Akuhle's Blog

Media and Society

akuhle — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:34:18 +0000

Media and Society the class has been really helpful and enjoyable class to go to. Although the later time and the break between my earlier classes and this one was tough, it was worth it when I learned so much about media without even knowing so. Michael really engaged the class using all different types of media outlets; youtube, online sites, music, bringing speakers in, etc. It kept every class entertaining and I was always interested in what our next class would be like. We talked about everything from Susan Boyle to having the creators of “I Love My Ducks” video come in. Every class I came away knowing something more and really questioning what I had just seen, such as subliminal messages in Disney films. Even having to post a blog every week has made me want to really try and keep up with my other personal blog on a weekly basis. Michael really tried to make every class and enjoyable experience and it shows how much he wants his students to learn as well as enjoy what is being taught during class. The use of i-clickers was also a new experience and I think that it helps get the class involved, especially with having over 100 students in the class. Overall I think this class was great, and a great way to start my learning in the Journalism school! Thanks for having such an awesome class.

The Happiest Place on Earth

akuhle — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:10:01 +0000

These videos have opened my eyes to how Disney movies can be portrayed and also how much the company owns around the world. Watching parts of the video in class and listening to what people who sat next to me thought about the affect on disney and children was pretty interesting. Although watching parts of disney movies today I have noticed the racial conflicts, I didn’t realize to what extent Disney uses portrayals of certain “races” in their movies. Also, the effect that watching certain Disney films has on young girls view of what is beautiful and desirable. I would have to say what was most shocking was the portrayal of how the “perfect woman” should look like. In almost all the movies with a disney princess the princess is always very very thin. In Belle, she is smart because she likes to read books. In aladdin, jasmine knows how to be seductive to distract the villain. Disney knows that they are putting these types of stereotypes of what a girl should aspire to be and they do it anyway. Another thought though that I have is I definitely didn’t think about this things when I was watching the movies for the first time. All I wanted to know is if the princess and prince lived happily ever after. Although Disney is still putting these types of ideas out there, it should also be up to responsible parents to teach their children that these movies are fake and that what is portrayed is not always right. When it gets down to it, Disney is making movies that kids want to see, girls want to see the beautiful princess and boys want to see the bad guys and fighting. As young kids, you don’t know that the hyenas in Lion King seem to have a “mexican” accent or that sebastion from the little mermaid has a “jamaican” accent. As a whole company I don’t think that Disney is evil, or that kids should never watch their movies, just proceed with knowing that you can read into their portrayals of things as much as you want and you will find evidence of anything. You can make something with nothing, basically.

also reading this blog gave some really good points that got me thinking about disneys sexism and racial issues in their movies.

: http://www.progressiveu.org/025805-disneys-sex-and-race-issues

this issue is really important because of how it shows children what to aspire to be when they grow up.

A Convo with David Cohn

akuhle — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:56:24 +0000

It was very interesting to talk to David Cohn as a class. Just the fact that the technology today can allow us to communicate with someone in a different place and they can see us and we can see them is so great. I think this type of technology really helps the school-world the most. But about the actual class, david cohn refers to himself as a “geek writer” as he writes a lot about science and technology. He graduated from UC Berkeley (yay california!) where he started an undergraduate journalism program. His work has been published in places such as the New York Times and Wired News.

David’s new project has been the “spot.us” which is a new form of journalism that could change the way news stories are spread. This project is to let the public decide what they want to read about, which really is brilliant as the people are who really matter when it comes to what they want to know about. The basics of Spot.us is that if a certain person wants the story out there they will contribute to the story. This type of journalism has started to catch on and one of their stories even got published in the New York Times. Spot.us really should be considered the new way of journalism, in this sense anyone could be a journalist. Society would be able to read about what they have contributed or what someone like them has contributed. Stories today have been less about how the story is written and the opinions about the subject and more just about the info splashed across the front page. Spot.us is still in the beginning stages and has just been in and around Los Angeles and the Bay Area but after learning about this project I think that this could be where the future of journalism is heading.

Music to My Ears

akuhle — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:03:00 +0000

This week I thought it was very interesting to hear about the music industry and how it is evolving and changing with the technology and media. On thursday I really enjoyed hearing a personal perspective from musician John Shipe. He added his own ideas about how he got his music to the public and asked us as a class how we found our music. It made me start thinking about how I personally obtain my music. I came to a realization that my main source of finding out about music and songs that I like to listen to is from my peers. When I hear a friend listening to a song I ask them who sings it and then I go and look that person or band up on the internet. I’ll go to places like itunes or especially youtube to listen and watch videos on a certain artist. Also, itunes have recommended and genius settings now so when you listen to one artist they bring up results of artists that have similar music or tone to the one you are currently listening to. For example one day I was looking up 30h3! and a recommendation came up to listen to The Maine, so that is how I found out about another awesome band because itunes suggested it. Speaking of itunes makes me think about how we purchase our music has changed so much since the days of my childhood. I used to buy cassettes, which then turned into CD’s, which in turn you can now purchase any kind of music through the internet sitting at home. Also, a problem that has arisen with the technology and media of music is the pirating of music using types of software such as limewire. I will admit I have downloaded several songs using limewire because especially being a college student and not having a lot of cash flow it just seems so easy to be able to get my music for free. I’ve read lately in some news articles that certain artists don’t care anymore how their audience gets their music as long as they are listening to something they made. Artists such as Mariah Carey and Lady Gaga are two such artists. I think the music industry will continue to change and evolve. Especially seeing just how its changed the past couple of years makes me wonder what it will be like in the next five or ten years.

Just Google It

akuhle — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:08:51 +0000

I read the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” and I thought that it was very interesting because it is so true. The internet has become this vast source of information just waiting to be found with a few clicks of your mouse. Instead of researching as our parents did, using the library, with just one click we can access many libraries that include books, articles, periodicals. Basically anything we could ever need to find information on a project, paper, or math problem can be accessed all from the amazing internet. My question is, are we becoming too dependent on this one main source of information? When you have a question to answer our first thought is to have google find the answer for us. We just type in a question, and google in .253 seconds has found 3,967 results that pertain to what we are questioning. I think that we trust the internet too much to give us the correct information. Just because it is on a website doesn’t mean that the information on the website is completely true. Anyone can make up a website and put whatever they want on it, they can make it look really important and professional but what does that really do. Also, as the article states, I have been losing patience in reading longer pieces of writing. Even the article itself I wanted to skip whole paragraphs to find out the main point. It really took me a while to stop skipping and really read every sentence. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about media, states that, “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader. What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?” Scott has a good thought about how we read on the internet has an effect on our brains and how we think. We start to use google and the internet as a means of instant gratification. We need an answer and google provides that. What also comes to mind when reading this article is that commercial about bing.com about information overload. We don’t really know it, but so much information is being processed when we go on the internet. I think that the bing.com commercial is a great way to describe what has started happening when “google” became not just a search engine but used as a verb in our day to day lives.

link to bing.com commercial:

Fashion Blogs

akuhle — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:39:43 +0000

I decided to read the article about teen bloggers starting blogs about fashion. It really surprised me how much recognition some of these blog sites have gotten and the authors are as young as fourteen years old. It was interesting because these everyday people just sat down at their computer and decided to create their own little place in the the big world of the internet and now are having backing by such companies as American apparel and urban outfitters. I believe that there are many blogs out there today that are important to society. Depending on the person reading a certain blog depends on how important it is, I guess. If you are a huge sports fan, such as I am, reading a blog about how we crushed usc this past weekend is very important to me. To someone who is not as interested would think that same blog not even worth the time to read. Also, maybe you are interested in fashion and reading a blog about a persons perspective at New York’s fashion week would be very important for that person reading it. Basically as I see it, to each his or her own. I do believe that bloggers are journalists. Many blogs have reached thousands of people and influenced them or changed their mind. In this day and age people are being hired to do just that, blog. Whether about fashion, sports, school, etc; they are journalists that tell a story or state an opinion. I think my opinion has pretty much stayed the same about blogging. I have tried blogging in the past and I like it. I would much rather read blogs than write them though, I only keep a blog for me personally but there are some well written blogs out their that have been very interesting to read. I would have to say that I didn’t realize how much blogs have become such a big part of the internet and journalism world, that is what really surprised me about blogging in general.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/technology/14youth.html

Contemplating My Media Intake

akuhle — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:18:02 +0000

During our discussion in class last Tuesday it was interesting to hear what others had to say about their own media monitoring projects. I agreed with a lot of what my fellow students had to say about their media usage. The only thing that was surprising was that many people had a lot of television hours and I hardly watched any television at all. The internet usage as a whole for the class makes me wonder if as a society we are spending way too much time on the computer and not enough time out in the world. That’s really what I thought about after writing down everytime that I went on the internet. It was several times a day for hours at a time. When I think back to what I did on the internet during that time it was hard to say what I actually did. The time that I spend on facebook, twitter, email, youtube, etc doesn’t seem as important or productive when I see it in black and white on a piece of paper. After writing this paper and thinking about the time spent on all my different electronic devices it makes me want to change. Now I know that I can’t just cut off everything, nor can I just go and delete my facebook, but slowly I hope that I can focus on real live relationships and doing things outside and staying active. I also really enjoy reading books but lately being on the computer has replaced my love of reading a good story. I really want to try hard to be able to be a little less in-tune with up to the minute status’ on facebook and twitter and just live my life, without typing out what I am doing at that exact moment in 140 characters or less.

To the Future of News and Books

akuhle — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:01:32 +0000

I believe that books and newspapers will always have a future in our world as we know it. Now the news and books we read might not be in paper form but I totally agree that they will still be used and a big part of society. With things like the kindle coming out where you can have your own personal library in two pounds of machinery is mind blowing but also shows a glimpse of what is to come. You can download a newspaper right to your fingertips while traveling on the subway to work. You can download a new book when your bored without even leaving the comfort of your chair. It’s amazing what we type of knowledge we can get from such small devices. Smart-phones are also another way that the public can access all the latest headlines in the news, they can even program it to their specific area, country, or if the prefer the New York Times over the Orange County Register, everything can be accessed with just a touch of the button. Even while talking about everything going electronic, I believe the paper copies still have some life in them. It might be decreasing but still, the majority of the public still get the newspaper everyday/weekly. They still go to the bookstore to get a book, and if your low on cash libraries have many books waiting to be read. So for now I believe that newspapers and books are here to stay, but eventually, maybe not for 25 or 50 years everything will slowly turn to electronic only.

All About Blogging

akuhle — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:25:20 +0000

Last year was when I started gaining interest in blogs, and eventually started one of my own. A friend of mine introduced me to the site xanga, which has a lot of interesting blogs on all types of interests. I started blogging to write about my feelings and happenings in my life. My own personal blog is just that, personal. I don’t write for anyone else, just for myself. I enjoy going back a reading about what I was thinking during the past year and what had happened. I think of it as sort of a virtual journal. I have to say that I definitely read blogs a lot more than I post them. I think blogs are good to express others opinions and read about topics that you might not necessarily read otherwise. It’s a way to express what one feels about a specific topic or issue anonymously if one wants. I believe that blogs are becoming a bigger part in the internet world as more people start to gain interest. Many of my friends today have started some type of blog that they didn’t have a year ago, maybe not even six months ago. That alone, shows just in my circle of who I know, how much blogging has become a part of people’s daily lives.

Hello world!

akuhle — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:13:20 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!