Blog Entry Three

Blog Three

Learning Outcome

In today's society, media affect us more than we can ever understand. Through ways such as TV shows, the music industry, commercials, and many other ways. Teenagers are influenced to partake in illegal activities such as underage drinking and usage of drugs like marijuana, and Oxycontin. Adults are influenced to vote towards one political party by convincing them that one party is better than the other. Hours spent in front of the television has increased dramatically the last few years. It has a lot of used, both good and bad. First of all, it makes it possible for us to see what is happening far away.

In our homes we watch television, films or events taking place in other cities, countries and other continents. The artificial satellites have made it possible to watch events in other countries directly. Television is a very fine medium of entertainment. It brings musician and the music, singer and his singing and actor and his acting close to us. Whether it is rain or sunshine, hot or cold, we can enjoy television programs within four walls of our homes. In some way it will always affect our opinion and beliefs even though we do not realize it in the moment.

The good way it is you can learn a lot about the world and society through TV, but on the other hand playing video games over a period of time can change your view on violence and make you even more violent. Learning outcome number two reflects upon this. Show an awareness of the potential for educational, political, or ideological influence of the media. Areas to be considered could include – public service broadcasting, campaigns, censorship, satire, propaganda. Media is something we should take advantage of, but it will always be something that makes it negative and we just got to use it for the better not for the worse.

Blog Entry Two

Blog Two

Machine Stops Claim

In Bob Montello’s article he says “these days, we think technology is the culprit, but Forster was writing decades before TV started creating couch potatoes, almost a century before parents could complain about computer games turning kids into zombies.” This shows how the society blames everything on the new inventions and technology, without really knowing what is good or bad. Technology is a huge part of today’s society and we are so fast to judge or put the guilt on what has changed the society lately.

Mondello is saying how our society is almost to the point where we will not go out anymore and will not participate in public gatherings anymore because we will be able to do everything from our living room at home with our TVs, computers, webcam etc. His claim at the end goes “So to remind yourself of how you’re connected, you gather things around. And you cling to them, not so you wont lose them, or lose what makes you you, but so you wont lose the connections they represent. The fear is of emptiness – but of emptiness inside us, not of empty rooms.” In other words, you can’t blame your and societies problems on technology basically the only reason for your problem is yourself and your mistakes. If you choose to isolate yourself from the society and people, because you think you have it all in your living room, you are wrong. We are and will always be scared of losing what we love and what we care about. It is about finding a way using all this new communication to make things easier, not so you don’t have to be around people anymore. It is supposed to help you in daily life.

However the “The Machine Stops” was written in 1909 so people have been concerned with this idea for at least 100 years now.  At the end of “The Machine Stops,” says, “Oh, tomorrow - some fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow.  Never, said Kuno, never. Humanity has learnt its lesson.” This shows how people know when to stop. Even though we have everything we need to communicate with people with no face to face contact, we will still continue to go to social and public gatherings because we are naturally social creatures and need other human beings to comfort us as well. Mondello’s counter claim is “if it hasn’t already happened then it won’t happen,” As mentioned earlier we and our society will know when to stop and when things are going too far. Nowadays we are forced to going to social gatherings in some way. It would not be possible to live in complete isolation, today our society is all the time developing, maybe for the worse or maybe for the best. Somehow you need to meet face to face with people, if this is how it is always going to be we can’t know. The only thing we can do its just wait and see in what direction our society is developing.

Blog Entry One, Spring

Blog One Image Analysis

Image Number 3

Image number three is a woman lying on the floor with a new vacuum cleaner and she is reading the manual and her hand is holding onto the vacuum cleaner. She is wearing a long dress that is really formal. The colors in the picture are mainly green and red, because the ad is about Christmas. But the red color of the product that the ad is trying to sell, the vacuum cleaner definitely stands out more than the green and white on her dress. In this ad, the colors are probably only supposed to symbolize Christmas, even though these colors can stand for other things as well.

            The text in the picture is trying to convince their audience that this product will make your wife happier because now she get to clean and she even has a new vacuum cleaner that the ad is trying to tell you this is the best on the market. The bigger text is the text that is really trying to sell the product and it is bigger so if you are interested, you can read the small text on the image to. If all of the text is in the same size and it is a lot of text, people would not even bother to read all of it. So that’s why they have some text bigger than other, to catch the buyers eye and then give you all the details about the product and how it is going to be such a good investment for you or/ and your family. They use the word “happier” to make you think, with this product your life will be so much better and from now you will have no worries because of this product.

The ad is probably from the 1950s considering what she is wearing (her dress and how she has her hair) and how they are trying to sell the product. The audience is any man with a wife, a husband that is trying to please their wife for Christmas. The economic class represented is upper middle class where the man in the family is working and the woman is home taking care of the kids and the house, this is represented in what price level the product is and that this is an old ad. This is an ad mad mainly for white people and the gender is men.

The message in the ad is you and your wife need this vacuum cleaner because you care about her and she care about the house. The tactic that is used is manipulating and it is trying to say to you, that if you do not get her this product you do not really care about her and without this product she is not going to be happy Christmas morning. The purpose of the ad is of course to sell the product and they also use a good-looking, pretty and young woman to sell the product. Is it a good-looking person in a commercial people has easier for buying the product. So that is another tactic they have used in the image. The image and words works together in the way that they use the word Christmas and the colors that stands out in the picture is red and green, that is two colors representing Christmas.

Blog Entry Three

The expression “The American Dream” is a frequently used expression. The content of the expression is that in the USA everyone can achieve their goals and reach the top if they work hard enough. There have been periods of time in history where large groups of immigrants have come to the country and people still come in order to achieve the American Dream. The immigrants dream of individual freedom with the content of freedom as mentioned above. The negative aspect of “The American Dream” was that there was high competition in USA because everyone wants to succeed. While many immigrants who settle improve their situation and accomplish their goals, there are also people who come to America and end up struggling for a living.

In this sample paragraph I tried to have a brief explanation about “The American Dream” to understand what it is all about, and to make a thesis. This could have been a introduction to an essay, since I argue for and against the American Dream and I am talking about positive and negative aspects. So the technique I tried to use is simile. The technique impacts the audience in the way it makes you think about why people left the place they call home and everyone they knew, to go to a place where they got a new opportunity to build a new life and success. The last part about becoming successful is not something everyone will achieve so going over the sea and leave all safe and familiar was a risk to take and I was no guarantee for success.

Blog Entry Two

The book “Bendit Like Beckham” written by Narindi Dhami is about the problems living in another culture. Being an Indian girl living in England can be hard, because of the differences in costumes and culture between Europeans and Asians. Jesminder Bahmra, called Jess for short, is an Indian girl who lives with her family in Southall, London. Southall is a part of the town where many families of Indian origin live. She, as many other children from other parts of the world, talks English and is born in England. Jess has a very good talent for soccer, and dreams to be a professional soccer player like her “hero” David Beckham. But her family is very against her playing soccer and doesn't allow her to play. The book is mostly about how she is still playing, without her family knowing and her relationship with her coach, Joe.

The book addresses learning outcome three. The book shows us how different the two cultures are how their view on different matters comes through. It is not only the language that is different with the two cultures. Her language is shaped by her culture and the context, and you can clearly understand the culture differences between the Indian people and the British in the book which is the reason she is not allowed to do what she wants to do.

“Jess: That's not all. She called me a Paki. But I guess that's something you wouldn't understand. Joe: Jess, I'm Irish. Of course I understand what that feels like.”

“Jess: I'm sorry I missed that penalty, coach. Joe: It's okay, losing to the Jerries on penalties comes natural to you English. You're part of tradition now!” These two quotations address the learning outcome because as in the first quotation, she is being called something in Indian and she knows that this word in her culture is bad. The second quotation is more about now when she is a part of the British people, she has to adjust to their language and their culture.

Blog Entry One

In Chapter 2 of Bill Bryson's "Made in America an informal history of the English language in the United States”, he is talking about how the American language has developed and changed since the pilgrims came in 1620. It discusses specific changes in the American language and how word changed in different areas of America. The text addresses learning outcome two, because throughout the whole chapter of the book, the main theme is how the language changed over time and how it affected the culture and the people. The American language grew and words were added to the language and other words disappeared out of the language because of the new words. Not only more word was added, but pronunciation and spelling also changed.

“The old practice of making plurals by adding –n was rapidly giving way to newer convention of adding –s, so that by 1620 most people were saying knees instead of kneen, houses instead of housen, fleas instead of flean. The transition was by no means complete at the time of the pilgrims” This shows how both pronunciation and spelling of words changed in the language after the pilgrims came, but it was not something that changed over a day. The pilgrims had the impact to the changed the language, because the way the talked were different than the Americans.

The other quote I decided to use is “Just in the century or so that preceded the Pilgrims' arrival in the New World, English gained ten thousand additional words, about half of them sufficiently useful as to be with us still.” The impact of the pilgrims was huge, since more than ten thousand words were added to the language and we are using those words today. It made such an impact that parts of the language changed.