Trekkies

After viewing the Trekkies video I would say that I am not as effected as some other people but like Joli Jenson said this can be disrespectful to others, encourages elitist assumptions, and acts as a scapegoating mechanism. I would say that this movie is disrespectful to others in different ways. Even as we watched the video we were laughing at how ridiculous some of the things they did were. For example, the fact that one of the cling ons paid thousands of dollars for the mask. We also make fun of them for dressing the way they do or even for how much stuff they collect from the show. Some of the assumptions that we make from the Trekkies video is that some of the people are loners who may not be but the movie or even how they act makes them seem like they are. We do not know everything about their background or what they do fully besides what the movie made them out to be. It is not fair to them. We also have the opposite extreme where like the group that met every week and had discussions about Star Trek. I would also say that the ladies who ran the talk show were on the opposite extreme. We think that they are all nuts for being so involved in a show.

My Fandom

I would say that the difference between normal and obsessive fandom is how in depth you go with the fandom. For example, are you someone who must follow everything the person or show does, like the people in trekkies did or just someone who really enjoys that person or show? I would also say that obsessive fandom would be not knowing much of anything else. Like in the trekkies film when all the people were dressed like the people of Star Trek and followed what they did. It really depends on who you ask whether or not there really is a drastic difference in normal and obessive fandom. I think also depends on the actual person who has the fandom. I think they in themselves can make it a drastic change depending on what all they adhead to. I cannot say that I have a specific fandom because I am not really I have to watch this all the time or this is my asolute favorite movie or show or person. I have some movies and shows I prefer over others but nothing I would say I was obsessed with. When I watch shows or movies I usually do not pick up on major things that I want to follow or be like oh I want to be like this person. I just enjoy watching certain things rather than others. Some people may say that I am obsessed with One Tree Hill because I love you to watch that show but I can not say that I follow really anything they do. I do not even have any of the seasons on dvd or pictures of the cast members which I think would be some of the characteristics of someone who is under a fandom of a certain show or person.

New TV genre

If I were going to create a new tv genre I would create something that would combine the genres of kids and history. I may even make it a cartoon to make it even more interesting for younger children. I would take fact portion of history and turn them into stories for children to understand. This would make the genre mainly kids focused because it would include all the kid aspects in it but have history facts throughout the entire show. The cartoon would just grab the kids attention a little better because most kids enjoy animation actors over real actors. This hybrid would work because it would make the kids more interested in learning new things while doing something most of them love to do...watch TV. It would be a new style of teaching instead of making them sit in a classroom to learn everything they need to know. I would pitch the idea as.... A new way of learning... cartoons. This would grab their attention to watching the show and it would just tell them a story about what happened but in a more simpler way than before.

Fandom

As we discussed Fandom in class, I was surprised that there were so many people who were effected so much by characters on a show or movie. I never thought that something so drastic could have not just an effect on one person but on an entire community. When we watched the video about the Trekkies it was interesting to see how much each one was shaped in their own way and what it meant to them to be apart of the conventions with each other. However this was not the most shocking part to me throughout Alyssa's lecture. The idea that fandom came out of indrustrialization and modernization were very interesting to me. I would have expected the fandom to come out of something such as loneliness or just infatuation. We allow everything around us to affect us in more than one way. Indrustrialization was something that changed our country as a whole and it also did individually. It is just another example how some type of mass media shaped us into changing not us into shaping what happens in mass media.

Immediate or distant?

After class on Thursday I started thinking about the Magic Silver Bullet Theory. On of the big items we discusses was whether or not the media effects were immediate after viewing it. I really think that this can vary. I believe that it depends on what the effect is. I believe that if it is something that is said then it can be picked up easier than an action in most cases. However, this is probably also effected by the child, their age, and how their brain comprehends things and what they decided to do. For example, I was blocked from viewing different things when I was younger and was taught that they were wrong so that when I finally did see it in action I knew it was wrong and should just let it go through my brain and just know its something others do. But there are other children and people out there who do not have this type of restraint or are not taught that these concepts are wrong. There are other factors that take a role in how a person is effected by a movie or television but these are a few. I think it depends partially on a parent and what their friends are doing and saying that impacts how much they are effected by it. It could be something that is not really popular to the people around them but if someone views it enough and they see it by and actor or person they like a lot then they will want to do it too. This is just another factor in how someone will be effected by it. So it really is all on the person on whether or not the effect is immediate or not, but I think in most cases it is immediate.

The black box

As we talked in class on Tuesday about the convergence black box I realized how much I was a part of the little black box definition. We said the black box was when all media was in one source. For example, my black box is my laptop. It does not have everything on it because like we said there will never be a perfect black box. However, I can spend a whole day on here if I wanted. It has forms of communication like facebook, e-mail, and AIM. I am able to do the majority of my homework on it. I can watch movies or listen to music for entertainment without having to have other things around me. I find myself in this box on weekends and when I am at my house. The weekend is my key homework period and I spend some time relaxing but it tends to still be on my computer. At my house I miss friends and want to talk to them or get bored and I will just entertain myself with facebook or games on the computer. I never realized how much I was in this group and how true I made this definition of convergence until now. And to be honest I would probably be stuck if I did not have it. I do not think I will ever walk away from the black box, perfect or imperfect.

Media impacting society

In class this past Tuesday we discussed how media impacted us as a society and how there were different types of impacts. I thought more and more about this throughout the week as I interacted with media. I thought about how media affects the society as a whole (macro) and just me personally (micro). I came up with many of the ideas that my group did in class. We mentioned things like setting cultural standards and allowing us to think critically about different topics. One other key idea we mentioned was how media influences our identities. But also found myself thinking about how because of media I turn away from things. Many people fall into the trap of seeing things on TV and wanting to follow the people like the "Mook." The more I watch TV it seems like the more I want to turn away from the concept of "Mook." But then I realized in doing this thinking I was in the trap of the 3rd person effect. I felt like since I was turning away from those paths that I was not really being affected by the media but really I am just as much as anyone else if not more since I am walking away. However, I guess that I am more positively affected because I am going the opposite way but not nessecarily. The society as a whole can take each aspect in different ways be affected in either a positive or negative way.

Myspace

As I watched the video blog for Tuesday's class and found may things to be quite interesting. I never realized how the production of media especially online media changed in prices and in general over the past 2 decades. I also did not know that we as the consumers (for lack of a better term) impacted the production and how much they make in such a drastic manner. A simple thing like myspace has a lot of control over so many artists and craft makers. It seems to me that we are the the ones that shape the internet and what the production lines of it produce. I think it is the opposite with other media sources like television. I think that television has more of an impact on the choices we make but the internet is controlled by the people who use it. We affect the ways in which things are formed. The types of patterns and designs that are being created for us to use on our myspaces, blogs, etc. Anoter issue that Frank discussed was the fact that anyone has the power to create backgrounds and sites who has sources such as imovie or photo programs of any nature. This creates the issue of bad production from the more professional people who are trying to make a business out of it. We as consumers can choose the future of the internet production lines.

Production lines within Production lines

I started thinking further into the line of producing as I worked on my digital media story. There is not just a system of who is involved to get the book or movie, etc. out but a system of putting the actual product together. Like with our media stories. We must first write the story or script that we are going to make into a movie. It then needs to be accepted by a company in order for it to be produced (in our case our idea had to be approved by Andrew). You have to find producers and directors and actors, people to do the make up and costumes, and people to run the cameras. For our project we do not have this much to work through but its the normal concepts of creating a movie. Working on this project has opened my eyes to what really goes into a movie in order for us to be able to enjoy it. Even if all the outside people like the copyright and sellers work out there could be no one to do the movie so your movie still fails. It isn't an easy world to work in but people fight the system everyday.

5 Levels of Production

I was reading a book the other day and began thinking about all the processes that it has to go through in order to become a book. I mean as children we just learn to read. We may know they are printed or the idea of an author but the other concepts just are not there. The more I thought about the book I went back to our class discussion when we talked about the 5 levels of production. My group looked at a Lord of the Rings book. Even though we talked about it then I do not think that all the concepts even clicked then as to what really goes into a book until I was reading the other day. I got to thinking about how if one level denies something or refuses to do this then there is no book or no movie, etc. Each section is dependent on some other part so if one level fails then it all fails. It can be even harder when there is more than one person involved in each level. For example, the book my group looked at had several people who had copyrights to different parts of the book. It could even go so far as to get through each phase but then the stores do not want to sell the product. Just like people in this world the world of media would not exist without dependence on each other. There is more to a book then just its words or more to a movie than just its story/action.

New genre

If I were to create a new genre I would mix gameshow and science fiction. I would pitch a show that would be about science fiction but in gameshow format. Similar to like what Let's make a deal that was on a little while ago. In that show they wore costumes of different types so my gameshow would have this aspect but in more of a science fiction way. They would dress up as science fiction people. The game aspect of the show would have all science fiction questions and would be run like any regular game show out there minus that fact. It would be a more entertaining way of learning about science fiction or bring out ideas about it than just watching a show unless you are a sci fi junky like some. This would be good because there are many people who find sci fi boring or they would rather watch something else so by creating a show like this they could make the sci fi genre more popular by combining it.

Favorite media text

One of my favorite media text is probably the television show One Tree Hill. This would probably fall under the genre of soap opera. Fans would look at this from the perspective of what is really happening in the show and by whether or not they like what is happening. They may also judge it by assumptions on whats going on. Producers would look at it from what the storyline is like for that genre or by how much that certain genre brings to the plate compared to others. Critics however would look at it from how they put things together. They would also judge the genre by how it affects the society. This text achieves the delicate balance between invention and convention because of how it does the show. It reaches out to a wide age range of people. It also does a great job of pulling out some key problems that people may have in their real life so they created it well and they follow through with what they plan very well also. Through out the entire show it is the same they may have changed it a little bit to adjust things but overall it is still the same show as it was when it started.

TV shows' impact on society

In class the one day after watching "Merchants of Cool" we discussed whether or not it is tv that impacts what people do or think or if we are the ones that impact what goes on tv. As I was talking to my friend today I was tossed into thinking more about it and which is really true. We were watching One Tree Hill and there was a scene where one of the boys was cheating on his girlfriend with another girl. My friend was frustrated at the fact that this would happen and said that he needs to break up with his girlfriend if he's going to mess around with someone else. My friend then continued by saying but they make this show as to reflect society and what happens.While I completely understand his point I continued to point out that not everyone thinks the same, and that it really does happen with some people not everyone treats everyone appropriately when they date or in any situation. This is what made me think. I tried to defend what happened on the show just because I have seen it in real life whereas with my friend was frustrated that the boy was continuing to cheat showing the two different points of view we discussed in class. I let what I saw happen in real life think that since its on tv it wasn't a big deal but and to some degree it didn't matter but it really does. There are too many cases when we let tv dictate our choices and what we think is wrong and right rather than looking into what really is wrong and right. This is where it turns into the feedback cycle that we also discussed. We watch a tv show and let what happens become what we believe to some degree then they see that we like it so they continue to put it on tv and brainwash us with whatever else they can think of along those lines. So even though we watch the bad stuff causing the stations to in return put more stuff on I think it is the tv that dictates the trends not us. I believe we tend to get more ideas from the tv then they do from us for the most part. However, I in no way would let someone treat me in that manner it just shocked me that I found it ok because I have seen it before.

Semiotic domains

As I left class on Tuesday when Alyssa taught us about television genres and how there are so many just by grouping what people's interests are and then combining interests to make different genres. However, during this conversation one thing stuck out to me. She said that our domains are not formed just by what genres we like because we all like a bunch of different genres so its not just a matter of the one domain but a bunch of different ones. For example, we can say that one domain is formed for those who just like the genre of science but they are not included in the domain of those who like the genres of science and history. So we can expand and make larger domains just by liking more tv genres compared to just having a domain of just science or just history. The more I think about the idea of semiotic domains and how they are formed and how many there are it is amazing. There is basically a domain for each group of people who like something which is an outrageous number of groups. Facebook has groups on there and each one of those is a semiotic domain because they share something in common and those are always growing as people find connection to it or start to like it. There are domains forming all around us without us even knowing.

Presence of a Conspiracy

I was looking over the myths once again as I watched television and different things this weekend. I thought about them in a deeper sense and what they mean. As I thought more about the Presence of a conspiracy I thought about how the news is similar to this. I would consider it to fall under this myth because there is a group of people who know all the inside details and what everyone else wants to know but for a while they are the only ones who know. And even still after they share the news with us they tell us some facts that are false so that we believe what they want us to know or to make the story better.

Sign within signs

Today I was thinking about signs and what they mean to us and how we know what they mean or what we make them to be. I looked up street signs on google images and found a sign that had the meaning of unusual ice conditions. However, within this sign are many others. There was a picture of a car swerving which to me at least means be careful there could be ice or that there is a sharp turn ahead usually so I should watch out. There is also a picture of a temperature gauge that is like half red. This usually means to me that it is not freezing but still not really hot outside. However, beside the temperature gauge is words that say <-0 Celsius. So when you add this into the mix there is a whole different meaning. It is not just a sign that has two really random pictures on it but it tells us that we need to watch out for those conditions when it is below 0 degrees. We can also pick up the fact that it is a warning because of the color of the sign. We usually put the color red with stop or the color green with go or a street sign but this sign was yellow and to us that means it is warning of us something not what the weather is like outside. It is not a matter of what the sign says in parts but as a whole that makes it have some type of meaning to us and makes us pay closer attention. Although without the words below that say unusual ice conditions someone who is usually from Florida or a warmer climate might be confused and make it mean something else because they are not use to those weather patterns. So even though someone like me who is from Pennsylvania may understand it or get the warning behind it someone from a warmer place would be confused besides they know that it is a warning because of the yellow color. Signs mean so many different things to different people so sometimes like in this case words are required to get the point across.

Comic Strip reading

I found this reading to be very interesting and true in what it had to say. One key thing that stuck out to me was when he used the example of the face and how even when we draw a bunch of shapes and add a dot for an eye we automatically see a face. We never think about what really is there. We can look at things and make them our own just like he did when he made the drawing into faces. It is amazing how we imagine different things just because of different characteristics that they each have, like when we talked about a stop sign in class. We automatically think stop when we see an octagon even if it would not say stop because of what we know it to symbolize. There are signs everywhere and no matter what we can all view them differently or turn them into something of our own. One classic example of this would be the picture that we can view as either a wine glass or 2 people's faces looking at each other. There are images and signs like this all around us that we don't even think about but they are there.

Myths in Shrek

I recently watched the movie Shrek. As I was watching this movie I thought back to when we talked about myths within media in class. While viewing this movie I noticed that Donkey was a great portrayal of the Wisdom of the Rustic myth. I believe that Donkey portrays this myth because throughout the whole movie, especially after seeing the type he is at the beginning, you would not think that he would be the one to give some of the advice or information that he does at different points in the movie. However, I believe that this is really the key reason that this movie is part of this myth because the other parts are just what we would expect to happen. For example, we expect the fairy tale creatures to be removed from the swamp and we also expect the princess to be rescued from the castle.

Signs

After class on Thursday and doing the reading on signs, signifiers, and signified I started thinking about all of them. What if all we had were words and no symbols? For example, if we just had the letters d o g that we know to form dog but no image or anything to go with it. We even did the exercise on finding symbols in media texts. We rely on symbols for everything. We have words that we automatically put a symbol to it. How would we know what things were? Or what if we had symbols but no words or meanings to put with them? It's amazing how much we rely on symbols and signs to put things together and find meanings to everything. Just imagine life with no signs/symbols. We would not understand everything, probably not much of anything actually.

Would you change your media?

I recently had an assignment for a class that required us to think about the media in our lives both previously and present. One of the questions was how would you change the media habits you had as a child? As I thought about this question I began to think about how the media from my past has affected me now. I would say the main source of media in my life as a child was television. I was way to active to enjoy wanting to read or listen to music (besides in the car). However, now that I reflect back on it I wish to some degree that I would have been more involved in other media sources such as reading because I feel like sometimes I missed information I should have gathered. I don't know... it's hard to imagine what it would be like if I had not watched so much TV or if I was more interested in something else. Would I know the same things? Would I have the same views I do now? What opinions or ideas did I get from watching so much TV? Would media still mean the same thing to me today? Or would I be impacted by a different source of media more instead of the computer's different media sources? I previously wrote posts that explained how media affected me now and what types had the biggest impact on me. I think it would be interesting to change the types of media I make dominate in my life for a little while and see if I still am as impacted by the ones I mentioned before. Or if my views on things would change. Just something to think about.

Myth in Mass Media

I have really been into music lately. It's been really soothing to listen to and has given me some interesting thoughts lately. As I was listening to music tonight I heard the song Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) by Christ Tomlin. As I listened to this song I realized that it was part of the myths we discussed in class on Thursday. I think it best fits into the Coming of the Messiah myth the best. I know it seems original but there have been a lot of songs that have been touching me a lot lately and this is one of them. Anyways, I feel like this song is falls into the Coming of the Messiah myth because it talks about us all being lost and wretches but then we have a great God who comes to save us. We would not be able to continue life without someone willing to be our Savior. I also think that this song could possibly fit into the Pull yourself up by your bootstraps myth because Jesus knew that we were the reason he was going to have to die even though he was sinless. The song talks about him coming to save us and to some degree when he went through and died on the cross for our sins he was able to pick us all up since we can now be forgiven of our sins. However, if he would not have chosen to come and save us we would till be stuck, lost, and drowning.

Personal Media Insights

After looking over my media experiences from the past few days I have noticed a variety of things. My main outlet of media is my computer, whether its talking on aim, facebook, e-mails, and so on. I can even have the tendencies to talk on my computer while I do my homework. While I know some people who do the same thing, I have noticed that my suitemates, who I am around the most, are not the same as me. When I see them taking part in some form of media it is usually television or reading. Whereas I only read for my homework usually and that is not even as much as my media use through my computer. As I look over the past few days I am kind of surprised at how much I rely on my computer. I grew up not having my own computer in my room or available to my use anytime so therefore, I would watch tv and do my homework of just do homework without anything. I have even tended to rely more on my computer for everything with school rather than writing it down on paper or cards. However, I think many people within this society will have some of the same media involvement as I do. Our society is slowly becoming more and more technology involved. We want the easy way out of everything and many things, paying bills, numerous forms of communication, work, research, and entertainment, are now accesible on the internet whereas before we would have to use paper or even telephones to complete these tasks. I don't know it's not really new information because it has been happening for years but I realized 100% as I looked back the past few days how lost we would be without the internet or computers for anything. I know I probably would not be able to stay in contact with many of my friends especially my older ones because I have no connection to them besides aim or facebook. It's just an interesting swing of media use.

Aim's affect on me

Aim is another media text that has impacted my life in a variety of ways. I am affected by the conversations that I have with my friends on there in a variety of different ways. I am extremely connected to this media text because for some this is the main form of communication I have with them. Therefore, Aim is a pretty important text for me so that I am able to keep in contact with my friends. However, I do not think of Aim as just another form of communication but rather something that is a part of me to some degree. Aim in some ways, even though it sounds funny, has changed my life. I think that it has opened me up more to telling people what I think and getting help with problems that I am facing. I have been impacted in more ways than I can even begin to list but it changing my life and helping me form who I am today is just a start. What I feel when I talk on Aim and throughout the experience itself is almost inexpressible. Many times I leave a conversation feeling overwhelmed, in shock, and sometimes just relaxed and relieved. There are even some times when I leave speechless and I end up thinking through the entire conversation and wondering if I could have said something different. So the plain and simple version of my experience on Aim is I feel speechless.

Problems and Possibilities in MMS

One major problem that is well-known to most people is the idea of the transferring of wrong information. There are many examples of this in different types of media. One example would be the news. There are news stations that are bias toward one political view or just in general they could be more conservative than liberal. When stations are more one sided than in between they are going to share information that leans toward their view whether it is correct or not. There have also been times when there are errors in newspaper information. This is usually corrected if it is brought to the attention of the writers but there is still the time lapsed that people have the wrong information. Or if they do not see the rewrite or correction in the next paper they will continue to have wrong information. These situations can affect people's opinions on things and how they go about things to some degree. I think one major possibility within media and society is for media to lead someone into making a mistake. Media could have such a great affect on someone that they want to follow what is happening on the source. For example, if a child grows up playing video games that are all about killing people then they may begin to think that that is an okay action to take part in. This is not true for all people but it can be a possibility for some.

Formative media's affect on me

I think one major media text that has affected me a lot lately is music. The song that has been affecting me is Give Me Jesus by Jeremy Camp. This text is Christian based and is very simple. It says basically the same idea throughout the entire song, which is no matter what all I want is Jesus. This song connects to me in the sense that even when I am going through some tough issues like I have been now that if I just ask for Jesus and his help I can handle it. That is kind of how it has impacted me as well. I have come to realize that no matter what the issue is or how many problems I feel piling up that if I have Jesus working right along side me then I will be fine and I can take on this world. I had not heard this song for a long time until this past week. When I did hear it come on out of all my other songs on my itunes, it was like an overwhelming sense of peace. I am not sure that I can fully explain the peace that I felt but it was similar to a rock or something of that nature being lifted of my shoulders. It was like all my problems and worries were gone and I could just live my life. It was almost like I did not even have problems in my life but they were someone else's that I was trying to claim for my own. It was definately a point of relaxation in my life rather than stress or any other feeling.

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