Week 11: Class Highlights

Wallmart is the USA’s biggest retailer of magazines. - This somewhat surprised me, I thought that borders or some kind of grocery store would be a top magazine retailer.  Although I guess it makes sense, but what does that say about our country? Not a lot of people actually buy magazines? Or a lot of people buy magazines and those that do also shop at Wallmart? Or does it mean all of the USA shops at Wallmart for magazines? So many questions, haha.

Government regulations demand that adds do not lie - I know it is illegal for false advertisement, but I feel like adds lie to us all the time.  Where and when are these regulations enforced?

There are ethics in the media - Who knew that people in the media actually have ethics to follow? Is one of them not to always be ethical? Just kidding..

Week 10: Media Ethics/Media Law

A London newspaper The Daily News published an article about actress Kate Winslet in which they asked readers if she should win an Oscar for “most irritating actress,” and claimed that she lied about her workout routine.  After the article was published the actress filed legal papers and has recently been awarded $40,000 in libel damages.  She told the courts that the allegations hurt her career and made her sound like a hypocrite.

I see tabloids in the USA criticizing celebrities all the time, I guess laws are a lot less free in England.

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebritynews/news/kate-winslet-2009311

Week 9: Propaganda in Advertising/PR

This is a poster made by someone on the internet dipicting WWIII propaganda.

Some techniques used:

Appeal to fear - be careful what you tweet, it might cost lives.

Half-Truth - of course if you tweet some information about war it can be harmful. But, if you tweet will you really sink a whole fleet?

Week 8: Electronic News

Before I begin my blog and analyzing a 30 min. news segment, I just want to make it clear that the news broadcast that I watched was a college based segment.  The college was Ohlone College located in Fremont, CA and is run by the student body.  I thought instead of using a commercial news station I would use a more community based one so that I could analyze what other students thought was important as news, and what kind of advertisers sponsor them.

Here is how the 30 minute segment went:

————————————————————— News:

UC Berkeley Strike

Bay Bridge Wire Breaking

SF Concert Shooting

Two Students Shoot Their Class Mate

Ohlone Canned Food Drive

Ohlone STD Testing

————————————————————— Commercials:

American Veterinarian Association

American Red Cross

EPA Commercial

VISTA

Play Gold America

————————————————————— End Commercials. 4 min

Fremont School For The Def Fundraiser

Silicon Valley De Bug - Bringing Together Ethnic Communities

————————————————————— Entertainment News:

People Magazine Sexiest Man Alive

Nicholas Cage Broke

Twilight Premiere

————————————————————— End Entertainment News.

————————————————————— Commercials:

Be Humane.org

E-File.com

—————————————————————Commercials End. 2 min

————————————————————— Weather

————————————————————— Sports

————————————————————— Commercials:

Be Humane.org

Foryourmarriage.org

FDIC

Boosterseat.gov

————————————————————— End Commercial. 4 min

Black Friday

Price Changer

Alarm Clock: tells a person when they have had enough REM sleep

Lemans Racing in Fremont

————————————————————— End News.

There was 20 minutes of actual news, and 10 minutes of commercials and the commercials were main organizations.  The reason being is probably because this is a college news station and funding most likely comes from non profit places.  While watching the news segment the students at times would over emphasize and dramatize a topic with their tone of voice, hand gestures and facial expressions which in turn created a mood for how I, as a viewer, perceived the story.  The lead story was the UC Berkeley strikes and I think that may be because Ohlone college is a community college and students plan on transferring out into UCs, hence the news reporters felt that it was a topic of interest.

Week 7: Internet

1. I looked up “social networking websites” on wikipedia and there were 12,403 results

2. I have heard of Myspace, Livejournal, and Facebook

3. Friendster

4. Daily Strength: is a social networking website founded in 2006 where fellow users offer emotional support to one another.  Members are anonymous and cover topics such as divorce, depression, cancers, and parenting.

5. I tend to use social networking to stay in touch with friends or to listen to music, which is why I still have a myspace.  I use Myspace, Facebook, Last FM, and Imeem.  I can’t really recall a time when social networking got me in trouble but a time when it has helped me out I guess would be when my phone wasn’t working and I needed to get a hold of another friend so I used a social networking website to contact them.

Week 4: Magazines

Magazine Title: New Aesthetic

This magazine will focus on unheard, up and coming, music artists who have promising potential to make an impact with their music.  However, unlike most music magazines the artists will be the ones creating the content.  The music artists will be the ones suggesting their own favorites to be featured in future magazines and the magazine will be kind of used as a music network.  Ever artist featured will be unsigned or not signed to major music label.

The magazine will aim towards readers who are not into Billboard Top 40 and those who have “good” taste in music.  The age group will range from 19 – 27.  Hopefully music industry heads will be avid listeners, as this magazine will hopefully be used as a pioneer to help new artists.

Competition will be XLR8, FILTER, Under the Radar, Amplifier, and Prefix

Advertisers: Coca Cola, Clothing Adds, Fender, Converse, and any independent companies are more than welcome.

Five articles to be considered for the first issue might be; the mission of the magazine, maybe an article featuring an artist, an article about the future of music and the direction mainstream music is going and how to decide the music route to follow, advice for bands trying to make it, an article about how music is a lifestyle not a trend, and maybe an article about some underground music venues.

I’d want the cover to feature a band that has a promising future ahead of them and for the image to very catchy.  The image needs to be catchy and flashy so that people will stop and look at it because if it is a band that no one really knows then most people might not stop and look at it.  But, once people pick up the magazine they will most likely become familiar with the magazine and become frequent readers.

Week 3: Books

In all honesty I have sat here trying to figure out which three books have influenced my life, and I now have a headache.  I can not even think of a book that I last read and was really interested in.  I would say that I am a required reader when it comes to book.  Reading a book has never been something that I enjoyed doing.

So, with that in mind I do not think it is possibly to write a list of three books that have influenced me.  However, I think it is more realistic of me to write a list of three books that I actually found interesting.

1. A Child Called It:  I remember reading this book at my cousins house and I was able to finish it within a few hours.  I began reading it only because I was that bored and thought I would take a shot at trying to find some entertainment in reading.  As I began to read it I was shocked and horrified of the instances that the author wrote about between him and his mother.  I never thought someone, let alone his own mother, could treat a person so wretchedly.  Due, to my amazement with his story I gained interest to continue to read so that I could find out how he was able to get out of such a depressing situation.

2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower:  During highschool we use to have silent sustained reading for 30 minutes so I was plagued with finding a book to read.  I was told by a friend that I should try reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower because they thought I might like it.  So I figured I would give the book a shot since I had to read a book anyhow.  Needless to say I read the book and found it interesting.  I thought it was written in a way that made it bareable for me to read.

3. Stinky Cheese Man: I enjoyed this book growing up.  I liked how it used satire to bring to life a not very conventional fair tale.  I also was a fan of the illustrations, and the colors that were used - dark and gloomy.