on a global level?

I find myself in a conundrum, I do not know how to even approach the question, nor formulate an answer.  I found this reading particularly difficult to address and discuss. I understand that the components of globalization because it is nothing I haven’t heard before. It has been associated with the advancement of technologies around the world for years. we have identified ‘globalization’ in reference to television, mass media and economics as a whole. It also pertains to how fast food, fashion, and tourism have advanced over the years.

tv = furniture

In class we discussed Micro versus Macro and identified how the relationship between the two are in association with homogenization, fragmentation, globalization, and localization in contemporary culture.I found this the most challenging to address because there is no one way to identify concepts or one way of seeings things.

However, I did enjoy when we discussed the part of the reading about TV-as-furniture. I felt that I identified the most with this part of the reading because it made me think about how much I am influenced by television. Although I hate to admit it,  I feel as though I have become somewhat dependent upon television. I feel sometimes when I watch television I get sucked into it and feel compelled to watch the show. Taking into consideration the context of the show, I still feel as though  I am just as impacted as the next person.

television held to the highest standard

Author of article

In Jo Ellen Fair’s Francophonie and the National Airwaves, A History of Television in Senegal, she discusses how the content of television and the spread of it in Africa can be correlated to media imperialism. She states however, that media imperialism is too simple of an association to make and that it is necessary to go more in depth and analyze televisions’ political and cultural history  in Africa. 

 

   While reading this article I wanted to know more about the author, I did some research and found that most of her research has examined U.S. media images of conflicts in Africa. SHe explores how race shaped the telling of African catastrophes and conflicts.  http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/users/jefair 

Africa

Also while reading I learned that there has been a lot of study of the African culture, traditions, and the ways in which they have been transformed through the interaction with foreign cultures. (Planet TV, 204) However, the study of media and its influence in Africa has not been explored in great detail. Considering how over the past thirty years, television shows, cartoons, images, and magazines have become a more popular medium for Africa, there is more of a reason to explore this.

 

This photo was also taken in the Brother’s Garden at school. I really like the shadows that are cast by the shadows, but also the color contrast of the inner part of the flower. 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo is not as clear as i would have liked it to be, but I still really like the image that is produced from the view and angles I was at. I tried to put my camera as close to the flower and zoom in without losing the natural sun. 

 

This photo was taken during the day at the Brother’s garden behind the Chapel. I chose to take a close photo of the flower to show the perspective that a bee or a bug would see, it shows that although when we see a flower it appears very small to us, but can be huge for the life of a bug.

brothers garden

I used this photo of the flower as well to show the different angles created by the petals of the flower. it shows the different elements that each of the petals portrays.

 

brothers garden

I decided to use this third picture of the flower to represent how the lighting is distributed and how it effects the overall view of the flower. The darkness on one side of the flower represents a softer, more pure angle of the flower, and the light at the bottom represents a new day, and how the sun is gradually moving over the flower. 

 

World Wrestling Entertainment website is gendered towards male viewers. The web site   focuses on some of the socially constructed characteristics of what makes the site appealing to men.

Pictures of females being objectified; titles to photos of female wrestlers includes titles such as: ‘Kelly Kelly: crazy for camo’, and ‘Raw: Daily Diva’. The pictures of the women presented with the male gaze.  The women are presented as objects of desire for the men.

The site is also very tailored towards men by the kind of photos of the men in action on the site. The photos are very action-packed and show men in very powerful, dominating roles. Phrases like ‘No Mercy’ and ‘Hell in a Cell’. Majority of the photos on the site fall under the criteria we discussed in class the other day of how certain things in society are structured to appeal to men. The color of the site is black and does not contain bright colors, or pretty pictures of happy people, it shows photos of intense wrestling.

World Wrestling Entertainment presents very ideal spectator criteria for the male viewer.  The notion that this is very heavily gendered towards males also falls under the ideologies of men being strong and heroic.  Some of the connotations of the image that can be identified include sexuality and gender.
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

AThe idea that since all the qualities that are associated with a male gendered website have been socially constructed for a long time now, it is easy to identify.

World Wrestling Entertainment

In Cultural Studies & the Study of Popular Culture by John Storey, I found the section on media consumption and repertoires to the be most interesting. It first addresses how magazines can act as ‘friends’ for women by bringing women together in their pages – “and yet by not providing the knowledge to allow women to see the history of their common social condition, sadly and ironically, they come between women, expecting and encouraging, them to do alone what they can only do together” (98).  The section explains Joke Hermes and her study of women reading magazines and the affect it may have on them.  She addresses the false depictions mediated by women’s magazines.  (99) 

• (100) media consumption: in other words, rather than begin with a cultural text and show how people appropriate it and make it meaningful, or begin with the contexts of cultural consumption and show how these constrain
• (100) repertoires: the cultural resources that speakers fall back on and refer to.. moreover, texts do not directly have meaning.. reps make them
• (101) Hermes identifies the four repertoires: ‘easily put down’; ‘relaxation’; practical knowledge; and emotional learning and connected knowing.  
• She relates them into the way that women read magazines and then apply what they have learned into the real world.
• the study identifies the many problems with women magazines because they provide a very inaccurate representation of the female body and include stories that are very unrealistic and is somewhat of a ‘fairy tale’  

http://community.tvguide.com/blogs/Community-Blogs/700000004

(cwt v show blog)

 

http://seahawksblog.blogspot.com/

(seattle seahawks blog)

 

http://moviesblog.mtv.com/tag/twilight/

(twilight Stephanie meyer series blog)

 

http://perezhilton.com/

(celebrity gossip)

 

http://blogs.foodnetwork.com/food/foodnetworkkitchens/

(food network)

 

http://www.johnmccain.com/Blog/

(McCain –Palin)

 

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog/

(Obama blog)

 

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1593866/story.jhtml

(mtv movies blog)

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/main

(espn sport blog)

 

http://www.fanblogs.com/

(college football blog)

 

http://www.hairstyleblog.blogspot.com/

(hairstyle blog)

 

http://www.thecelebrityblog.com/

(celebrity info)

 

http://www.travelblog.org/

(travel info blog)

 

http://www.shoppingblog.com/

(shopping info)

 

http://www.allbusiness.com/accommodation-food-services/food-services-drinking-places/11534-1.html

(restaurant info)

 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

(google all info)

In Convergence Culture, Jenkins describes the important role participants have in the world of television. Media circulation is in large part due to consumers – they determine what products to buy, brands to trust, and what tv shows will be popular. It is clear that without consumer responses via blogs online and websites, producers might not be as successful. 

The concept of spoiling a show is described as a group of viewers or an individual who is participating in the active process of tracking down information that has not yet been released and publishing it online. Producers have become aware of this and often read the blogs and make changes to the show so that the audience is suprised in the end. So is it really that bad that there are spoilers? I think that everyone at one point or another has been so obsessed with a reality tv show and searched to find out what happens. We all want to be the source of knowledge when it comes to knowing the outcome of the next episode. Plus, if people don’t want shows to be spoiled – then they shouldn’t go online looking for information that might lead them to such an outcome.

In class on Tuesday, Oct. 7th we discussed the show, the Simpsons and how successful it has been over the years, the show has continued to increase their viewer ratings and maintained the ability to make the audience laugh, leaving them wanting more. We discussed how the show has evolved all over the world, where many countries have changed the translation in order to appeal to their culture. 

   In particular, we learned about how the Simpsons have been translated in Arabic. However, the language in the show is not the only thing that is changed in order to appeal to the culture. The characters names are changed, and some of the essential qualities that shape each character are altered.  Changing the characters names, behaviors, and removing certain scenes from the show takes away from the essence of the Simpsons. Known for their obnoxious behavior and embarassing habits, the show is no longer considered the same when it is transformed as they have done.

  

I enjoyed the discussion about the concept of flow and its presence, or lack of presence in television versus major motion pictures. I found it clear that all shows in one way or another are fragmented and are constantly being interrupted with few rules or limitations on the continuity of the show or televised segment.  it seems clear that all things being aired on television in one way or another are examples of discontinuity and what Williams describes as flow’ and the problems that are associated with the concept and television.

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