Media. The way in which media can allow for stories to be shown to people anywhere in the world, and to any person with a computer handy. The way in which Media can present information to an audience and influence the way in which we think about it. We, as an audience don't know all the information about an event, yet we read it and automatically believe what we are seeing. These things are important when we look at media and how it affects us. I'm going to use the example of the 16-year old girl who was killed in Toronto recently by her own father for not wearing her hijab. This story is now being told Internationally to people everywhere, Technology has allowed us to do that. Media has allowed has to do that. This story is not only providing information, it's sparking a debate, conversation between people about the different cultures in Canada, about how young immigrants are longing to become westernized against their families and culture's wishes. These debates and conversations have been made possible because the media has presented the story and allowed millions of people to see. Media provides an outlet where people can make their stories be known. Media really is a powerful tool within this earth that can be used for good and bad. I think that the people that work in the media business don't realize the power that they hold, and that they alone can affect the thinking and the way in which we interpret things on a daily basis. It scares me to know that someone else is affecting the way in which I view things. I know I can try to think for myself, but it's nearly impossible seeing as everything that goes out to the public, in terms of news coveraged, is sugar coated or has false information and a bias view from the writers at the new station.
I guess the only way that I'll be able to find out the truth and think for myself is to actually be there in the thick of it. For now I have to resort to reading the newspaper and going online to fill my need to know whats going on around the world and read the biased views. have a good day! xx

I Know I Know

okay so I know I forgot to write yesterday! I was sitting here on the computer thinking about Media Studies and then I realized that I needed to write a journal entry and Im sorry this is late!
Advertising,advertising what to say about advertising. Well I'm about to do up some papers for my Gala project to give out to the people who come to our table and Im trying to decide what to put on them, I had trouble deciding what aspect of advertising I was going to focus on, because our project pretty much depicts any aspect, from Product familiarity and product placement, to the graphics and ways in which advertising is aimed at a certain audience. On the pamplets I think I'm going to include some facts that Stephanie found and then maybe some information on product familiarity or something, then I have to tape about 60 suckers on the pamplets to make people take the paper and possibly read the information haha.
So this week I have to comment on how adveritsing effects me.. but truthfully I can't recall anything that really stood out. I can either make up some crap which will possibly bore you to death, or I could just keep babbling on and on which I'm really good at but I don't want to waste your time too much. so I guess I try to think of an advertising story. well I went to the St. Thomas university open house today and I noticed that they had advertising everywhere! I guess that kind of ties into the whole advertising thing they had posters and little window stickers that you can put on your car and stuff which was kind of proposterious seeing as we aren't even enrolled into the school yet! I guess they want us to wear their merchandise and support their school but I found it funny how they expected us to do it for them.. I could understand if we went to the university but we haven't even applied for it yet. We are simply taking a tour to see if the university suits us. Although props to St.Thomas for trying to advertise through the students. Window stickers for cars are an effective tool for advertising because cars can go anywhere! and If you place the picture in the right place then a lot of people will see it. well thats about it for me. I'm sorry if this a pointless journal entry. bye! have a greeeeeattt day! :) -Danielle

CLOVERFIELD

I'd like to take this time to say that I haven't gotten any commentson my last two post's. Okay so here it is. I'm going to talk about the movie "Cloverfield" and how that new form of advertising affects us. I know that personally I will go out and see that movie even though I NEVER watch that type of movie ( I'm more of a chickflick gal) but the way in which the advertising was done for this movie makes me want to go to the theatres and see the movie. Not only does this new form of advertising create suspense, It gets people talking about what it's about, it makes the movie interesting already. Human nature is to be interested in the unknown. The advertising plays on this raw human emotion in order to draw us in.
Although the advertisers took a huge risk in advertising the movie in this way, I think that it will pay off in the end. I think people will literally flock to the theatres in order to see what all this mystery is about. People want to find out what is in New York city, they want to know who the actors are and most of all they want to see what its all about! I think the way in which this was presented to the Audience (us) was very well done and will surely set a fad for other movies to follow although the next movies that do this won't be as successful. This is why this movie ''cloverflield'' will be really successful because they are the first to actually do this and their risky business will most likely do fabulous in the box office. I'm curious to actually see how the movie and the whole advertising really does turn out. The movie has to be great though because if it is really bad then people will be furious.

Ideas Ideas

Project Ideas! I'm actually pretty excited about the ideas that Stephanie and I came up with today, I really hope it works well and that our Hypothosis Is proven right. Although with the message that I've been getting I really think It will work. To me, the most interesting part of this whole unit is the fact that Advertising uses familiarity to draw us in, and to buy their product. I never really realized how much advertising does affect me until I started learning about it in this class, I have been taking what I learn in class and applying it to my everyday life. I evaluate what I'm inclined to buy and The outcome is really interesting.
It only makes sense that I use this aspect in my project so that I can inform other people as well.
Last week I was babysitting for a family in fredericton and The mother started talking to me about how she doesn't let her children watch regular TV ( only dvd's with minimal advertising) her argument was that she didn't want her kids to be affected by all the advertising from the candy commercials and toys etc.. I found it really interesting because we have been talking about it in class and I was glad that I could talk and be informed about the subject. I curiously asked her wether or not the kids were still affected by advertising even though they don't watch regular TV shows and surprisingly she said yes, of course. The Kids pick up advertising from the kids at school, and from Church. They see what other kids eat at lunch etc... She claims that their is no escaping advertising no matter how hard she trys. I thought I would share that with you because It kinda relates what we are talking about in class, and It was really interesting to witness someone trying to ignore advertising and also inform others ( she had a whole speech about advertising for me) like the woman we watched in the video who also trys to inform about advertising but in a much different way. so anyway, Like I said I'm really excited to do the project and see if our ideas actually work. I really hope the placement of our booth affects the outcome as well. -Danielle

Brainwashed.

Living in a world of advertising affects us everyday in lots of different ways, and the scary part is that we don't even realize it half the time.
Answering this question takes more than just a simple journal entry, It takes more than just a class to sit and brainstorm how advertising affects us because we can say It affects us through the style of clothes we wear,what we eat, what we "deem" cool and so on, but Really Advertising does much more damage than that, It eats at our minds in a specific and sneeky way. This is why the Big guns get paid millions of dollars to promote a product or service, Its the way in which they use advertising to create familiarity thats etched into our brains so that we are inclined to buy the product when the same product is sold for less, with the same quailty. We, as humans like comfort and seeing something familiar creates comfort. It's all mind games.
Advertising affects me greatly on a day to day basis and as much as I'd like to claim that advertising doesn't affect me and that I am above it, in actual fact I'm not. I may try to step back once and awhile and question whether I really need a sweater from Westfortynine thats 100 bucks, or would it be in my best interest to get a similar sweater for less than half the price at another store and deal with the image that it reflects? It's these things that make me wonder why I need to get an overpriced sweater from a "cool" place to shop.. I begin to realize that it's really just the advertising. All those marketers want is to promote their product and make it "cool" so that us, as Zombies, will flock to the store to buy the latest and coolest articile of clothing so we can be accepted by our peers.
With that being said, I really can't fully explain the whole concept of how Advertising affects us in this journal entry, but with these examples It only just begins to explain what this game is all about.

Project Mania

Another Journal entry and I must admit that I'm glad I remebered that I had to write one today.
Project mania is my topic for today, in which I will comment on the projects as well as my own, and maybe some other things.
So, the 1950's, very cool decade. I would definatly like to travel back in time to expirence the way of life back then. It would definatly be a lot more innocent then it is in this day and age. I really liked how Mallorie included the different sizes of models in her powerpoint. I think that is what captured our audiences attention the most and it was reasuring to hear the guys, and girls say that the 50's models were better looking. I liked my topic of world events in the 50's but I was nervous to speak like that in front of the class and Im afraid that I might have spoken too fast, but as I started talking I felt more confident. Normally I don't care about getting up in front of the class but being in a new school, with People I don't really know is kinda scary.
I liked how most groups did different decades so the topics didn't get redundent, I learned a lot about video games, which I'll admit I don't have very much knowledge about except for the oldschool supernintendo.
alright so this Topic of project mania died fast.

I also liked talking about the commercials and analyzing them. Its crazy how much companys pay for simple things like placement of people and what clothes they should wear, It seems so simple yet The message would be different if things werent done properly .
well once again it was another good week in Media studies have a good day! -Danielle

S-A-U-C-Y

I've decided that I'm going to do my journal entry on an event that happened in my home last weekend. So there is this KFC commercial on T.v that features a man eating KFC with his family, all of a sudden he sings
''hhheeeeeeooo, we love it when we have these things, their KFC's new boneless wings they saucy *clap clap* they saucy *clap clap* S-A-U-C-Y and U-C-Y we eat them all the time they saucy *clap clap* they saucy *clap clap*''
and Yes I've memorized it. So what I'm trying to get at is my sister and I are happily watching t.v about two or three weeks ago and we end up loving the commerical, and she decides that she NEEDS to have the new boneless wings. I notice how advertising did that to her. That commerical MADE her want the new boneless wings even though we NEVER eat at KFC. So for two weeks she bugs my parents about going to KFC every night she asks if we can go, or if they can pick her up some wings, and this is no word of a lie, but every night they said no. Last weekend rolls around and we come home from school to see a 20 dollar bill on the counter and a note saying that we can go get some supper. right away she yells SA-U-C-Y haha, But I wanted Chinese so I waited in the car for her to get those boneless wings that she just HAD to have and after getting my chinese we head back home to eat. She eats the wings and doesn't like them at all *surprise surprise* and asks to have some of my chinese. which didn't happen haha, and I lectured her on how the media affects our decions in life. I thought that whole situation really tied in to how advertising does work and does affect our thinking and what we decide. I notice myself really starting to pay attention to what is going on around me in terms of advertising.
On another note, Our 1950's project is really coming along great. I have everything that I need and I'm glad that we are getting an extra day to do it. well thats it for me. have a good day! -Danielle

McDonald's Mania.

So once again I'm bringing up the topic of the whole "writing a journal online for anyone to see is new for me" I find it so fasinating that anyone can read my words, No matter where their from. It's definatly interesting.
So this week in Media studies we have talked about McDonalds advertising and their role in "pop culture". There is no denying the fact that McDonalds is unbeatably the world's leader when it comes to fast food industries. McDonalds has clearly swept the world as it progresses further and further until eventually there will be a McDonalds on literally every street corner. In media studies class we even witnessed a first hand account of a sublimital message that "went wrong". Obviously that familiar Golden arch was meant to be there but just wasn't done properly.
While reading an article during class about the McDonalds mania, It stated that McDonalds has become like a religion. It's gotten to the point where something such as a greasy resturant,with hamburgers made of "Godknowswhat" is being COMPARED to something so sacred and holy such as religion, and the most Infuriating component is that It's true! Religion is based on rituals and practices and McDonalds does not fall short of that.
In pratically every McDonalds the colours are the same and familiar, the furnature and menus are the same and familar, people stand in lines and wait their turns. It all becomes very ritual-like, which provides a certain comfort for McDonalds customers. To say the Least this week has been interesting and I enjoyed talking about pop culture.

Medium is the message.

Medium is the message,
At first when we learn't about this in class, I could not figure out for the life of me what in the world this meant. As I thought about it more and more I came to the conclusion that the medium ( the actual means of communication and the ways we do it, such as the new technology) IS the message, that the message to the audience is the technology. I think you said it well today when you said that ''what impacts people more is the technology to actually get the message out as opposed to the actual message''.
Also, you said that the audience is the content. For me, this is difficult to understand but my guess is that the audience for the technology and ways of communication is the content, or rather ''what is being put into the medium in order to communicate it with the rest of the world''. This seems like a bunch of rambling on, but It startig to make sense and I just thought I'd write it out.
Writing my journal entry on my blog is very new for me, I've always been old fashioned when it comes to means of communication. I still have msn and facebook that Im signed into a good majority of the time, but I don't ''talk'' and type like my friends do, I try to have good grammar and proper speech as opposed to ''whaddyat by'' which is what most of my friends say.
I still write letters every week to correspondences in Germany,Halifax,Alberta etc.. although writing a letter is more work then typing a few words on an email, I like it better because I can decorate the letter however I want and It just seems more personal and fun. I have a book called ''the sisterhood of the traveling book'' with four of my closest friends that is written in and sent to each person because two friends are in university and the other friend is in Labrador, It so nice to see that book waiting for you when you get home from a long day of school, we have rules and we add pictures etc.. although it takes forever it write in, its so much fun and a lot more rewarding. I love getting ''old fashioned'' mail.
To be writing a journal for marks on a blog that could potentially be visited by other students is very different than a few years ago when this probably wouldn't have happened, Its exciting to be living in the technology age that is progressing faster than we can blink one eye but at the same time we can't forget to interact on a personal level and not with a computer in the way.
p.s. I wanted to ask why you got out of journalism and decided on education instead?
See how the computer makes it easier for me to ask?

You love me!

so,
This is definatly new for me. Im trying to think of what purpose this will be to me, maybe I'll make it my art blog or something and update it with my new art work..or I'll write pointless blogs that people won't read. who knows.^^

Love, Danielle-xx