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.