'Cuz All I Want for Christmas, is YOU~ (yes, just YOU)

Buy Nothing Day!




       The “Go Green!” bandwagon’s building momentum and with the economic crash, many have realized that their excessive consumption of goods have had a negative effect on the environment and society. Buy Nothing Day, in its 17th year now, happens on November 28th. This money-free day was created to spread global awareness of our over-consumption. 

The society of the twenty-first century has become overwhelmingly obsessed with consumerism. Everywhere you look, advertisements, salespeople, logos, slogans, even the price discounts are telling us to “BUY MORE! BUY MORE!” It’s the never ending hunger of the monster, Consumerism, provoked by Capitalism.

Don’t believe it? I see it happening all around me. I can’t even see a single, four by four inch patch of floor (or desk) in my friend’s room, and another friend claimed he got lost in her closet (it isn’t that big either). That right there, my virtual friends, is solid, living proof of over-consumption. She doesn’t need 3 calendars, nor the stuffed animals that take up an entire bed and a half. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but this is no joke.

Ask yourselves this question before you buy something next time: “Is this something I really want, need, and will use for years?”

“Do I already have something similar to this product?” If you do, and it serves much the same function, why are you wasting money buying a duplicate?

If you really want to spend money, please donate to a worthy cause. There are always people (and animals) out there who are less fortunate than you and me. Some people just need a little push to get them on the right tracks. I’m sure they would appreciate it, and Mother Nature too.

I support Buy Nothing Day completely, as I am an environmentally conscious individual and not a fan of shopping. The only real problem with this event is that stores will have significantly less profit, and to them I say, “DEAL WITH IT.” Most companies make enough money to be able to afford a day of less revenue. Oh, and they might get annoyed with AdBuster’s prankishly fun ideas in support of BND!

So! Remember to come out on November 28th for some free fun! (Without the shopping bags, you’ll definitely have the hands to.) 

Works Cited

AdBusters Media Foundation. "Buy Nothing Day." AdBusters. 6, October 2009.

Who Needs Megaphone when there's Television?

Mass Media

Mass media is part of the twenty-first century bandwagon which starts mainstream trends. The term medium defines a form of communication; mass media means a way of communication to vast populations. Mediums such as television, radio, internet, print, and mobile phones are examples that communicate to the masses. 

The term mass media on a prima facie understanding simply means: communicating to a large group of audience. In my understanding of mass media, it is a process which ideas are created and manifested in a form of medium. This medium is then passed on and decoded by the audience to be information which they perceive. This process is done but not limited to mediums that may range from radio to internet to book and prints. What is difficult to get across in mass media is the accuracy of interpretation of the message, because the way an individual interprets an idea is often heterogenous compared others within that same mass. 

McLuhan’s “medium is the message” regarding mass media’s effects proves to be quite true (Playboy). For example, at the beginning of the year for Mass Communications class, I designed my autobiography to be a double sided billboard which passed a generic but overlooked health message. Explaining it simply by word of mouth would not have been enough, and some audience members may not fully understand my poster as a whole. However, with the billboard, I was able to produce a solid visual for each of my concepts. With the flip motion, I can present the first concept as a single identity that everyone can quickly understand without having to interpret the relationship between it and the hidden second concept. When that first concept is fully understood, I can then flip the image to the second image to explain my second concept. With both concepts solidly understood, the audience will put two and two together and understand the whole theme of my poster. With my visual medium, I can effectively and accurately relay my thoughts to a much bigger audience, rather than just the few who understand the verbal explanation.

     Simply put, a medium is the bridge in which invisible thoughts and ideas are able to cross from one mind to another (McCloud, p. 195). Without media (and ESP), we would never have been able to communicate from mind to mind. 

Works Cited

Playboy. “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy Magazine. March 1969. 

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York. HarperCollins. 1994

What's Really Behind that Perfect Mask?

Fake News

News generally means recent and relevant information. Journalists receive, research, then broadcast these pieces of information to the public through various sources such as radio, television, online or printed newspapers, etc. Journalists, however, are not the only ones able to broadcast news. Public relations practitioners can also broadcast news. The difference is PR has an agenda of using the news to sell a product, or to create a better public image for a corporation. In other words, information brought by PR is corporately-funded and primarily suited to their clients’ needs. Journalism’s primary goal on the other hand, is to serve the public’s best interests and right to know; even if there are harmful effects to their employers (Turney).

Most corporations that fund news are not sincerely doing it as a public service. More often than not, their “news” relates to a product they are selling, or to give themselves a better reputation. They simply want viewers to agree with their “news” and therefore will:

1. Buy [more] of their product, or 
2. Trust that company

In my opinion, this is propaganda, not news. Propaganda looks and sounds like regular, unbiased news for the average citizen’s well-being, but there is always a hidden agenda of self-glorification and/or profit when corporations are involved. (We are in a capitalistic economy after all, where man goes to great lengths to increase profit.) These corporately-funded news are only meant to convey a certain idea or view, and thus aren’t news at all, but simply an opinion on a current issue (in which they try to make us agree with them). Some can see through the propaganda, but most cannot (which is why such hypes work, with the desired results). Unfortunately, most corporations can “disprove” (bribing, more corporately-funded news, or whatever else is up their greasy sleeves) those who try to show the public what is really news.

Thankfully, we have alternative ways to express the truth: the internet, where the average Joe or justice-serving organization can get his voice heard and the news spread without all the excessive, mind-warping sugarcoating (think of it this way: too much sugar = bad stomach ache). Be careful though when going through such sites, as some are just as fake and believable as non-virtual scams.

     To help put this into a better perspective, I found an article from the website of the International Food Safety Network. Although this site is no longer being updated (a new, up-to-date one is now available to access), this particular article in this site gave me good insights on how exactly corporations’ fundings are negatively affecting research that should and could have been beneficial ecologically, economically and socially.  The body of the article does not directly tell us what is bad, but the implication is quite clear. Since the research and corporate practices take many years to complete, the age of this article makes no difference in explaining the results of such practices. I hope this article helps you further understand this much debated topic of fake news.

IFSN: CORPORATE FUNDED RESEARCH NEGATIVE AT UNIVERSITIES

Works Cited

Turney, Michael. “Ethics Codes for PR.” Practicing Public Relations. 21, November 2006. <http://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/ethics.html> 7, October 2009.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Media Hegemonies

      Who remembers turning on the television after school to watch Pokemon on YTV? Do your younger siblings tune in on Treehouse? Is 102.1 The Edge on your car radio? How many of your childhood books are published by Kids Can Press?

I bet you’re wondering what all these have in common, as they all seem different in their content. YTV, Treehouse, 102.1 The Edge, Kids Can Press, and a list of 69 other popular brands of media service providers are all owned by media giant Corus Entertainment. 

This conglomerate of many media organizations is one of the few that run much of Canada’s media sector. This type of ownership is called cross media ownership, where a company of a particular medium owns another similar company of a different type of communication (Fiji). With the money and ability to buy up smaller media firms, the larger firms reduce competition and increase revenue, which repeats the cycle of buy and dominate. In the past several decades, the world is seeing more such merges, where larger firms eat up smaller ones, resulting in a smaller number of much larger firms dominating the media industry (McChesney, p. 2). Now, these media giants are going international to further increase their property. 

Sounds kind of scary, doesn’t it: only ten or less companies feeding you and your entire country of billions of people what they want.

Much controversy has occurred over this topic, such as the reduction of diversity within viewpoints. The Federal Communications Commission, in a research, deemed in a cross media ownership as “unrealistic to expect true diversity from a commonly-owned ... combination” (Pritchard, p. 2). The commission also feared that the owner of such cross media ownership would manipulate news and content broadcasted by its media properties to negatively influence public opinion (Pritchard, p. 2).

It seems logical: each person has their own opinion and view that might be similar to a few others. Companies - media related or not - are still run by groups of individuals, and being individuals, they will have an opinion that will inevitably leak through the channels to thousands of people. With less companies portraying different outlooks, we will be forced to take what they feed us. Watching, reading or listening to the same opinions and views everyday are bound influence the masses. If everyone has similar tastes, then making entertainment that majority will like will definitely be easier and more profitable - killing two birds with one stone, or twice as many people with one movie. So watch out, the media giants might be out to homogenize us (McChesney, p. 3)!

The research by the FCC, mentioned above, was performed during the 2000 United States Presidential election as a chance to see how these merged companies would influence the public. The goal was to see if all the newspaper and television service owned by a single company would endorse or influence voters towards or against a certain candidate. However, the results of the research has deemed that despite having the same owner. Each organization had different endorsements without [possibly] influence from ownership(Pritchard, p.12). 

Concluding from the FCC’s research, the media conglomerates aren’t out to brainwash us. Don’t breathe a sigh of relieve though! The FCC paper did state possibilities of influence that they were unable to determine solidly. Even so, presidential elections do not earn the media giants as much money as your newspaper and television subscriptions and movie tickets. All these companies (non-media related companies too) have one goal: and no, not to provide you with great entertainment, but providing a great entertainment so you will spend - and therefore give them... MONEY! If getting everyone to watch one movie or television show was possible... Heck! Imagine how much money they would save on production costs by creating one instead of twenty movies to satisfy all of us! It sounds like a great money mountain of a plan to me... if I was a media firm’s (slightly evil?) CEO. 
BUT.. being the nice person I am, I'll just remove all the bloody gore in the media in an attempt to make the world a nicer place(Rehumanize...).  Use what power you have and do good stuff with it!  =)

Works Cited

Corus Entertainment Inc. About Corus. Corus Entertainment. 2009. <http://www.corusent.com/home/Corporate/AboutCorus/tabid/1668/Default.aspx> 8, October 2009.

Fiji Government. “Government Policy on Cross-Media Ownership.” Fiji Government Online Portal. 14, September 2005. <http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_5408.shtml> 8, October 2009.

McChesney, Robert. “The New Global Media.” The Nation. 11, November 1999.<http://www.thenation.com/doc/19991129/mcchesney/2> 8, October 2009.

Pritchard, David. Viewpoint Diversity in Cross-Ownership Newspapers and Television Stations: A Study of News Coverage of the 2000 Presidential Campaign. Federal Communications Commission. September 2002. <http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/materials/already-released/viewpoint090002.pdf> 8, October 2009. PDF file. 

Everyone Just Wants Someone to Listen

Media Ecology


The twenty-first century is an era where everything can be in your hands in an instant, anytime, anywhere. How? The advancement of the mobile phones. It has made our lives easier and has become a necessity. It’s portable and accessible almost everywhere so you can connect to friends and family wherever they may be. The phone has become a tiny, all-in-one functional packet. In Asia, you can even pay with your phone. How convenient. Like Neil Postman though, I too wonder whether the mobile phone is really all that great for us.

Innis was afraid a culture would be obsessed with conquest if a medium overemphasized time and space (Postman, 2000). Maybe this medium - the mobile phone - is overemphasizing instantaneous connectivity with everything and everyone. Many may agree cell phones bring the world together immediately and effortlessly. Ironically at the same time, it is disconnecting all of us. Phone calls are so convenient that people no longer feel the need to make physical efforts (travelling) to see each other. Also everyone is so absorbed in texting and calling those who aren’t with them that they ignore the people that are physically right there beside them. 

“...Today is a gift and that is why we call it the present.” 

Think about it - have you really focused on the people around you while having your phone out? Have you made the effort to see your family and friends or did a phone call replace that need? Are we taking this gift for granted and missing out on the moments that make life worth living?

After this post, I hope you’ll put the phone down more often. 

Go outside. Smile, play, and smell the roses.

Listen to the entire world, not just part of it.

Works Cited

Postman, Neil. "The Humanism of Media Ecology." Media Ecology Association. 2000. Media Ecology Association, Web. 20 Sep 2009.

Intro to My Mind

Academic Blogging

Blogs are about personal thoughts, views and opinions - self expression, really. The great thing about them is that that they are not like letters: you don’t have to wait a week or a month to get a reply from a loved one overseas, or worse, three years for the government (a true story from yours truly). You can read what others have to say and their response on your thoughts faster than you can grab a snack from the kitchen, and all in the comfort of your own home (or where ever you happen to be). Most people have personal blogs detailing their adventures in life. I thought blogging was so cool, I decided to make my own in junior high. It was great getting a piece of others’ thoughts on things that, if it weren’t for blogging, would never come up. Unfortunately, being a slow writer (and slow in everything else) I found no time to keep it up.

This time, however, I have to keep going at it. Until, at least, first-year is over. Rehumanizing the World, as you see it, is my academic blog being marked for university. I don’t know how well it will turn out, as I’m not too good at writing (anyone willing to point out grammar mistakes, please do!), nor am I good at putting my thoughts down in a straight line.

I chose this title, Rehumanzing the World, because to me, the more I watch movies, television, and hear the people around me, I feel like the world is becoming increasingly desensitized and cold-hearted. Some of my friends watch so many horror movies that they get used to them and don’t even get scared or grossed out.

To make this entry more like the popular ‘personal’ blog, here is my story of this one incident that made me finally snap, and feel so strongly about the desensitizing effect of media and the need to 'rehumanize':

I watched the movie Gamer two months ago. What made me snap was the serious overdo of unnecessary killing and "inappropriate flaunting" (I'm trying to be nice and toning it down extremely) of bodies. I was so livid with anger I refused to watch most of the movie, ranting the entire way through, and continued to rant long after the movie ended. It didn't help knowing that the rating for Gamer was only 14A. I’m pretty sure most fourteen year olds won't really understand or remember the brief moral at the end (That moral is the only good credit I'm giving it). Of course, not all fourteen year olds will be ignorant like that. Maybe I’m just still bitter from the time my father forbade me from watching The Matrix sequels, simply because the radio announced that some kid shot someone after watching it. The child was expecting the poor guy to jump right back up again like Agent Smith. Sadly, after that I don’t really expect anyone under fifteen to understand much more than the surface.

Medium is the message, right (Playboy)? Well, content plays a role too, and we get influenced by what we choose to watch, read, listen, or do (refer to the idiot killing someone after watching the Matrix). We're using media as the vehicle to communicate violence, hostility and indifference to the masses.  With all the killing, hurting and lack of compassion, I think we need to REHUMANIZE THE WORLD. Yes, by now you’ve probably realized that I made that word up and you won’t find it in the dictionary. However, I think it sums up the idea very well.

Humanize: to (make something) more humane and civilized. (New Oxford American Dictionary)

REHUMANIZING: returning human and civilized characteristics to a society and culture that has lost it.

Whoever agrees that the world needs 'rehumanizing' say, "Aye!"

Whoever doesn't agree, tell me why!  =]


Works Cited

Playboy. “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan.” Playboy Magazine. March 1969. 

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York. HarperCollins. 1994