Last Class

Well, I just finished my last Mass Communication class. We didn't do much today. We handed in our Last Word letters to Mark. I think I did I good job on it. Everything in the letter his true. I wrote everything from my heart.
Then Mark gave us all, well atleast me, a heart attack when he announced that we were having an impromptu exam. I was thinking, What? How can we have an exam? I never studied? He said we weren't having one. Im going to fail. But, it turns out they were personal questions like how we think we did, what marks we deserve for the projects, and how he was as a proffessor. So, it was pretty easy. And after we did that, we filled out our marking sheets for our blogs. We wrote down how we thought we did on them and what mark we think we deserve.
It was a good ending to a great class. And again, Thank you Mark and Ian for everything. You really made this class something special. =)

1 Day Left

So, tomorrow is my last mass communication class and im both sad and excited for it to be done. I will miss the interesting class discussions and lectures, but at the same time I am going to be so releived. I'll be free of homework from this class, which has really worked me hard, harder than I had ever expected.
Taking this class was a great experience for me and I learnt a lot over the past three months. I look forward for our last class tomorrow afternoon and I would just like to thank Mark and Ian for making this class a great learning experience for me.

Mapping Who Owns What? Media Hegemonies

After researching different corporations, my group decided to choose Viacom to focus on. Using the book, We the Media, we were able to find all the different companies that Viacom owns. Viacom owns four different groups, Viacom Entertainment Group, Blockbuster Entertainment group, Spelling Entertainment, Republic Entertainment, Laurel Entertainment, Home Video and Paramount Communications, Inc. All of these groups consist of many different companies.
The following are a few of the companies that the 4 biggest groups own...

Viacom Entertainment Group:

• Nickelodeon
• The Movie Channel
• All News Channels
• 15 Radio Stations
• Famous Players
• The Free Press

Blockbuster Entertainment Group:

• Blockbuster Music
• Super Club Music
• Sound Warehouse Music
• Blockbuster Video

Spelling Entertainment:

• Spelling Films International
• Spelling Television
• Spelling Satellite Networks

Paramount Communications, Inc.

• 5 Paramount parks in the U.S. and Canada
• Paramount Home Video
• UPN Network

As a group we each researched Viacom individually and then combined all of our information together. We then all made a poster, which consisted of a web map. We put Viacom in the middle and then all around it were the groups that they own. Then attached to the groups were the companies that they owned.

I learnt a lot from this assignment. I learnt that a lot of big corporations own hundreds of smaller ones and that they all in some way can be connected to each other.

Media ownership is happening all over the world and in some countries that's OK, but in others it is a problem. "A number of other countries do already allow cross-media ownership, that is to say, one owner can run both TV and newspapers in the same country. One of those countries is Canada, but the way the system operates there has caused disquiet. One company, Canwest Global, owns one of the biggest commercial TV stations in Canada, reaching 94 per cent of the population. Canwest also owns nine local TV stations, a national newspaper and 14 metropolitan dailies. The company is controlled by one family, the Aspers, who, by the way, also have a majority share in Australia's Channel Ten" (Murray, Brenda).

Sources:

Murray, Brenda. Cross-media ownership causes disquiet in Canada. May 21, 2002. October, 13 2007.

<http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s560762.htm>

Class Today....

Today in Mass Comm Mark set up a 20 minute examination to help Ian get his doctorial. Ian talked to us for 20 minutes about his fake news investigation and then we had to come up with questions for him. These questions were to help him so that he is prepared to answer any question that his examiners give him.
At the begining of class Mark talked to us about our Last Word Letter. He answered any questions and discussed what should be in the letter.
And to end the class off, we got our papers back. I got 63% on mine. Mark told us that if we got 60% or higher that we should be proud of ourselves.Im not totally proud of myself because I know I can do better. But, I will take it and learn from it. And I will make sure I do better on my next essay. Atleast I improved from my first essay in this class.

Timeline of Media History

For our timeline of media history my group chose to include cinema, the radio, the telegraph and the printing press. The following is some of the information that we found.

Cinema: "The Frenchman Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895. But in truth, several others had made similar inventions around the same time as Lumiere. What Lumiere invented was a portable motion-picture camera, film processing unit and projector called the Cinematographe, three functions covered in one invention.
The Cinematographe made motion pictures very popular, and it could be better be said that Lumiere's invention began the motion picture era. In 1895, Lumiere and his brother were the first to present projected, moving, photographic, pictures to a paying audience of more that one person" (About.Com*)

Radio:

• it is closely related to the telegraph and telephone
• began as "wireless telegraphy"
• started with the discovery of "radio waves"
• Many devices work by using electromagnetic waves including: radio, microwaves, cordless phones, remote control toys, television broadcasts
• Radio-telegraphy is the sending by radio-waves the same dot-dash message used in a telegraph
• Was developed at the time mainly for ship-shore communication
• Wireless signals proved effective in communication for rescue work when a sea disaster occurred
• 1899, the U.S. army established wireless system
• 1901, radio telegraph service was instituted between 5 Hawaiian Islands
• By 1903, a Marconi station located in Wellfleet Massachusetts carried an exchange or greeting between President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VΙΙ
• 1905, the naval battle of Port Arthur in the Russo- Japanese was reported by wireless
• 1906, the US weather Bureau experimented with radio telegraphy to speed notice of weather conditions
• 1909, Robert E. Peary, artic explorer, radio telegraphed “I found the pole”
• 1910, Marconi opened regular American – European radio telegraph

Telegraph: "Together with his partner Alfred Vail, Morse developed in 1838 the simple operator key, which when depressed completed an electric circuit and sent a signal to a distant receiver which was an electromagnet that moved a marker that embossed a series of dots and dashes (the morse code) on a paper roll. About 1856 a sounding key was developed that enabled operators to hear the message clicks and write or type it directly down in plain language. Telegraph systems quickly spread across Europe and the United States. With the growing telegraph traffic many improvements followed. Like the duplex circuit, in Germany, that made it possible for messages to travel simultaneously in opposite directions on the same line. Thomas Edison devised a quadruplex in 1874 that enabled four messages to travel at once. The most revolutionary invention was that of Jean-Maurice-Emile Baudot, his time division multiplex invented in 1872" (Rubin, Julian).

Printing Press: "The impact of printing in Europe was comparable to the development of writing and the invention of the alphabet or the internet as far as its effects on the society. Just as writing did not replace speaking, printing did not achieve a position of total dominance. The different graphic modes of communication continued to influence each other. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Artisole made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author was entirely lost"(Wikipedia).

For the collabortive process each of us chose one of the inventions and researched it and the fourth one we all researched. Then we got together and shared our research with each other and chose which stuff to keep and which stuff to get rid of. Then we put our findings in a timeline on a poster.
From this assignment I learnt about the inventions and the impact that the cinema, radio, telegraph and printing press had on our society. They were all big inventions and without them the world would be completely different. Without the cinema and radio we couldn't watch TV and movies or listen to music. Without the Printing press we wouldn't have the Toronto Star. This world as it is now, would not be the same without these four inventions.
Marshal McLuhan said that media ecology "means arranging various media to help each other so they won't cancel each other out, to buttress one medium with another. You might say, for example, that radio is a bigger help to literacy than television, but television might be a very wonderful aid to teaching languages. And so you can do some things on some media that you cannot do on others. And, therefore, if you watch the whole field, you can prevent this waste that comes by one canceling the other out" (Wikipedia*).

Sources:
Wikipedia. Printing Press. November 13, 2007. November 16, 2007.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press>

About.Com. The Invention of radio. 2007. November 16, 2007.
<http://inventors.about.com/od/rstartinventions/a/radio.htm>

About.Com*. The History of the Motion Picture. 2007. November 16, 2007.
<http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmotionpictures.htm>

Rubin, Julian. Samuel Morse: The Invention of the Telegraph. September 2007. November 16, 2007
<http://www.juliantrubin.com/bigten/morsetelegraph.html>

Wikipedia*. Media Ecology. November 16, 2007. November 16, 2007.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_ecology>

Huge Win for Leafs

So I just thought I'd share with you all my extreme excitement that the Leafs beat the Sens 3-0 last night! I am absolutely delighted that they defeated the Sens. This is a HUGE win for them. The biggest win of the season. The fact that they beat their arch rivals, 3-0, is awesome. But to beat the number 1 team, 3-0, when your team is struggling is just FANTASTIC!!! So, put both of those points together and now you know why it's they're biggest win of the season.
And, if you didn't know before, now you defintley know that I huge Leafs fan, and I can get excited about the smallest things, if is has something to do with the Leafs. So, don't make fun of me or try to make me hate the Leafs. Because it won't work, and you'll have just wasted you time. I take great pride in being a part of LEAFS NATION!

Activist Project

For our activist project, my group decided to do it on Darfur. Genocide is happening in Darfur and thousands of innocent people are being killed for no reason. No one seems to be doing anything about this, and one reason may be because most people aren't aware of what is happening.
So to create awareness of Darfur, we held an event at Humber residence. We invited all of our friends and posted flyers. Overall, we had a pretty good turnout. We made a 10 minute presentation about Darfur, accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation using video clips and pictures. We created a comprehensible brochure and made green ribbons to give to the people that came out. We gave each person a few ribbons in hope that they would share what we told them with others. We wanted to collaborate with Humber’s STAND group, but unfortunately, our schedules conflicted.
From this assignment and the documentary that we watched I have learnt what is happening in Darfur. I know that innocent people, even children are being tortured and murdered and that know one really is doing anything about it. I think that what is happening is absolutely horrible and that more people should be aware of what is going on. Together we can all make a difference in these peoples lives.

Darfur Documentary

My group decided to watch "The Devil Came on Horseback" for our documentary film. The film is about the continuous Darfur conflict in Sudan. "It is based on former U.S. Marine Captain, Brian Steidle's experiences while working as an unarmed military observer for the African Union"(Wikipedia).
Our argument is, a lot of people are ignorant about genocide and what is happening in Darfur and that Genocide should end. Genocide is a serious issue that most people don't like to talk about. When they here it on the news or read it in the paper, people tend to ignore it because it doesn't concern them. While they are doing so, thousands of people are being killed for no apparent reason. These are innocent people that haven't done anything wrong, and they're being killed just for the sake of it. There is no need for this to be happening, we can make a difference. If every single person were to be informed about Darfur this world would see how cruel it really is. And maybe all of us together could influence the American troops to go down and end this genocide in Darfur forever.
After watching the film, I discussed, with my group, what we had just seen. Before watching this movie, I didn't know much about Darfur. I had heard about it but i really was that informed about it. But now, after seeing the movie, I am flabbergasted. As, I saw with my own tow eyes what was happening, I felt so horrible. Innocent people, even babies are being murdered. I mean, how can be people be so down right mean. It still puzzles my mind, why anybody would want to kill someone, especially in such a cruel way. Children are being handcuffed and then burned alive. This is absolutely horrible. I really don't know what to think of it anymore. I am just so surprised that people have let this happen. Another thing that we talked about in our discussion was the fact that when Brian Steidle was working in Africa he thought to himself that if people in the U.S. knew what was going on and saw pictures of it they would for sure bring troops down to try and stop it. But, two years later no one has done anything about it. This is really sad, but is so true. One of the most heartfelt moments was near the end Brian Steidle starts crying because of what he's seen and blames himself for not trying to stop it. But, seriously he couldn't have stopped it, and if he had tried he would have been killed.
I learnt so much from this documentary and discussion. I learnt about everything that is happening in Darfur and how no one seems to be doing anything about it. I learnt that so many innocent people are being killed each and every day for no apparent reason. And, I learned that it isn't going to stop and less we do something about it.
I think that everyone should watch this film. It will give people an awakening of what is happening in the real world. People need to know about Darfur and that genocide is happening all over the world. It will really make you count your blessings in life because we have it so good compared millions of others in the world. Just imagine how it would feel seeing your family being burned to death. It's not a pretty picture, is it. We can make a difference.

Sources:
Wikipedia. The Devil Came on Horseback. Novemeber 4, 2007. November 20. 2007.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Came_on_Horseback>

Inventions Change Culture

There are many inventions that have significantly changed the world. Such inventions as....

• The printing Press
• Telephone
• Radio
• Cars
• TV
• Radio
• Ipod
• Internet

In class today Mark had us get into groups of ten and we had to come up with as many inventions that we could that have impacted the culture/society.

All together the class came up with several inventions, but we all agreed that one of the most important ones was the printing press. The printing press made it able for us to produce a mass amount of copies of paper/ notes.

The Printing press is also one of the most significant revolutionary technologies.

Right now, we are in late capitalism, in the shift from literacy to electronic. Computers have greatly affected us and are one of the main reasons for this shift. Now a days, people tend to use the computer and internet for everything instead of reading books and writing on paper.

The internet is also very important to us. Most people use it almost everyday.

Over the years, the way we communicate has significantly changed, from cave writing to hieroglphics to Arabic to the alphabet to printing. Writing transforms how the world works. Tied to that is the alphabet but cave printing is just as important. Our early ancestors learned that a word could have a meaning and that sounds mean something. This is what makes humans human. They have the ability to understand the meaning of complex sounds and words and create a language out of them. A form of communication that they use to communicate to others.

Pop Culture Books

The following are a list of Pop Culture books, I wouldn't mind reading....

1. Out of Sync, by Lance Bass
2. A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, by Steve Turner
3. Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosion, by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King
4. Noise/Music: A History, by Paul Hegarty
5. Love Lucy, by Lucille Ball
6. Dress Your Best, by Clinton Kelly and Stacey London
7. Amped up: Aly & AJ The Official Biography, by Grace Norwich
8. After All, By Mary Tyler Moore
9. Growing Up Brady: I was a teenage Greg, by Barry Williams and Chris Kreski
10. The Rookie: A Season with Sidney Crosby and the New NHL, by Shawna Richer and Roy Macgregor
11. Lindsay Lohan: The Biography, by Sarah Marshall
12. '67: The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory, and the End of an Empire, by Damien Cox and Gord Stellick
13. Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in It, by Thomas De Zengotita

Magazines

I enjoy reading magazines because it keeps me up to date with every thing that it going on. I mostly read entertainment magazines because that is what I am most interested in. For a few years now, I have had a subscription to Seventeen magazine. I really enjoy this magazine because it talks about several topics that interest me, such as fashion, make-up, hair, real life stories, celebrities, and embarrassing stories.

Some other magazines I read are....

1. People


2. Cosmo Girl


3. Self


4. Vogue


5. Pop Star


6. Tribute

Sources:

http://home.att.net/~kquarles/Images/LeicaOnSeventeen.jpg

What am I reading???

For the past year I have been reading a series of books, called Gossip Girls. It is about a group of rich teenagers, who live in New York. The books follow their exciting life of school, parties, gossip, fights, love, and getting into college. I absolutely love these books because they involve teenagers around my age and the problems they go through. It is also fascinating to find out how the rich and spoiled kids live in New York City.

This show has recently become a TV series. It is an awesome show, but it is a lot different then the books. So, if you like the show, I recommend you read the books, because they're even better!!

What I'm Thinking...

So, there's only a few weeks left of Mass Communication class now. Time is going by very quickly and the homework is starting to slow down. All I have left for this class is this blog and my "last word" letter. I have learnt a lot in this class so far. It really seems surreal that I have learnt so much in only three months. I can remember my first day of this class, and I was so excited yet so scared at the same time. Mark came into the class all happy and energetic and it just really made my day. I really thought that I would enjoy this class. At the same time I was terrified because of all the freedom he was giving us. I wasn't used to working like that. I have always been taught to work on rules and outlines. So, when we were going over our course syllabus I really didn't like the fact that every assignment said, "Make them as short as possible and as long as needed." I worried about how long everything was supposed to be, because it never actually said a specific length. But, now I completely understand it and I'm fine with it. I am more now capable of judging for myself how long an assignment should be.
One thing that we definitely had in this class was freedom. I, personally, think we had a little to much freedom for my liking. Nothing was ever completely outlined for us and we didn't really know what Mark wanted. He had me confused as heck at times because I really didn't know what he wanted. But I was able to discuss the assignment with classmates and figure out on my own what I needed to do. I just wished that there was a little more structure in the class, but I guess that is the way Mark likes to work.
If I had to pick one word to describe this class it would definitely be "chaotic." This class was like one big chaotic mess. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing either. I think it was good for Mark to give us some freedom. It gave us the opportunity to learn for and from ourselves. We were able to explore our own thoughts and ideas and create finished assignments that were 100 % us. It's just a little more guidance would have been nice at the time.
I don't know about others, but I, grew mentally from this class. I have learnt how to think more on my own and that I don't need someone there (like teachers) to babysit me, while I do my work. Really, I just have discovered more about myself, like how I think and work. And in a way this class has made me a little bit wiser and grown up.
Growing up is what life is all about. Life teaches us a lot of life lessons. And as we begin to get older we learn from every little event. So, I am glad that I have learnt so much from this class and I thank you Mark and Ian for everything you have taught me. And I look forward for our last few classes together.

Today in Class....

Today in class Mark talked about five important things....

1. Survival
2. Safety
3. Belonging
4. Esteem
5. Self Actulization

He also talked about the different between irony and parody.

Then Ian showed us a Ron English clip on propaganda and billboards. Some of them were pretty bad. There were two that stuck out to me....

1. Playdate in Iran - had a picture of a little boy wearing a military uniform
2. An ad that was making fun of Americans because they eat too much McDonalds - had a picure of a fat and old Ronald McDonald

This was a very interesting class, and I enjoyed it all.

Portrayal of Women

So, I have just finished writing my final paper for Mass communication. I wrote about the portrayal of women in society, but to make it my own I used The Mary Tyler Moore show as an example.

The following is a blurb from my essay.......

In today’s society image is everything. More attractive people get treated with more respect than others. The media portrays the ideal women as tall, skinny, and beautiful. Anyone who doesn’t fit this category is unimportant or is thought less of. This portrayal of women has gotten worse over the years, and has lead to many women feeling insecure about themselves. “[Women] get the bends as [they] escape the schizophrenic landscape of Glamour or Vogue [in which] the fashion and beauty layouts insist that [they] be passive, anorexic spectacles whose only function is to attract men and who should spend [their] leisure time mastering the art of the pedicure” (Douglas 120). ..................

This portrayal of women has been going on for centuries. It has been displayed in thousands of movie and television shows. One of the shows it can be seen in is the 1970’s hit, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It is displayed between two best friends, Mary and Rhoda. Mary is a young, thin successful woman, while her best friend, Rhoda, is average sized and is portrayed as sloppy and lower class. Mary lives a better life than Rhoda because her appearance matches the ideal women: tall, skinny, and pretty................

First, I’m going to start with their positioning in the scene. Mary is standing looking down on Rhoda. She can be compared to a mother. Mothers look down on their kids when they are in need or in trouble. They are always there to help their kids out. But they also have authority over them and can punish them when needed. Mary is looking down on Rhoda because she feels sorry for her. She feels she needs to listen and help Rhoda with her problems. Rhoda is sitting down looking up at Mary. We can compare her to a child looking up to their mother. A child is young and innocent and needs their mother for everything. They are much smaller than their mother, therefore they have to always look up to them. There are two meanings of why they look up to their mother. They look up to their mother when they need help or advice with something. For example, if they can’t reach something or they want something to eat; they go to their mother for help. They, also, look up to their mother as a role model. To them, their mother knows everything and they want to grow up to be just like them. So, Rhoda looking up to Mary symbolizes that Mary is like a mother figure to her. Mary helps her when she is in need and she is a role model for Rhoda. Rhoda is like a lost puppy in need of some guidance. Having Mary stand and Rhoda sit creates them both to be on different levels. Mary is higher, making here more dominant. While, Rhoda is lower, making her less important.
Both Mary and Rhoda are dressed completely different. Mary is dressed professionally in a nice work outfit and her hair is clean and nicely groomed. She looks like she is successful and has a job of high importance. She is confident and happy with herself and is ready to take on a new day. Rhoda is dressed in baggy old clothes and her hair is a mess. She is wearing a bandana on her head to hide some of the mess. She looks like she is poor and out of work. She is giving off the impression that she doesn’t care much about anything. She is unhappy with herself and wishes she could be like a certain someone. This certain someone is her best friend, Mary. The fact that Rhoda wants to be just like Mary explains why she is always looking up to her. When looking at the both of them most people would be more inclined to approach Mary instead of Rhoda. People judge others by the way they look, and are more inclined to talk to someone who is nicely dressed.
Now, I’m going to take away the image and just analyze the conversation between the two of them. Rhoda is complaining to Mary about how she lost her job and how she can’t find a new one. She is spilling out her problems to Mary and wants her advice. She wants Mary to help her find a new job. This is another example of how Mary is the mother and Rhoda is the child. A child expects their mother to do everything for them. When they need help they go to their mother thinking that they will make everything better. They automatically think that, that is what their mother is for. Rhoda is going to Mary and complaining about her problems. She needs help, so she expects Mary to help her. Mary is concerned about Rhoda and sympathizes with her. She is, in some way, like her mother and feels like she needs to help her. This gives Mary more authority over Rhoda...........

I feel strongly about this topic because I am a female and really don't like how we are being portrayed. The media is telling us that we're no good, if we're not a size "0." And we, keep seeing it on TV and movies. Millions of females are stressing about the way they look and developing eating disorders, so they can be as skinny as they can be. But, this is really unreasonable because female aren't a size "0." This is really stupid of people to think that only skinny people matter. Why can't everyone of different sizes be accepted? It's not like the bigger you are the less smart you are? Weight has absolutely nothing to due with how smart you are. And it should have nothing to do with the way people see you.

So, why is it that the main character is always the skinny beautiful women and never the average sized women? More people would be able to relate to the average sized women, than the skinny women. But, yet, they still always make the main character skinny. Why is this?