The Final Blog

This class has really taught me how to take a closer look at literature and analyze why it brings out certain emotions. The novels that we read were different from most of the novels that I normally read, but really interested me for the most part. All of the novels expect for 1984, really elicited some form of emotion, whether it was anger, confusion or agreement with the text of the novel. The course challenged me to delve into why the novels caused these reaction and also challenged why I though about certain topics the way that I did. Most of the media pieces I had already been exposed to, but having to take a second look at them and really discuss what was happening in them caused me to have a new perspective of the media pieces. Many of the topics we discussed in class really made me take a look at why I believed certain things. For instance the activity where we were talking about censorship and the government and we had to move around the room, really challenged me to think about why I believed that the government should or should not have the power to censor it's citizens. Overall I enjoyed the class, most of the materials we were assigned, and the challenges that were present throughout the course.

The Real Life Hunger Games

Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol, the list continues of reality "game" TV shows that are on the television today. The comparison of these shows to the Hunger Games to an easy comparison. The contestants on these reality shows are "fighting for their lives," although it is a very different concept than the contestants in the Hunger Games. On these shows the contestants fight for their careers, or for a cash prize that would change their lives, where as in the Hunger Games the contestants are literally fighting for their lives. It puts into perspective what is truly important to people in our society today, the fact that people view fighting for a singing career as their lives.

Say What!!!???

In his 2000 article, "Behind the Curtain of TV Voyeurism," Gabler explains voyeurism as a type of sick privilege that American consumers have when watching reality TV because is gives them the right or opportunity to look into someone else's life for 40 minutes (gotta take out the time for commercials). We as the consumer play a huge role in how successful these reality TV shows are. For the shows that are strictly just following people around, if they don't have the number of viewers watching the show, then the show won't stay on. I think this is where the extremity of some shows comes into play. Each show has to be able to top their competition so they constantly try to do more shocking and outrageous things on their shows. We as fans continue to feed these shows and keep them on the air. 
So for my reality TV homework assignment I chose to watch a section from Big Brother season 8 (yes, I'm a Big Brother addict, I admit it). I've attached one of the more notable scenes from the show, its a scene where two of the female contestants, Danielle and Jen, who fought all of the time during the show, verbally argue in the kitchen of the house, then Danielle's "boyfriend" on the show, Nick, and her dad, Dick, also get involved and fight with Jen. I chose this clip because it shows exactly what the producers of the show want to happen because it creates interest. Let's be honest, nobody wants to see 12 people in a house sleeping and eating everyday, they want to see fighting, arguing...basically excitement. I personally love Big Brother, I think the concept of putting 12 to 15 people in a house together for months on end and seeing what happens is a really awesome idea. Plus, the added bonuses of drama and competition make the show better. The viewers role is three different things, the first is they are part of the group that watches every week which helps keep the show on the air because they have enough interest. Secondly, at certain points during the show they ask for the viewers to vote on different things to affect life in the house, such as what the "have-nots"
 will eat for the week. The last interaction is that for really hard core fans (not me) they can pay something like $25 to get 24 hour video feeds of the house and watch the people on the show whenever they want. So at the end of the day, is reality TV voyeuristic? Duh but are we as a public complaining? 

Big Brother?

In George Orwell's novel 1984 "Big Brother" is everywhere. It controls how the characters act, think and feel. One wrong move and you could be vaporized from existence. What is Big Brother to Orwell's character's? The physical establishment is the ministries, that control all aspects of the citizen's lives, including being able to erase and/or rewrite history.

 This is probably going to sound weird, but Big Brother in our society today, I believe is very similar to Big Brother in 1984, the government. I don't want to sound crazy or paranoid, but with the amount of technology that is in our world today, do you ever wonder if someone may be checking up on you? Big Brother could also be as simple as your boss at work watching the video feeds while you're working to make sure you're doing your job right. Privacy I think exist to an extent, in your own home you can do whatever you want, but when you step outside your front door, privacy goes out the window. I think that some people would give up basic freedoms to feel safe, myself NOT included. Freedoms have be fought for and won over the years, I feel safe in my environment and would never give up the freedoms that I have. 

Carpe Diem

"O Captain, my Captian." A quote from a Walt Whitman poem that is referenced numerous times in the Robin Williams movie The Dead Poets Society, which we were shown a clip of on Tuesday in class. The theme of the entire movie is similar to that of the readings of Emerson and Thoreau. Live live to the fullest, "Carpe Diem," for you never know when you'll lose the opportunity to do so forever. 
Could I live shut off from society for a year in a cabin in the woods? This is a tough question for me, I am a very social person so I don't know if I could do it purely on that idea. To give up technology for that length of time I think would be very easy, there are so many different options out their besides a computer or a smart phone are not the only forms of entertainment in our world today. People have seem to forgotten about things like reading a book for fun, or just going outside and enjoying a nice day, which can easily substitute for going on Facebook, or playing Angry Birds. 
In the novel Feed, a world is presented to the reader of a world consumed by technology. The characters have a "feed" implanted into their brains so that whoever is in power can download into these peoples brains what they thing is important. The characters are so reliant on technology that without it they are basically dumb. Would these character be able to go to the woods and live deliberately? I don't think so.

A Citizen of the Dumbest Generation?

I was appalled but the statistics that both articles present about Bauerlien's novel "The dumbest generation." To realize that members of my generation do not know, or remember what they learned, about things like Pearl Harbor or Vietnam was a hard realization. Great things have happened in and to our country of the course of it's short history that need to be remembered and even learned from for the future. If our generation, and the generations after us continue to focus more on social networking sites than news media the prospect for our future as a country is scary to think about. 
in the Newsweek article, however, the author wrote about how it is not only the individuals fault, but the school system as well that has failed them. I agree with this to a point, let me make myself clear, The school system in America today could use some work (as an understatement) to help the children in the system learn more about the world, however, it is also the individual person's choice whether or not to retain or even learn the information as well. If the school system were to improve, whose to say that it will improve what the students learn and retain? 

Slipping into a Virtual Reality

The documentary “second skin” shows a glimpse into the lives of the online gaming world, and it's really just that—a world all of its own. The film shows how this new form of social interaction can envelop the lives of the participants that turn on the game everyday when they come home from work or school. The people who play are consumed by the game play and social world that they “live” while playing the game. To me this kind of addiction (and I'll explain the use of that word later), both surprised me and didn't at the same time. I have had some exposure to games such as W.O.W., but never really understood the appeal, which is the reason that I was semi-surprised and the fever that some people had about the game; but at the same time I have known people who were very into those sort of games, which is why I was partially not surprised. I used the word addiction in a previous sentence because for some of the people that play the game it is truly that, an addiction. For some of us ours may be a TV show, cigarettes or alcohol, for some with addictive personalities that play interactive games such as World of Warcraft, that is their addiction.

In Culture Jam, Lasn writes about how technology is changing lives, and the documentary proves that point. 30 years ago such interactive computer games were just figments of imagination, and today there are people spending their hard earned, real life money on the same computer games, relationships are being made, and lost because of these games; which brings me to another point that I wanted to discuss. The change in social relationships because of technology is fully seen in the documentary. Take the couple that met in the game, Everquest 2. The woman flew multiple states away to meet a man that she had fallen in love with over a computer game. Can it work for some people? Sure. Others? Maybe not. Is it for me? Nope. But for some, and this is where the full breath of the technological impact on our lives today can be seen, the online social world is a place where they can be someone completely different from themselves and no one will ever know any different. At one point in the documentary an interviewee used the example of someone that was overweight and stuck at home because she had to take care of her mother, going into an online game and changing her appearance to portray herself as the “angle within.” For many I think this may also be true, however I think a lot of people take the “virtual world” to an extreme when they let it overtake what is happening in the real world.