Now where did i leave my cell phone...

The millennial as a generation is an interesting idea in theory but does it hold up to the true test? Would I as a tech savvy, caffeine swilling, video game playing, MTV hating, internet devotee be able to last 24 hours without being hooked up to the life blood of my generation? What I learned in my 24 hours in that the peace of the real world comes with it’s own sour grapes. As the sun rose the Saturday after Black Friday I was asleep like any good shopper. In fact sleeping was an important part of my longest day as I used it to get through the times my family wanted to do anything that was media related. I decided to stay in the house to make sure I stayed away from any media that gave me some time to read books and played card games with my cousins who were visiting from New York. While these things took up much of my time I cannot say that I did not wonder what the score was of the football game or what my friends were up to. After a while I felt cut off from the world and even though I had the company of my family there was a part of me that was lonely. This revelation honestly surprised me and I began to wonder if I really was dependent on all my gadgets. Postman believed that we were climbing into our own imprisonment as a society but I believe he had it backwards, when I was disconnected from the media I stepped into an entirely new prison where I lost contact with the people who mattered to me, my friends. I cannot say that as a society we are not being circled by the vultures of Hollywood who broadcast the lives of the rich and infamous but being connected brings other benefits such as instant communication in seconds with only our thumbs. McLuhan never rang more true then when he said that “The Medium is the Message” because AIM and text messaging as mediums have created a new message for the millennials stating loud and clear that we are connected. Being in constant communication does not cheapen our relationships; it makes personal and face to face interaction more meaningful. Being disconnected from the media was a challenge and the entire time I did feel like I could be doing something better but being disconnected helped me understand the importance and how much I came to rely on what I use daily.

So scary I forgot to scream

A shadowy clawed figure comes rising up the stairs with sharp claws. Ellen sees count Orlock and slowly steps back towards her bed. A shadow of a hand rises over her body. The shadow becomes a fist over Ellen’s heart as she feints under the power of the count. The Count bows himself over Ellen’s body. The sun rises we see a rooster caw and simple beams of light strike Nosferatu dies raising his shroud of mystery. The legendary film “Nosferatu” mastered the idea that the unknown causes more fear then anything else possibly could and tried to teach audiences that to fear what they cannot see can be foolish or comical. The use of shadows with the stark contrast of whites and blacks makes the character of Nosferatu frightening because it forces the viewer to fear what might happen next building anticipation, effectively making transition scenes some of the most frightening in the movie. Oddly enough, Nosferatu dies from something simple as sunlight which means the viewer was literally chasing shadows with their mind and this great terror was bested by a simple women letting some light into her room. The film plays with the “fear of the unknown” by making the villagers at the beginning of the film fear the Count but Hutter does not.
Even though the lead of the film is not afraid of what is to come the audience is to begin to feel afraid of what Hutter is going to encounter when he meets the Count. The idea of fear that Nosferatu created has inspired films ever since but even Nosferatu went beyond many modern films by almost making a mockery of the method it used to cause fear.

Written Vs Viewed, Postman Vs. Paglia, (aka Youtube Vs. Blogger.com - Its all Google to me)

The voice of the television generation generations is well carried by Camille Paglia who defends the power of against cultural elitism which has formed “a kind of intellectual denial” towards the television. But in the debate between her and Neil Postman she falters in the battle to give examples and persuade the reader in the battle of the written and the viewed. An example of this is when Paglia brings up the idea that early Judaism stood against imagery because they did not want people idolizing images but Postman takes this argument to the point that they did use written language to conceptualize their God and this allowed for the religion to become more mobile and innovative. This sort of argument strengthens Postman’s case as he uses ideas that Paglia brought up to show the strength of the written word without sounding condescending or rude. Postman later brings up the idea that even though the Catholic church has been using symbolism to support the faith, the changes and revolutionary ideas of the world that we see writing prevail over images. The images of the Catholic Church are over shadowed by the printing press and the protestant reformation which brought the written into the home. While Europe is often viewed as artistic the revolutionary ideas of the United States are forged upon the written words of the Constitution, which sparked a revolution in Europe. Through counter and persuasive arguments, Postman wins the battle of written vs. viewed but has not yet won the war.

Beyond Good and Evil: Negative News Media and the Effect

The old phrase “good news is no news. Bad news is great news” has never rung more true then in the media today. Negative stories from Iraq, product recalls and biological scares plague media outlets such as CNN. The media has grown into using negative stories and scare tactics to gain ratings but this has also caused a numbness and fear among the viewers.

What is the best way to determine if the news is negative? Ask the people of course. While the Internet contains many opposing and critical views it is hard to argue with people such as Amy Proctor. Amy (who is a staunch conservative) created a video which went through many seemingly positive news stories presented by CNN and revealed how the network put a negative spin on them. A story about fewer casualties in Iraq is marred with questions such as “this a turning point or just the lull before another storm?” and “So is this real progress or is it just a mirage?” Now questioning incoming information is fair but CNN continues to say, “one month's data is not evidence for a dramatic trend or turning point of any kind. We are paying them handsomely in hard cash not to shoot at us” and expands downplaying the good news claiming that the data should be taken with a grain of salt. Instead of playing the importance of fewer deaths CNN says that things could change and warns of incoming problems that might arise. To look beyond the Iraq war we can still see the negative media’s exaggeration and growth. In 2001 the media outlets declared "summer of the shark." The actual truth was “that [shark] attacks were down in 2001. There were 50 compared to 52 the year before.” Media outlets also proclaimed it the "summer of abduction", 2005 brought up the West Nile Virus scare, and the Flu Scare in 2006. Airing stories such as these are more scare tactics then anything else, they exaggerate details in order to being an overarching problem that can be retold over months of time. The West Nile virus media event in West Virginia is a fantastic example of how the media uses events to cause a national uproar. Media groups reported that the West Nile Virus was a serious health threat but the Centers of Disease Control reports from their West Nile homepage that “Approximately 80 percent of people (about 4 out of 5) who are infected with WNV will not show any symptoms at all.” And only “About one in 150 (.6%) people infected with WNV will develop severe illness.” It is relatively clear that the media takes stories from world events such as the War in Iraq and puts a negative spin on them but also creates stories, which might not have been there otherwise, causing scares in the general public.

But the question remains of why media sources would choose to create fear for their viewers and why put a negative spin on positive stories. The answer to this lies in the history of cable news and the power of fear. The first twenty-four hour news network was the Cable News Network (CNN) which was founded on June 1, 1980. CNN brought a whole new world of news reporting with up to the minute updates and gained popularity from events such as the Gulf War and the Black Hawk Down event in which CNN was able to report news much more quickly then any other source. The problem with this style of news reporting was that reporting the same old stories would no longer get the attention of the viewers and stories started to become more and more grisly. This eventually caused a phenomenon, which seems to have numbed the viewers of news to horrible events. When the people stop caring about the horrible stories they see on the news people tend to stop watching. This creates a problem for the networks as they rely on viewers to keep on watching the stories so a popular tactic used to promote a story is fear. Fear is a survival mechanism that is tied to anxiety and distress. To invoke such an emotion in people will at least get them to pay attention to what one is saying. David Altheide, a professor at the School of Justice at Arizona State University followed the word “fear” and discovered that it “seems to pop up right next to a couple other words: children and schools.” News networks cause fear in parents that maybe a shooting might occur in your children’s school or lead pipes might be poisoning your kids. These sorts of stories force parents to listen because of the worry it causes them. Because of the numbing effect of violent and negative news in the media, these companies have resorted to using fear and other negative tactics to shock the viewers into watching.

It is easy to blame CNN and the other media networks for airing depressing and negative material. From spinning positive news in Iraq into forecasts of doom or how “national murder rate fell by 20 percent.” In 1990 “But the number of murder stories on network newscasts rose roughly 600 percent” it is easy to see why people have become numb to the media. But the problem still remains on how much we, as the people still want to hear about the bad news. Would we watch a Reuters News Network that aired news with no spin or would we want to see the gloom and doom of current broadcast news? It is human nature to want to watch the horrible car crash while driving by and people still want to hear about the bad news around the world but as time goes on the media reaches new heights (or lows) in the way it reports news.

Bad (media) habits are hard to break.

Like many others, the introduction of media hubs on the Internet has made my media habits change dramatically. Sites, which review, preview and sometimes allow users to watch and play video games and television shows have been gaining in popularity in the recent past. Sites like ign began with reviewing video games but expanded into comics, movies, television, music and even cars. These media hubs have changed the way that I have processed my media information as I can now go to one place to digest all the information I need. My media habits have evolved due to school and other time constraints that have pushed me closer to these media hubs that allow the users to quickly see the day's most important or popular stories. Digg, for example, allows users to see the big stories fast but also allows users to ‘bury’ pointless articles that hold little importance. The problem which grows with this movement is that you are only seeing the views of the world threw the Internet’s rose goggles which can often focus more on technology then world events and news. With that in mind I do only use media hubs as a quick form of information but in the future I hope to expand my media scope my reading and watching more news so I can learn of more world events and at least see what is being broad casted by the journalistic media. In the end though, i love media hubs as they allow me to see the information i want without spending much time.

Who am i

My name is Abhinav Kumar, a 17-year-old Biology major. I love playing video games, reading fiction books, and watching TV. While I am interested in Biology I also enjoy media studies and hope to pursue a minor in ether American or media studies. I decided on media and communication studies because I was interested in the field of media and this was an introductory course on the material. After this course I hope to gain a better grasp on the field of media communications so that I can further focus my field of interest into how I might use media in my future career. I am also very interested in the field of video games, especially in marketing and finance. This class will help lay the foundation for later courses that might help me in marketing or media business structures. Even though I have thoughts of going into the fields of media, I am still fascinated by the field of biology and enjoy learning how I could one day combines these two interests. Some of the things that take up my daily life is hanging out with my friends in the “Commuter Clump Empire”, playing world of warcraft (my 70 rogue named Abhinav on Blackrock), and doing homework. Well that’s all for now, hopefully my next post will have a picture, i couldn't find one of me that i like to put up by now.