Books

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein had me laughing pretty hard as a kid. The humor and creative thinking that went into Shel Silverstein's poetry was inspiring. I was 8 or 10 years of age and already beginning to think outside the box.

The Secret History of the World by Mark Booth opened my eyes to our mystical past. The book taught me a lot about the occult and mysticism. Its an alternative view of history and gives insight into the esoteric teachings of mystery schools. It peaked my curiosity about ancient religions and mythology.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer is a true story about  a young man Chris McCandless, who gives up all of his material possessions and wanders into the Alaskan wild and never returns. He wanted to be one with nature and live as nature intended, off the land and never taking more than you need. Even though I don't plan on leaving society, its fun to fantasize about getting away from everything and live like an animal.

Media Impact

Marshall McLuhan was a Canadian philosopher and was praised for his work and research in media theory. McLuhan used his tetrad of media effects as a means of examining the effects a media device would have on a society. His tetrad of media effects would would divide the medium into four effects and display them simultaneously. McLuhan claimed that each medium simultaneously enhanced something, made something else obsolete, reversed when pushed to extreme, and retrieved something from the past that was once lost. For example:

Photography:
Enhances: memories, sharing of memories and news.
Obsoletes: painting and drawing
Retrieves: Hieroglyphs
Reverse: a society too dependent on visual stimuli. Loss of interest in the written word.

A photograph captures a moment in time, freezing a real world experience in a two-dimensional static image for people to see at a later time. A photograph enhances your memory of a moment by being able to actually look back at that time. Makes painting and drawing obsolete because it is much more accurate and life-like not to mention much easier and functional. Retrieves Hieroglyphs. Pictures are images used to tell a story or report news and document moments much like the hieroglyphs of ancient time. A society using pictures to report news may become too dependent on visual stimuli and lose interest in written words, much like reverting back to picture books with less words.

Media Autobiography

So here it is Sunday afternoon, a beautiful 72 degree day, and I am indoors writing to you about my experiences and relationships with the eight different types of mass media we are currently studying in my Journalism class: Books, newspapers, magazines, movies, recordings, radio, television, and the internet. I am a Graphic Design major so my career depends heavily on visual media and communication.

• Books: Since childhood I have always had a respect for books. To me they symbolized intelligence and knowledge. I have also had a great fear of books because they usually were accompanied by copious amount of thinking and writing. Fear and respect for books did not equate to an enjoyment of books. The first book I truly enjoyed reading was probably JD Salinger's, Catcher in the Rye. I was listening to a lot of punk rock and the character Holden Caulfield spoke to the frustrated teenage version of me. 

• Newspapers: As a kid I would always see my parents reading the newspaper. I would read the funny pages while eating breakfast. I didn't really care about the paper so much. I remember being really bored by the small text about political things I had no idea about. Now that I understand a little more about the world around me I try to pick up the paper at least once a week on days like today while eating breakfast. 

•  Magazines: As a graphic design major I really paid close attention to the quality of the paper, the layout, and the advertisements within magazines. Sure the subject matter and the articles are great, but it was the immediate sense of artistry that spoke to me. Magazines are loaded with great photography, typography and articles. It really is a multi pronged attack on the senses that should never go away.

• Movies: Movies have to be my most prized medium of mass media. I have been inspired, angered, and entertained by movies throughout my life. I visit the movie theater about 3 times a month and I watch movies at home about 6 days a week. Some movies put me in such a comfort zone that its almost therapeutic.

• Recordings: Music rules my life. I am the person I am today because of recordings. I can't be in a car or on a bike ride without some form of music to occupy my mind. 

• Radio: I still listen to the radio every now and then. The great thing about the radio is that when you tune into a station you tap into the same wavelength as thousands of other people in their cars driving to and from work. Radio is a uniter. I listen to talk radio sometimes when I can't sleep.

• Television: We all gather around our glowing TV sets to watch programs that make us feel something. At work people discuss the latest episodes of shows like Breaking Bad and Walking Dead. Even over dinner you catch people discussing they're favorite television program. We all watch the same news, and we all recieve similar messages and it's extremely powerful.

• Internet: The great game changer! We are still adjusting to how this invention is changing our lives. We have the world at our fingertips, we can reach out to thousands if not millions of people from a single laptop computer. Now we just have to figure out what we want to do with all this power.