"I'm on a horse."

Oh, Isaiah Mustafa, you beautiful beautiful man.

Suprisingly, the Old Spice body wash commercials are my favorite commercials ever. It's suprising, of course, because I'm female and these are commercials for male products... but that's pretty much what Old Spice wants, right?

In the commercial, Mustafa is talking directly to the ladies and showing them what a "man" is. The man they want their men to smell like. The involvement of women in a man's ad is pretty effective, too. Who does the grocery shopping? Women usually. So now your woman comes home with that delicious new Old Spice scent. You like. She likes it. Everyone's happy.

My boyfriend uses Old Spice, and I gotta say, I kinda like that he smells like the man on the horse.

The Age Old Debate.

The question of which is better, new technology or previous technology, has been around since the beginning of time. Is it better to have analogue watches or digital watches? Is it better to have analogue television or digital? Analogue sound recording or digital?

In today's world, what's better?
Is digital literature better than tangible literature?

It's difficult to fairly evaluate these two sources of literature due to their multitude of differences.

Traditional Printed Books:

• Valuable content - Reading and studying books is a proven way to gain knowledge, enhance critical thinking skills, better spelling, and entertain quietly.
• Reliable - A printed book will never have corrupted data and you can read it without battery power.
• Physical contact - There's something that just feels right about turning a page and feeling the words in a book.
• Portable - Printed books are easily carried and some are even small enough to fit in a purse for convenient reading on a bus or doctor's office waiting room.
• It's paper - Therefore you can write in your books, highlight important passages, even bookmark pages by just folding over a corner. This is a fantastic way to study.
• The bad stuff - unable to be downloaded, selection is either limited to what books are in your local library or book stores or you have to wait for the book to be shipped to your house. Printed books can fall apart and wear out with age, get ruined by many different things, or can be lost.

Digital Books:

• Valuable content - Digital books can contain the exact some content as printed books.
• Downloadable - Digital books can be downloaded from a million sites on the web and can cost nothing.
• Unlimited selection - You'll never have to put a digital book on hold and you can access any book in the world that you might want.
• Languages - Digital books can come in any language, ever.
• Portable - Digital books can be downloaded onto Kindles, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and PDA devices and carried everywhere (not to mention these are generally smaller than most books).
• The bad stuff - Digital books can be corrupted or unavailable due to technical difficulties, the devices they're downloaded on tend to be expensive and you can't really write on them or highlight very efficiently (but that could be considered a matter of preference).

So which is better? Digital or print?
It's up to you really.

The content is the same, the process of reading is the same, the only differences occur with format and that all falls down onto personal preference.

Now what about the other web content?

The World Wide Web:

• Unlimited information - You can find anything online. "If it's not on Google, it doesn't exist."
• Unlimited access - You can access anything online. Some things may be protected, but to the skilled hacker, everything is open for business.
• Social interactions - Keeping up with friends and family is easy. Need help on your homework? You can ask your classmate without having to pry for personal information such as telephone numbers and online tutors exist.
• Convenience - Most homes have their own computers and connection to the internet now. Not to mention that WiFi is basically everywhere.
• The Bad Stuff - Grammatical, spelling, and factual errors are common, social networks can be distracting, and technical difficulties can hinder progress. If the user is unfamiliar with computers and the internet, using the web can be a daunting task.

The Library:

• Reviewed and edited information - All of the information, spelling, and grammar are correct.
• Librarians - They're there to help. They know what information you'll need, where to find it, how to access it, and can even help you with writing papers and the such. 
• No extraneous information - You can't get distracted by Facebook if you're looking in the Encyclopedia. (Turn your iPhone off, people.)
• No unwanted information - You can't get barraged by pop ups with naked ladies in a library. (Although to some, that might be a downside.)
• Easier to use - To small children, libraries are safe places with group reading programs. To people unfamiliar with technology, libraries are a comfortable way to access information.
• The Bad Stuff - Library information can be limited and sometimes complicated to access. It's a little inconvenient to have to drive to a library every time you want to look something up.

So once again, which is better? That's still up to you.
Whether or not the internet or a library will be more beneficial to you depends on a lot of things. How much information will you be looking up? What kinds of information will you be looking up? Are you easily distracted by Facebook? Is the library open? Do you have the means to even get to a library?

For me, when it comes to reading fiction in my downtime, I much prefer printed books. I love being able to read in bed without having to sit up and focus on my computer.
When it's time to write a paper (or a blog in this case), I love my computer. It's quicker, easier, and more convenient to access the information.

In fact, if I had no internet, it would have been impossible for me to access Motoko Rich's article, Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?

A Football Game.

Eternal Choices of Lighting and Color

Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the tale of a woman being erased from a man's memory. It's a love story, a fantasy, and a science fiction film rolled all into one. It's a poetic piece of film that captures your heart in a quirky way.

Gondry's use of lighting creates dramatic effects on many of the scenes. The relationship between the two main characters, Joel and Clementine, is personified through the way Gondry chose to light the scene.

When Joel and Clementine are falling in love, the lighting is very bright. The colors are subdued and cool and the scenes feel very calm.

The contrast between Clementine's "Agent Orange" hair and the cool blue of Joel's pillow, ties the two characters together. The colors themselves are cool and muted and create a serene feeling.




As Joel and Clementine begin to fall apart, the colors get a little deeper and darker until at the very end, when Joel is struggling to keep Clementine in his memories, the colors are so deep and contrasted, you feel every emotion Joel and Clementine feel. You, as a viewer, feel their drama.

Now, the contrast between the intense dark that surrounds Clementine and the bright life in her hair and hat, causes the viewer to feel the loss that Joel is feeling as she is erased from his memory.











Gondry also makes great use of angles in his film.


The far away shots of Joel and Clementine shows the loneliness that the two characters feel. When the camera zooms in, you feel the personal connection between them.

The soundtrack in this scene is very organic. You can hear a plane buzzing and the waves crashing and people speaking, but Joel and Clementine are in their own little world. They ignore the outside noise and in doing so, further distance themselves from the society they live in. It's a romanticized isolation. They're both alone, but they're alone together.

Analyzing Movies and Television: Is it Necessary?

In high school, I took a year long AP Lit course where we learned to analytically read. We learned to notice symbols and themes and to look deeper into the literature to find otherwise hidden meanings. My teacher warned us early on that by taking this course, we were setting ourselves up to never be able to superficially enjoy a movie again. We would start to see meaning and symbolism in everything.

She was right.

One weekend, I visited a friend of mine and we decided to get nostalgic and watch some old Disney movies. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was our first pick. A few minutes into the movie, we quickly realized that two of Quasimodo's gargoyle friends, Victor and Hugo were actually a reference to the original story's author, Victor Hugo. (The third gargoyle is Laverne, a name that is just plain funny in context.)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a prime example of how a simple children's movie can hold a lot of hidden significance. Most Disney movies have very complex meanings shrouded by youthful images that allow for a timeless nature. As a child, I enjoyed the stories, images, and music. As an adult, I enjoy the deeper meanings.

Reality through media

Current TV is a station that deals mostly with viewer created content and short, documentary-style programming about unique things in life. Nothing is glorified, most things are unscripted, and the hosts are down to earth.

Current is one of my favorite stations and websites. I think it's meaningful and 'real' to me because most of the stories are about real people. The station shows every type of program, from news, popular culture, international conflicts, to cartoons. It has a little bit of everything, but is presented in such a way that I don't feel like anything false or that I'm being lied to.

The station has a sense of humor about life and the hosts reflect that. Brett Erlich hosts a show called Viral Video Film School, where he takes a not so serious approach to teaching people how to get that Viral Video they've always wanted.

Media affecting your children?

Over the weekend, I interviewed both my mom, Donna, and my older sister, Joan.
My mother has 5 children, ages ranging between 33 and 14.
My sister has two children, 7 and 6 months.

When asked about how they think the media affects their children, my mom and my sister had differing opinions.

My mom is 55 and believes that the media hasn't really affected her children. She explained that she would never allow a young child to watch a movie that was too mature in nature for their specific ages, but she never overly monitored us.

When I was younger, this was true. My mom would always watch PG 13 or R movies before my sisters and I were allowed to watch them, but if she saw it as nothing too big of a deal, we were allowed to watch it. Generally if I or my sisters watched a movie with our mom that had graphic violence, or themes that were too mature for us to grasp, we'd talk about the movie after and she would explain what we didn't understand. I distinctly remember watching the very graphic first 15 minutes of Saving Private Ryan when I was about 10. After, my mom explained that war is very similar to that. War isn't a pretty or glamorous thing. These men were risking their lives and sanity to protect our rights at home.

My sister, Joan, is 31 and believes that the media can really affect her children. She explained that she only allows Seth, her 7 year old son, to watch tv for an hour a day and that most of the channels are blocked with parental controls. She previews all the movies, cds, and video games that Seth is exposed to and makes sure that there are other ways for him to entertain himself around the house. There are always crayons, books, and toys for him to play with.

My sister and my mother have very different views on the media's effect on children but both are concerned with the images that can be exposed prematurely.

Media Conglomerate: Viacom

According to an article on articleworld.org, “a media conglomerate is a very large, usually multinational corporation that owns a large part of the mass media market.” After doing some research into what a media conglomerate is, I decided to find out who the media conglomerates in today’s world are. Freepress.net names Viacom as one of “The Big Six” with their 2009 revenues reaching $13.6 billion. The other Big Six companies are General Electric, the Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, Time Warner, and CBS with Viacom coming in fifth.

Viacom was started in 1971 as a spin-off of CBS and bought MTV Networks in 1986. They merged with Paramount Communications in 1994 and were well on their way to becoming a Big Six contender by 2006 when their current president and chief executive officer, Phillipe Dauman took office.

Viacom has a hand in many different aspects of today’s media. They have television and radio stations, publishing companies, and film studios in addition to many other holdings. Most of their subsidiary companies are popular in society and include Nickelodeon and MTV among others. 

While being a giant media conglomerate is good for Viacom (their yearly earnings are astounding), their power is excessive and limits the amount of competition within the market. Music television, for example is almost monopolized by Viacom who not only owns MTV, but also VH1 and BET. Also, were Viacom to suffer from the economy, many of our favorite subsidiary companies would suffer as well. That’s not good for anyone, especially those who work for Viacom or the subsidiary companies.

Being a big media conglomerate has its ups and downs, but Viacom has done well keeping and expanding its subsidiary companies. With MTV alone, Viacom has expanded from one television station to five, with one geared towards the Latin community and one in Europe. Viacom is a prime example of how to take the media and turn it into big bucks and successful careers.

Semiotics?

Click here to learn about semiotics! (And see Brad Pitt without a shirt.)

Digital Nativity

Wanna know what a digital native is? Click here!