Class Talks: Popularity

Something that I keep noticing about the popularity of different forms of media is how it grows. When something is first created, most of the time, people don't just automatically get used to it and incoorperate it into their everyday lives. It usually takes a while for something to gain popularity, but when people start to notice, its popularity sky-rockets. Internet, for example, was first created in 1969. It wasn't actually coined the term "internet" until 1974. When it started becoming popular though was in the 1990s. In 1995, there were 16 million users, and the next year there were 36 million users. That may seem like a big jump, but just 5 years later, there were over 500 million users, and a little over 10 years after that, 2.4 billion internet users. It really surprised me how long it takes something like the internet to get noticed, then how  it can become that popular that fast.

Class Talks: Movies

In Mr. Miller's class, we had a discussion on the history of movies and one thing that I learned that really intersted me was how different movies were when they first became popular compared to now. Movies were so popular in the early to mid twentieth century, that they were not only used much more, but they were also used for much more. Now, people go to the movies every once in a while to actually go see a movie with friends. Before, TVs hadn't become popular, so people would go to the movies weekly to not only see the movie, but for other things like advertisements and news. It was amazing how much the purpose of movies have changed overtime.

Other Blogs

http://jamiefightsbadjournalism.blogspot.com/
Jamie has created one of the best amateur blogs I've seen. I wasn't impressed by just one single post, I was impressed by the whole thing. Jamie puts together great titles followed by great in-depth articles about her topics. The page as a whole is eye-catching, and I love how the pictures tie everything together. Jamie puts a lot of insight into her posts and does everything she can to improve her blog. Kudos to you Jamie.

Class Talks

One thing I learned about in Mr. Miller's class that interested me was demassification. At first, I thought it was similar to conglomeration, something a company chooses to do to improve their business. I soon learned that demassification isn't just for one company, its for a whole type of media, and its definitely not a choice. Demassification is breaking down a company to target niche audiences. This happens due to either loss of viewers, advertisers, or both. What really surprised me is what things have already demassified. Magazines for example, used to have everything. Now, there are certain ones for sports, clothing, shopping, etc. Then radio had to demassify due to television taking advertisers and viewers. Currently though, internet is forcing television to start demassifiying along with so many other things. The good thing is that many of these national medias are still successful through demassification. Some aren't (I'll miss you, Blockbuster), but meanwhile, it looks like radio will stay a while longer.

Class Talks

Conglomeration. Probably one of the most interesting things I've learned about all year. Conglomeration is when one larger company starts buying off smaller companies and then adds aspects of that company into its own system and revenue. It seems like such a technical and complicated term but it really is a huge aspect of business and is constantly making a difference around us. 

You might be surprised by this map, but it is just a few examples of conglomeration. In class, Mr. Miller showed us a different map about conglomeration, but it was just as interesting. Disney owns ESPN. Time Warner owns the Atlanta Braves. General Electric owns banks. 

Look at the food map though. Are you a Coke or Sprite person? Doesn't matter. Coke not only owns Sprite, but Minute Maid, Fanta, Monster, and Mello Yello. Welcome to Mars, home of M&Ms, Snickers, Twix, Skittles, and more. Study the map some more. You'll be surprised by how much conglomeration effects everyday things you do and eat.

Class Talks

In Mr. Miller's J1 class, I always love listening as Mr. Miller reads off the answers to the Current Events Quiz. This is partially because I want to know what I got right, but mostly because most of the answers are very interesting and can lead to great class discussions. For example: recently, the world found out about racist things going on in the University of Alabama. Mr. Miller explained how this was only discovered because of some investigative reporters at the university. I understood that journalism was a big part of the world, but the fact that a major university could get in trouble for racism due to journalism really surprised me. I'm impressed and it has really opened my eyes to how journalism really effects the real world.

Media Critique

The New York Times is usually a very reliable newspaper/website to use, mainly because people can generally find good news stories about relative topics written by good journalists. So who gave Robert Seitsema an article? This article, titled "Dog Ziggity: New Jersey’s Own Hot Dogs," is more of a short story than a news article. The article starts by explaining how most people view hot dogs as part of New York culture while they are mainly part of New Jersey culture. This article falls in line with, "Ex-Chief of Charity Charged With Stealing Millions" and "Kenya’s President Says Mall Attackers Are ‘Defeated’" both of which actually have relevance to the public. Articles should try to make the important interesting, but Robert did the opposite and tried to make the interesting important, and did a crummy job of that too.

Robert violated several Principles and Yardsticks of Journalism. To be exact, Robert violated the principle of verification as well as the yardsticks of explanation and newsworthiness. First, he violated the principle of verification. Verification is using credible sources and being unbiased in any way. Robert used no sources, just himself, to describe the hot dog styles of just New Jersey, possibly offending some New Yorkers.

Robert also violated the yardstick of explanation. He never really explained anything except the form of the hot dog. How is this important? Why does this matter? What was the whole point? These same questions can be asked to show how Robert violated one of the most important yardsticks, newsworthiness. This article has nothing that the majority of New York Times readers need to know. People read the New York Times to learn about world news and major crimes/arrests, not to learn about hot dogs from one state. One- fiftieth of the United States of America. It won't have a long-lasting effect on people and doesn't apply something that a lot of people will need to know.

Not only is this a bad job of the journalist, but also a bad job on The New York Times' part. This could have easily never have happened if the New York Times would stop and think about the article before putting it on the front page. Now, they are stuck looking silly with an article about hot dogs right next to articles about terrorist attacks and million dollar robberies. The New York Times needs to watch who they give front page articles to.