Blog Post #5

For this week’s blog post I decided to write about the video posted under week six, “Mad World Remix of Moby Video.” I noticed a few things almost immediately. Those things are the main character appears to be smaller than everyone else, which makes me believe he is a child. Another thing I noticed was everyone except for the main character was too busy looking at their phones to notice things like other people and things on the ground they could potentially step on or in. It seems as if everyone is way too focused on their cell phones to notice the little boy is alone and left out. The video depicts a lot of things that are currently happening in our society with cell phones like recording things for followers and likes instead of helping people in need. Another example of this is where the family is sitting at the table, but everyone is eating their food while they are in their phone. Even the baby has a phone in that scene. The scene I liked the most was the one where the director depicts people sending emojis that express an emotion, but they are not actually feeling any emotion and their faces are straight. Another scene I enjoyed a lot was the one where the girl is in black and white until she is behind the camera on her phone, which makes her come back into color. Overall, I enjoyed the video a lot. It scares me a lot to think that everyday our society is getting closer and closer to making this video a reality.

 

Link to the Assigned Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=5DU1B_XkyIk

Blog Post #4

For this week’s blog post, we were told to visit two websites (antiwar.com and theamericanconservative.com). Just from reading the names of these websites, you can tell pretty quickly what type of content these two websites will have. The anti-war website has a bunch of headlines that its viewers can click on that will take them to another website that talks more in depth about what the headline hints at. Some examples of the headlines used on this website include “US forces heading to Saudi Arabia to defend oil,” “US defends attacking Afghan farm laborers.” There are quite a few headlines that talk about Trump on this website too. This website also contains blogs, a contact us link, and a link to send donation. The American conservative website is similar to the anti war website because they both feature a large amount of news stories that viewers can easily access by clicking on the story/headline. The American conservative however contains pictures that go along with the stories. Aside from the links to news articles, this website also contains blogs, an about us page, and a donation link. These websites are well designed for the most part and they allow people who believe in both issues (anti-war and conservatism) to learn more about those things.  

Anti-war website

Conservative website

Blog Post #3

Forty-eight states out of 50 in the United States (and Washington, D.C.) have launched an anti-trust investigation into Google. A similar thing is currently happening to Facebook as well. Apparently Google is buying out most of their competition due to their lack of competition and this creates an unfair advantage for companies with large advertising/PR budgets. What I did not take into account was the affect that has on the states and the citizens within them. This unfair advantage causes many companies to be left out and not have their products or services advertised for a big crowd, which Google generates. In March of this year, Google was already fined $1.7 billion for forcing advertisers to only advertise with them. I forgot how dominant Google was as a company. When you think about it, they are all over our world and that is a negative thing if it comes out that Google and maybe even Facebook are guilty of the accusations against them. I think this story is very interesting because with how long both companies have been around, it’s scary to think of all of the things they may have done to abuse their power over our digital media.

 Google and Facebook under national investigation

Blog Post #2

The Supreme Court videos we had to watch for class was very educational. I have never been the best at history, so I learned a lot of new things and re-learned old things from watching these videos. The creators mission for the video seemed to be to humanize the Supreme Court. Not that us at citizens of the United States think that the justices of the Supreme Court are not human, but we may think of them as puppets of the government or "system." The director did a great job of allowing viewers to get an up close view of not only how the cases are decided in the Supreme Court, but the people who decide on the cases as well. In one scene, the justices agreed that their views on some cases change after the justices have met and discussed the case. That stuck out to me because it really illustrates the direct impact of human interaction, which ties into my previous theory that the creators were attempting to humanize the justices and change public opinion about them. There is another part in the video where the justices seem to go on for a while about how their cases are held in public and they cannot go into work with a pre-determined opinion on a given case. Overall, I enjoyed the video and learned a lot from it. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca8qSuWxcG8