Media and Me, a Meditation

Let me first say that media are incredibly prevalent and unavoidable in our society, and have come to surround nearly everything that I do. As an eighteen-year-old college student living in the twenty-first century, media are something that can both nurture and, alternately, squeeze the life out of aspects of a young adult’s life. Because it is so present and so thoroughly affects everything I do, I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly where to start. That, and I literally have way too much to say and I'm probably going to end up going overboard and writing way more than necessary because I'm honestly and truly excited and intrigued about media.

(Image courtesy of ME. My iTouch keeps me up-to-date with the media when I'm not around a computer. Plus, I love Word Warp.)

So here we go. I'm just going to start writing and see where this takes me. To begin, first of all, I really want to talk about music. Music has a really monumental and, well, special role in my life. I genuinely love it. I myself write music, and actually have an acoustic project with one of my best friends. I write the lyrics, the music, play guitar, and then we harmonize together. Music has the ability to affect and even transform your emotions, make you feel a specific way, and really impact your life in some cases. I've gone through many, many phases when it comes to music. I, like most other girls of my generation, did have my boy band time. I'll always be a Backstreet Boys girl at heart, let's be honest here. In seventh grade I was Green Day's biggest fan, and I mean it. I own every single album and I used to be able to spew facts about the band's history and its members' entire life stories. Seeing them in concert was probably the highlight of my

middle school time. They really do put on a great show. And you know, as embarrassing as I was (seriously, I was a psycho), there will always be times when it just strikes my fancy to throw on Dookie. Their older albums are prime, and they represent a certain era of my life so their music will always have some sort of meaning to me (photo courtesy of kaweah.com). After Green Day came my "hardcore" phase. I went to shows nearly every weekend at this venue in downtown Nashua called Drifters, where all sorts of local bands played. We were a community, and the music brought us together. It was a pretty cool thing to be a part of something like that. Now, I have a lot more variety in my life. I think it's kind of ridiculous to limit yourself to one genre of music. I'm happy listening to The Beatles, who "invaded American pop charts in the 1960s" (Media and Culture, 89), any time of day, any day, all day, every week, forever. Throw on some Streetlight Manifesto and I'd be stoked to sing along. I have an extremely extensive mellow playlist that I use to sleep and do homework and just chill out. I blast Johnny Cash from time to time. I'm a Biggie fanatic. I really am all over the place. But right now, more than any other artist, Explosions in the Sky is what I'm all about. As a writer, lyrics and songwriting are really important to me when listening to music and I generally steer away from instrumental music. But with this band, it's different. They can somehow make you feel an emotion so strongly and purely without uttering a single word. They are the only band that has ever made music that has affected me so much emotionally that it moved me to tears. They can somehow make me feel so hopeful and hopeless at the same time; it's an unusual but powerful limbic experience. Their music helps me sleep, helps me calm down when I'm anxious, helps me focus on homework, and helps me feel something when I'm kind of emotionally lost.

Movies also play an incredibly important role in my life. I'm obsessed with movies, and Netflix did nothing but fuel the fire. Some of my favorite films include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Into the Wild (photo courtesy of webwombat.com), Inception, Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko, Brick, Garden State, Pan's Labyrinth, District 9, Finding Forrester...honestly, my list goes on and on. I find movies powerful and inspiring, and a lot of the time just plain entertaining. Movies help me escape from stress and the real world, and they enable me to relax and focus on the lives of others in lieu of my own. "The movie is not only a supreme expression of mechanism, but paradoxically it offers as product the most magical of consumer commodities, namely dreams" (Media and Culture, 213). I watch a movie nearly every day. I am very critical of movies, especially film adaptations of my favorite books, but I have such an extensive list of favorites because I honestly just watch a lot of movies. Watching a new movie is a much better way of using my spare time compared to the alternate option of sitting on Facebook for hours on end, in my opinion (even though I do that too sometimes).

Speaking of Facebook, the Internet may be the most present medium in my daily life. I use the World Wide Web for almost everything - homework, research, contact, blogging, social networking, movie and television watching, music, and more. On a daily basis, the main sites I use are Google, Facebook, my.champlain.edu (I obviously have to keep up with my school stuff and email), StumbleUpon, and Tumblr. Tumblr is a blog site that I use and seriously, it runs my life. I've been on Tumblr for over a year now - I actually had my first blogiversary there in September. I really like it because it even further simplifies blogging from the set up here on Blogger (though I've been blogging on here for quite a while, too. I had to make an account for my Journalism class back during my junior year). It conveniently and easily enables you to create specific types of posts - Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video. It's blogging made easy, and I find it pretty cool that I have 90 people, some I know and some I don't, following what I post there. The Internet is a very personal thing. I, for one, post a lot of things about my daily life or personal feelings on my various blogs. My Facebook has a lot of my personal information on it. "The medium, or process, of our time - electric technology - is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life" (Media and Culture, 49). As far as my actual Internet source goes, I was using Safari for a while when I first got my Macbook. Before that, I was a big fan of Google Chrome and used that on my Desktop at home. When I had to download Firefox upon coming to school to use Angel, I become more accustomed to just using that automatically so I wouldn't have to have multiple browsers up and blah blah blah - it was just convenient. Recently, though (by recently, I mean just last night) I was introduced to a new Web browser called RockMelt. It uses integration to make surfing the Web even more convenient - I actually have a Facebook sidebar so I always know when I'm getting notifications, can use the chat function, and check up on everyone's updates without even having the tab for it up. It's actually a really cool browser and for someone who just started using it less than 24 hours ago, I REALLY like it.

Moving on from there and on to magazines. I haven't subscribed to any magazines in years, sad as it is. The last magazine I read was my Ultimate Music Guide on John Lennon that I went out and bought specifically for this class (though as a Beatles fanatic, I'm glad I did...it's a collector's item...come on) and before that I hadn't really sat down and actually read a magazine in months. I'm around them so much less frequently lately and it makes it more difficult to really be influenced by them. To be honest, that's not all that disappointing for me. A lot of magazines don't present a lot of substantial content, at least from my opinion. Magazine staffs wonder, "How do we keep this material fresh? How do we keep it relevant? How do we, you know, get the reader excited, keep ourselves excited?" (Media and Culture, 304). How about you give me some real articles, about real things every once in a while? When I'm at home, though, I'm around magazines a lot more. We have tons of them just lying around on the coffee table and in the magazine rack, so if I'm bored, I oftentimes pick one up and start browsing through it. I most frequently read Newsweek, which I find to actually be of substance and provide legitimate, interesting, and informative articles. Other than that, the only magazine I really take the time to read and look through from cover to cover is Entertainment Weekly (image courtesy of buzznet.com). As someone this interested with the media, it enables me to keep up-to-date on current (as well as upcoming) films, books, and music.

Newspapers hold a lot more value for me than magazines. I've always just regarded them as having more integrity and I always feel like the writing has more...value, might be the right word. After all, "There's almost no media experience sweeter...than poring over a good newspaper. In the quiet morning, with a cup of coffee - so long as you haven't turned on the TV, listened to the radio, or checked in online - it's as comfortable and personal as information gets" (Media and Culture, 249). I don't really interact much with newspapers since coming to school, aside from occasionally picking up a paper in the Hub and flipping through it briefly. At home, though, I can't get up from breakfast until I've read all of the comics and my horoscope. Zits and Dilbert are probably my favorite comics that run in the local newspaper. We even own books for each of those comic strips at my house. My relationship with newspapers grew initially when I won an essay contest through my local paper and had an article written about me. From there, a staff member emailed me

recommending that I apply for an internship there. I did, and my relationship when newspapers grew even more when I earned that internship with my senior year. I was a student writer for the Nashua Telegraph (image courtesy of fsbo.com), and my articles ran every three weeks throughout the whole school year. I did it for the writing experience, but it definitely gave me a better appreciation for newspapers. While I wasn't exactly at an office working with the staff writing articles at a desk, I still gained a lot of experience with meeting deadlines and a better knowledge of how newspapers work. I like local papers a lot because they value what kids like me have to say. I also had a really interesting experience with newspapers lately. My mom went on an 18-day trip to Israel and Egypt in the beginning of November and she brought me back a copy of The Jerusalem Post. It has been incredibly interesting for me to read a paper, front to back, from an entirely different continent.

Books play a much more important role in my life the the other two forms of text media. I have loved books as long as I can remember - so much that my dream job would be writing them. Stories like The Lorax (image courtesy of whatwoulddaddo.com) were my favorites as a kid, and they still to this day resonate with me as truly brilliant works of literature. Books still mean a great deal to me and I'm constantly reading multiple books at a time. Right now, I'm caught up in rereading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the eight millionth time, as well as reading On The Road and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest. Nearly nothing beats curling up with a good book for me. I got a library card downtown within the first few weeks of coming here. I absolutely love going to the library and wandering through row after row of millions of books. I love everything about them - the smell, the feel, the experience.... I become so invested in the things that I read. I fall into the world of the book I'm reading so completely, and that's half the magic of literature. "All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened...belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse, the people and the places and how the weather was" (Media and Culture, 316). I firmly believe that the right words have the power to change someone, and even maybe change the world. And books? Books definitely can.

Radio, oof. To be honest, I've never really been a big fan of radio, which "was to the printing press what the telephone had been to the letter: it allowed immediacy" (Media and Culture, 109). Now that XM and Sirius Radio are around, though, my opinion of it has improved, though. A lot of my distaste for radio stems from my general dislike for "mainstream" music, or at least most of the popular things played on Top 40-like stations. With XM and Sirius, though, there are a lot more specialized stations. When I drive my father's car at home and don't have my iPod to hook up, I might listen to 106.3 Frank FM, which is the oldies and classic rock station where I live. If nothing good is playing, though, I move on to the built-in XM radio where I can listen to alternative stations, acoustic stations, and grunge stations and get music I actually like. I'm pretty partial to the grunge station, myself. Nice limbic stimulation.

Finally, my relationship with television. When it comes to television, I'm not one to casually watch episodes of shows here or there. I commit. When I love a show, it means I've seen every episode and can pretty much reference what happens in any of them. It means a lot to me when I find a really good show because there's a lot of crap on the air these days now that reality shows are running rampant. "Reality programs deprive actors of work as they occupy larger parcels of prime-time real estate" (Media and Culture, 172). But I have found a select few shows that I really do love. These shows include That 70's Show, How I Met Your Mother, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and finally, my latest addiction, Dexter (image courtesy of Google Images). Before watching, I never really knew what the show was about, I just knew a lot of people I knew really loved it. Then my brother told me I should check it out because he'd recently gotten into it. My brother and I have really similar tastes in music, television, and the like so I trusted that if he enjoyed it, I'd probably really like it too. So I checked it out on Netflix, which hosts the first two seasons for instant online play. Holy crap. I was hooked instantly. The plot in itself is pretty brilliant - a blood spatter analyst for the Miami police that helps the Homicide department catch serial killers, while being an undercover serial killer himself? Come on, it's genius. And Michael C. Hall just acts the role incredibly. It's clever and dark and just an all-around awesome show. The suspenseful nature of the show excites my Reptilian brain Of course, I whipped through the first two seasons in their entirety over the span of a single weekend. And then, upon realizing I couldn't continue watching, I was pretty grief-stricken. It was my entire life for a whole weekend, what was I supposed to do? Watch it illegally online, of course. Since then, it's been an absolutely wonderful and time-consuming addiction in which I spend far too much of my spare time locating each and every episode on various Web sites and following the life of the witty and disturbed Dexter Morgan. Fantastic. Here's the opening theme, just because even that is brilliant and needs to be shared.

So there it is, media and me. We have a pretty extensive relationship and while I enjoy it, I kind of resent it at the same time. Media truly consumes my life. Almost every single thing I do in my daily life revolves around some medium, whether it be music, movies, the Internet, magazines, newspapers, books, radio, or television. It kind of makes me want to go all Christopher McCandless on everyone's ass, like in Into the Wild, and just get away from society and the media and everything that goes with it. But the media are powerful, and in fact, incredibly useful. All of this? It's a part of life.

Interesting

I found this image in my Stumbling and I figured it was something you guys should all see since this is what we've been talking about lately.

Ode to Mal Blum (#4)

As an extremely musically-oriented, I'm open to most genres and I like finding new music to listen to any way I can. This week, I was introduced to an artist through another blog site I use. A blogger that I followed posted this video and I absolutely fell in love with it.

"Ode to Kulele," by Mal Blum, is a truly adorable song. Watching a Youtube video made for a song off of her new album that was posted on a blog truly represents both a technological shift and an aesthetic one. It's a case of convergence.

This charming video - rich with humor, warm fuzzies, repetition, and flattery - is a pretty clear representation of the type of music Mal plays. I've since begun listening to some of her other songs which are equally as amiable. Cutesy poetry about things like being an earthworm sung in her honest and almost childlike voice layered over simplistic acoustic guitar chords. The qualities in her music are qualities I don't think I've ever heard all in one artist and it's a refreshing thing.

Photo courtesy of malblum.com

At twenty-two, Mal is making a pretty solid start for herself as a musician. According to her Web site, "she has opened for many national artists including Kimya Dawson, Amanda Palmer and Bitch." While she is only making her start, I think there's a lot of potential for her to grow and become fairly successful. Her easy charm is extremely likable and so are her tunes.

Avatar: The Last True Television Love (#3)

Now, I'm the first to admit that I've watched way too much television in my lifetime. I've followed more than one series from beginning to end, from That 70's Show to How I Met Your Mother. I watch a range of different shows - polar opposites like the serious mystery and crime-based drama, Dexter, and the cheerful, laughter-inducing musical known as Glee. But no show has ever caught my attention like Avatar: the Last Airbender.

(image courtesy of beanpiepromotions.com)

I know full-well that this show isn't exactly geared toward eighteen-year-old college students. But this summer, with my insomnia in full-swing, I needed to find something to occupy my time at four A.M. I'd made my way through what had to be the majority of Netflix's selection of movies to watch instantly. I decided it might be worthwhile to peruse the television shows they offered. When I made the decision to watch the pilot of Avatar, it was more as a skeptical joke than a serious interest in becoming involved with the series. I had a few friends that were fans of the show, friends I'd harassed pretty frequently for their interest in it. I figured it might be worth watching the pilot so I could have proof of how dumb it was.

Shit, was I wrong. This show hooked me like it was child's play and it became an addiction. I couldn't stop watching it. The characters were honest and real. The storyline never lost my interest. It made me laugh out loud and I'll admit I almost cried a few times. It took me less than two weeks of near-sleepless nights to make my way through 54 episodes (a solid 24 hours worth of television). Afterwards I had no idea what to do with myself. I was like a crack addict who went from shooting up multiple times a day to suddenly going cold turkey. No other television show has ever managed to hit me that hard.

The opening for every episode, narrated by the character Katara, seems to sum up the storyline pretty well: "Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an Airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."

Watching this show for me was a great experience with the technological shift - I took a show that was at one point broadcasted once weekly on network television and watched it all in one fell swoop through an online source.

The show also uses a lot of emotional transfer; even if - since it is a fictional story about a world that does not exist and powers people aren't actually capable of having - I can't directly understand what the characters are going through and I can't put myself in their shoes, I feel all of their emotions just as strongly. The show is designed for me to connect with the characters and become involved with their journey. And it achieved exactly that.

Now, let's sit back for a second and talk about movie adaptations. When we're looking at book to movie translations, the movie industry has been known to do a decent job. Yeah, they've botched a few classics here and there and let's face it, the Harry Potter movies don't even come close to reaching the level of brilliance that the books do. But I have never, NEVER in my life been so completely horrified by how terrible a movie adaptation is until I saw the Avatar movie. I don't even want to get into how much I hated it because I'll be angry for days, but I will mention that it destroyed everything good about the series, left much to be desired, and just all-around sucked a colossal amount of ass.

Shyamalan uses an unnecessary amount of distracting, shitty special effects to distract from the complete lack of character development, complete deviation from the real storyline, complete removal of the show's humor, completely horrible script, casting, and on and on and on. I can't even come close to describing just how awful it was, but here's a review that describes it EXTREMELY accurately.

That being said, the show itself is really brilliant television. It is a kid's show, aired on Nickelodeon, but older generations could just as easily enjoy its easy-going humor, action-packed storyline, and relatable characters. Its use of humor, nostalgia, warm fuzzies, group dynamics, and the race card make it incredibly effective. The allegorical message of world peace is related through, to quote the power tools, "mythical notions of racial harmony."

I still kind of feel like a recovering crack addict whenever I talk about the show, so luckily for me, I don't have to focus on recovering too quickly: the creators of Avatar recently signed a deal with Nickelodeon for a sequel called The Legend of Korra that will premier in 2011. I couldn't be more excited.

The Ultimate Music Guide: Lennon

THESIS: This publication, one in a series of Ultimate Music Guides from the makers of the magazine Uncut, is a 148-page "John Lennon 70th birthday collectors' special" intending to review his complete discography, display rare photos, and long-unseen interviews.

Photo courtesy of zinio.com

FIVE FACTS: Uncut was launched in 1997 as "a monthly magazine aimed at 25- to 45-year-old men that focuses on music and movies." Former editor of the magazine Melody Maker Allan Jones edits for Uncut. It is owned by IPC Media. Each edition of the magazine comes with a free CD. The rate of a full-paged ad in Uncut is around £4,190, or $5,825.

BONUS FACTS: The Beatles signed 80% of their earnings to Apple Corps to avoid taxation in 1967. In a poll, Lennon was voted eighth of the Greatest Britons, between Queen Elizabeth I and Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson. Lennon was first inspired to get into rock after hearing Elivs's "Heartbreak Hotel." He was the last Beatle to land solo No. 1 hit. Lennon died after being shot four times by Mark Chapman on the 8th of December, 1980.

TRIUNE BRAIN: The neocortex and the limbic brain are given a good workout in reading this magazine. There are a lot of words for the brain to process, from long articles to quotes to small boxes featuring fun facts, accessing the neocortex. The 148 pages of content also heavily feature rare, limbic images of Lennon that are used to accentuate the articles, quotes, and stories about the man.

The small fun fact boxes are entitled "Gimme Some Truth!" to play off of one of Lennon's songs.

EIGHT TRENDS: This magazine issue speaks to an aesthetic shift. Instead of just looking at images of Lennon or just reading a singular article about him or just listening to one of his albums, it combines the experience. I can put on a Lennon song while the combined effect of reading about his death and looking at the accompanying pictures of his mourners for a really powerful combined, converged effect. It also references an epistemological shift. While the magazine features a lot of text, the photographs also receive a heavy focus and are even advertised on the front cover. Even when buying the magazine, I saw a woman pick up the magazine and flip through many of the pages just to look at the images before putting it back down, not appearing to have read any of the text.

SEVEN PRINCIPLES: Emotional transfer is a main principle utilized in this magazine. As a multimedia experience, the content speaks to the reader on an emotional level and, to quote the power tools, was "designed to transfer the emotion from one symbol or lifestyle onto another." Through the mixed media experience of photographs and different types of text about Lennon's solo career and eventual death, the reader truly feels like they know Lennon better by the end and are struck emotionally reading about his murder. Production techniques are also very important. Images, symbols, colors, arrangement, and font styles are all used to make an eye-catching, aesthetically pleasing, impacting magazine.

TWENTY-NINE PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES: This magazine's most heavily utilized technique is nostalgia. It was put out to honor a musician who has passed on what would've been his 70th birthday by reviewing all of his solo albums (all released more than thirty years ago), showing rare photographs of him, and bringing back interviews that have gone "unseen for decades." It is all a nostalgic look on the career and impact he had when he was alive. In addition to nostalgia, the magazine makes use of testimonial - quotes from important figures in Lennon's life such as Yoko Ono, Jim Keltner, May Pang, and Lennon himself through former interviews.

Mid-Semester Reflection

1. After studying 21st century media for eight weeks in this class, what have you learned? Please be specific.

I've learned how media works to control us (the machine is us) but is simultaneously being taught by us (the machine is using us). I have learned how to analyze the production techniques and persuasive techniques used in producing any piece of media and how it works with the different parts of our brain. I've learned that a lot can come from becoming personally involved with media instead of just looking at it. It means a lot more when you don't just take it at face value.

This video just really stuck out to me, of all of the ones we've watched. I feel that I learned a lot from it and the work that we did with it.

2. What is the most important thing you have learned about yourself as a critical reader, a writer, and a thinker in this class so far?

I've learned that I know a lot more than I originally thought I did about media, but also that I have much more to learn. I've also realized that I have a LOT to say that I haven't been saying about the media and how it influences us. I have learned that it is necessary to dig a little deeper when reading or watching anything, and that if you have something to say about it, there are many ways I can do so and I shouldn't hesitate to do so. I have also learned that I have much to contribute to the world of media.

3. What's one thing you would do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I think I would not do much of anything differently, aside from maybe reading the text a bit more thoroughly. But all in all, I love this class and that keeps me engaged. I think I'm doing well with the subject matter and I think I am learning a lot. Being open to the information helps me and I am keeping up with the work. So I don't think I would change anything.

Satisfied! Photo courtesy of my PhotoBooth.

4. What's one thing you would like me to do differently this first half of the semester if you were to take this class again?

I think it would be helpful to discuss or review the text we're reading before we do the blog entries about it, or even afterwards. It's a lot of information to process in general, and I think it would be hugely beneficial to discuss it further in class instead of just taking in all of this and not doing anything with it. Maybe you could also inform the class, for those who didn't pick it up, that the book is available online. It is tremendously helpful, for me anyways, when doing the homework. Sometimes after reading so much information in one sitting like I do with the chapter, it is nice to then read the summaries online and take quizzes to make sure I understand the basic concepts and all of the information I'm taking in.

5. Please comment on the usefulness of the power tools, our course blog, your personal blog, our in-class quizzes, our films, and our book(s) as learning tools.

I find the power tools to be extremely useful I think the course blog is also really helpful. Everything we need to keep track of in for the class is conveniently located there in a single location. The personal blog I love because it helps me to practice the power tools on my own, outside of the school setting, with things I really care about or find interesting. The quizzes keep us on our toes and force us to practice and study the power tools. The films are helpful in practicing the tools and are interesting to analyze. The book, however, is a different matter for me. It is full of incredible and interesting and new and helpful information that I didn't know before, but I don't see how to connect it to anything else we're learning because we literally never talk about it, revisit what we've read, discuss how it relates to all of the things we talk about in class, so why the hell do we bother reading it or blogging about it? The disconnect really bothers me because even if I'm learning, the homework is useful if I don't put it into practice or get a chance to really digest it by discussing or processing it with other people. I think the book would be more useful by tenfold if it actually connected our homework to anything we discuss.

Camp Champ Radio Spot: Da Beavaz

HANNAH) You don't need much knowledge, to know that champlain college
is the place you want to be, it's completely free.


(ZACH)Best college ever, not hyperbole
ain't a big lie, it's plain to see

(errybody)everyone get dat champlain feva,
chilling with chauncy the beava
He say everyone so sexy, everyone so fly
if you don't go here you can just shut up and die

(megan)don't act like a strong man
look more like a straw man
sit down before I knock you wit da
back o mah ring hand

(alexa) Go hard or go home,
go to class feed your dome,
rockin out all my jews say SHALOM!

(HANNAH) Where ya goin, where ya at?
Best be champlain cuz it's phat
Ain't no shame-ah
in being a gamer
If ya think you're better then you're probably lamer.

(errybody)everyone get dat champlain feva,
chilling with chauncy the beava
He say everyone so sexy, everyone so fly
if you don't go here you can just shut up and die

(Seth) YO MY BEAVAS WHERE YA AT

GTL - Welcome to the Jersey Shore (#2)

Image courtesy of weheartit.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I'm addicted to Jersey Shore. There's something about watching a house of overly tan individuals in their twenties drink too much, scream at each other, and pick up girls that reaches an insane level of entertainment. Everyone loves to watch it but not everyone is quick to admit it. It seems on the surface like a huge and colossal waste of time to be watching a show about people we don't know getting tan and getting hammered, and to be honest it really is. But it's all about entertainment.

Season 2 of the Shore is well underway and there has been no lack of alcoholism, obsessive tanning, and tremendous amounts of drama. After first season there was a high standard and season 2 has yet to disappoint.

Jersey Shore - MTV Shows

Now that everyone knows about my pathetic obsession with Jersey Shore, let me explain how it's relevant to what we've been learning. Due to an unfortunate incident, my roommates and I no longer have working cable hooked up to our television and as such, I have been keeping up with the housemates on Hulu, an online site where you can watch episodes of your favorite television shows via the internet. As a girl with no cable and bad insomnia, I've found Hulu to be extremely helpful in keeping up with various shows that I used to watch back at home. Hulu is interesting. As Doctor Dub posted on our M&S blog, is it the future of television? It very well could be.

While watching the show on Hulu speaks to technological shift in media, it also relates to the reading we did on television this past week. Reality shows have thrust their way to the forefront and have pushed sitcoms far back in everyone's minds. Reality television is very present and it isn't going away soon, especially not with "guilty pleasure" shows, as I refer to them, like Jersey Shore.

The Huge and Revolutionary Step in the Right Direction for Media Convergence That Nobody Knows About Yet (#1)

The world needs to prepare itself, because hitRECord has set in motion an idea that could change media convergence forever. As stated right on the homepage, hitRECord has "evolved into a professional open collaborative production company. We create and develop art and media collaboratively here on our site."

Instead of explaining it myself, I should let the company's creator itself explain it. You might recognize him.

When I discovered this Web site over the summer, I knew right away that this was something I really wanted to be involved with. It's something that I think that everyone interested in making creative media should be involved with. There are a lot of people already making their mark, even big names like Channing Tatum. The beauty of hitRECord is that it is anyone's game. Anyone can make a RECord. Anyone can remix a RECord. Anyone is invited to collaborate and become a part of something truly meaningful. And I feel grateful to be a piece of something I find so special.

Your contribution can start as something small: a few words, a picture, a tune, an idea. And then they're remixed. Someone can take your lyrics and record a melody for it. Someone can then sing along to the tune. Then someone could in turn start filming video to go along with the song. It can become really big really quickly, and everyone involved turns a profit if it goes anywhere. Even if it doesn't, it feels good to create something really beautiful and real.

A long-time vet of hitRECord, Jenyffer Maria, contributes her illustrations. Here's something she's done.

Image taken from hitRECord.

But she doesn't just post them for herself; she also contributes to collaborations. For example, she illustrated characters from a story another hitRECorder wrote, and those illustrations helped to inspire real-life footage taken for a video to go along with the story.

One of the most beautiful collaborations I have come across since joining hitRECord and browsing the RECords started as lyrics that Lawrie Brewster posted. Metaphorest than remixed it and posted herself singing the lyrics. Then Channing Tatum (yes, the same one you're thinking of) laid down some harmonies to accompany her melody. And then another hitRECorder added some video to add a really beautiful visual aspect to the experience. Here's the finished product.

I really believe that hitRECord is the future of media convergence. It exemplifies the technological and aesthetic shifts in media. Right now it has a steady following and involvement but so many people haven't discovered it yet. The more people that learn about the company and its purpose and start RECording, the bigger it will get. And soon collaborative art like what is being made at hitRECord will come to the forefront. I hope that day comes soon.

The Pros and Cons of Media Through the Eyes of the Average Teenaged Girl

My name is Megan and I'm from Nashua, New Hampshire.

This is a photograph I took of downtown Nashua from the roof of my favorite parking garage with my 35-mm SLR camera. I would consider it my hometown because I lived there longer than I lived anywhere else, even if I wasn't born there.

My fun media experience this summer was seeing Shutter Island. The book, by Dennis Lehane, is one of my favorites and it was really amazing being able to watch the plot unfold in front of me. It was one of the best film adaptations I've ever seen of a novel and it stayed extremely close to the original storyline, as well as being extremely visually stunning and well-casted.

One thing I like about media is how easily someone can publish works of art or writing for the world to see. Being published or becoming successful as a writer or artist can be very difficult and places like the internet allow you to start spreading the word about yourself and getting people to look at your stuff. One Web site I really like that enables the sharing and enjoyment of creative and original media, for example, is hitRECord. If you're an artist or writer or musician or filmmaker or anything of the sort, I would recommend you check it out. One thing I don't like is how easily that work can be stolen and plagiarized. If you post your material on a site or public forum, people can easily post it elsewhere an claim it as their own.

As for my professional future, I would ideally like to become a novelist while doing something with writing on the side to pay the bills while I write. I think I would really enjoy something like editing or publishing, something having to do with helping other people get their own work out there.