September 20

Class #3 (Wednesday, September 20, 2006)

The due date for the media autobiography was today. I found that once I had committed to a solid idea, it was a lot easier to do the creative aspect of the project. I was pleased with how my project turned out. It reflected my vision perfectly. Although, I have to admit, putting together a collage on the computer was more of a challenge than I had expected.
The main difficulty that I had to overcome was putting my idea into words. I am concerned that I did not explain my concept in a way that Mark will be able to understand. I believe that the Olympics have such an impact on the world. Through the media, we are all connected. I decided to take an optimistic point of view because I think that a lot of other students are focusing on the negative. For example, how women are portrayed in the media was very popular.It was very interesting to see my classmate’s assignments. It seemed as though a popular idea was how females are represented through media or sexuality and it’s importance in advertising. One of the more original ideas was a television that was gutted-out and filled with newspaper/magazine clippings and a mirror symbolizes how her autobiography was a reflection of self.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Reader Response:

This is the first argument type of reading that I have read that has not been in the form of an essay. “Amusing ourselves to Death” really put a lot of notions that I already understood into perspective. I myself was already in compliance that television and computers have shown a definite change in our society in several ways. By focusing on the past (the time of typography) the author was very effective in presenting his argument. By doing this Postman “covered all of the bases” so to speak as far as supporting his argument.
This book had much strength. In forming his approach to each of his arguments, Postman makes historical comparisons to media in the past versus today. This was appropriate as it established a defined contrast between what the world was like when typography was the dominating media and presently, which is television. All historical references were cited, as much of the information was not common knowledge, which is important when making a case. I think that by presenting a well-researched idea, Postman is portraying himself more credibly. This made it easier for me to be persuaded by his ideas.
His reference to Marshall McLuhan also strengthened his argument. McLuhan is a highly acclaimed theorist who, like him or not, similarly knows how to present a well-rounded argument. It was therefore wise of Postman to use him as a support. It was interesting how Postman altered the famous McLuhan theory, ‘the medium is the message,’ with his own insight, which was referred to as ‘the medium is the metaphor.’ By phrasing his idea this way, he separated himself from McLuhan, a hard media determinist, presenting himself as a soft media determinist.

September 13

Class #2 (Wednesday, September 13, 2006):

I am feeling much more confident about the media autobiography following this class. Although it seems to be a lot more work than I had expected having read over the criteria, I feel as though being able to ask questions in class clarified a lot of things, which seemed to be left more up in the air. I also have more confidence in my idea because the assignment is so open-ended which, I am not used to.
I believe that political intentions are a reflection of an individual and how they, as a consumer, represent themselves. The best example that I can come up with to explain my though process is by examining how an individual shops. An individual, for example, may choose to not shop at Wal-mart because of being of their concern of supporting a business involved in manufacturing through the use of sweatshops. To a degree I believe that this displays moral standards as well, but how we are informed and shown how to react is a more unified stance, which I understand as political intentions.
I did not expect that being in class involved discussion and participation above anything else. Although this wasn’t my expectation, I really enjoy this class at a different level than other classes that I am in. In high school, participation was part of the class, of course. However, it seems as though university is less about learning (in the sense of memorizing) and more about applying and expanding on things that we already know. I think that this class will continue to get more interesting as the year goes.

September 6

Class #1 (Wednesday, September 6, 2006):

Going into this class, I had no idea what to expect as far as what I would be learning. The outline, which I had previously read was very vague. I was looking forward to it, though, as all of my senior peers at orientation had made this class sound very interesting. I was a little nervous upon entering the class as the room was overflowing with other students in the media studies program. I knew that I wanted to be in Mark Lipton’s class because of what I had heard about his teaching style and general superiority within in the school. He also acknowledged the fact that he would be teaching media studies students throughout their academic careers within the university, so it was important for me to get to know him.
My understanding of what I will get out of this course is a better grasp of how media is involved in our everyday lives. So, it makes sense to me that our first major assignment is to address how we presently feel about media and how it affects us. I think that it is going to be a challenge adjusting to assignments such as these where is essentially up to me to interpret the approach of creating something. The word “something” in the outline is what will give me a hard time.
I have to admit that it was very overwhelming coming out of the class having been given all of our assignments at once. But, in a sense I thought that it was good to know what to expect on a weekly basis and also to have the option to work on whatever we think is more important to focus on. It is definitely going to be a challenge keeping up and prioritizing assignments, but I look forward to the material, which we will be learning in this class.

Welcome!

I hope that everyone has finished or at least started their analysis of the first book we read, Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," which we can begin posting and discussing in this blog!

~Heather