The day the music died [side b]

1. The first institution Keen talks about that is in grave danger is local stores and the concept of choice. These stores include books, videos, and even movie theaters. The internet is now providing the public with free or easier methods of acquiring goods. These local stores cannot compete with the ease of the internet like bigger companies such as Blockbuster can. As fewer people come to their local video or bookstores, those companies will eventually have to shut down, or get bought by one of the bigger companies. All of these places are getting grouped into a more centralized block, and thus the money is getting more centralized. The public is losing their ability to choose. They are being forced to shop at certain locations. As more and more people are turning to online means of purchasing goods, these online stores are booming and the local stores are becoming "roadkill". I have to agree with Keen on this topic, because in my town alone, and towns nearby, once local businesses are being replaces with nationwide stores or other types of businesses all together. The only choice of video stores in my area is Blockbuster, but even now, my family has begun to start ordering movies through the TV.

The next institution is advertisement. With the invention of DVR and TiVo, people can now choose to skip over commercials during their favorite TV shows. The advertisement business is on a steep decline, and thus is starting to target online venues for their ads. America is losing a major part of its creativity as less advertisments appear in print or on television. Keen is wrong on this point. I have seen many of my fellow students who want to go into advertising begin to take digital media classes. We are learning more about video for internet or other non-TV electronic sources. Instead of a simple cartoon, we are learning all about flash and photoshop. The advertising industry is actually becoming more creative. We saw the movie on the Merchants of Cool. They talked all about the psychology and reverse psychology of getting to teenagers. They have had to become increasingly more creative to hide their true meanings. In a world with a lot of bright lights and fast paces action the advertisers must figure out a way to make people stop and look at what their are trying to sell or get out.

The final institution is news, or getting information to the public. Newspapers have been on the decline since the 1960's when JFK was shot. The public started to turn to their televisions to get instant information as it came out. In today's age, where internet rules all, the printed news is suffering even more. Television news or "educational programming" is starting to be replaces by more entertaining programs such as reality TV. People can go online to podcasts or other websites such as Yahoo and read articles for free. Keen believes that the nation is in a decline of educational stimulus, but I believe that Americans merely have to turn elsewhere to have their brains stimulated. Television is now where people go to relax, and the internet now can provide endless news, brain teasers, or any other intellectual type of media.

2. The idea of "sheep devouring men" means that Humans are being replaces by other objects. Computers are starting to replace journalists, factory workers, and salesmen. Google just bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. This seems like an outrageous sum of money where amatuers make the website for free essentially.

Merchants of Cool

I believe that the tactics used to market to teenagers have gone too far. While teens are the most influenced age group, it is exactly that reason why marketers have to take extra caution. Using parties and celebrities to market products are out of line. Making someone want to be like a celebrity is wrong because teenagers should be told to be unique and themselves, not like Grant Hill or Britney Spears. I believe that the marketers are taking advantage of teenagers by using their natural confusion and insecurities against them.

Bitmap vs vector quiz

How do media proffesionals know their audiences?

The media organizations do not "know" their audiences. In the Political Economy Approach, many times when they are vying for viewers, they will use general tactics such as dumbing down content. Culture has shifted know that celebrities many times are important headlines, even when compared to government scandals or other more "intellectual" topics. Media professionals have played into this trend by giving the people what they want. Instead of giving real news, they will provide a story on Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan, and dish out all the celebrity gossip.

The Critical Theory Approach involves providing media to the majority of the local or national population. Professionals find stories which they believe to be interesting to the dominant group, hoping that many of those people will tune into their program. Also, media will many times play to the socially or economically powerful.

The Feminist Approach is based on providing headlines for women. Women have begun to appear more in the newsroom over the past quarter of a century and with that, media professionals try to make the headlines more human interest, or appealing to women to get their viewership.

There are also four codes which media professionals may use to gauge audience interest. The first of these is called the dominant/hegemonic code. If the audience responds positively to a certain story, then the news organizations will begin to put more of those types of stories up. In the professional code, the way the story is portrayed or production techniques used are taken into account. The negotiated code deals with the audience accepting only what they want to accept, usually what is prevalent or of interest to them. Oppositional code looks at how and why the audience responds negatively to a story, and how they can then fix it for future audiences.

Money is Debt

The video was quite interesting to watch from both an artistic and economic perspective. Artistically I liked how simple images were able to convey a complex situation. The imagery helped make the viewer understand more if he or she were not able to follow the narrative. The video also accomplished the feat of making a serious topic more lighthearted and bearable to watch if the viewer was not very interested in economics. For such a small budget and being done all by one man, the video still had a semi-professional feel. I liked that the viewer could tell that it was done at home though.

Economically, the data and reasoning was sound. He provided strong points with data and logic to back it up. No point left the viewer asking more questions or confused. However, I would have liked to hear more of the counter-argument to gain a broader perspective on the subject. I do not have a very wide range of knowledge on economics, so providing more perspectives would have been beneficial to help me make my own decisions.

My animation of media conglomerates is done so as to portray the all consuming nature of these industries. From the central GE, ropes lash out around different parts of the media and culture to make GE even bigger than before. In addition to owning one of the world leading appliance and machinery producers, they also control portion of movies and television. As GE holds onto the various parts that make up its whole, it gets bigger and bigger.

Magazine Cover

I have decided to do a parody of sorts for this project. The original Time cover was of Adolf Hitler. The new one I chose to do of Kimbo Slice to show how the mass media is becoming increasingly less interested in current events, and more popular in celebrity gossip. Time Magazine is known for its news integrity, but they too will become like other news magazines. Slice was recently called a fraud and in the Mixed Martial Arts world when he was beaten by a nobody, and the story has been circulating around the internet as one of the top searches.