My Public Project

Public Project Proposal

The argument of this project is to show that with the advances in technology continuing to grow the classic mediums for news (newspapers, magazines, and Standard cable broadcastings) will soon be obsolete. In our hectic lives we find very little time to sit down and read the newspaper or sit down to watch the T.V.  only to find that the news will not be on for another few hours. Advances in technology allow for the individual to have access to news, weather, and other community activities in the palm of their hand. Quite literally today’s cell phones have mobile web capabilities that allow for the access of news sites. Information can be gathered in a handful of seconds compared to having to watch the T.V. and all the advertisements and commercials blocking the actual news. This project is intended for the college age to early thirties aged person. One of is still in touch with the technology of today and not asking their kids how to work it.

For my artifacts I intended to do my own version of the popular Youtube news show The Philip Defranco Show. This is the show I used for my inspiration on this particular project.  I will research my own news stories and Report them in a video that I will record myself on my laptop.  This is what Philip Defranco does for his show so what better way to show how inspiration than to do my own. Due to the fact that I do not have video-editing software I will do what Phil does occasionally which is to just do one without editing. He will doe these every so often per viewer request.   In addition to that video I plan on creating a power point presentation on how the advances in technology have increased in the last half century.

I really don’t have many questions about this project at this time.  The two artifacts that I have chosen to do should be pretty achievable and work well to prove a point.  This has been an interesting project and I am glad that I got to do something completely different than what I was used to in High School.

 

Social Network Review

A few weeks ago I, along with others in this class went and saw the movie Social Network. This movie depicts the back story and the creation of the unparalleled social networking site Facebook.  In this movie the main character portrays the the real person of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of facebook , as a self centered, narcissistic, computer science nerd with way to much free time on his hands.  Through the course of the movie he, Zuckerberg, and his best friend, Eduardo Saverin, go back and forth on how to run and expand the website. Zuckerberg originally got the idea for facebook form a set of twins named the Winklevoss, fellow students at Harvard University.  One of the biggest moments in the rise of facebook was the joining of Napster creator, Shawn Fanning,  to the project group. Shawn helped Mark meet the right people and be in the right places at the right time. Fanning is portrayed as a jet setting, over confident, playboy  who has all the answers. He leeds the facebook team to places Zuckerberg never even dreamed. But this came at a dire cost. Towards the end of the movie conflict arises between Zuckerberg  and Saverin. Zuckerberg, the President and CEO of the company basically took Saverin’s stockholdings down to nothing without his consent. Saverine, the CFO, was taken down to i believe  .03% of the company’s stock. When this happened, Saverine immediately took Zuckerberg to court with a lawsuit. The two once best friends were now at each others throats over the company they had started. But this was Zuckerberg’s plan the entire time. Zuckerberg wanted revenge on Saverine because he was accepted into one of few selective and highly private Final Clubs of Harvard University. With this came one of the greatest phenomena of our generation. As one of the most visited websites today, it is hard to find someone who does not have a facebook profile.

Chill out America

Everyone has heard the song “All the Single Ladies” by Beyonce and they know that it is a catchy tune. But when a group of seven year old girls performs a dance routine to it, the video becomes world famous. This video as posted in the link has gotten a lot of heat from many people in America due to the clothing the that the girls wear. Or as some would say the lack of clothes. The main outrage that most people see with this is that the girls are exposing them selves in a way that is not appropriate for their age. Granted they are seven years old. And before I get put on trial let me say that I would not want my daughter wearing those clothes at seven. But it is not my choice to as to how they wear clothes. America needs to chill out and take these kinds of things with a grain of salt. We need to look past the rage, and accept that it was an innocent dance competition.  We can teach our own children to have different standards  than the parents in the video did. I am a person the believes highly in personal freedom and the ability to believe what one wishes so I am not that upset with this. I think we have a lot more important things to worry about than a little girls dance competition. I know I will probably get a lot of heat for this but that is what freedom of speech is. Just like they have the freedom of expression to dance a perform they way they choose. 

Injuries in the NFL

In the recent weeks there has been a rise in helmet to helmet collisions. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has taken some giant steps to try and reduce these collisions. Most Recently he fined Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Rodney Harrison 75,000 dollars for two such incidents in a game last week against the Cleveland browns. The contact from from helmet to helmet hits, in many cases, cause concussions. In recent months scientists have made new discoveries in how concussions effect the brain days, months, and even years down the road. After multiple concussions, the brain starts to deteriorate at a more rapid rate causing brain damage and mental instability. Even with out having  concussions one maybe susceptible to these symptoms. Just a few weeks ago I was watching ESPN and a story with just this point was addressed. One college defensive end was found dead in his apartment by a team mate. Upon autopsy the examiner found that the players brain had massive amounts of trauma to it, despite never having had a concussion. The brain damage along with the stress of school lead this player to a point of high mental instability.

Now with the evolution that this sport has had in players’ strength, speed, and size colleges and pros alike are taking more and more precautions  to try and prevent these hits. My question to all who read this is how do you think the league should deal with preventing these hits. Please comment and speak your mind and maybe we will beable to find the solution…….yeah maybe not but hey it is a start.

The perception of males in the media

While watching T.V. today I came across a commercial that I have seen maybe one hundred times. And every time I see it i ask myself the same question; why is the guy in this commercial such an idiot. Males in our society today are portrayed as chauvinist individuals that care about women, beer, football, and the size of the flatscreen in their living room. As i thought about this concept further, I realized that males are seen like this not only in commercials but in movies as well. I continue to think, why do we let people such as the Jersey Shore  “tools” continue to embarrass the male gender. In the 1950’s the male was the dominant figure in the American household. The father was strict, hard-working, and honorable. He treated people with respect and led a life that he thought would provide the best for his family.

So I ask this question now. Why do we as a society encourage the behavior with advertisements, reality shows, and movie?. Why do we continuously drive people into stereotypes that are childish and more often than not false?I for one am dumbfounded at how we as a society continue to idolize these morons. If anyone can tell me what is so appealing about these shows please inform me, because at this rate it will take a super computer another thirty years to crack this code.

This is just one of my thoughts from my dorm this wonderful sunday. More to come in the future.

Reality tv

Turn on any major television network today and you will see an advertisement for one of many different reality tv shows. This makes me wonder; why on earth do we as a society find these shows so addicting? “Big Brother”  has had over ten seasons. Survivor has had close to twenty seasons, and the bachelor/bachelorette have many seasons as well. What makes these shows so appealing? Is it the fact that most of our lives are boring, dull, and uneventful? Or, is the need to feel emotions that aren not yours, but that of others. Another thing to consider is that most of these shows aren’t true reality. Most of some sort of agenda or script to help get the best ratings for the network. The shows claim to be reality but what they don’t tell the audience is that the producers don’t show everything that happens. A problem may be instigated by one person in reality, but is it is better for ratings a different side will be shown. As much as it pains me to say it, i do find some of these shows quite entertaining. I am a big survivor fan and the occasional episode of Jersey Shore. To see into the lives that these people lead sometimes makes you feel more pity than anything else. To think that these people actually act the way they do makes me feel embarrassed for them more than anything. So the question i ask to the ones who read this post is this, why do you watch reality tv and what do you think about the people on it?

PR free writing

As a writer I am not very confident in my ability to edit and revise my own papers. Though this is a very tedious assignment that does not seem all that important it really helps me see my own mistakes as a writer. I find it very helpful to see others opinions on how you write and how you can improve on them. with this outside knowledge I am able to maybe reach a wider audience and make my writing easier to understand as well as more credible to read. On the flip side I am not sure that I am the best peer reviewer. English and grammar rules as a whole have never been a strong area of mine so I don’t know if I was able to help others as much as someone else may have.

A Whole New World

Some of you might think of the song from the Disney Movie Aladdin when you read this title. But  for me this title has more significance than a simple children’s movie. This weekend I went to West Virginia for my oldest brother’s Bachelor party. The experience that I had in observing the environment alone was worth the four hour trip. Being that I am from a suburban farm community with extremely flat land, going into mountain culture was the first interesting sight for me. But probably the most interesting thing about being in West Virginia was the people. The way of life that these people lead is just so different from what I am used to. The styles of food, clothing, cars and speech are just on a completely different playing field  from what I was raised on.

The point I want to discuss with trip is that the communication in these mountain communities. Most of us have been raised in a more developed and and educated region than where I was at. How do we use the media we have today to try and help develop this very poor state. In a country so technologically advanced as this we should be able to give these people the same opportunity to succeed.  These people are some of the nicest you will ever meet and they work extremely hard. I am not saying to feel sorry for them, but think of what you would want people to do if you were in the same situation as them.

trailer for the Movie Catfish

Catfish