Media Conglomerates Pt. 1

The recent debate in class about Media Conglomerates, has left me feeling somewhat like a hypocrite. I was on the side of the debate that was arguing that media conglomerates are good for our society as a whole. One of our arguments included the idea that conglomerates don't force people to be individuals, they produce thousands of options, from their billions of capital, for people to either accept or reject as their own. When the other group that was arguing against media conglomerates said that conglomerates keep people from letting their voice be heard, and that the little man is left out, we responded with the aspect of internet blogging as we see lived out in these very words. There are multiple outlets, provided by media conglomerates, where people can express their views on the internet for the whole world to see. There is only one problem with all of my groups "solid" arguments, I don't really agree with them, which is where the hypocrisy steps in.

While I will agree that media conglomerates do provide some of our modern day services that we seemingly "couldn't live without" (which makes me wonder how my parents are still living?), most things that conglomerates do in concept hurt rather than help our society as a whole. That is where my quibbles begin. As noted in a recent reading and class discussion, there are only 6 to 10 major companies that own the majority of every type of media that we partake of on a daily basis. That means, when you wake up and flip on the T.V. at breakfast, nearly every news broadcast will be reporting the "news", when really the reporters are just there to draw viewers in and make more money for the CEO in a starchy suit. I say "news" because, the "news" is brought to us, is almost ALWAYS biased in some way shape or form, especially in the area of political news. We hardly ever hear the whole story in any aspect of an election or any other political happening, we only hear or see what will draw viewers and thus draw more capital to the already Multi-Billion dollar franchise that owns the news we choose to watch. Let's take a little deeper look into this area of "selective media."

Recently, I was home with my girlfriend, and her father was talking about a plan that would literally change the United States of America as we know it FOREVER. There have been papers signed, by our president, in agreement to an elimination of the Canadian-American border AND more surprising the American-Mexican border. This would make a unified North American Union. So say bye bye to border patrol and hello to a Meximelt of Canadian Bacon and American Cheese! You may be pondering, why haven't I heard anything about this? I'll tell you why! The writers, and actors of and upon these laws don't want us to know. This is a quote from an article from a website called Accuracy in Media about the topic that you can find at http://www.aim.org/aim_report/5102_0_4_0_C/

"Major players are secretive and are trying to keep the media out of the loop. But that does not let the mainstream media off the hook. There is enough stonewalling, secrecy and there are plenty of telltale signs, so that any assignment editor whose curiosity is not aroused is probably in the wrong business."

Media Conglomerates Pt. 2

They don't want us to know, so media conglomerates keep it out of mainstream media, because that would be looked down upon, and possibly cause a loss of millions of dollars (God forbid!) This is a classic example of how we are presented with slanted news that doesn't really give us the big picture as to what really is happening in and around our lives.

One local news station's motto here in North East Ohio is "Honest, Fair, Everywhere." I'm really starting to second guess that, in every area of the media that we partake of. I think we, as students learning the truth about the media in a mass production and distribution not only have a reason to react to these things, we have an obligation. The media will only keep swallowing the society we live in, taking out the little independents to make more capital and further insure that the "real news" doesn't get out, UNLESS we decide to do something about it. We have to find a way to get out of this capitalistic hurricane that these conglomerates have us caught up in, and start to let the masses, which is the target audience of all media anyways, that something isn't right about the whole system.

In closing, I must say that I am a little disappointed to learn all of these things, even though I probably could have assumed that many of these things are true.I wish that more people understood the things that we are being presented with in this class, so that people could really make their own decisions for themselves instead of a news editor, who only wants to produce news that will please his superiors and bring in more capital, make those decisions for them. Our society has many more loop holes than we actually are lead to believe, and that has got to change if our Country is going to keep going as it has in the history books. I think its time we get back to the foundations of our capitalistic approach to economy, and start basing our country on the standards that our founding fathers solidified for us over 200 years ago.

~DeLiRi0uS~

Mid Semester Recap!

Smack dab in the middle of my second semester of College, specifically inside the context of my mass media class, I have many things to reflect upon. So far in this class, we have talked about many different topics and ideas that apply to the media we consume daily, how it affects us, and how we categorize it, along with many other things. Some of the things we have talked about include THE SEMIOTIC DOMAIN, signifier vs. signified, paradigmatic vs. sytagmatic, film shots, Semiotics, The Merchants of cool video, the Hollywood Simulation, and the list goes on. I am very happy with how the class has been going so far this semester.

Going into this class, I didn't really have any idea as to what I was getting myself into. I had heard from a guy on my floor that the class was really cool, and a lot of fun, but that was about all the more exaplaination I recieved. After the first couple of days in class, I had fallen in love with the ideas we were discussing, the ways we approached topics, and the many actual life ties that were uncovered. For me, taking an idea, and thinking in-depth about it and actually tying real-life experiences to it, is a very effective learning tool. I think that is why I love this class so much. With each idea or topic we discuss, we have real life connections that we make. Whether it be talking about slippage from first level significance to second level significance in the case of the yellow ribbon around a tree, or actually naming movies that fit into each of the "Mythical" Categories that we discussed, there is always a connection being made that is different from any learning I have ever done.

In mass media, we strive to get away from the traditional types of learning, or as I like to say regurgatation. In many classes, you study out of books, and from lecture notes, and the regurgatate the information on a test. In mass media, we make these real life connections that allows actual LEARNING to take place. Because of that, I am able to sit here, without looking at any notes, and name all of the different things that we have talked about thus far in the semester. I absolutly love that about Mass Media. I think that is how many if not all classes should be designed, as much as possible while still sticking to standards that are in place.

I am excited about what is still yet to come in the second half of the semester. New topics to be examined, and many more connections to be made. Also, I have to opportunity to investigate whether or not video games have an effect on teenagers, and if yes, how do they affect them. That is my topic for my final paper for this class, and I am very eager to begin in-depth research on the topic. Overall, I am very pleased with this class, I love everything about it, and I can't wait for what is in store for rest of the semester!

~DeLiRi0uS~

Dogme 95

The art of filmaking is a very diverse world, as seen from my last three posts. Although there are many films that follow the normal path of special efects, murders, and weaponry, there is another type of film that tries to abstain from these things. These are the Dogme 95 films. These films have a very strict set of rules set out for them to follow as seen on Wikipedia.com. Here is the list of basic rules and guidelines.

Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diagetic).
The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.)
The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
Optical work and filters are forbidden.
The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.)
Genre movies are not acceptable.
The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen. (Originally, the requirement was that the film had to be filmed on Academy 35mm film, but the rule was relaxed to allow low-budget productions.)
The director must not be credited.

I think all of these things are very interesting, and that they contrast the normal way of film making very strikingly. Although, not many Dogme films have been made that follow every one of these rules to the T, many have included several of the guidlines in their processes.

In my opinion, I think these films are genius. Too often, we see the same story told over and over again on American theatre screens. Murder, guns, ext, fill the plots of almost every movie that is even interesting at all in this day. These Dogme moveis seek to stay away from those ideas, but still provide a movie experience that is interesting and will draw people in. Because of there off the beaten path approach, these films are not very sucessful like other mainstream movies are. But, I think in theory, these movies are an excellent escape from the over worked, fixed up movies we see in the theatres. I would like to see a Dogme film myself sometime to be able to draw some more conclusions on the differences between these films and other "Normal" Hollywood films.

~DeLiRi0uS~

Hollywood Simulation Pt. 1

About a week ago, I was thrust beyond the walls of a Malone College classroom, and into the room of a Hollywood producer. I was part of a team that owned a production company, that was looking to find a cheap actor/actress, a good script, and stay under budget. Although my transformation was short-lived ( held within the 50 minute class period) I gained some very good expeirences with the simulation. It was a very beneficial exercise.

The Hollywood simulation was a class "experiment" that took place last Wednesday in my Mass Media in Society class. There were several different roles that my classmates and I had the chance to "play." There were 4 actors, 4 agents, 5 writing teams (consisting of 2 writers each,) and 3 different theatre groups of producers (consisiting of 3 to 4 members each.) I was part of a group of four, and we were handed a few sheets with a bunch of information on it, that we had to try and make sense of. On the sheet, were all the costs of making a movie. Things like special effects costs, average actor/actress costs, general shooting costs, location of shooting costs, and every other cost under the sun that one could imagine for makign a movie. The other sheet revealed the information that would shape how we, as a producing group, would go about making our movie happen.

The sheet revealed that we had a budget of 40 million dollars to follow. We were a little dissapointed, because we knew that we were the underdog theatre group with the lowest budget, but we still sat down to strategize. On the sheet of costs, there were also a few sections of predicted income. If we had a certain group of writers, we would get X amount of money gaurenteed from DVD sales, or X amount of money from overseas. There was one group, the sci-fi writers, that would provide us with a boost of $20,000 in our budget because of the money we KNEW we would make if we had them on our team. After about 5 minutes, our overseer said time was up, and deliberations would start.

Hollywood Simulation Pt. 2

At this point, we needed at least one actor or actress, a writing group, and a title for our movie. Right out of the gates, we went to the sci-fi writers, willing to give then 5 million from our budget, that was cut to 20 million since general production costs were twenty million. We overheard another group offer them an upwards of 12 million for their script, and immediatly walked away; we simply couldn't afford that. Then, the dark dreamers writting group approached us with a deal of a script for 3 million, and we couldn't say no to the award winning writing group. From this point on, our main goal was to find at least one actor/actress. We seeked after the buffer dude, and offered him what was left of our budget, decideding to have no special effects or anythign in our movie, and we also offered him 15% of the profits. Our writers even decided to give us the script for nothing just so we could sign this big name actor to our show. He turned us down. Later, he turned out to be a flop, so we were glad that we didn't sign him.

Then, we found our match, Gloria Morningstar. She said she wanted 8 million, and we were shocked, since our last offer had been 20 million plus 15% of the profits. We signed her on immediatly. We now had a script, that called for one character, and an actress to fill that one role our script called for. After tallying everything up, we found out that we had a production cost of 47 million dollars. The thing that killed us was a news report that cause shooting in the U.S. to increase by several million dollars. We were not sure if we were allowed to be over budget, but we had a few things to back our overage decision. First, the overseer said that it was a free-for-all with no rules, so that would mean we could go over budget if we wanted to interpret it that way. Also, with our writers, the dark dreamers, we had a guarenteed 10 million dollars in DVD sales. So, we actually had a budget of 50 million, and would in that case have 3 million left over. We felt rather justified in our decisions, and decided to keep them as they were.

Although we had signed our actress, there was another uprising on the news wire. If and actor or actress was signed to more than one producing company, it would cost each company an additional 5 million dollars. That extra 5 million was definatly not something we could afford, so we had to do a little "manipulation" of our actress. Thankfully, she had not signed he contract, or the scratch piece of paper, so we were still able to make a last minute stipulation. If she signed elsewhere, we would lose 5 million, so therefor, she would take a pay cut as well. Gloria was looking to be launched into stardom, and she was already on our side, so she decided to not be wooed away to another theatre. We were very thankful of her decision.

Hollywood Simulation Pt. 3

One more interesting factor that took place througout this simulation, was an interation with the largest theatre group that had a budget of over 100 million dollars. First, a representative from the group approached us and asked us if we would want to sell our theatre to them, along with our script and actress. We had NO IDEA why in the world we would want to do that, when we were trying to build a name for ourselves, and not be outsourced by a larger company. We said no way, but the representative said the offer was still on the table. After several minutes had passed, the rep. returned and asked if we would want to sell our script and actress to them. We again declined, and kept our team united, as we had great hopes for our movie that was in the making. I guess, if we would have sold our actors and actresses for a price of say 40 million dollars, we would have a 60 million dollar budget, and could have signed other people, but we wanted to stick with our writers and actress, seeing how we had a common bond and dedication to sucess despite our low budget.

Finally, we had to choose a name for our film. The writing team had developed a story about a lone character based in a Jeruselam type setting, that had to uncover and solve a very mysterious mystery. After some deep thought, and right at the end of the time period to turn in our final contracts, the writers came up with the name: Elusive. The whole group thought the name was very good, and so everyone was pleased. Later, we found out that people would be voting on whether or not they would see our film based on the title alone. We were even more pleased in learning this, because we felt we had a very strong title for our hopefully successful film.

This entire process was very fun, interactive, and even insightful. I think it provided us with a fun day in Mass Media class, while accomplishing a goal that lay beneath that sheath of enjoyment. We had take on the roles of actual actors, agents, producers, and writers. We truly felt for 45 minutes that we were hitting it big in Hollywood, and trying to make the newest and best film. Although we knew that it was fake, and nothing was ever going to come of it, the simulation still provided us with an insight to what the process of filmaking might be like. Each individual had a different standpoint, and each had a different outcome depending on which role they had. I think that this simulation was very effective in taking us into the world of film making, and eve giving us a glimpse at what people go through everytime a new movie is made. This WAS the best day in Mass Media, as our teacher said it would be, and I am very happy that I had the opportunity to take part. We are still awaiting the results of the voting, but I have a good feeling that Elusive, will be at the top of the charts!

~DeLiRi0uS~

Music Genres

In a world diversified with many different media texts for ingestion, one would think that the diversification would stop there. But, it doesn't. Inside of each different text, there are tens, and even hundreds of different genres. Specifically inside the text of music, there are HUNDREDS of different genres. Here is my list that I came up with from my brain.

-Rock & Roll

-Pop

-R&B

-Rap

-Jazz

-Soul

-Contemporary

-Hip Hop

-Country

-Emo

-Screamo

-Alternative

-Classical

-"Boy Band"

This list is not at all comprhensive of the overall spectrum of musical genres. After doing a little bit of research, I found some interesting information about genres in music. I was shocked to find literally hundreds of different musical genres listed on Wikipedia's website. The list was so extensive that it was broken into 4 sections (A-F, etc...) Here is an example of the very first of the "A" Section" As you can see, there are 20 genres in the Aa-Ad section alone.

Aa-Ad
Aak - Korean court music
Aaroubi - evolved form of al-andalous classical music which comes from Algiers
Abaimajani
Abajeños - folk music of the Perépecha of Mexico
Aboriginal rock - rock and roll mixed with Australian aborigine music, began in 1980s
Abstract hip hop
Abwe
Acoustic Rock
Acoustic Techno Fusion
Acid croft - mixture of traditional Scottish music with house influences
Acid house - house music using simple tone generators with tempo-controlled resonant filters
Acid groove
Acid jazz - jazz mixed with soul, hip hop and funk
Acid rap
Acid rock
Acid techno
Adai-adai
Aduk-aduk
Adult contemporary
Anti-Serious Music

One would assume that with all of these genres out there, that there is no need for more genres to be created. It seems that there are enough genres to choose form that you could find something you like. But as time goes on, and hybridity takes course, new genres continue to emerge, and add to the already extensive list. I think that genres are a very important part of our "media culture," as they provide a common linking point for people to latch on to. As long as people have imaginations, this list of genres will keep growing, and I think that is the way a healthy media text should operate.

~DeLiRi0uS~

A Brand New Genre Pt. 1

As media consumers in our society, we are surrounded by many different groupings and gatherings of media. The main overall groups that many movies, types of music, and even television shows are divided into are called genres. In music, I can think of a few examples, such as punk, rock, emo, screamo, jazz, r&b, and the list goes on. These groupings provide an outline for artists to follow, and for consumers to go to if they like a specific type of music from any particular genre.
Although there are already many genres out there, I have come up of a brand new genre for a t.v. show using the concept of hybridity (or the combining of two or more genres to create a new genre.) The genres that I have put together are the genre of game shows, and the genre of sports television. The new t.v. show that will be based off of this genre will be called GameSports and will be unlike any other show that has ever aired on t.v.
On the show, four contestants will be randomly picked from an audience (a la The Price is Right) and will be seated inside of an actual NASCAR race car. Once inside the car, contestants will be connected to a virtual race course through a head set and goggles. The four drivers will race against each other, with the race being "broadcast" for the audience to watch. The drivers that finish will receive some nice prizes, like tickets to sporting events or sporting memorabilia. The driver that saw the checkered flag first will be taken to a locker room and will change into sporting type clothing. After this first "race" stage of the show is completed the show will have a commercial break, only with sporting, and other game show commercials.

A Brand New Genre Pt. 2

Once the show returns, the contestant will spin a giant wheel to choose which sporting activity they will have to accomplish. These tasks could range from swimming, to heads up poker, to hockey, to baseball. The contestant will be matched up against an actual professional from each of those individual sports, and if they can beat the pro, they will win the prize. Whatever sport the individual had to play, they will be rewarded accordingly. For example, if someone was matched up against poker phenom Doyle Brunson heads up, and they won, they would receive a huge trip to Vegas, with all the pickings they could imagine.
Throughout the show, several rounds of contestants will be sent through the NASCAR simulation, and then to the big wheel to be sent to a sport activity. In an average show, 4 to 7 contestants will be sent through the whole system. At the end of the show, there will be a "big prize time." In this part of the show, the top three fastest contestants, determined by their race times, will be taken and placed in front of a panel of 6 of the actual pros (a la Match Game) that were involved in the show for that airing. The contestants will then be read questions, and have buzzers to buzz in on (Jepordy.) The questions will be in the format of surveys taken from sports athletes throughout all the sports ( a la Family Feud.) The contestants will go through 2 separate questions, the first question they will answer by themselves, and the second, they must try and match an answer with one of the pros. Which ever contestant has the most points after those two questions will move on to the final round.
In the final round, the contestant will have to answer several sports questions, matched up against the "Schuab," the famous sports buff from ESPN. If the contestant beats the Schuab, they will be rewarded with crazy trips to sports around the U.S. and a V.I.P. pass to the next Olympics that occur. This show will draw many people, any one who has ever seen a sport before will be interested.
I think that this new genre will be very successful because so many people have seen or experienced at least one of the many sports that are out there. Also, the prizes will be so ridiculously cool, that many people will show up in the audience to even have a chance at a prize. This show would sweep the nation in a few short airings, and become one of the most genius shows to ever be aired on television ever. It would be the start of a brand new genre, that could virtually be appealing to all Americans across the Nation. This ultimate genre would set a standard, that many other game shows, and even sporting events would struggle to match up to.

~DeLiRi0uS~