Free # 3: College's Peer Pressure

(this is peer pressure comic)

Peer pressure at college I find interesting. I can see the good and the bad out of peer pressure in college. The good peer pressure I see at college is getting good grades, club involvement, sports and school spirit, talking with teachers, and sometimes even joining a fraternity. Beyond that I can see the peer pressure in a bad way such as letting grades slip by skipping class, drinking problems, drug use, sexual influence... basically the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll of what is cool or not. Thats why it's dramatic, but in a more dramatic effect in a growing, mature way.

Peer pressure has an amazing effect of how people can get so worked up about the hype.

Not like high school, the evolution of growing of the student. There are many ways to resist college peer pressure, but it is hard for people to realize it is there when so much is going on in the moment. It is just that feeling when you do not want your friends to percieve you as a dull person to hang out with or be sketchy around. Tiffany Coley, the writer of How to Resist Peer Pressure to Party, states something that caught my eye especially to our mass communication class. The statement was,

"The "entertainment" industry has cranked out thousands of raunchy movies having to do with college frivolity."

(the most stereotypical poster alive for college students to own)

I believe that it is completely true in one aspect to college and without the idea of seeing what the party is about, then college students wouldn't know how to react when they want to have this sort of fun. "Entertainment industry" is like a teacher to college students who want a stereotypical lifestyle.

HW# 3 : Control Room Analysis

I believe Al Jazeera's view of the news on war time was to see everything that happens in a honest viewing media. All information possible and footage covered was mainly uncut and unedited so that the audience can take in the pathos effect of the truth about war. Samir Khader, senior producer of Al Jazeera states his view of this is it "shows Democracy, free debate, respect of the other opinion, everything should be dealt with intelligently with openess. By using all these things they can shake up regency and tell them to wake up, wake up! There is a war around you!" Watching the footage of death happening and the media behind the scenes showing every detail hits an individual with truth. this video includes Samir's view along with many others.

Video of Al Jazeera's

The US media's view upon media on wartime seems obligated to show the world information and or censor what they really have to show us. It is a controlled media upon American military. Thier central command station has formal news shows and questionings such as cnn, nbc, fox, bbc who interview people a part of the war. They do not show explosions or affects that would absolutely impact many in a pathos way, but rather an logos perspective and conversation about the impact of wartime.

U.S. military is gathering information from the news and using is to defend themselves. They feel like there are many oppertunities that could have been taken against Saddam Hussain and I can see how they use the media in a staged perspective. For example, during Control Room, it showed the soldiers putting an American flag over Hussain's face as a symbolic meaning, or the soldiers will be doing thier duty of controlling the countryand turing the bad into good for Iraq.

U.S. Troops Drape Saddam Statue in American Flag

My opinion is that the media's role in wartime is to show their specific audience what the government as well as the media theirselves feel is relevant. I feel that the media is given a certain picture which they are to show to their specific audience and moral standard by which they are to abide. An example of this is how Al Jazeera tends to show more raw footage to the Arab nations, while Fox, CNN, etc.. tend to only show biased footage that depicts American heroism or patriotism, never allowing any anti-American footage or news that victimizes the seemingly radical Arabs.

Free #3 Stock Show

This weekend I went to the National Western Stock Show, 2009 with my good friend Eric, my sister Penny, and her husband Manny. It was really cool to experience the things I enjoy the most in life. The show involved so many rodeo and stock events you could spend hours walking around unable to see it all. Stands and booths were set up based around country comfort. Tim Shirley competed in the final events alongside many well known names in the rodeo industry. There was many animals there and chickens that looked like they had afro's for some reason. Ha Ha. My favorite thing about the stock show is watching people do the things that they love the most and pursuing thier passions. If it is a dream then go far thats why I wrote about this. Deep down I wish I could be there one day too, I would fit in. I barrel race and unfortuanately can not at the time being but hope to pick it up soon again.

(Me at a barrel race when I was younger in Salida.)

Video of some of the rodeo this year for 2009 (not finals) in Denver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywj5dsHH4JU

Free #2 : Trends

I am finding more and more each day that people begin to have relationship troubles around this time. Everybody I know (at least 9 couples) have broken up within this last month. Including myself and I was pracically in a happy 4 year relationship but my question to this trend is why are we doing it? And why is it the girls doing it and taking this dominant role? For some reason I think it is a phase just like when a big group of girls live together they tend to ovulate together so the clinic at Fort Lewis says (sorry to be detailed).

But as an observant detail, more of my question to it is... "Why the hell is mass communications so precise on this stuff?" For some reason I had a friend show me an article out of Cosmopolitan or other chick magazines describing for specifically this month what happens and it seems like they are phsycic or something.
They get thir information from who? who is thier sources but celebs and such and why do people tend to get attached to this stuff like its thier bible? I have found that I think alot of thier facts come from internet polls and sociologists that are all about the gossip. Such as this quiz....

R U a tomboy or a girly girl » Quizes

How do people get sucked into this stuff? Is it to find thier real selves of what they are about??? It is like taking an interest survery to figure out your major in life. This stuff tells us what to believe. This website shows just how people can take atvantage of the media to seduce others.

HW #2 Military Photo

If i worked for the Durango Herald newspaper, I would probably decide not to post the picture of the wounded soldier.

But.....

if it were another, bigger, balsier newspaper such as The New York Times I would.

The Durango Herald is a more small town family paper that impactes everybody because the town is close. We can see this from the video Jammin Juniors as it is on the front page of thier website advertising how close the town is. By seeing a picture such as the Babbitt photo (above), everyone would most likely represent and relate to it. I believe the picture really is not that bad because it's not terribly gory and it shows the heroism and reality of what is going on right now with our country at war. If it were a big newspaper though, I would ask for permission from the family to post the picture as well. If you look at the picture after you read the article that went out with it, the photo is not really as bad as people make it sound when imagining it, so seeing the photo would emphasis how much rhetorical analysis are in the picture.

For example, we can see that the wounded soldier is married, showing his dedication and pride and the soldiers are trying to help him keep alive from dying. It is not like he is being killed by other american soldiers, I mean this is reality for what we should expect when our soldiers go to war. If it were a picture like this child hurt in the Iraq war in the Durango Herald, then it seems there would be major problems!

(child killed in Iraq war)

People such as Dalai Lama would be against this sort of thing and by seeing this picture they would find a way to protest against The Reality of War. But, as the audience we all have our views on a touchy issue such as war that it is risky to promote these pictures.

IT'S LEGIT!!

Free #1: Classrooms and Technology Today

What happened to just physically turning in a paper?

Now we are doing most of our homework online and turning them in there and get graded for it. It's hard because technology has flaws and sometimes doesn't always work so when you e-mail homework and sometimes it doesnt go through completly, we are blamed because we can use the computers that well. Why should we really have to..... I mean my chemistry homework is all online and once upon a time chemistry was the most hands-on class where it was impossible to do homework on the computer. I just think we are lazy now. I might sound hypocritical now but the only reason why I have this computer is because I have to for college or else I FAIL. I just dont trust the dependency of technology and I hope to get a job one day where a robot doesn't take my place. We are having computers teach us now instead of teachers...... such as Baby Genius and Baby Einstein http://www.babyclassroom.com/baby-genius.html. Just wait till college education is runned by the same ideas that Baby Genius founders had.

HW #1: PLAY article

So basically here's this article boiled down:

A new era in PLAY by Reed Karaim

Researchers today elaborate on whether or not todays' era of technology is healthy for children and experts discuss the advantages and what has been lost over generations. Pro's and con's on this experiment are defended as well as concerns and how to solve these problems towards video games, television, cell phones, etc. which are stated. This article involves quotes and statistics from authoritative sources and professors.

Elaborated idea of article:

Mainly my idea is the fact and the emotion I got from this. I hate how we, the people, have fallen into production of technology that is distruction to our own human body for money because money is what we need to survive now a days. The imagination is easily spurred which I believe is caused because majority of people are visual learners and hands on... so both fall into action on this but whats the difference of this and going outside to play and explore there. I can recall most of my imagination when I was younger by the experiences I had hands on with friends, and I could say each one was bad ass... but when your a kid who plays video games and grows up, the imagination seems to become dull because they are not real world events that we can experience for ourselfs. So, majority of your life minus the tv, phone, video games even school now would show that we sit indoors most our lives away from what mother nature has to offer us! I cant imagine being older and saying, "I played video games".... and playing video games, tv, or anything was the gist of all you did in a nutshell. Rather, I would love to say, "I (literally) blew that car up in real life!"

Everything is given to us on a platter now and nothing is earned or respected. Here's a teacher whose noticed it too.

http://http//otter.covblogs.com/archives/004701.html

Example: x-box live.... Why dont you just call the person up and hang out to go do something instead of talk to them through the microphone.. Soon you will forget what your friend looks like sitting there.