PressPausePlay was a movie we watched about the music industry and how it's changed throughout the internet age, how the sharing of music over the internet has made publishing companies almost obsolete, and how collaboration between composers has made music the number one industry for connectivity. This ideal is shared perfectly in a website called Kickstarter, this website is a site where people can get their ideas funded by other people, eliminating the middle man, the producer/publisher. "Each and every Kickstarter project is the independent creation of someone like you." Kickstarter, bottom of the page. This is the fundamental idea of sharing concepts, people talking to people to get their ideas published without a big company, which is sort of ironic considering how big Kickstarter has become. Each great artist has been preceded by the technology that made them great, Picasso by tubed paint and mobile easels, Hendrix by the electric guitar, and Humphrey Bogart by movies with sound, each artist has just adapted this technology to suit his or her needs. "Hendrix was preceded by the electric guitar, which was invented for a very pragmatic reason... if the electric guitar hadn't been invented, Hendrix would've never come to fame," Bill Drummond, PressPausePlay, 15:31. This quote shows that every artist is preceded by a great method of instrument, so in the electronic genre, a great artist has yet to be found, many have tried, none have succeeded. Electronic music is the original rock music of today, nobody liked it at the time, but when we look back on it, we'll see that it was the greatest music of the day. "I think this is an incredibly fertile time for artists, there's no cap on creativity," Brenda Walker, PressPausePlay, 2:12. This quote shows that artists are in their prime right now, and that this point in time is going to become a point in history that artists flourished, and art was made available to the masses for the first time.
The media has a great effect on public opinion, more so than anything else, this is mainly due to the fact that the media controls what the public see and hear, but there are many news stations out there, so the public can listen/watch anyone they want, and form their own opinions based upon what they see/hear. The Newshour is a fairly centerist news reporting station that focuses on both sides of an issue, not just the left and not just the right, it's Friday night special, Shields and Brooks is a prime example of this. "Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the week’s news, including the outcomes for Republicans in the first three midterm primaries, why the House GOP are pushing a Benghazi inquiry, the latest national assessment on climate change and NBA MVP Kevin Durant’s tribute to his mom and supporters" The Newshour, politics, Shields and Brooks page. These esteemed columnists do a take on both sides of an argument, usually one taking the democrat side and the other taking a republican side, but they do sometimes agree with one another, which is usually what happens in Washington at the time. The Newshour also does many other stories, some relating to art, some relating to money management, and some relating to foreign affairs. "The Kremlin announced that Russian President Putin has ordered the 40,000 troops massed on the Ukrainian border to retreat to their home bases. However, the NATO secretary general says he sees no sign of movement. Reporting from Donetsk, chief foreign correspondent Margaret Warner joins Gwen Ifill to discuss the building tensions in Eastern Ukraine and upcoming national elections" The Newshour, main page. This shows the media reporting on issues that are actually important, rather than idiotic and mediocre issues like who's breaking up with
who, and who cheated on who, and so on. Many news sources have actual news, but reported on in different ways. "Putin's Promise to Withdraw Troops Leaves Observers Cautiously Optimistic" Moscow Times, main page. This article shows differing views on an issue, because each reporter's view is different, making each news report different, making each view unique.
Ceremony was a book about sacrifice, and overcoming obstacles, Tayo accomplished these very well. During the book, Tayo sacrifices his current life to help the world around him, this is exemplified in this citation. "They had been his friends for a long time; the only ones left now," Silko, 157, Ceremony. This shows that he almost regrets leaving his friends, but not quite as much as he needs healing, which does happen. Tayo heals throughout the book, as shown by this quote. "'You're alright now, aren't you, sonny?' 'Yeah, Grandma, I'm okay now,'" Silko, 214, Ceremony. This quote directly shows Tayo healing from his PTS, and all the horrors the war inflicted on him, but it also shows him healing the bonds between him and his family. Tayo healed his relationship with his adoptive family after coming down from the mountain, even with his stepmother, who's a total bitch, just BTW. "'One more thing,' Old Grandma said 'one more thing, Tayo. Old man Ku'oosh came around the other day. He said maybe pretty soon you would have something to tell him. He said maybe you would go talk to them sometime,'" Silko, 217, Ceremony. This shows that Old Grandma is willing to relay a message to Tayo from someone important, which means that she's also willing to do more family stuff too, meaning Tayo healed the family relationship, which is a good thing.
Visual Literacy is an important part of the film industry today, and will continue to, as long as humans have a need to feel emotions they don't quite comprehend, which will be always. Some shots, scenes, or music make you feel a certain emotion, like the music during the Seven Pounds sad scenes with the minor piano key parts. "If it originates outside the film (as most background music) then it is non-diegetic." Yale University, Film Analysis presentation. This passage tells us all we need to know about background music in it's place. Scenes tend to establish the mood of the shot, like in Pushing Daises, all the colors are quite bright and perky when it's actually a murder show. "An important element of "putting in the scene" is décor, the objects contained in and the setting of a scene. Décor can be used to amplify character emotion or the dominant mood of a film." Yale University, Film Analysis presentation. This shows that the area around the actors tend to establish a scene. The way they cut the footage affects what's going on as well, you wouldn't just cut to a side character right as something important is about to happen to the main character, would you. "The shot is defined by editing but editing also works to join shots together. There are many ways of effecting that transition, some more evident than others. In the analytical tradition, editing serves to establish space and lead the viewer to the most salient aspects of a scene." Yale University, Film Analysis presentation. This shows that the editor will always show shots of the main character doing something important rather than an unimportant character doing something unimportant, unless you're Supernatural, in which case you show a lot of things unimportant.
PTS stands for Post Traumatic Syndrome, a serious disability affecting war veterans since before recorded history, but the human body has ways of coping with this stress as it does every other type of stress, it's called shock, and is a good thing, as long as you have someone with you to deal with the after effects of shock. The main reason for PTS after Vietnam, was that people didn't accept the veterans, they were ashamed of what they did, most of the time unfairly. "They were always showing us as being nuts, every film that came out it seemed, was like, you know, you're a Vietnam vet and you're crazy.You're a drug addict, you know. Which was really strange, you know, because there was nobody that I knew that did that stuff." David, A History of PTSD, 1:06. This really hits home, because it shows that a lot of the Vietnam vets were never crazy, it's just the bad ones that get reported on, never the good ones. The reason PTS was so prevalent amongst Vietnam vets, was that they couldn't differentiate between civilians and the Vietkong, so atrocities were committed. "The nature of the warfare also caused an increase in stress for the soldier. The Americans fought alongside the South Vietnamese against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. The Viet Cong were mostly unidentified, recruited in South Vietnamese towns, and controlled a lot of the towns influence on fighting. This made it hard for the American troops to know whom the enemy was." PTSD History website, Vietnam page. This quote shows how hard it was to be in Vietnam at the time, and when the soldiers came back, they were shunned, it was terrible. PTS didn't even start out as PTS, it started out as Post Vietnam Syndrome. "The term Post Vietnam Syndrome was used to describe returning soldiers with trauma symptoms. This syndrome usually consists of combat related nightmares, anxiety, anger, depression, alcohol and/or drug dependence, and poor responsiveness. The term post-traumatic stress disorder was not used in the DSM until the DSM-III was published in 1980 under anxiety disorders. Prior to that this condition was viewed as stress response syndrome, which was a type of gross stress reaction. The policy for receiving treatment and compensation for ptsd for soldiers in the military during the war was that if the soldier experienced symptoms 6 months after their return home it was considered a “transient situational disorder.” This meant that it was a pre-existing condition which was not eligible for treatment by the United States Government. Even though the soldiers who were victims of PTSD did not receive compensation from the government, PTSD as a clinical diagnosis was evolving into a more complex and real disorder." PTSD History Website, Vietnam page. PTS didn't even start out as a real disease, and wasn't actually treated until the Iraq war in the 1990's.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
#26 Culture Communication Media Study Essay
This essay will address how technology has changed what it fundamentally means to be human, and how the human race, due to this new technology, is more connected than ever before. Human constructiveness has been demonstrated over and over in recent years, such as when the Haitian earthquake of 2010 hit, news spread faster than the plague and within hours, the Haitian people were already receiving promises of aid from humanitarian groups from across the world. Just as technology is connecting humans to one another, people argue that technology is disconnecting humanity from the real world, that people aren't connecting in the real world, that social skills are taking a downturn. This essay will also explore empathy, and how it affects people.
Technology has changed what being human means, now humans have technology surrounding them at all times. As Sir Ken Robinson put it, "Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. They're being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform - computers, from iPhones, from advertising hoardings, from hundreds of television channels" Ken Robinson. This shows that human beings are moving towards technology as the major source of information and entertainment that they use. But as humans move towards technology as a major source of information, new innovations come about, such as Facebook and Twitter, keeping our generation informed. " Technology has, so far, proved more helpful to the human race than hurtful, however it has alienated the human race from one another, promoting contact over electronic sources rather than face to face contact.
Some people say that this new way of communicating is removing empathy from the human race, which is true in some cases, but very untrue in others. This citation, while not from the designated citation list, is from a post on Tumblr showing how some people on the internet are completely removed from feeling any repercussions for their actions that would happen in real life. (Sorry, I have to link this because it involves pictures and stuff, also this is about the pictures, not about the actual post, like I agree with what the post has to say, not the pictures.) Rape Culture Photoset. This is what technology has done to some of this generation, technology makes it so they don't feel the repercussions of what they're saying. This however doesn't mean that this generation is completely hopeless, this generation is more creative and more empathetic than any other that came before them, in many ways, this is due to the new technology presented to them. (PressPausePlay quote here). This generation will end up inheriting the world, and because they grew up with social media and other forms of mass communication. By allowing this generation to flourish with technology at their fingertips, the past generation has created a generation of people who are technically savvy, and therefore empatheticlly savvy. "We have the technology that allows us to extend the central nervous system and to think viscerally as a family not just intellectually. When that earthquake hit Haiti and then Chilli, but especially Haiti, within an hour the Twitters came out and within two hours some cell phone videos, YouTube; and within three hours the entire human race was in a emphatic embrace coming to the aid of Haiti." Jeremy Rifkin. This citation shows that this generation will spread word of a disaster within hours of it happening and aid will be sent withing days, showing that this generation is more empathetically in tune with the rest of the world than ever before.
As technology evolved throughout the ages, progressing from farming advances, to economic advances, to mathematical advances, to scientific advances, many groups have tried to impede it, while many others advanced it, leading up to the modern era of technology, computers, the world wide web, phones and many other genius inventions, this era has seen the most advances in the shortest period of time ever. This is put into words by Jeremy Rifkin. "Empathy is the invisible hand. Empathy is what allows us to stretch our sensibility with another so that we can cohere in larger social units. To empathise is to civilise; to civilise is to empathise. With forager/hunter societies communication only extended to the local tribe in shouting distance. Everyone over in the next mountain was the alien other. So empathy only extended to blood ties. When we went to the great hydraulic agricultural civilisation script allowed us to extend the central nervous system and to annihilate more time and space and bring more people together, and the differentiation of skills and the increasing selfhood not only led to theological consciousness but empathy now extended to a new fiction. And that is instead of just associating with one's blood ties we detribalise and began associations based on religious ties. So a new fiction Jews start to see all other Jews as extended family and empathise with Jews. Christians start to see all other Christians as extended family and empathise with Christians. Muslims the same. When we get to the 19th Century the Industrial Revolution and we extend markets now to larger areas and create a fiction called the Nation State, and all of a sudden the Brits start to see others in Britain as extended family; the Germans start to see Germans as extended family; the Americans as Americans. There was no such thing as Germany; there was no such thing as France these are fictions, but they allow us to extend our families so that we could loyalties and identities based on the new complex energy communication revolutions we have that annihilate time and space. But if we have gone from empathy in blood ties to empathy in religious associational ties to empathy based on national identification is it really a big stretch to imagine the new technologies allowing us to connect our empathy to the human race write large in a single biosphere" Jeremy Rifkin. This shows that, as a race, humans have evolved throughout the ages to make use of new ways to contact one another and new ways to bond together, such as religion.
People use technology to connect with one another throughout the world everyday, and more and more people are coming into the social web everyday. The connectivity of the world is increasing everyday, people are more and more empathetic everyday and the world benefits from that.
Technology has changed what being human means, now humans have technology surrounding them at all times. As Sir Ken Robinson put it, "Our children are living in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth. They're being besieged with information and calls for their attention from every platform - computers, from iPhones, from advertising hoardings, from hundreds of television channels" Ken Robinson. This shows that human beings are moving towards technology as the major source of information and entertainment that they use. But as humans move towards technology as a major source of information, new innovations come about, such as Facebook and Twitter, keeping our generation informed. " Technology has, so far, proved more helpful to the human race than hurtful, however it has alienated the human race from one another, promoting contact over electronic sources rather than face to face contact.
Some people say that this new way of communicating is removing empathy from the human race, which is true in some cases, but very untrue in others. This citation, while not from the designated citation list, is from a post on Tumblr showing how some people on the internet are completely removed from feeling any repercussions for their actions that would happen in real life. (Sorry, I have to link this because it involves pictures and stuff, also this is about the pictures, not about the actual post, like I agree with what the post has to say, not the pictures.) Rape Culture Photoset. This is what technology has done to some of this generation, technology makes it so they don't feel the repercussions of what they're saying. This however doesn't mean that this generation is completely hopeless, this generation is more creative and more empathetic than any other that came before them, in many ways, this is due to the new technology presented to them. (PressPausePlay quote here). This generation will end up inheriting the world, and because they grew up with social media and other forms of mass communication. By allowing this generation to flourish with technology at their fingertips, the past generation has created a generation of people who are technically savvy, and therefore empatheticlly savvy. "We have the technology that allows us to extend the central nervous system and to think viscerally as a family not just intellectually. When that earthquake hit Haiti and then Chilli, but especially Haiti, within an hour the Twitters came out and within two hours some cell phone videos, YouTube; and within three hours the entire human race was in a emphatic embrace coming to the aid of Haiti." Jeremy Rifkin. This citation shows that this generation will spread word of a disaster within hours of it happening and aid will be sent withing days, showing that this generation is more empathetically in tune with the rest of the world than ever before.
As technology evolved throughout the ages, progressing from farming advances, to economic advances, to mathematical advances, to scientific advances, many groups have tried to impede it, while many others advanced it, leading up to the modern era of technology, computers, the world wide web, phones and many other genius inventions, this era has seen the most advances in the shortest period of time ever. This is put into words by Jeremy Rifkin. "Empathy is the invisible hand. Empathy is what allows us to stretch our sensibility with another so that we can cohere in larger social units. To empathise is to civilise; to civilise is to empathise. With forager/hunter societies communication only extended to the local tribe in shouting distance. Everyone over in the next mountain was the alien other. So empathy only extended to blood ties. When we went to the great hydraulic agricultural civilisation script allowed us to extend the central nervous system and to annihilate more time and space and bring more people together, and the differentiation of skills and the increasing selfhood not only led to theological consciousness but empathy now extended to a new fiction. And that is instead of just associating with one's blood ties we detribalise and began associations based on religious ties. So a new fiction Jews start to see all other Jews as extended family and empathise with Jews. Christians start to see all other Christians as extended family and empathise with Christians. Muslims the same. When we get to the 19th Century the Industrial Revolution and we extend markets now to larger areas and create a fiction called the Nation State, and all of a sudden the Brits start to see others in Britain as extended family; the Germans start to see Germans as extended family; the Americans as Americans. There was no such thing as Germany; there was no such thing as France these are fictions, but they allow us to extend our families so that we could loyalties and identities based on the new complex energy communication revolutions we have that annihilate time and space. But if we have gone from empathy in blood ties to empathy in religious associational ties to empathy based on national identification is it really a big stretch to imagine the new technologies allowing us to connect our empathy to the human race write large in a single biosphere" Jeremy Rifkin. This shows that, as a race, humans have evolved throughout the ages to make use of new ways to contact one another and new ways to bond together, such as religion.
People use technology to connect with one another throughout the world everyday, and more and more people are coming into the social web everyday. The connectivity of the world is increasing everyday, people are more and more empathetic everyday and the world benefits from that.
Monday, February 24, 2014
2/18-2/21 blog post
This week we read a lot of Ceremony, a weird ass book that's super confusing. We more or less annotated all week then shared that with the class. Tuesday we shared 80-120, Thursday we had a Navy Seals Veteran come and talk to us, which was really interesting, he answered our questions and talked about his time during training in the Navy Seals. Friday we just read.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Jan 27-31
This week we read the first third of "Ceremony", written by Leslie Silko. It's about Tayo, a half Native American half white man who is a vet. from WWII who has PTSD and Alcoholism. So far he has collapsed while boarding a train, became invisible and almost killed someone. He collapsed because he was just coming out of the vet hospital and saw a Japanese family, the Japanese killed his cousin Rocky so he's pretty scarred by that. He was invisible because he refused to acknowledge his existence, because he had PTSD his mind wouldn't allow itself to rise out of this belief, he was finally brought out of it by a new doctor who tried some different methods on him. He almost killed Emo, an all native vet who came back to the Res after WWII with some suvoniers, some Jap officer's teeth. This really set off Tayo who then proceeded to stab Emo with a broken beer bottle, almost killing him.
Monday, January 27, 2014
1/20-25 Reflection
This week, we started Ceremony, a book about a Native American who fought in WWII, has PTSD and is an alcoholic. He has many symptoms of PTSD, day visions, he collapsed in The Pacific after seeing a vision of his uncle in a Japanese soldier. After he got back, he stayed in a veteran hospital for a while to recover from "Battle Fatigue", he was sent back, but he collapsed on the train home. His aunt took care of him after that, reluctantly. After that he generally just drifted around and freaked out, cause you know, PTSD. He developed alcoholism after the war, to deal with his troubles, it didn't work and made it worse.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
I relfect on Dances with Wolves
Thoughts on setting, plot and characters: I thought the setting was very appropriate for the type of movie they were making, if they filmed in Canada, the setting wouldn't of matched the plot so well, so it's good they chose the great plains. The plot was interesting, sort of, but I can respect it for the historical quality of it. The characters were interesting, I thought the internal conflict of John Dunbar .was very interesting, and that Stands with Fist's conflict about marrying John was interesting as well.
New History: I didn't know about the Sioux and the Pawnee, I just recognized their names from random snippets of history. I also wasn't aware of the fact that buffalo were already rare in the 1860's, I thought they were thriving in that time period.
Overall thoughts: I hated this movie, it was boring and I hated the analyzation of it. I'm just no good at analyzation, that's why I hate movies like this, because you have to see the deeper meaning of it to actually enjoy it, which is incredibly hard for me.
New History: I didn't know about the Sioux and the Pawnee, I just recognized their names from random snippets of history. I also wasn't aware of the fact that buffalo were already rare in the 1860's, I thought they were thriving in that time period.
Overall thoughts: I hated this movie, it was boring and I hated the analyzation of it. I'm just no good at analyzation, that's why I hate movies like this, because you have to see the deeper meaning of it to actually enjoy it, which is incredibly hard for me.
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