Googlezon

To start, McLuhan's Laws of Media are:

1. Enhance

2. Reverse

3. Retrieve

4. Obsolesce

The short video we watched in class was mostly about Google taking over the world, and how that affects our lives. Or that's what I got out of it.

We know from our application of McLuhan's Laws that Google enhances information, communication, and participation. Google obsolesces traditional research, the printed word, and communication. Google retrieves multi-dimensional thinking, and awareness to event around the world. Google reveres print, new video media, and privacy.

The video, "Googlezon" illustrates these examples in the following ways:

1. Enhance. Technology has enhanced our lives in many different ways. This video illustrated several different ways both Google and Amazon both enhanced our lives by showing us what we want to purchase from what we previously purchased. Google purchased Picassa so that we can share our pictures in better ways, and various social media sites become available for public access.

2. Reverse. The newspaper starts going out of business. Not only is it hard to get a hold of in print, the NY Times becomes a print only newsletter for the elite. It is really hard to get real news online; no journalists are working in the field anymore.

3. Retrieve. The Googlezon makes a good point to show the positive aspects of Google and Amazon at the start of the video. People are able to retrieve information that is specific to them, and them alone. Personal news feeds and personal shopping advice based on pages previously visited by the web browser.

4. Obsolesce. Googlezon obsolesces the print. Magazines, newspapers and maps become obsolete. The video did a good job at illustrating this too, which I mention with reversal. The NY Times becomes available only to the elite and the elderly.

I hope this isn't where our Google is headed.

I love you, Google.

Dreamworlds 3

Wow. Where to even begin with this post. For starters, this movie was really interesting for me. This topic we started with, finding the narrative in music videos, sparked my attention. When we reviewed music videos and discussed the gender roles assigned in each video, I could relate on some level. I once watched music videos on MTV as I got ready in the morning. I saw the scantily-clad girls shaking it on tables. I saw the beefed up men, beating up other men and still getting the girl. I thought this was normal, for a music video. For pop culture. I understood that what happened in music videos, television and movies didn't usually happen in real life. These scenarios were being over fantasied. Most of the time I think they were comical.

Seeing the men being portrayed as the masculine, save-the-day, get-the-girl, and be really strong type. Girls were shown as sex-crazed, domestic, always beautiful and thin, but with the perfect hourglass form. I feel as though while men and women are seen in that light, it is not as extreme as the film "Dreamworlds 3" illustrated it to be. After viewing the film, even I was convinced the female gender was completely doomed. Although I knew it was all overdramatized depictions of what I previously mentioned, the producer Sut Jhally pulls out all the big guns to make us believe what he is preaching. What strategies did this guy use to be so damn convincing?

Jhally creates incongruity by showing all the images in slow motion, and doing exactly what he claims the producers of the music videos are doing. I saw more female body parts in slow motion, with strings and piano music playing ominously in the background than I ever did in an actual music video. Jhally makes his argument about woman's incongruity by repeating the same words over and over again so they stick in our minds. They stay with us after the movie ends. He illustrates the men being powerful and verbally abusive, sometimes physically abusive. Jhally shows men being dominant over women, as they are shown in music videos. He is almost doing the same thing the music videos are doing. The repetition of the images of violence, the repetition of words to give impact to his cause and his juxtaposition of the idea of fantasy, pornographic women against the idea of real-world women create a strong argument that could sway many.

Jhally has an extremely strong argument and does a great job making his argument. He shows sides of the music industry many don't want to see. The backstage lunch-meat throwing scene was disgusting to me. That was objectifying women and I thought that was terrible. There are people out there who watch these music videos, these television shows and movies that portray women and men in these specific gender roles and believe that this is how our society is. The scene that Jhally played of the riot and the women getting water and other liquids thrown on them for no reason at all, that mimicked exactly a scene from a music video was pretty hard to watch, and I would never want to experience that first hand. The problem, I think is that people cannot distinguish what is fantasy and what is reality.

I'd like to hope that people can.

My Artifact: Facebook

Facebook. Everyone has one. And I mean everyone. My mother, my sister, my brother, my aunts and uncles. Grandparents. Former high school teachers. Pretty much everyone I have ever met has a Facebook.

What is the appeal here? Why do I even have one? Why do I constantly check my Facebook? Why do I care if someone 'likes' something I post? It was just a mindless status update, probably about how my day was. Or a favorite song lyric. Why do I have 382 'friends' when I really only care about what 25 of them are saying/doing with their lives?

Facebook has become so integrated in our society. I found out that Osama bin Laden was captured through Facebook. I hadn't checked out any news websites yet that day. I was on a break between classes and decided to check my Facebook. What happens? BAM! Facebook informs me that bin Laden was captured. How does this impact us as young adults? What does this say about how we find our breaking news? There was even a movie about the creation of Facebook.

The movie, "The Social Network" received eight Academy Award nominations and three Golden Globe awards. During the movie's opening weekend it made $22.4 million in the US alone, debuting at #1 in the box offices. What drew so many people to see this movie? Was it the story behind Facebook, the one about Mark Zuckerberg and his life? Or was it that people were truly interested in the phenomenon that is Facebook?

I created my Facebook in 2007 and since then I have added 138 albums of pictures. Pictures that have documented the last four years of my life. Why do I think anyone cares about the 3,776 odd pictures I have on my Facebook profile? Why do I feel the need to update my status and let my 382 friends know how my day was? If my 'friends' really wanted to know how my day was, wouldn't they call or text me and ask? But I still feel the need to update. And let them know. It's so crazy to think about!

As you can see, I think Facebook is fascinating in every aspect.

Even the idea that people around the world make 'friends' with other people and keep in touch this way is interesting to me. The way we interact with people on Facebook, the way it affects our everyday lives is quite crazy, I think. This is why I've chosen Facebook as my artifact. I want to learn more about how Facebook, and any social networking website/device, affects us and the way we react to things in our world.