AHA! moments...

'Three months' and a quarter is gone. It wasn't until now, I realized I had so much done in these past months and time just flew by. It surely has been a great experience to come to a entirely different country and learn something new on media. I had my moments and the most memorable ones were

• Back masking of the Beatles song when we were on the chapter 'Recordings and Radio'. I had a good laugh. I knew about parodies and mash ups but this was something fun and new to me and I enjoyed it.

• Magazine content analysis was another activity I enjoyed doing.  It gave me an idea as to how magazines work (to some extent) and if I wanted to make one of my own how should I do it, what kind of audience should I target it to and other aspects as such. Looking at some old magazines especially their huge paper sizes (Rolling Stones) was another fascinating aspect in this class.

• Lastly, the presentations and the potluck. The presentations helped me boost my confidence since I hadn't done one in a while now. It gave me a start and feel of going up front and talking to a mass. The food in the potluck were delicious since it was multi cultural some items were new. getting to know (in this case tasting) something new is always exciting and interesting(yummy!).

Thank you all for a wonderful and fruitful quarter!! Thank you!! Cecilia :)

Media Ethics and Law

On October 26, 2010, a U.S. federal judge granted a request from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to completely shut down LimeWire due to its charges on online infringement which included downloading, distributing and sharing of songs occurring through its clients. LimeWire had been one of the world’s largest, most installed file sharing application, but as a matter, it has now ceased its entire operations due to charges of illegal copyright infringements to the music record companies. It is said that the company may be fined a total amount of more than a billion, as the final damages are yet to be assessed and the case is to be resumed in January, 2011.

"Click here to Read Article"

My opinion: There are always alternatives for everything, downloading and sharing songs being one of them. LimeWire may be permanently shut down, but what about the others! Will there be actions taken on those software companies as well?

Propaganda in Advertising

The techniques 'weight watcher' commercial uses here are:

Beautiful People:
The type of propaganda that deals with famous people or depicts attractive, happy people. This makes other people think that if they buy a product or follow a certain ideology, they too will be happy or successful.(Wikipedia definition). In this advertisement Jennifer Hudson is used to show how she lost weight getting in to the weight watcher plan.

Ad nauseam:
This argument approach uses tireless repetition of an idea. An idea, especially a simple slogan, that is repeated enough times, may begin to be taken as the truth. This approach works best when media sources are limited or controlled by the propagator(Wikipedia definition).To some extent the word 'I can' is repeated which assures the audience that it is possible to lose weight joining weight watchers . Even the background music says 'I can'

Internet

The social networking websites that are listed in wikipedia.org, numbered to 194.

The sites I've heard of are: blogster, facebook, flixster, flickr, friendster, google buzz, hi5, last.fm, mySpace, orkut, twitter, and windows live spaces.

There are no websites I know of, that isn't listed.

I did a research on "faceparty" and what I found out is that, it is an open UK-based social networking website, generally to those above 18 years old, where you can create online profiles and interact with each other through forums and messages like emails.

I use social networking websites for keeping in touch with friends, families and people I know. Facebook is what I use the most. It defines 'what's going on' with everybody. You get regular updates of people you know, events that are happening, and new posts that you are likely to be interested in. I've also used twitter, orkut and hi5. I once organized a dance party at a club in my hometown and posted the details in my facebook profile. In less than an hour, I got comments, reviews and lists of people who are attending or not attending the party, which really helped. It is that much effective and efficient now days.

Comic Books

Length: 2:39
This  video clip briefly summarizes the history of comic books.
Chapter 3 : Books
Question: What major step did writers take to reinforce comic books?
Answer: the writes's created stories where heroes dealt with real issues and less villains.

Movies

Favorite movie 2009:
2009 was more of a anime year to me and 'Up' made it to my favorite list. The reason behind Carl taking the whole trip was really sweet. The movie had some very touching moments and it had its own ways to give everyone a message about life.

View trailer: CLICK HERE!          Read review: CLICK HERE!

All time favorite:
Most girls tend to like love stories I am no different. My all time favorite is '500 days of summer'. The story is pretty much the ordinary but the presentation is what I loved the most and the soundtracks were awesome. 

View trailer: CLICK HERE!         Read review: CLICK HERE!

I watched both these movies in a DVD. Pirated DVDs were the ones you got in my country which came in for 23-24 cents since only a few movies got released in the theaters so that's a pretty good deal. I know it's illegal but I had to watch the movies downloading would take ages so buying a DVD was convenient :)

Magazines

Name: Two Worlds.

Concept: The magazine will only have photos. One story content will be taken and two sides of that story will be narrated by the pictures itself. For example, In this issue, on the first half I plan to feature how cow's are slaughtered in the United States and I will post photos step by step. Whereas, the other half will contain how cow's are worshiped in Nepal.


Readers: My magazine will be targeted to upcoming photojournalists, people interested in knowing about what is going on around the world. The targeted age group would be 18 and above up to 60,70. middle class population.


The Competition: British Journal of Photography, Shutterbug, Outer Photographer


Advertisers: EPSON, Canon, International Organizations such as UNHCR, PETA, UNDP. I will tell my advertisers that the reason behind bringing such a concept was to attract people. What I feel is when people flip through magazines they tend to look at advertisements and picture's more so why not create a magazine that only has pictures which which make them flip through every single page.


Cover page: The cover will show a brighter side and a darker side of the world. With the name of the magazine on the top middle and a sub heading to the topic.