Response to class discussion: The internet

        Today in class we discussed how the internet came about and the impacts it had on American citizens.   On October 29, 1969 the internet was established when two college students sent the message "lo" to one another via computer software. This marked the beginning of a new revolution. At the time of the invention, no one thought that it would grow and advanced to what it has become today.

        The purpose of the internet was to create a form of centralized communication that could with stand nuclear war because at the time we were neck and neck with Russia in the Cold War.  In the year 1971 there were only 15 nodes or smaller areas of information on the internet. 1984 came along and there were over 1,000 hosts or individual materials that hold information. Fast forward to 1987, there are over 10,000 hosts, 1992- 1,000,000 hosts world wide. All of this information seems false due to the rapid growth of the internet but people nation wide, even world wide were getting hooked onto this new fad. Their were tons of chat rooms, and file sharing browsers.

         1989 rolls around and Tim Burners Lee has just invented the first hype text, more often referred to as a hyper link (HTML). This allowed millions to create webpages, browsers, and even websites. But Lee didn't stop their, his revolution continued into creating the ability to share and publicize images via the internet. With these major changes taking places millions of people everywhere were buying computers, businesses were putting computers in their stores, they were in libraries, everywhere.  The number of users had increased by 304 million over the course of 3 years. This went to show the speculators that the internet was here for good and it was only going to get better.

        Learning about this topic in class really intrigued because all my life I have been surrounded by the internet. Of course I knew that things had advanced in internet technology from the years before I was born up until now. But it never occurred to me that the internet used to be used for a more efficient way to share data, do research and export files, but now we not only have the ability to do those things but we can also FaceTime, social media, text, make videos and share videos. My life has been so easy going when it comes to hard work that I never realized that I had it so easy.  Today was only the start of this lecture and I can't wait to hear what else Mr. Miller has to share!

News Critique #2

     For the full story:
http://m.wave3.com/wave/db/336805/content/djhrj3ka
 
      Tonight on Wave3 news Dawn Gee presented a story about what the community could do in the event that their front door was old, messed up, or down right ugly. When I heard this in the corner of my ear my jaw dropped and I immediately started listening. My first thought was "Why is this story worthy of being on a televised news station?"

      I went online to try and find the link to the story I read the story online as well. This story went against the yardstick of journalism, news worthiness. For a story to be news worthy it needs to be relevant to the area as well as relevant to the majority of the audience.  Although the story was relevant to the area, it does NOT effect the majority of the audience.

       For starters, not everyone's front door needs to be fixed, the majority of people have those kind of problems handled. Also, the time it took for the news anchors to present the story could've been used on a more important, more relevant story.  To conclude I feel that this story is better off being an online feature instead of a top story on television.

News Critique

 Link to full story:
http://m.wave3.com/wave/db/336805/content/egke6awK

       Recently in the news, Wave3 news has been taking part in a charity even that allows the community to buy numerous raffle tickets for a chance to win a house in Norton commons or a 2016 BMW convertible. All of the profits go to the children's hospitals here in Louisville.

       Although the story is relevant to our area, it goes against the element of make the important interesting. The whole point of this element is to take an important, relevant story and present it in a way that interests the audience, but the writers of this story did the opposite. They took an interesting story and attempted to make it more important than it actually is. The story focus' on the features and look of the houses that the community can win in the raffle. Although this is needed information    for the event and the contestants, it's not necessary for to be a top story on the news and or the website.

          This story is a great example of what we have been talking about in class, how news organizations are full of stories that don't really need to be televised or even put on the website. We have been discussing how news stations have been going on a trend of primarily of crime, accidents, and fluff stories. Focusing too much on fluff stories can cause a lack in prevalence to certain audiences. Overall, this story has no relevance to the majority of the community, and it's not important to the viewers, there are many other stories that are worthy of the time used for the showing of House that people could POSSIBLY win.

Comment on Class Discussion: Consequences of Television

    In class we discussed the consequences of television by using a consequence tree. A consequence tree is a diagram used to show consequences of a central idea. In this case television was the central idea. Since the introduction of television, communities have been impacted in major ways such as the influencing of violence, increase in money spent, and also it is more life like.
   
          Unlike the radio, on television people could physically see the characters/actors, the movement, the emotion, and the situations being acted out. With these aspects, TV became a hot medium or something required the audiences full attention. This ability to physically see the material increased standards on society by setting a bar for women to be beautiful and skinny, for men to be not so modest and romantic towards women, in present day these things still occur in everyday life.
         
           We all know and love shows such as law and order, NCIS, and even the news, all of which show violence all the time. Children watch these shows and get an idea that violence is the answer to any unsolved problem, but that's not the case. Although we see and hear that violence is increasing, that's not the case. Further studies have shown that crime rates are going down from previous years but, shows like law and order and NCIS are persuading people to believe that crime is everywhere.

            Television is increasing money spent due to the well known commercials and advertisements. Companies know that the best way for them to increase sales is to reach a large, specific audience. And what's the best way to do that? Put the product on TV. Stations such as Disney Channel have a younger audience so advertisements will play trying to sell toys, this is causing their sales to go up because they know kids will beg their parents to buy them toys. HGTV will show paint ads for basically the same reason, they know hat the audience will take up on the offers. But advertisements aren't the only ones making money, they are also the ones spending it. Yes that's right, those annoying advertisers have to buy air time from the TV stations in order to produce their ad. In return, television stations are receiving more profit.
     
          To conclude, all of the above examples are explaining the effects and impacts of television, good and bad.  Many of which we don't normally think of when watching TV but are prevalent to each and every one of us.

Response to Maddie Gamertsfelder's Blog

       For the full blog entry:
http://maddieagamertsfelder.blogspot.com/2016/09/one-or-othermaybe-both.html?m=1
   
      As I read Maddie's blog I felt that she really understood the meaning behind hot and cool mediums. She started by explaining what they were and giving examples of both. But, I feel that she could've added a little more clarification in her examples by maybe adding specific everyday actions. Further, I noticed that she was insightful when it came to discussing Mr. Miller's contributions to the comprehension of the lesson.  Overall well done blog entry. I found this helpful to my self because it helped jog my memory about the lesson.

Response to Maddie Currie's Entry

For the full blog entry:
     
http://themadditude.blogspot.com/2016/10/class-discussion-why-do-we-still-go-to.html?m=1

       Maddie wrote a response to the lecture we received in class about why we still go to movie theaters. Although I received the same lecture and already knew the information, I feel that if I were to read this entry, not knowing anything, I would have a good idea. She really proved that she understands the topic and all of the aspects discussed such as why we go to movies for the social aspect.

        I would've like to see a little more detail such as why movie theaters were such a big part of entertainment back in 1945, what happened in previous years to cause a drop in sales, etc..

         To conclude, I feel that Maddie did an excellent job at retaining, comprehending, and re discussing this topic.

Comment on class disscussion: Patterns in the news

         When thinking of local news stations I do not typically think of the types of stories being covered, the time spent on each story or the amount of commercial breaks they take.  Over the course of two weeks or so my class mates and I have followed local news stations tracking every story covered in a thirty minutes time frame, documenting what they are most accurately categorized as.

        As I have watched and documented Wave3 news I have noticed a series of patterns that may or may not have obvious reasons to why they occur.  One of the more obvious patterns I have recognized is the repetition of lengthy weather forecasts. This caught my attention because at my age I am much more interested in crime/accident stories rather than weather. The weather forecasts (based off of documented information) run about four to five minutes long where as crime stories run anywhere from one minute to three minutes depending on the severity.  I found out (from the help of Mr. Miller and a few classmates) that this is because a large portion of the stations audience are elderly. We came to this conclusion because if you pay close attention to the commercials, they are advertising Medicine for heart disease, arthritis, etc., all of which are, more often then not, meant for the older people. The producers know that that group of people will be watching and the news is what they are most interested in.

         Another pattern I noticed is that the blocks shorten as the show goes on. To be more specific, when the show starts the news anchors will present their stories for a lengthy amount of time, probably five to eight minutes. After that block a round of commercials will play but only for a short period of time. As the show continues the anchors start to shorten their presentations to about two to three minutes and the commercial breaks lengthen to about one to two minutes.

           Many other patterns were noticed by my classmates that I myself did not notice until they pointed them out. Mr. Miller as well as my peers did an excellent job at clarifying and explaining each pattern they noticed and why they felt it was a relevant point.  I feel now that these patterns have been brought to my attention, I will be able to notice them more and more in my news documenting. Also, I understand the reasoning behind why news stations do certain things they do.

Comment on topic discussed in class: Broadcasting

       Imagine you're bored sitting at home watching a video on YouTube of a baby laughing, maybe a makeup tutorial, a music video? Now, imagine what your grandparents were doing at your age when they were bored. Playing baseball outside with the neighbor? Drawing with chalk on the side walk? What do you think their parents did when they were bored? Times have changed dramatically when it comes to entertainment.

        In 1906 broadcasting had a rapid growth due to the first radio broadcast. When this occurred it was revolutionary to the community and families because now they could listen to talk shows, plays, music, advice columns and more in the comfort of their own home. 16-years later 100,000 radios had been sold to families across the country. At this time companies realized that by advertising their businesses and products on the radio would cause nationwide publicity and sky rocket their sales. Due to this realization the radio was full of advertisers/advertisements but, thins changed in 1923 when 500,000 radios were sold nationwide and broadcasts were more then advertisements. Talk shows, soap operas and more were introduced to the community and became a big hit. Fast forward to 1927; the invention of the television. This caused dramatic changes to the radio broadcasting business by causing them to lose not only the audience but the talent left as well as the advertisement. Although this caused them to demassify, they continued to thrive up until 1977 when over 97% of Americans had a radio in their home.

         During this discussion I found my self extremely interested in the material and the participation of my classmates. I've always been interested in the topic of broadcast, on the radio to be more specific. When Mr. Miller took that topic and incorporated the use of examples such as songs from the 1900's, videos of controversial statements and scenarios, I found my self understanding the discussion more and more. Music is a staple to my every day life so when I learned about the controversy it had caused in the past it sparked interested in my mind because I am interested in many types of music including some that many find controversial in numerous ways. This lecture has shown me how much times have changed since my parents were my ages, my grandparents were my age, and even when my great grandparents were my age.

News Media Critique: "Miss America 2017: Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields"

     2 days ago on September 12th WHAS published a news story about the Miss America pageant for 2017. The story was written about winner Miss Arkansas Savvy Shields. She won the title with her jazz routine in the talent section of the pageant beating 51 other contestants. Shields blew the judges away with her answer to the question, "What do you see in your future?"  She came quickly with the answer "I would like to return to The University of Arkansas as a senior studying art. I want to hopefully work in a museum and teach at a collegiate level."

     All though it's an impressive win and entertaining story, it not definitely not news worthy. This story goes against numerous yardsticks of journalism including local relevance and news worthiness.  The article violates the local relevance because it was published to a local news website in Louisville but the story its self had nothing to do with Louisville or the people of Louisville. The winner of the pageant was Savvy Shields, more famously known as Moss Arkansas, she has no ties to Louisville, she is not from Louisville nor does she work/ attend school in Louisville.
   
       The story also violated the yardstick that says "make the important interesting." It violates this yardstick because instead of making the important interesting, they did the opposite and made the interesting important by publishing a story about the miss America pageant and winner, when really there was nothing exceptional or amazing enough about it to be made important. During the interview portion of the pageant Shields was asked questions to expand on her views about Americas political climate. Shields answered a question from the audience with the following answer, "Our country was founded on compromise, I really think we're in a state now where both parties seem to be yelling at each other. I hope by the end of the year, we're starting to reward politicians on compromising instead of just defending themselves." Although her answer was logical and impressive, that doesn't make it news worthy when there are other MAJOR problems that need to be discussed on these news stations.

(2/2) Response to a classmates blog entry

        I had the privilege of reading Maggie's blog entry this afternoon. The blog entry I read was about demassification. As I read her blog I noticed that she gave examples of mediums that could or have demassified, but she also gave her opinion on why she thought they would have to. I feel that she did an excellent job of clarifying why she made the statements she did as well as making sure her information was logical and understandable to the audience. If I had no idea what demassification was, I could read her blog and immediately understand what it is.

Maple-leaf-mag.blogspot.com

(1/2) Response to a classmates blog entry

        Today I read Neijla Zukic's blog entry about mass communication. Although I already knew what mass communication was, I feel that if I had no clue what mass communication was, I could've read her blog and gotten a good idea of what it is. She did an excellent job of explaining each step of mass communication and how they differ from one another. I agree with her statement that it was probably the easiest or clearest topic we have discussed, not that it is a simple idea, it just was taught well and was easy to retain.


thelifeofj1.blogspot.com

(4/4) Response to class discussion: Using different methods of journalism to convey information

       When most people think of journalism they think of broadcasting, newspapers, the internet and possibly the radio... at least that is what I used to think. Two times now Mr. Miller has shown my classmates and I that there are multiple methods commonly used to convey information in Journalism.  Mr. Miller had each group pick from a stack of index cards with various mediums of journalism written on them, He proceeded to give all of us a topic in which we were to take and present in the medium we selected. The mediums included iMac, oral presentation, note card presentation, iPad, the whiteboard and a poem.

       After everyone made their presentations Mr. Miller asked us all the question, "Why did I have you all do this?". I found myself and a few of my class mates staring clueless at the floor trying to think of logical reasons why we would do this. Moments later people began raising their hands to answer the question and the answer became clear, Mr. Miller had us do this assignment to show us that journalism can be published in a variety of different ways for a number of reasons.

        One reason that journalist publish their work in different ways is to trap the audiences attention but, it all depends on what the information is about. For example, the medium my group was given was a note card, we were to write down the necessary information in the space provided on the note card. After my group was done presenting, Mr. Miller faced me with the question, "why was your presentation so short?", I responded quickly with, "because it is a note card." My answer was easy but it was correct, with a note card your information should be short and to the point. If a news anchor were to give a long, wordy story many viewers would get bored and most likely stop paying attention. 

       This lesson really opened my eyes because I had no idea that journalism could be written in so many different ways such as a poem or even in a drawing. I feel that by Mr. Miller taking a class or two to show us these possibilities, it has opened our minds to a whole new view of writing. Now, instead of students thinking they could have only written a paper in an essay format, they now have multiple methods to turn to.  Also, in my perspective, writing is a lot more exciting because throughout my educational background I have been stuck in this mind set or "box" if you will, that caused me to think that writing wasn't good enough if it wasn't in essay format. Now when I think of good writing, my mind goes outside of that box and I think of so many more exciting and creative ways to write.  

(3/4) Response to class discussion: History of the Printing press

       The printing press and overall idea of printing began back in 3500 BC with the Mesopotamians and their stamps. Fast forward to the 10 century of the common era and now we have introduced the first moveable type press, invented by Bi Sheng. The moveable type press was the first print technology that let you create individual characters to put to paper. These individual characters were made of ivory or wood and slid into place where they were then pressed to what ever material was chosen. Although this invention was a hit, it still had downfalls. The materials that the characters were made of were fragile and broke easily... This lead to 1450 when Gutenberg invented a printing press with metal letters, his invention sky rocketed and became the  go-to printing method. As time went on this invention was innovated to today's many mediums of typing.
        During the 2 or so lectures that I have received over the evolution of printing I have absorbed countless information that ties into many previously learned aspects of journalism. Mr. Miller has taken a topic of origin and evolution and tied into a whole scenario that fits with the not only binary models and mass communication but also conglomeration, all of which were previously discussed in class. At first, I thought that learning about the history of print would be something I would never need nor would it be something I use. As we continued our discussion I realized that many aspects of everyday journalism came from or were used in the innovation of print.

(2/4) Response to class discussion: Demassification

      Yesterday in class we were given a lecture on demassification which is a medium responding to the loss of staff, audience, and advertisers by resorting to a niche audience. At the beginning of class when I saw the word demassification written on the board I had no idea what it could mean. I learned that demassification takes place when a company resorts to a smaller or niche audience for their production. Before demassification takes place certain things have to occur. First a company starts off trying to reach domination or reach the biggest audience possible. An example of this would be in the 20th century when magazines were extremely popular. The creators of the magazines had one intention and that intention was to create a national source of news/current events. They reached massive audiences but when the Television was introduced the companies lost audiences and advertisers. As this happened the magazine companies demassified to a niche audience. This lecture, in my perspective, was very insightful and really helped to clarify what demassification means and how it occurs.

(1/4) Response to class discussion: Mass Communication

        Recently in journalism our class has been discussing mass communication. Mass communication is a form of communication that reaches a major audience, travels through time and space, has the potential to reach a large audience, and the audience is not physically present to give feedback. Through out the three or so classes that we discussed this, Mr. Miller did a great job at providing the class with many different examples to help clarify any confusion about the topic we might have. Further we went on to discussing different forms of mass communication such as the Internet. The Internet is a form of mass communication because the audience or people receiving the information is not present. Also, the Internet is visual through smart phones, computers, tablets, and more which means that the information has to be moved through space to get to each device. I noticed during the lectures that at the beginning of class all of my classmates were engaged and participating, but as class continued I found myself as well as other classmates starting to twiddle their thumbs and some even began falling asleep.
         Although Mr. Miller is very insightful and well spoken during his lectures they seem to be unexciting. I'm aware that we as teenagers need to be focused and serious at times when we are learning something new, but when we are constantly bored in class we will not retain any information discussed. But as an overall statement I find that my knowledge about mass communication has grown.