Politiocal Activisist

Greenpeace is one of the worlds largest environmental initiatives, with offices in over 20 countries this activist group. This organization, originally based out of Vancouver has now grown to have mass amount of support in many places worldwide. The supporters of this group are generally people genuinely concerned with the demise and destruction of the environment.

Now I would not say that I am overly downtrodden by the demise of the earth’s environment however like most other citizens I try to do my best to reduce reuse and recycle. Although if you’d have asked me about my views on the environment a few years ago I would have just shrugged off the idea of biking instead of driving as a non important issue. This view however has been changed drastically since my younger sister has grown enough to understand the concept of global warming. It all started last summer when my sister announced at the dinner table that she was going to bike to piano lessons. My energetic mother responded with a “That’s a good idea Sarah responded to this statement! It’s a very nice evening out!” However little Sarah was not done with her talk, she continued with an environmental onslaught, which seemingly came out of nowhere. Almost 7 months later Sarah has put her environmental plan into action in our home. Trash and recycling are religiously separated, while compostable materials are re-routed to the compost in the back yard. Before I left for University I proceeded with Sarah’s environmental regime of environmental friendliness. However what I did not expect is that after transitioning to University I found myself continuing to follow the same eco friendly procedures.

Although I may not be a registered member of “the largest environmental organization in the world”(http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/131), although I may not be one of the 5 million and counting registered followers of the Greenpeace initiative, I feel as if I am doing my best to support a sustainable future, all thanks to my little sis.

Activist Cash. Web. 24 Nov 2009..
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Participatory Culture

A couple years ago I had become involved with a widely popular website entitled Pokerstars.net. I quickly became obsessed with fake money and real games with real people across the world. Perhaps it was because it was the idea of underage gambling without risking anything, or maybe it was due to the fact that I could illegally gamble without leaving the comfort of my very home. For the sake of this post I’ll focus on the aspect of the latter reason.

“Everyone knows that the Internet is changing our lives, mostly because someone in the media has uttered that exact phrase every single day since 1993.”(Klosterman, 110). I however obviously hadn’t grasped that concept, as the idea that millions of gambling aficionados could gather via the web to put chips on the line in real time poker game was fascinating to the 16 year old version of myself. What I did not realize at the time was that while I was illegally gambling with fake money in my basement mostly everyone else was out enjoying their days without me. This may not seem like such a big deal, you may be thinking “So what Nick? What’s an hour or so a day thrown away playing poker against a 36 year old crocodile Dundee from Australia?” My response to this question is that you obviously do not grasp my addiction with a website such as Pokerstars.net. I mean there was once a time where I would wake up early for school to grab an hour on my favorite website before I headed out to the real world. I guess what the real issue here is the qualm of social alienation. If you’d have asked the 16 year old version of myself why I was spending so much time on the computer instead of out enjoying the day with my friends I probably would have responded with something along the lines of “It’s Elmira, what’s there to do?” All things considered this may be considered a legitimate argument, as there’s nothing in Elmira but Mennonites and the ridiculous amount of churches that they attend. That being said I’m sure I lost a lot of friends during that time period, not because they particularly disliked me, probably more so based on the fact that they just forgot me.

Looking back on it now I can see that I took my obsession with the idea of live online gaming to an unfortunate extreme. However, I understand that “life is rarely about what happened; it’s mostly about what we think happened.” (Klosterman, 103) You can call me a liar but from what I can recount is that I just so happened to be kicking the butts of middle aged casino goers all over the world at an alarming rate, all at the ripe age of 16. What an accomplished young man I was.

Pokerstars. Web. 24 Nov 2009. .

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Buy Nothing Day

Buy nothing day as stated by the official website is a day “to unshop, unspend and unwind.”(http://www.buynothingday.org/faq.html) Essentially it is a day in which you avoid purchasing anything. This could be taken as lightly as not purchasing anything at the mall if you happen to be there, or as heavily as not using your electricity for the entire 24 hours.

In my opinion this is a great idea to raise awareness on over-consumption. I am very sure that taking an entire day to “unshop” in the words of the website, would shed a very strong light on how deeply we as humans are attached to the idea of consuming, and purchasing. This idea is even appearing in video games as Chuck Klosterman muses in his critique of the popular EA title “The Sims”. In such a situation “SimChuck” is prompted to buy a new TV because as real Chuck began to realize very quickly when playing the game that “The happiness of the characters is directly proportional to the shit you elect to buy them.” (Klosterman, 18) As Klosterman flips through the seemingly endless catalogue his eyes fall upon many items, but more specifically the “Soma Plasma TV” as “Buying this item for $3500 increases the owner’s fun rating by six full points.”(Klosterman, 18) Now I can hardly imagine that the human psych is so intertwined with consumerism that we unconsciously have an ingrained “fun-o-meter” for lack of a better word. However EA seems to be onto something for it seems that every time I feel the least bit upset, my mind immediately jumps to purchase something to fill the void. “What the Sims suggests is that buying things makes people happy because it takes their mind off being alive.”(Klosterman, 19)

I guess what this site is indirectly promoting is the concept of actually dealing with your issues without buying the tissues, and confronting your problems directly as opposed to filling the void with a purchase. This seems to me like a justifiable cause, and after learning about this challenge I will defiantly make an effort to consume less, “At the very least [I’ll] save a bit of [my] hard-earned cash!”(http://www.buynothingday.org/faq.html)

"Buy Nothing Day." Buy Nothing Day. Web. 24 Nov 2009. .

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Net Neutrality

Net neutrality is a looming issue amongst Internet users everywhere. While the concept of a worldwide “neutral” Internet seems a tiny bit general in terms of understanding what the definition “Net Neutrality” really means, the premise is that all content the public views on the web is treated equally, and therefore “neutral”.

Our modern Internet for the most part has remained fairly “neutral” until just recently when the Government decided to examine the implications of a unbiased Internet. The investigation was launched majorly due to congestion issues on major sites such as Google and Yahoo!. The outcome of this net neutrality debate could result in such sites charging extra fees for users. Another option that the Government is considering is the idea of Internet service providers being able to supply multi-tiered plans costing more money to heavy users. This seems like a fair solution, provided that companies such as Bell and Rogers don’t jack up the costs to maximize their profit margin. Another online freedom threatened by this proposal, is the idea of a band on online file sharing, as streaming online video uses up massive amounts of bandwidth, which slows down the Internet as a whole. This option however would raise uproar amongst youth everywhere who live off downloading and sharing music and movies.

In my opinion the only way in which this issue could bother me is if major companies got greedy like they have in the past and take advantage of their power to control the price point at which people pay to stay connected. I have no problem paying a little extra for using search engines such as Google, because in my opinion everything has its price, I genuinely feel that society is fairly lucky to have gotten the most popular search engine on the web for free usage so far. As far as I’m concerned the Internet is going down the same road as the cell phone, starting with small charges, then getting away with larger taxes. As it is right now, I am used to it.

"Should the Government Regulate Net Neutrality?." Opposing Views. Web. 24 Nov 2009. .

Media Hegemonies

As I read through Chuck Klosterman’s pop culture novel “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” I realized he mentioned in the latter stages of his book a news company entitled Knight Ridder. Klosterman followed up by stating that he had “worked in the Knight Ridder chain for four years. “(Klosterman, 197) As a developing journalist, I decided it would be my best interest to look up this company in order to further my knowledge of the industry. What I learned was that Knight Ridder was a business fusion of Knight Newspapers Incorporated, and Ridder Publications, which combined in 1974. For a brief time this massive company was “the largest newspaper publisher in the United States” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Ridder#Knight_Ridder-owned_companies). Upon further research I came to the realization that Knight Ridder had recently been bought out by The McClatchy Company, another newspaper publishing company. This media giant now owns a mass amount of daily, and weekly newspapers, as well as some other companies.

Aside from the 77 newspaper outlets throughout the U.S. owned by The McClatchy Company, also owned by them are; McClatchy Interactive, The Real Cities Network, and The McClatchy Washington Bureau. While this list seems fairly small, this company also has partial stakes in the McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, CareerBuilder, Classified Ventures, Ponderay Newsprint Company, The New York Times News Service, Scripps Howard News Service, The Seattle Times Company, and Topix.net. What seems unique to me is that the head bosses at McClatchy Interactive seem to have no problem keeping themselves in the print news business, and seem to not have much interest outside of purchasing news related companies. This would be key in keeping their company void of media cross ownership charges, which prevent multi-million dollar companies from owning “too much local media ownership”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_ownership). The Federal Communications Commission generally does not allow one type of media outlet to own its sister company. A plain example would be the Chicago Tribune’s ownership of WGN Radio (WGN-AM) and Television (WGN-TV). In my opinion this seems like a good general rule, when it comes to keeping some sort of diversity among news outlets in any given area.

As I tend to be business illiterate this whole media hegemony caught me by surprise. I guess it was fairly naïve of me to think that each newspaper I read is a private operating business at the top of its own chain when it comes to ownership. I suppose I should have taken Klosterman’s words to heart when he bluntly stated, “Massive conservative corporations own everything.”(Klosterman, 196) I guess from now on whenever I am reading a publication from the United States I will now realize that it’s most likely one of the 77 and counting owned by The McClatchy Company.

"Knight Ridder." Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Ridder#Knight_Ridder-owned_companies

"Cross Ownership." Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_ownership

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.

Culture Jamming

Culture jamming is defined by wikipedia, as a “tactic in which an activist attempts to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions or corporate advertising. Culture jamming is usually employed in opposition to a perceived appropriation of public space, or as a reaction against social conformity.”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming) I further investigated, and search the web for culture jamming images, and came to the conclusion that culture jamming is essentially a parody of something typical rehashed to convey a message different than the originally implied meaning.

An interesting example I found of this more recent phenomenon was a remixed Cadillac ad. The image of this ad is similar to that of a typical SUV print ad, with the giant gas-guzzler front and centre in a picturesque glacial background. However what makes this image interesting is not the image itself, merely the phrases typed around it. Where readers would usually see phrases highlighting the all wheel drive vehicles praise, and glorifying its stunning performance, viewers are shocked to see a phrase such as “Catastrophic climate change? Not our fault.” Accompanied by a tag line at the bottom stating “The American people want big-ass cars”(http://www.abrupt.org/CJ/ccc.jpg) This clever shift in perspective is obviously a stab at the general public, on the president that they must be the ones to take action when it comes to the climate shift problem. This modified ad implies that car companies will continue to make unnecessarily large all wheel drive vehicles until the public (the American public to be specific) stops purchasing them. The clever alteration of the well-known Cadillac icon also sends a strong message across to all viewing this advertisement. The popular logo has been altered to include horns, as well as basic facial features, which plays off the idea that “We humans are a self-centered race” and that “we assign identities and emotions where none exist, and make the world over in our image.”(McCloud, 32-33) That being said the rehashed Cadillac logo somewhat resembles the devil with its horns, which could symbolize the feelings the modifier has towards American car companies.

This particular ad parody seems to put quite a strong message across to the American population. It takes something as ingrained in our mind as the typical car manufacturers sport utility vehicle advertisement and tips it on end to convey a completely anti-SUV meaning, all whilst taking a stab at the American public along the way.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. Print.

"Culture Jamming." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, Web. 24 Nov 2009. .

Abrupt. Web. 24 Nov 2009..

"Catastrophic Climate Change?." Abrupt. Web. 24 Nov 2009.

Fake News

Boy have I got a deal for you my friend. How about I give you a whole five dollars if you run nude through the Guelph Humber University building. No? Well how about I sweeten the deal and make it a crisp ten-dollar bill? Still no? Twenty? Not a chance? Well how about I give you a million? Now your thinking aren’t you?

There was a hidden message behind all of these questions (other than the obvious pleasure in seeing a streaker getting taken down by a security guard of course). The point I’m making is the fact that if enough cash is put on the table moral decisions tend to change, and the same goes for ad agencies. If a large organization had enough money and were sinister enough to do so they could control a large amount of the media we digest. This fact seems a bit scarier when we look at the idea that all of our life’s decisions are loosely based upon the media we digest. In short somebody with enough money could be influencing your life’s decisions. Scary eh? Although that’s taking things to an extreme it’s always good to be aware of what you’re ingesting. Chuck Klosterman seems skeptical as well when he asks the question “Are media outlets controlled by massive, conservative corporations? Well, of course they are. Massive conservative corporations own everything. Are most individual members of the media politically liberal? Absolutely.” As an aspiring journalist the preceding quote kind of freaks me out. I mean if I have no say in the material I cover, how I cover it, or even my writing style, then I’m a little more skeptical in the career choice I’ve made.

I guess we can all just throw away the coined phrase ‘freedom of the press’, because apparently it no longer applies. I figured that the news couldn’t possibly be controlled. I guess that notion can rest in my recycling bin right next to the mass amounts of water bottles consumed whilst reading newspapers. In a world in which the dollar rules and people are willing to compromise morals for cash I guess we are all doomed to be controlled. Still willing to take me up on that million dollar offer? Too bad it's off the table.

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Scribner, 2004.

Media Literacy

Media literacy is the concept of analyzing all media in order to detect the real messages involved with the media presented to you. As young people it is of utmost important to try to be at least semi media literate. It has become far too easy for anyone to dictate opinions if they understand media literacy. These groups are very aware of their manipulative power on the greater public, and intend to use it as much as they can to sway your decisions.

Advertising agencies have mastered the art of using edgy images to convey their message, even the local mall being renovated back home in Waterloo has an ad campaign for their new edition. These ads generally tend to not make the focus on the product or idea being sold, rather focusing more on something more visually appealing. This strategy proves to be very effective in the aspect that people see an advertisement (say with an attractive female on it) and immediately either want to be the woman, or be with the woman. The consumer assumes that with this product or idea that this goal can be attained, thus giving false hope to millions around the world.

Politicians are also quite awful when it comes to their advertising, they however tend to use a different strategy. The men or women of congress seem to always use the same idea in their ads of avoidance/attack. Every time an election is approaching you know due to the fact of those annoying government of Canada advertisements, each hyping a particular political party. They all go the exact same way, there is no acknowledgement of the parties problems, just the positive aspects. As the ad comes to a close the speaker will attack an opposing party, then the commercial cuts. This commercial layout is enacted with you in mind (how thoughtful). It’s obvious that the political party would accentuate the positives as they only have a short time to get their message across. What takes the cake is the accusation at the end. This insult towards another party is meant to leave you with that insult in mind, as if you could even consider voting for that particular party. It is all a part of the grand political scheme to snatch the votes of people on the fence.

The fact that anyone can switch your opinions on anything seems kind of disturbing, but it has been happening for years. This concept is not new news, even dates back as far as the propaganda in world war one. However after this blog post I intend to analyze what I see more clearly, maybe that will save me some money.

Mass Media

Mass media to me seems like a rather easily defined, yet difficult to grasp term, which tends to envelope any major invention since the dawn of man. I define mass media as any sort of media delivered to a large amount of people (the masses). Pretty self-explanatory you may agree, but to further understand the term you must understand the meaning of the word ‘media’, which is described as the plural of the word medium, which is defined as anything aiding in communicating a specific idea or feeling. So this in turn makes the term ‘mass media’ mean a means of communicating a specific idea or feeling to a large group of people.

This whole media for the masses sounds great and all, what with television and internet making communication a lot easier, but the problem with the media is that it has started to dictate the way we feel, think, and act. You can date this back as far as even the invention of the alphabet. “Before the invention of the phonetic alphabet, man lived in a world where all the senses were balanced and simultaneous, a closed world of tribal depth and resonance, an oral culture structured by a dominant auditory sense of life.” (Mcluhan) In this example lies a problem in Marshall Mcluhan’s eyes. He feels that the invention of the phonetic alphabet started the boulder rolling down a cliff towards our society being a largely visual based culture. Before the invention of the letters I am typing this blog post with were invented people were forced to speak to each other and in McLuhan’s eyes all senses were equal. I tend to slightly disagree. If the means of communication before the invention of the alphabet was spoken word, would the dominant sense not be the sense of hearing? I will however agree with the fact that the invention of the alphabet was a major turning point in creating the society we know and (try to) love today. Without the invention of the alphabet the only way to converse with someone would be to call them up on your telephone. It would be an interesting world to consider, that’s for sure.

To put this whole alphabet changing our ways of life into a modern concept take the multi-million dollar advertisement industry. Each ad you view on the television, pop-up you see on your computer, or billboard you see along the road has an emotion attached to it. These emotions are strategically attached to the advertisement by the industry that’s sponsoring them. The goal of these companies when it comes down to it is to convince you that your life would be better with their product. If that means they make an example out of your current situation then all the better for the ad agencies. For example an ad for a new computer may try to convince you that your old computer is either, too big in size, or too small in storage space. You may not have ever thought about buying a new Mac, but after the advertisement (if the people at Mac have been doing their homework) you may actually look at the possibilities of owning a brand new, sleek, silver Macintosh.

Those are just a few examples of the ways that ‘mass media’ affects our daily life, and for the better or the worse it is here to stay. So while I continue typing on my new Mac, listening to advertisements on the radio in the background, and using the alphabet I suggest that you do the same, because we really don’t have much other choice.

McLuhan, Marshall. The Playboy Interview. http://www.nextnature.net/?p=1025 Playboy Magazine, March 1969. © Playboy

Advertisement Critique

“The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life.” (Berger, 142) This statement rings true to an advertisement from GoDaddy.com that I saw on T.V. about a year ago (URL at bottom). In this advertisement the scantily clad Danika Patrick is caught speeding in her vintage Ford mustang down an abandoned desert road. The cop who busts her just so happens to be a woman, who just so happens to be a fan of GoDaddy.com. Who also wants to be a GoDaddy.com girl, and just so happens to want to prove it to Danika by tearing off her uniform and grinding the poor old mustang Whitesnake style.

Now to further analyze this advertisement you must understand that Danika Patrick is a former porn star. This status immediately plays to the men in the audience, who probably wouldn’t mind if Danika joined this police officer on top of the mustang. That being said the whole advertisement plays to the typical middle aged man, the type of man who wishes he were there on that deserted highway in the middle of nowhere. This ad seems to come all the way back from the Renaissance oil paintings. As Berger describes that the women weren’t just posing nude for the painter, they were posing for the man who would eventually buy the work of art. This advertisement gives the false allusion that if you subscribe to GoDaddy.com you may run into some good fortune, such as perhaps speeding by a sexy police officer willing to do a striptease on the hood of your corolla (lets face it you’re a family man you’ve got bills to pay, the mustang wont cut it). This brings up the concept of reality. Realistically on which kind of road could you patrol for two minutes (roughly the length of this ad) and not see a single car go by? Even if said road exists what kind of cop in their right mind would choose, out of all the busy roads to radar, that it might just be a good idea to check out the abandoned highway? Even if all this seems realistic to you the chances that Danika and this fan of hers meet up on this road just seems bizarre, and almost impossible.

This whole ad can be described by the ‘sex sells’ strategy. Which seems to be dominating the advertisement industry today, and has since the beginning of photo advertisement. The sad reality is that after watching this ad I checked out the site. I swear it was the car not this girls that did it for me. I swear.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQEpzJTUio

The Ecology of Media

Hello everyone, my name is Nick and I am a facebook addict. Everyday I wake up and it is the first thing I think of when I roll out from under the sheets of my twin size. I can’t believe that something so simple can consume so much of my thought. How sad am I to be so mentally intertwined with something not even human? Half the time I am on facebook I’m not actually physically involved with it, beyond clicking the refresh button every 5 minutes religiously to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I just waste my days staring and clicking and viewing pictures. Sooner than later I’m staring at pictures of a newborn and I don’t even know the names of the parents. Sure this past segment was slightly exaggerated, but the first step is admitting you have a problem correct?

A few people might have found that past segment rather disturbing, but the rest of the people must find that it does hold some truth, although a tad extreme. While I’m sure that the inventors of facebook might not have imagined the success of this site known around the world, what they might have thought was that it would just make for much simpler conversation when a phone isn’t around (or when your too scared to hear your facebook girlfriends voice). What started out as a simple social networking site quickly ballooned into a giant photo sharing, application hoarding, event promoting, group gathering, creep station. Now all of these things sound great on paper (except for maybe the last one), but after further examination seem a tiny bit less that stellar. For example the whole photo sharing thing is great (an easy way to remember exactly what happened last night), but more recently employers have been lurking onto facebook to check out photos to see exactly (in vivid detail) what you were doing last night. Which in some cases may affect your current employment statuses. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t see the genius in a chat application, what with the population of cell phones meaning that almost everyone has access to a phone at all times. What ever happened to calling up your friends when you wanted to get together? Or having a one on one chat with your girlfriend, before calling it quits, therefore changing your facebook relationship status? Before we know it all anyone will do is sit in his or her tiny computer rooms (only big enough for you and your computer, because what else would anyone need), and stalk the web twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Sounds a bit harsh? I know I’m being way too hard on a website that I’ve been logged on to since the start of this blog post. Hello everyone my name is Nick, and I am a hypocritical facebook addict.

Academic Blogging

Holy Moses it’s a blog! While I enjoy writing and expressing my opinions as much as the next Joe or Jen I can honestly say that I am terrified. I have no idea whether it’s the topics, or the fact that I’m receiving a total grade percentage equal to half of my proverbial mass communication pie for this assignment, but something about it just makes me shudder. When it all comes down to it in the end, I believe the only thing that’s keeping me from sleeping at night is the idea that any old Derek or Deborah can read what I have to say. This is only slightly uncomforting to a young student such as myself who only couple years ago wouldn’t even venture over to his friends houses because of the fact that when I rang that doorbell and someone other than my friend answered I might have just broke down in tears.

On the whole however I can see blogging as a great tool for furthering everyone’s knowledge, not just my own. This is where the public sphere becomes not only handy, but entirely unique from any other style of writing. The idea that you don’t have to be Chuck Klosterman to write a segment on the affects Sim City has on your life (Klosterman) in my mind makes blogging the most powerful medium currently in existence. Any old Cory or Candice can write a piece about the effects of renaissance oil paintings on the feminism movement (Berger) and post it online for the entire world to see. What I see academic blogging as is a technology that in the future has the capabilities of overrunning the print business, making it the vinyl to our brand new 8-track. Until then however blogging has become a way of getting noticed by big name corporations without enduring the painful meetings with office executives. A man like Perez Hilton (although I hate to mention this fact) has gotten world recognition based solely upon his pop culture blog. Making it possible for anyone to express their opinion online with aspirations that somebody other than their family would read it and take note. Which makes it possible for regular Joe’s to become the next modern day Shakespeare’s. This inspires hope in the mass amount of writers out there who may not have the cash to splurge on getting their book published.

In short blogs are a medium for all writers, good or bad, rich or poor to have their works out there for every Joe, Jen, Derek, Deborah, Cory, Candice, or anyone else for that matter to read, and that I can only imagine is a good thing.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008.

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. New York: Scribner, 2004.