A Dog Of a Problem!

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a huge sports fan, admittedly idolizing players as more than just athletes, looking up to them as if there were God.I will do anything to defend them and their "superiority" to society at any moment of questioning. However during the summer of 2007 my favorite NFL player, super star quarterback of the Atlanta falcons Micheal Vick did something very ungod like,even to say unhuamn like. Vick was accused of being involved in the illegal act of dog fighting and was accused of financing the operation, directly participating in dog fights and executions, and personally handling thousands of dollars in related gambling activities. The moment I found out about the news my perception about Micheal Vick changed completely, no longer did I see him as the fastest, most athletic, and dominating figures figures the NFL has ever seen, instead I saw him as a heartless criminal who enjoys to watch numerous dogs kill each other for money! In August 2007, a U.S. federal district court convicted him and several co-defendants of criminal conspiracy and sentenced him to serve a 23-month prison sentence. He is being held in the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas

In situation's where even your favorite celebrates get into legal trouble, or perform in such a human way like vick I believe the ethical and right thing to do is protest against their behavior! Thus I have decided to become more involved and spread the word about PETA'S plan to stop the credulity of animals and punish micheal vick for what he has done. PETA is again calling on the NFL to add cruelty to animals—in all its forms—to its personal conduct policy. The perservuence of PETA has forced vick to participate in and complete a PETA course in "respect for animals." PETA wishes to become peacemakers in the issue in resolving the issue by making Vick into a spokesperson Dan Shannon, assistant director of PETA, said "Vick must speak out against dogfighting as someone who participated in dogfighting and saw it ruin everything he built for himself and take away all his fame, all his fortune, all of his respect If he chooses to do that, that's the only way I think he could ever be seen as any kind of a positive public figure."


I am interested and persuaded by the actions PETA has taken with such an issue, by not using violence to show their anger, they which to turn such a disturbing and horrid story into something positive and show change in individuals. My views about vick have changed drasmaticly since the innocent however PETA has taught me with the change already seen in vick and the perception he has received as of late, that he is in fact forgiven and willing to change. PETA's actions have inspired me to know you can make a difference and change someones life, even society, violent protest solves nothing and compacts the issue.

Work Cited: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4QoE0BZvO8ruoETnG4lONKF4f1AD94M47H00

Participate in Something Special!!

The user generated media in today's society allows for an expansion of individuals to have the ability to create, view and use other people's creations across the internet. This expansion in media allows for individuals like myself to participate in online gaming, social networking, and knowledge communities. As a result, the number of those who produce media and the amount of competition to capture specific audiences increases. I believe the new generation of internet communication includes, user input and participation in websites. Examples of this now in society include sites such as Flickr, Wikipedia, and facebook. My involvement in this new generation of participatory culture includes, a facebook account which I am slightly addicted to viewing and contributing to daily. Like myself, anyone with a computer and a internet connection can contribute in someway to create their own content and distribute it over the internet for others to criticize, view, and analyze for their own pleasure. A primary Example of these contributions is seen on facebook with the starting of groups, writing of personal notes, picture albums, event invitations, and the list goes on. By contributing to the internet content, as an individual you are creating your own medium that was once created by companies on the internet to only view and not participate in. I believe this type of medium will grow larger into the future, the participatory element of every website is beginning to expand with message boards, online feedback, and chat rooms on almost every website, and will become the norm of participatory culture in society.

Trapped in Wal-Mart!

Just imagine, one day walking into any Wal-mart,looking for and grabbing the nearest shopping cart and continually weaving and "whirling" through a maze of store aisles for up to an hour at a time. This culture jamming ritual is performed by activists of a organization known as "Whirl-Mart" which aims to mimic and mock what they perceive as the absurdity of the shopping process in today's society. The group calls their actions as "a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling". Like many other culture jamming groups, they wish to change the current culture of people buying into huge billion dollar company's and be freed of their ability to manipulate consumer's. In Lawrence Lessig novel, "Free Culture" he describes "A free culture has been in our past, but will only be our future if we can change the path we are on right now" (lessig, 14). By changing the path, Lessig states we can alter the way society is made. Lessig also goes on to state that if the type of culture we are currently living in continues there are immense consequences "The consequences is that we are less and less a free culture, more and more a permission culture" (Lessig,24). The definition of "permission culture" brings society into dangerous territory, as we can no longer make healthy decisions for ourselves, and permission is required. In the case of Whirl-Mart its tactics are effective as it is a silent protest and the message clearly gets across to society and its obsession with large grossing corporations such as wal-mart. Society's obsession with "buying" is shown in this process, and the message is clear, we spend hours upon hours shopping, this is non-productive at times, and further puts the money in the pockets of greedy corporations. Without us the consumers, stores like Wal-mart go out of business, and we are "free" once again.

Money Money Money!

The world is constantly changing, adjusting to new and larger populations of the world. The more people that live on the earth the more energy and consumption of materials are used leading to more and more garbage being produced. When you consider the fact that the average North American communes five times more than a Mexican, Ten times more than a Chinese person, and thirty times more than a person from India. The fact becomes even more alarming when you consider North America as a continent isn't even the largest in the world, in terms of population. In an attempt to persuade people to reduce their consumption, an event known as "Buy Nothing Day" well be held on November 25th 2008.The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Vancouver in September of 1992 as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption. In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, which also known as "Black Friday" which just so happens to be one of the top 10 busiest shopping days in the United States. I believe public events like this create awareness about an issue, taking real life action, rather than just sitting back and watching what is happening to the world. The fact of the matter is as a society, we are very focused on money as it consumes, how we interact with people, the decisions we make, and consequences we face. If for one day, the focus could be somehow how shifted I believe, not only awareness about the issue will be raised but also society will see how much they save, and help the environment in turn.

Love For the Internet!!!

The invention of the internet has given society a unique and useful form of communication in today's day and age. It has become the new medium of technology in households worldwide, and is used more frequently then its previous popular medium, the television. The internet has grown so immense over the world that currently 352 million households worldwide have some short of broadband connection. From its invention the internet has been seen as a democratic and socialistic way to communicate with others around the world, giving users the freedom to do what the want, when they want. However most recently a issue known as "Net Neutrality" has quietly begun a debate on how the internet should be run. With hints of government control and online monitoring near, many believe the internet can see an overtake by government rule and certain restrictions on what can be viewed in the near future. It is a fact that every time a new medium appears it offers potential for cooperate ownership and control over sites on the internet, thus currently 60 percent of internet is now owned by corporations and the trend appears to be quickly increasing. These companies wish to Threaten and to lock down the medium. In my opinion I believe not enough people know about the concerning issues of Net Neutrality because the government tries to cover up the evidence the best that they can and warning of the issues such as downloading of the internet are an issue, yet action never seems to be taken, thus we think of the internet being taken over as an afterthought.

The fact of the matter is in today's society cooperation and billion dollar companies are always looking for ways to become more rich and powerful. They wish to accomplish this by locking up thinks such as downloading various forms of media and forcing consumers to pay for it, even though artists make enough money through concerts, advertisements, and propaganda. If this is the future of democratic society, where we were once free to make choices and roam the internet freely, the outlook doesn't appear to bright. Our freedom too obtain and use any from of medium that comes out is taken over by greedy companies and government rule , forgetting that we as humans are built free and should be able to use our rights accordingly, action must be taken as society paints a future that consist of imminence government control of the internet similar to the situation currently in china and other poor countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. An example of to much government control can be seen in the story of the man living in Afghanistan, where downloading is completely illegal. The man wished to download a copy a charter of rights and freedoms his friend send him over the internet, but was killed wants the government found out about the news. The issue of government control over the internet I believe has gone to far and must be stopped or situations such as the man in Afghanistan can escalate and lead to more problems in the future. As a society we must realize that the internet is a useful tool for knowledge, and communication and is cherished for what it is worth, if we let the government get away with this, there is no telling what the future holds for society, and the electronic world we live in.

Greedy Mickey

In today's day and age money is the driving force to the success of large multi-billion dollar corporations. There is no longer a situation throughout the media were companies own one movie cooperation, radio station, and television network, however instead own multiple sometimes hundreds of other related media ownership. Walt Disney is by far the biggest example of cross media ownership. The company which was Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt and Roy Disney began just as an animation studio, however over the years gained popularity and most nobility wealth and has come to be known as one of the biggest Hollywood studios. Today, they currently have holdings in over 180 media outlets worldwide. The implications of such growth of media can be looked upon as restricting the medium to one cooperation which can include biases causing unchanging displays of media whether news related or entertainment based. Companies such as Disney have grown so large, must notability in the united states that they own most of the radio stations existing in the country. This type of ownership can have negative affects on society and its news of real news. Another example of cross media ownership that has a huge impact on news related material is shown in Australia as the country itself only produces two newspapers, owned by two extremely wealthy companies. I believe this has a resounding impact on the coverage of news reported and where it comes from. The trend of companies owning other media outlet has grown rapidly over the past century and well continue to play a factor in today's growing economy. As a society we must find a way separate and grow companies instead of building them all connected as one.

Fake News: Good or Bad?

The importance of being informed about daily news stories is a right every citizen should have, without daily news updates the world thus becomes less privileged and unable to make sensible decisions. Conversely there are news programs mistaken as real news created throughout the media that produce news satire or "fake news" who report irony and usually political humor. I believe the fake news can be seen as both, humorous, reliving, and controversial for the reason that an individual cannot deceiver what is reality and what is a newsworthy hoax. In situations were important news needs to be delivered there should be no reason for reporting false information. However fake satire news shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report are currently very popular in the United States, and provide humorous relieve about serious political issues, personally I think both shows are a good idea, for the reason that a 2004 "Annenberg" survey found that Daily Show viewers were better informed than those who relied solely on convent regular network news. Thus, the future of reporting news may be in the form of comedic appeal to capture the greater attention of its viewers, and inform a different medium of people. There is also a form of fake news that particularly favors those in plotics and avoids the real substantiating truth. For example news papers reporting in Washington would not tell the full story of an issue for reason that it affects the president and his popularity and how he is looked upon for the policies he has set in place. It is obvious that the news from the president gets distorted through the process of reporting. When the head secretary receives the information from the president, the secretary reformats it in a way which is politically correct and then sends of the story to the journalists to report in thier baised views. Therefore, the news no longer becomes real storys but reformatted deplomatic principles of the nation, that no longer reveal the real truth of reporting and what journalism truly consists of

The Ipod, What Would I do Without It?

The effect of media in my life, is very much efficient. More specifically the media that has the greatest impact on me is none other than Apple's invention of the Ipod, so much so my daily routine shapes around this little handy device. My morning regimen includes plugging my Ipod into handy ipod stereo, which plays throughout my bathroom walls, which in doing so helps to wake me up as well as gives me enegery and spunk to use throughout the day. Whatever I am listening to in the morning will help me essentially get me through the morning. When on the bus, an hour wait ensues in order to reach my destination, University. With nothing but road and billboards, I put my headphones in my ears and enjoy what media and technology has greatly provided me with. Throughout the day I am mediated trough this one device, as I arrive at school, I have half an hour before class, I take out my books while still listening to my Ipod as it helps me focus. After class is done for the the day, I arrive back home, headphones in the ear at all times. As I sit in my room working on various homework assignments, my Ipod is still playing. As the night approaches, my friend calls me to go out, I thankfully agree after my homework is complete of course. While changing I still have time to listen to my Ipod. As I arrive at my friends house, I am told there is no music, however I am not faised for I still have my handy Ipod in my pocket. The night turns out great with plenty of music and fun. Through my daily routine it is clear my life is mediate through a technology, for me it is the Ipod, the small but simple device further enhances my life and the environment I surround myself in.

Idolizing Commercialized Product

As a society we worship celebrities, consequently devoting personal time and effort into carefully examining their behavior. The controversy associated with paying respect and idolizing these public figures is the mere fact that the ideology to which they personify correlates to the actions and style of the fans and viewers of their commercialized product. In today's entertainment industry it is difficult to correlate the difference between real and fake, the music industry has very much become corrupted with various marketing ploys to entice young viewers into believing, that everything they say in their songs is really true. Whether it be from Hip Hpp artists, rappers, or rock stars, the music industry is a money making ploy, therefore artists today will say anything to gain recognition,sometimes with no validity or substance. That doesn't mean everything out there in the entertainment industry doesn't have no truth to it, the generalization however is that, Rap artists especially, Rap about the trails and tribulations in their live, the money, and girls to which they have in their live. To any young viewer witnessing that information has a profounding affect on their mental psyche, whether we like to admit it or come to the conclusion, their influence is on the average teenagers style, life, and actions, it is not a great lifestyle to be exemplifying to future generations, as the media only grows bigger, more commercialized and more popular to today's youth.

Nike Does it Again

Ever since I can remember, that is when I first began thinking about playing sports, I was a fan of the company "Nike" and all that they stood for and represented. I believe that says something about the company, that they are able to reach out into such a small age group and capture their attention. As a company competing with the likes of Adidas, New Balance, And 1, etc. they are required to produce, genuinely created advertisements, capturing the hearts of all those sports fanatics, such as myself. When I witness a Nike commercial, a lot of feelings and thoughts emerge as a result, the most common being "I need to get my butt off the coach, and do something active". Nike accomplishes this by creating harsh but true ad slogans such as "Just do it" and commercials showing motivated and determined athletes accomplishing their goals and dreams. In Nike's latest campaign "Everything you need is already inside" they use a popular song by the band the killers called "All these things that I've Done", which I believe captures the heart of any athlete. As the song talks about having soul, but not being a solider, various clips are being played showing great struggle, heart, and determination with various famous athletes. The advertisement is smartly placed, as you can find it on many sports network, websites, and their vary own site www.Nike.com. For years now they have captured the attention of a worldwide audience, it will be interesting to see if any of the other major companies will catch up, However as of right now it doesn't look as though it is a possibility

Revoultion of Todays Media

The media in todays society has grown larger than ever. With Television, Radio, and Internet giving hourly updates, one is never starved for news and current world events. The term "Mass Media" is used to describe what produces this "news" all over the world. To understand the foundings and information the media brings, in its masses, I believe one must understand current events outside the area to which a citizen is accustomed to living in. It expands worldly through message boards,podcast, websites,video hosting services, and blogs such as this one. It has become so large that it in a sense, promotes political and social aspects This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication. Over communication is key throughout the mass media, giving daily updates on the current political election is key to the mass media, as it gives world renounced insight into the political future of American citizens. The Mass media is bigger than ever now and it is because technology has advanced so far, throughout society. News reports fifty or sixty years that would have been received weeks later, are know at our finger tips in seconds. The mass media is anywhere you look, you cannot avoid its ethical and political views on society, however you can educate yourself in media censorship, and various other media related tactics that promote strong social and political affects on society. We must remember Marshall McLuhan uses the term “the medium is the message” as a means of explaining how the distribution of the message can often be more important than the message itself.

Video Gaming: Gone to far?

The video game industry has expanded enormously, it has become a common household product that joins the electronic powerhouses of Television,and Internet. Microsoft, one of the worlds largest grosing company, promotes its specific home entertainment system known as the "Xbox 360". I believe it's popularity stems from the fact it includes some of the greatest graphical visualizations in the world, amazing online capabilities, and promotes some of the most popular game titltes, such as halo, gears of war, and fallout. The xbox 360 has become such a cultural phenomena that there is know an "international league of gamers" who assemble together on certain dates of the calender year to challenge each other on a competitive level of gaming. The league known as the MLG, also known as Major League Gaming, includes the liberties and success that of a Rockstar, professional athlete, or singer. I believe it is absurd to think that a fifteen year old boy can become famous and obtain "superstar status", just by pressing a couple of buttons on a controller, and pushing a joystick. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love video games, and promote it as a very relaxing hobby, however the implications of this system, cross the line between its purpose and function, which was supposed to be intended for fun, yet has know become an international obsession, that will see political, economic, and social issues in the near future.

New Experiences

Today is the day; I create my very own personal online blog! I believe it is a very unique and important opportunity. A blog, known as an online diary; is defined as "a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page are produced." It is Interesting to think it is not only going to be written, proofread, and analyzed by me under intense personal scrutiny but however seen by anyone who choose to including those interested all over the world. A blog inst your average book report, assignment, and project, it is however you make it to be. It is amazing to think how far technology has come, centuries ago when personal journals were written and kept to ones self, are know no longer personal. The way technology is going, the average Joe can become famous just because he has the same interest in video games, movies, and current world events. Conveying these ideas creates popularity as the worlds population can related and give feedback. Online websites such as Perez Hilton.com, .Joystiq.com, and Kotaku.com, give insight into daily events with updates on the hour every hour. This revolution of online communication has become ever so popular, yet it does not come as a surprise to me. The world of communication has grown so vast, virtually anyone living in the world is able to convey and transcend, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. With this blog I wish to accomplish or become stronger in communicating through today’s growth of media, based on online activity, and learn the skills needed to become an effective blogger.