Mr. Barry taught us about graphic design and design patterns that are good for designing our logo’s for capstones.

We used the program Gimp2 in order to get a feeling for a design.  It seemed like a fairly simple program for designing logos and other things.  One thing that was interesting was that we received a CD for getting and useing the programs on our own computers.

This relates to media because the logo is very important.  It is a symbol for something and it represents something greater than its literal or physical appearance.  First impressions are very important and a good logo is a good way to start off the viewer with a positive impression.

My response to the articles we read about community

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1. Division of labor is like an assembly line where many people work together in order to create a product.  But, individually they could not make the product because each person can only perform a certain part of the process and they rely on others to finish the product.  Division of labor could happen also while making bowling pins, where one person glues the wood together, another sands the pin into the bowling pin shape, and then another person applies the glossy plastic finish onto the pin.

Oskar Text 2
2. the result of such a process
3. Estrangement and alienation mean inhuman and impersonal.  These happen when the product is more important than the worker and that any one person is not important.  The conditions that cause this are bad in the sense that they dehumanize the workers and enforce the message that the individual is not important.

Oskar Text 3
4. Social behavior is defined as being an individual and thinking and behaving in an independent manner.  This is good for humans because this promotes socialness between humans to encourage more thought.  However this is bad because the need to interact with other humans may eventually outweigh the primary concern, being an individual.

Oskar Text 4
5. Estrangement starts when peoples needs are reduced and people are given the bare minimum.  This leads to everything that is not strictly necessary becoming a luxury and the human becoming nothing more than someone who only looks forward to luxuries and does not enjoy the present.  He saves and conserves for the “ideal” moment when everything will fall into place and life will be good, however this point will not be achieved and the person will just be unhappy.

Oskar Text 5
6. New society is good.

An assembly about the perils of miscommunnication showed me the error in my ways, when I angrily text I will now realize that what I’m trying to say may be interpreted differently.

Seeing the world in a whoole new perspective, I now realize my misconstrued ways in that i am human and I err.  What struck me was how easy it is to overanalyze simople things.  One thing that was very interesting was that they demonstartated their own point in the assemby, projecting the image of misscomuications to our social environment.

The acting enssamble gave a story about a situation betwixed a mean mother and a child.  The mother had a daughter who had been rejected by this other girl.  The mother then was mean and made this other girl commint suicide.  However, many people did not know this story and they were confused because they thought that the mother was the mother of the girl who had killed herself.  As you can see, this was very cofusing and misscomunicated to many poeple weaht actually happened.

I think that it is very important in this world that people not write confusingly because understanding what other people what to say is the most important thing in this world to everyione, as missunderstanding is very bad and not good.

Starbucks is a wonderous place of deliscious coffee and food and laptops and talking and happiness and comfy chairs.  We should be pompous snobs and see reactions.  And use phones.  With texting.

Online privacy is a serious matter and how much information the we divulge to online “friends” is one of personal taste.  Mr. White talked to us about online privacy and some inherent problems with online social networking sites.

Oftentimes people online want to be very protective and sheltered of their online identity.  However, we discussed that the inherent flaw with the internet and online identities is that it is almost impossible to do this.  The very nature of the internet causes information to be very widely spread and therefore it is impossible to contain ones life and online presence.

We went over some examples like of people who had posted pictures of themselves on vacation during a break from work.  However the company deemed that this paid break for “depression” was not valid because she was seen on a beach relaxing.  This person lost their paid break because of some pictures posted on a social networking site. By posting her personal life on the computer she jeopardized her career.

I believe that the reason people take this risky plunge into social networking, despite knowing its dangers and inherent flaws, mainly because the human is a social creature, and thrives on others.  When people feel like the belong to something they are happier and everyone likes being happy.

Mr. Feldmeth, longtime teacher and ethical role model, came to teach us a lesson about the value of integrity and ethics in the media.  We saw some very graphic pictures that I will not show here or ever talk about here because i feel that doing so will do the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.

This is an example of ethics in media and how I feel about how media should show images.  However, I feel that the most important thing for the media to do is show the truth.  The truth is the most important and that is one of the prime responsibilities of the media because the media is now the main form of communication.  Being the largest medium for communication it is important that the media inform the public about important events, even if they are disturbing or gruesome.

Mr. Donnell came in earlier this week and talked to us about the effects of cell phones and how they have impacted communications in the modern world.  he recounted a story about when cell phones were not common and when airport pickups were very difficult ordeals that were confusing because of poor communication.

I think one of the most interesting things was that he also had us send out a text message survey about preference of using the cell phone to either text or make phone calls for communication.  I think one of the most common responses was that if it was important a call would be made, otherwise text was the preferred choice.  I kind of agree with this, however I think if it would take a long time a phone call be made otherwise texting can be used.

What was interesting was the generational gap that seemed to appear.  The older generation, like Mr. Donnell’s parents generation said that they prefer phone calls and never text.  This may be because for the writing forms of communication emails may be preferred.

I feel like texting will soon overtake phone calls for the sole reason that if the other person does not pick up, the information can still be sent and it requires less effort.  What is problematic is that this may stunt the verbal development for communication between young adults and this could leads to the end of the world… of verbal communication.

Mr. Goodman came in and spoke with us about society and alienation of the working class.  We had a reading about alienation and it was very interesting.  We talked about these readings and saw that alienation occurs when the human aspect of work is lost and work is more focused on the end result, not the actual work put into it.

To prove his point (and to tie it into media physiology) we watched some clips from the film WALL-E.  These demonstrated very well the points that he was trying to make.  I think it was very interesting because I had seen WALL-E prior to that, but had never thought of it in that way.  It demonstrated alienation very well with the humans being shown as very superficial and impersonal, so much so that it took a physical manifestation, that being everyone was very blubby.

This relates to media we have been studying because the movie shows the effect that excessive media has on the people in the movie.  They bought into one big company who basically ruled them, and as a result lost all sense of independence and the human aspect of life.  It shows how media, when taken to extremes, can have a very negative and powerful effect on people and culture.

The American public loves to have the TV on for dinner, and in doing so the TV, “may be part of our mealtimes,” and its, “almost like having the new anchor as a regular dinner guest.  We invite them into our homes through the our choice to turn on the TV to a particular channel” (190). Harris thinks that America develops a connection with news anchors because they are seen so often and in such a personal place.  But, is this a good connection or bad?

I think that for the majority of people this is a good connection.  It is so because the news anchor is a reliable person that everyday will talk about important world events for a span of 30 or 60 minutes.  This could be seen as a way to relax and unwind after a long day.  However, I think that seeing these news anchors would be a bad experience.

It would be bad because most news is very grim and tells of bad things happening in the world.  Therefore, the news anchor would constantly be seen as a bringer of bad news.  Adding to thing, the news would therefore not be relaxing because it would actually cause more stress knowing about the bad events that had occurred that day.

In America,”a bald character, when he does appear at all, is usually an object of at least subtle ridicule (e.g., the stupid husband who needs his wife to find him the right laxative), or at best a character like the eccentric guy who doesn’t believe oatmeal really could have fiber” (Harris 73).

While this may be the opinion of author Richard Harris, I believe that the opposite hold true.  In many movies the protagonist is bald or has very little hair, and often these are in action movies where the main character does very intense things having to do with explosions and fighting.  If this is so, why do some people connect bald characters with comic relief while others as big action stars?

Perhaps personal experience relates to whether or not a person will relate bald characters to comical or action-y, that being family members being bald.  Also, the kinds of shows every person views affects their interpretation of bald characters.

However, I think an important to figure out why the media has recently been using bald or lightly haired people like Bruce Willis or Jason Statham in action movies like The Expendables.  I think that they want to counteract the previous image of the comical and blundering bald man and show the audience that even bald people can succeed and survive explosions and gunfights.

Painting a sunflower was the most liberating experience I’ve had in my life.  Led by visionary artist Arnor Bieltvedt, we learned about design elements as well as the great mysteries that swirled in the brilliant heads of legendary painters like Van Gogh. What elements did they use that now demand the astronomical price tags on their paintings?

He told about the basic design elements of background and what the eye is attracted to.  This was interesting depending on the current society it may vary what first draws the eye. Their paintings clearly are affected by the audience and change in accordance to the modern media.

Also, we learned how the frame of the painting affects how something is drawn.  We painted sunflowers multiple times in different shapes, one even being a beautiful leaping unicorn galloping over a majestic rainbow to the Land of Happiness.  As the frame changed the pictures changed dramatically in order to capture the primordial beauty of the sunflower in the best way comprehensible to the human mind.  Clearly how the object is viewed can change the perception of the painting.

I also thought it was very interesting how big of an impact the painting of old masters have had an impact on media and new paintings.  While nowadays there may not be the virtuoso’s of old, however their work still endures and penetrates deep into the soul of modern painters, like myself.