Where to Invade Next

The documentary Where to Invade Next with, Michael Moore addresses some interesting policies throughout European country. Michael Moore sets out to Europe to learn more about different countries and the way they deal with their own societies. These countries has certain laws and expectations put it place, that are successful, yet seem so foreign to the American society. The United States is viewed as the greatest country in the world, however we have many problems in our society that Europe has seen to solve.

One policy that was discussed was regarding Finland's school system, which is ranked at the top of education systems in the world. In years past, Finland's school system was broken and needed change, one of the changes they made was getting rid of homework. Educators believe that students need to spend time outside of school being children, spending time with friends, and or simply being outside school.

I chose to look deeper into this policy in the U.S because I am an education minor and this is a topic that has been discussed in my previous classes. Doing research, I have found that many school systems in the U.S have chose to get rid of homework because studies have shown that homework is not beneficial. Michael Moore interviewed high school aged kids, where they explained that the most homework they will ever get will likely take them 10 to 20 minutes, at most. One of the students interviewed spent a year in an American school system, where he addressed the major differences. One point he made was to get rid of multiple choice questions, the student thought it was absurd that this is a form of testing we have and they explained, "Either you know it or you don't". Testing in Finland is more straight forward, a question is asked and the student has to answer it to the best of their ability.

There are many policies that were confronted in the European countries, that America could use to change our country. However, I think many Americans are stubborn and do things for themselves rather than looking at the big picture.

Toyama 5-7

Reading Greek Heresey, it was easy to identify the common the arguments Toyama was making. These chapters focused on social change with using media. However, although media is is thought to be this great asset to the twenty first century, it cannot change a community or a country if they do not have the right tools. Toyama uses many different examples to support his argument, where he talks about teachers and attendance. The instructors took a photo of themselves of every day when they arrived to school, which increased attendance rate, however it didn't help the over all education of the students.

Reading these two chapters reminded me much of the One Laptop Per Child project. An organization that was created where children in third world countries received laptops to help better their education, and society. However, when taking a closer look at this project the idea of handing out laptops to children where there families don't have stable incomes, not sure when and if they are getting their next meal seems wasteful. As Toyama mentioned, "To better understand our technology fixation, it's important to recognize its larger historical and social context" (76)

Toyama uses various of examples throughout these chapters exemplifying why it is important for people to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Living in a developed country it is easy to donate clothes, or money or try to raise awareness, but in the grand scheme of things, you are really not doing much.

Toyama

This reading by, Kentaro Toyama brought up some really interesting points about the history of technology and our future. Being an education minor, my major and minor overlap in ways I never thought possible, however, reading this connected to me the education department. A class I am taking right now currently talks about technology in classrooms and the benefits and disadvantages. Toyama opens up with the quote, "Talent is universal; opportunity is not", the quote really stuck out to me because of all the different concepts and theories I am learning about in my other classes right now. One of Toyama's arguments is using technology to help benefit education, in some ways this is true, however, in other ways this is wrong. There are so many students in today's world living in different countries they are originally from, trying to learn a specific language while learning how to use technology at the same time. I think in many ways the world has become so reliant on technology and many people believe it it will fix our problems.

Throughout the reading Toyama continues to talk about and break down, "Talent is universal; opportunity is not". Giving comparisons of different two people in different areas of the world and the privileges they have. This opportunity she continually talks about is the internet, not everyone in the world has access to google. However, I believe there is more to opportunity than the internet, some people may be able to learn so much about the world if they put down their technologies for a moment, experience things the internet can't provide.

Black Mirrors: 15 Million Merits

            In this episode of Black Mirrors it revolves a different type of world, similar to all of the other episodes. However, this episode is much more relatable than the ones we have watched in the past, due to it being about advertisements and how they are unavoidable in todays world. The show revolves a young man, Bing, he lives by himself in a small room surrounding by four walls of video screening, all of the characters live in rooms just like Bing.  We watch Bing begin his morning routine, getting woken up by a cartoon rooster, shutting it off by waving his hands, almost as if it were motion censored. We watch Bing enter a room full of spin bikes with televisions in front of each spin bike, here we see more characters. Each character in the show has their own cartoon-like version, similar to sims in a way. In this society the citizens have to bike to earn "merits" and daily activities cost them merits.  Once the day has ended we see Bing playing videos games and being interrupted by an advertisement, he choses to end it, however, it costs him some merits to ignore them. Throughout Bing's time in his bedroom advertisements constantly pop up and at times he chooses to watch for a little bit and the ignore them. One regular advertisement is for the reality show, "Hot Shot" similar to America's Got Talent, where contestants show their talent in hopes of moving on to the next round.
          Through out the episode we watch Bing, paying close attention to women, Abby someone he seems to be interested in. Bing over hears Abby's voice in the bathroom one day and insists she tries out on the Hot Shot show. Bing later then buys her an entry ticket, nearly emptying out all of his merits. Once Abby gets to the performing part of the show, the judges are more quick to comment on her feminine looks, than her actual talent. The judges insist that Abby begins working with them within a pornography company, than going back to biking every day. After being persuaded, she ultimately chooses to pornography than returning to the bike. Bing returns home to his biking routine and still bombarded with advertisements and programs that they think he would like, including a video of Abby and her new job. This upsets Bing and he chooses to get a ticket on Hot Shot to preach to the audience how wrong it is what they're doing. Ultimately, the judges are intrigued by his passion, anger and his ways of attracting larger audiences, they ask him to make his own show, where he will speak twice a week and will no longer have to return to the bikes.
         Watching Bing so easily agree with the judges was not surprising, but it was interesting to see how quickly he chose to leave when he was offered the chance. Bing was so fed up with his life style of biking and constant advertisements that he would do whatever to escape, just like Abby. This episode was intriguing because in todays world there are advertisements everywhere, and just like how Bing can give up merits to ignore the ad's, we can pay to ignore ad's. Many music apps, tv apps, and radio app allow you to pay a few once a month to no longer hear or see advertisements. Advertisements have such a big impact on us humans in today's society, many people are unaware the power these marketing agencies hold.

History of Advertising Presentation

The presentation in class last week discussed the history of advertising and where we are today as a society. Lizza Vedder began talking about advertisements when they first became about and how different they are today. For example advertisements in the news papers would say simple things like, "Do you like coffee? We have it here" today, it is much different. For example, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks we all know they sell coffee, in fact most of us know what they sell and what we can get, however, its the way they grab their consumers attention and how they continue to sell their product in todays world.
No matter what we do or where we go advertisements are everywhere. You hear them on the radio, watching tv, watching a youtube video, and even on SnapChat today, when a specific company or organization is coming out with something new or attempting to promote it, you can find it on SnapChat. As learned during our presentation advertisers are always one step ahead of us and are manipulative in ways we can't imagine. However, despite advertisers become more and more involved in our lives, it has become more challenging for them to grab consumers attention, it takes a type of skill. For example, and ad on Youtube, the radio, Spotify, T.V, etc. they have about 5 seconds to grab the consumers attention before it is either skipped, or the station is changed. Despite this being a difficult challenge, Liza Vedder educated us on the fact that advertisements are around us everywhere, and at all times.

Transmedia post 2

      This section of Transmedia  discusses the many uses of transmedia, when to use it, who uses it, and why. "There are several compelling reasons to go transmedia, and these primarily fall into two basic camps: the business case and your creative vision". She explains that the business part of transmedia is simple to understand and compares it to very successful novels that were turned into movies or a television series. Using examples such as, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and so on. Fans of these phenomenon's get so wrapped up in these stories that they will do anything they can to continue to be apart of these lives. With halloween coming up I thought about the many different costumes that surround the different transmedia because of their success, people enjoy these different world so much they dress and act like it.
      Although often times when transmedia come out with a sequel to a specific movie or book audiences often question why they aren't coming up with different stories or better ideas. However, the author discusses that there are sequels to movies because it what the audience does want. Discussing more on the business side, it is greatly used for marketing and a very successful ways. As mentioned in the chapter, Dos Equis is a perfect example because of the story it tells, and everything about "the most interesting man in the world", prior to reading this chapter I never thought of this as a transmedia story telling, however it truly is. He shares a story of the beer and I can count numerous times where I have either seen a motion picture of him or a still picture, directly advertisement their beer through transmedia story telling.
      After reading upon Dos Equis I thought deeper into other companies who do their marketing similarly. For example the Progressive commercials with Flo, there are several different commercials regarding Progressive.com but each one discusses different topics, and shares a different story. I never thought to think of companies like this to be considered transmedia story telling, because when I first hear that I assume books and movies. Going back to my point of these transmedia becoming part of lives, I have seen a Flo from progressive halloween costume.

Transmedia

I found this reading to be very interesting because the author gave many great different examples that helped better understand what transmedia is. In the opening paragraphs she discusses that there are multiple definitions to transmedia, partly due to where you are physically. She brings up the West coast and East coast. West coast is very Hollywood, movies are created in Hollywood, video games and so on. Where as East coast creates many independent films, more web-centric, and theater. This is an interesting notion to think about, when I first read this paragraph I was taken back because I truly had never thought of transmedia this way, let alone fully understand what transmedia is. It is interesting to think about, because big cities such as New York are known for artistic abilities, and Broadway shows, not so much big time movies. These are still considered transmedia, but in different ways. The author explains, “Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story”. This relates directly back to the East coast versus West coast, each are using transmedia story telling, but in their own way.

            When thinking about the different transmedia that are used in different parts of the country, I thought directly about Disney, specifically their Pixar movies. Disney is well known and very creditable for all of their Pixar movies, they are able to share the stories in so many ways. Beginning with movies, and even having their own rides at amusement parks, as well as watching a show on Broadway, such as the lion king. Not only are these stories told through so many mediums they are shared and promoted through many ways as well. Such as dolls, stuffed animals, as well as video games. When a story is successful through a specific medium, it gets recreated through other mediums, to make available for their audiences.

Vimeo

Prior to this project I was familiar with Vimeo, in the sense that is more mature videos, and professional videos. However, looking around the site I am getting a sense of much more than simple professional videos. I think my favorite part of Vimeo is the categories, although it is not necessarily intended for funny "viral videos" however, they do have a comedy section, which has been my favorite. The videos are funny and also include a professional side to it.
 Another major factor that I liked about vimeo more than youtube is their advertisements, they don't have any. Not having advertisements I think makes their site more creditable, and has its users believe they are important and that vimeo cares about its users and what they want.

Black Mirrors 2

The Netflix series Black Mirrors has a different story line, characters for each episode, making them all different, however, it does seem to be that in each episode there is a problem or issue and those problems seem to come from an issue around technology. In this specific episode people have a something in their head that allows them to record everything they see and hear, so the human brain doesn’t have to remember it themselves. The characters are able to replay any memory from any point of their life with a click of button, they can also project it on a screen for others to experience. The “grain” is a part of their everyday life it is even used for airport security, and those who do not have one are considered outsiders, and are often questioned why they wouldn’t have it.

            Having this grain inside of you is very frightening to me because it records every little detail of your life. Snapchat is one form of social media that seems similar to the grain because we are able to record and take photos of exactly what we’re doing in a specific moment, and replay it until it eventually disappears. Because with Snapchat we are able to record and talk to others, it causes many issues with relationships, and many might blame social media for destroying relationships. The episode involves, Liam the main character who suspects his wife might be cheating on him, after the two attend a dinner party. Liam is able to go back time and time again to re watch everything that happened and hear the conversations his wife had with other men. Because of the grain and the “redo” Liam is able to discover that his wife in fact had been lying and was still interested in her ex boyfriend. There was also a situation where the ex boyfriend had played previous memories for the people at the dinner party to watch while eating their meal. Because Liam was watching his memories he was able to go back into his own memories and re watch the videos, which is where he saw his wife cheating. Throughout the entire episode it is clear that his marriage is falling apart and he gets so obsessed with watching his memories and finding out every detail. In the end Liam is left alone and upset which resulted in him removing the grain himself from his head.

            This concept of the grain is so interesting to me because I was thinking about the society we live in today and what the world would look like if everyone had one. The only positive I can see with this technology would be situations like airport security or trying to track down a criminal, being able to watch their memories and see what they have been up to lately. However, I was thinking how different the world would be, and the things we would be able to see. People would have movies stored, tv shows, etc. I was also thinking how this would work with kids/young adults who are in school. For example taking a test, we would have the ability to back to our memories and re read something, it almost seems like education would not be viewed the way it is viewed today because people can just store all their memories and information in the grain.

The Victorian Internet

I found this reading particularly interesting because prior to this, I didn’t have much knowledge of telegraph. I thought it was fascinating how the author began the chapter by explaining the story of a couple who was able to get married through the telegraph. Once reading about the marriage and how the husband was sent away, I thought about something like that happening in our time today. For example, a couple getting married through FaceTime would be equivalent to that day in the age, the telegraph. I’m not sure if a couple has ever gotten married through FaceTime, but I believe if a story liked this surfaced around social media, it would be very frowned upon, and people may often make the assumption that technology is ruining our lives, or taking over our lives. However, this couple getting married through a telegraph really showed people how amazing this piece of technology truly is, and what it can do for us.

            It is surprising to me that when this was created it changed the way people communicated and accessed the news. However, if something like this was created in our day in age it would be extremely different response. Although the telegraph was designed to make communicating easier, it still took some time to send and receive messages. I was also surprised to read about the people who use the telegraph. The author mentions that users of the telegraph were part of a closed exclusive community, today it seems everyone has a smart phone or another form of technology that makes communicating that much easier.