Disconnecting from Media

Day of disconnection: Thursday 13/1/2011 

At the beginning of this "observation", I was extremely positive that I could go through a day without media (technology) easily, but I was wrong. It was not as easy as I reckoned. 

During the first hour, it was not that hard. But after a while, I realised that I could do nothing without my mobile, television, and computer. I felt as if I was disconnected from all my friends. It was really stressful as my mobile was always by my side. There were no way I could contact my friends, and it was an eyesore. Not having a computer to use, was one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. Today, in our modern world, the internet is one of the most powerful innovation ever created. One could literally do anything on the internet, from finding recipes for cooking, playing fun and entertaining games, to finding a book to read online. There was nothing I could do, so I decided to take up a book from my shelf and started to read it. In the past, I use to enjoy reading as it was entertaining for me, but since the internet have been so powerful, my reading periods came to an end. In addition, I also spent time with my parents, and converse to them about life. Although I tried to completely avoid all media, it wasn't possible, as my parents would either be watching TV, or reading the news paper. 

At the end of the day, while writing this blog post, I come to realise that media is gradually altering our daily lives. Without media, I got a chance to bond with my family members, and also read a book, which is very relaxing. 

"Digital School Library"

Heather Hughes's comment:
"As a college student, I do a lot of research and spend a lot of time on-line. However, reading an entire novel on the glowing sreen is too much. My eyes can't take it. Hopefully this trend toward complete digitalization wont drift from elite boarding schools into the physical world many of us still enjoy."

I completely agree with Hughes comment as it is true that staring at a monitor screen for hours would just hurt our eyes; it is unhealthy of our eyes. In addition, almost everyone today have a computer with subscribed internet for themselves, so a "digital" library would be unnecessary and useless. People could just stay at home instead to research and read. Although some people would prefer to read online as it may be more efficient, I dislike reading from the computer as it is harder to get information into my head, and I tend to loose my focus easier. Kids and even adults these days are exposed to a lot screens, from ipods, televisions, game consoles, etc.. so by having a "digital" library, it would be worse for their eye sight and health. By having a "digital" library, people would get distracted easily too as, internet browsing is much more entertaining than reading(for some people). Lastly, I feel that a "digital" library would only have the latest books and not books from the past, thus all the magnificent books would be lost and never to be read again by people.

News Analysis 2 (Norris 5)

Royal Wedding date chosen by Prince William and Kate

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11818049

Informative vs Superficial
Very Informative. 
In this news article, not only did it talk about the wedding, it talked about how it will be a national celebration, and a party. The article covered all sides of the story. A lot of information. 

Accurate and Truthful vs False and Deceptive
Accurate and Truthful. 
The article gave all accurate facts. 
Objective vs Biased
Neither Objective nor Biased. 
There is nothing in this article to be bias off. There is no argument present in this article, hence there are no sides of the argument. 
Pluralistic vs Insular Viewpoint
Insular Viewpoint. 
Although Royalty is sort of an international thing, I believe that only people in the UK would care about the crown prince's wedding.    
Balanced vs Weighted Side
Weighted Side
Although the journalist quoted Prince William once, Prince William did not really talk about details of his wedding, it was the journalist who was "speaking"/writing.   

Content Analyses

Skins

Medium: Television

Genre of Program: Comedy-drama

Skins', a British teen drama, is created by Jamie Brittain and Bryan Elsley. In this show, it follows a group of teenagers in Bristol, South West England, through the most important two years of sixth form (Prep for GCSE' A levels). It covers what "English" teenagers go through during their teenage life. Issues such as dysfunctional families, sexual orientation identity, drug abuse, death, and mental illness; including eating disorders. Skins also portrays British teens trying to grow up, find love, and happiness despite the influence of their parents, and other adult authorities.   

Name of Character Viewed	Effy	Cook	Freddie	Katie	Emily
Male or Female	Female	Male	Male	Female	Female
Main Character?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Occupation	Student	Student	Student	Student	Student
Level of Education	High School	High School	High School	High School	High School
Race	White	White	Hispanic	White	White
Marital Status	In a relationship. (Off and on with Freddie and Cook)	Single (Fooling around with a lot of girls)	Complicated (Does not know whether he was dating Effy)	Single (Fooling around with boys)	Single
Age	17	17	17	17	17
Number of Children	-	-	-	-	-
Appearance	Very attractive	"Cool" looking	Handsome	Pretty	Pretty
Body Type	Skinny	Healthy/ Buff	Healthy	Average	Average
Personal Characteristics	Emotional Goth Calm Very sexually- active Independent	Violence Havoc Trouble maker Daring Sexually - active Independent Stubborn	Gentlemen Nice Caring Smart Independent	Must look pretty for the boys Happy Stubborn	Confuse Nice Caring Sad Not as popular as the twin sister, Katie
Role of Character in Narrative	Mischievous, Drug addict. A girl that does not care about anything.	He is a student who doesn't care about anything. He is rude, and also love starting a fight. He is very sexually active.	A gentlemen, who respects girls a lot. Generous. Very sensitive.	A girl who gets a lot of boys. Her twin sister is the total opposite of her.	She is really confuse of her sexuality; whether she is straight or gay. She is not as popular as Katie.
Impact of character in Narrative	Positive	Positive	Positive	Positive	-

Dove's Real Beauty campaign

In the world today, females are getting huge influence by the media on how they portray a "perfect" lady. A lot of girls are going on a diet, getting plastic surgery, and even breast implantation.  The idea of beauty have became so distorted till the point that, it went overboard. The Campaign for Real Beauty hoped to send a positive message to females of all ages, who had trouble or are trying to be a "perfect" lady. The campaign used advertisements, videos, workshops, sleep over events, and even published a book and a play to reach the public. Although it is hard for women to not care about their appearances and figures, I feel that they should not altar their appearances by surgery as, it is not really their true self. All women should know that they are equally beautiful, and there are different kinds of beauty; not only appearances. I strongly believe that having a beautiful heart is the most important, as if you have a great heart, you automatically become beautiful.

Don't ever EVER let the media influence you on the definition of beauty.
BE STRONG!

Stereotype Media Product

TESCO; a huge supermarket chain in England. TESCO express, TESCO mega, TESCO etc. TESCO sells almost all kinds of products, such as, foods, fruits, electronics, clothing, furniture and more. In this advertisement, TESCO was trying to promote its company, but instead of showing the locals its freshness of their product or even the spaciousness it have in their store, it showed a coloured woman. Next to the coloured woman, it had a statement saying, "Fruit Picking: 38 pence/hr", and a slogan, "Every little helps". By using this advertisement, the company is hoping that many consumers would feel bad, and start buying products from TESCO. It used sympathy to get its customers. What TESCO is unaware of is that, it portrayed out the wrong message.

When I first saw this advertisement, I was in utter shocked. I found the ad really ignorant and sad. Not only was TESCO taking advantage of that coloured woman to get buyers, it did not try to fix the problem of their workers low wages. I believe that TESCO should look for ways to change the wages of their industrial workers, and should not put up advertisement like this in the media, as it would only cause more people to be against it.

TIVO IS WATCHING!

TiVo, a digital video recorder, was introduced in 1999 in America. TiVo features include "Season Pass" schedules which, record every new episode of a series, and "WishList" searches which allow the user to find and record shows that match their interests by title, actor, director, category, or keyword. Now, TiVo is available in Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, Australia, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. 

1. What information is being sought by advertisers and television industries?

By consumers using this TiVo digital video recorder, the advertisers and television industries could find out a lot of information. They could track what kind of show you are watching, how many hours are you spending on the TV, and around what time of the day you are watching the shows. 

2. Why might advertisers and television programmers want to know which commercials viewers watch and/or skip? 

Advertisers and television programmers want to know which commercials viewers watch and/or skip for several reasons. They want to know whether advertisements that they are spending on are worth it, or if people are just skipping it. If a lot of people skipped a particular commercial, the industrial would be aware of the "type" and "style" of advertisement people are not interested in. Moreover, the industrial could know from the data which types of commercials are most effective at drawing an audience.  

3. Why might TiVo be uniquely able to provide this data?

TiVo is uniquely able to provide this data because, they have lots of users. Users spend nearly half of their television time watching programs recorded earlier. Those users who record shows, tend to skip about 70% of the commercials (Todd Juenger). About 8 to 10% of America's 110 million television households have TiVo. Although getting the data is a complex process, TiVo still manage to get it.

4. How does TiVo profit from selling data about its consumers' viewing behaviours?

Since TiVo would know the data from their consumers, many companies would approach TiVo for its data. Company would pay TiVo a huge sum of money for the data as, it would help them with the improvement of their commercials.  

5. How has digital video recording technology affected advertisers and views? 

Digital video recording technology allows people to record shows that they want to watch, due to inconvenience of their schedule. For example, if someone wanted to watch a show, but don't have the time to watch it, he/she could record it, and play it after he/she is free. In addition, with this technology, advertisers would know whether their commercials are effective or not.