Bible=Soap Opera??

Here i am, sitting in my bible lit class, and things back in the bible times were sooo weird. Concubines?! like prostitutes but it was totally ok... cool. There were affairs, murder, and lies/deceit all in here. The bible is seriously the coolest book EVER! There is every kind of story in here. King David's story is so crazzy. Its like Days of Our Lives, but with better acting i'm sure, first he is about to be killed by King Saul but God saves him. Then he is made king and God tells him that for the REST OF TIME, the ruler of the nation would come from HIM! whoa. And then he sleeps with Bathsheba, knocks her up, and then tries to cover it up! and THEN when he can't, he kills off Bathsheba's husband to make himself feel better. Seriously this could totally happen with EJ, Sammy, and Lucas! Actually, i think it might have. anyway, if you read the small stories in the bible, you can find some seriously intense things. DO IT! read the bible. its coo.

Homesick

I started college this fall. It is really exciting and i absolutely love it. but i am just starting to realize how far away i am from home. Oklahoma to Minnesota?! thats like a 13 hour drive. so i can't exactly go home whenever i want to, unlike allll of my other friends, except for Jordan :) so i am jealous of that. and i don't get to go home until Thanksgiving!!! 49 days until i am sleeping in my own bed. i think i will make a paperchain countdown. those are fantastic. but anyways, LACKAD called me the other night, that is, BLACKAD without me :) they were my closest friends in junior high and honestly, that phone call made me more homesick than phone calls with my family or with my closest friends, which is really strange. i guess im just sad that they are all friends still and i was the one to wander away... everyone still got together for allison's birthday. i wonder if i would have been invited if i were in MN? hmm profound thought... and then i talked to sean, my BFFEAEAEA last night! i miss him so much. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

in conclusion, i am really missing home right now and it doesn't help that i don't have too many friends here... :(

p.s. i don't think im blogging right. i will work on it :) blogging is usually about having something to say. maybe tomorrow i will post about nancy drew. i have a lot to say about nancy drew. The End.

The beginning...

Dear Friends,

Yes, i am going to blog. i just have so many epic things to say and i feel like i should share them with the worldddddd. >:) haha just kidding. i would like this to be a way for me to get things out there and write things down to figure out for myself. don't worry, i won't get deep or anything because that would just be EMBARRASSING! haHA. so i also decided that i'm not going to use correct punctuation or capitals. so if that bothers you GET OVER IT HOKAI?! and so concludes the first post of the NEW BadaBlog. thank you kind listeners. LOL

Blog #7

Once upon a time, 

I felt like I should make a rhyme.

Commercials I had to analyze,

They tell me so many lies.

One day I found something strange,

the way commercials are arranged.

In between scenes they are shown,

And the companies, they have grown.

Have you noticed the volume is higher?

They do this to catch all the buyers.

They have so many tricks up their sleeves,

And we need to be smart. Pretty please???

The End.

Something that I have noticed in TV commercials is the difference in volume between the program and the commercials after it. We have not mentioned it in class before but I think it is an important trick that TV stations use to once again, rope in the consumer. At first you won't be able to notice it, but once you know it is hard to forget this stunning fact. The volume of commercials are alwaysss louder than the program that you are watching. They do this so that you will hear the repetition, or the claims of the company. Perhaps someone has the TV on while in another room or busy with some other work. Then the commercials come on and BAM! There a brand name is blaring through the whole house. In addition to the propaganda devices and ad claims, this is another strategy that television uses to get more money for the stations. It is almost like they are sending you secret messages by drilling consumer information into your head. In order to be smart consumers, we need to be aware of this fact, and in order to save our hearing we should turn down the TV during those commercial breaks.

Blog #6

I think product placement is a great way of advertising, if done right. Personally, I would much rather watch a movie straight through with real products spotted everywhere than to watch one interrupted by so many commercials. I believe that this is a very effective form of advertising. I know that I have been effected by this many times, like when I see a pair of cute jeans with the brand mentioned, I consider going out to buy those jeans. However, the fact that a TV or movie star uses a product is not a complete selling point for me. I still have to be a smart consumer and take into consideration my budget and how much I really need a product. But as I mentioned before, product placement can only be effective if it is done right. Obnoxious placement can sometimes be a turnoff for me, such as the Snapple excerpt from 30 rock. If I can tell that they are trying to buy me something, I think that they are trying too hard, and as a result, I do not think about buying that product. My favorite example of product placement was on one of the last episodes of public TV's Passions. Passions was moving to DirecTV so I could no longer watch it without DirecTV. The reason this was so obnoxious was because I am sure that at least twenty times during an hour episode, DirecTV was mentioned and the characters went on and on and on about how wonderful it was. They even went as far as to put a word bubble from Baby Andora's head that said "DirecTV is my favorite!" This approach to product placement is unnecessary and completely ineffective. It must be subtle and small for me to be effected.

Blog #5

Recently, I have been noticing billboards more than I have before. One thing that is very evident and obvious is that billboards are much more simple than TV or print ads. This, of course, is because we need to get the jist of the ad in a few short seconds. I can stare at a print ad all day and analyze the crap out of it, but with a billboard, I only get a few seconds to spot everything that is going on before I zoom past it. I find that billboards are only effective if they are simple. That is, simple to look at and simple to understand. Usually, these ads give us direct orders or tell us a simple fact that will get us thinking. I have seen billboards that are too busy and have too much going on so I can't process it before I see another one. If only one propaganda device is used, that is okay. The direct order is probably the most effective. It tells us to do something, and since we are already in our car, it might be easy to do that. Such as "Visit us at..." or "Get your own..." A direct order can speak to the specific target market but make a vague claim about it. This vague claim or unfinished claim gets the specific audience thinking and pushes them to look more into the product or service. Overall, I think that billboards are used more as a reminder than a selling point. They remind us of a product or drill a brand name into our heads. The simpler the better.

Blog #4

I think that the media is the main reason that men and women have the wrong ideas about how they should act in the workplace or at school. The media portrays girls to be smart, but act dumb when they are around the guys. This builds up men to think that they are smarter or stronger because they are male. This is the reason why girls in reality choose to dumb themselves down for guys, just so they can get the attention from the opposite sex. This is also true in the workplace. Women aren't given a promotions when there is a guy up for it because everyone knows that they guy can do it better! Yeah, right. Although our culture today is trying to overcome gender stereotypes, the truth is that the media is trying to get us to revert back to our old ways, where women were inferior and they couldn't do jobs as well as men. That must be the reason why we don't see as many women who are bosses of large businesses, or high up in politics. To me, these stereotypes must be broken, not just so that men will view women equally, but so women can finally realize that brains are important.

Blog #3

       The comedy, [scrubs], is not only one of the greatest shows of all time, but it also shows the American Core Values. 

       J.D. shows achievement and success through his hard work.  He is the doctor whose life is shown through this show, and he works very hard to be successful in the competitive environment of a hospital. He shows he audience that hard work can lead to good things and can get you out of hard times.

       The desire to be accepted is really evident in Scrubs. The characters are always struggling with personal choices for dependence on other people, and are trying to fit in; whether it is the doctors trying to fit in with the surgeons, or couples trying to keep up their relationships. But individualism is shown even more when the doctors have to think for themselves in order to make the right decision to save someone's life. They also all have different personalities, showing that everyone is different and we should be our own person.

       Obviously, humanitarianism has a huge part in Scrubs. Caring for others and providing comfort is the main mission of the characters. Since they are in a hospital, it is their job to be concerned about their patients without getting too connected, in case something should go wrong.

       Overall, I think that the main values represented in Scrubs are humanitarianism, individualism, and achievement and success. The characters show this by working very hard to treat people the best that they can, while being an individual and making their own choices. These doctors, nurses, etc., show examples in the hospital that can be applied to real life. At the end of each episode, Dr. J.D. has some sort of "life lesson." This lesson tells the viewers what they should value, the American Values to be exact.

Blog #2- Option 1

Children these days are bombarded by constant advertisements trying to get the children to persuade their parents to buy them unnecessary products. Sure, there have been advertisement aimed at kids since the media hit it off, but these days, I think that technology has increased that number. Cell phones, iPods, and computers provide for more products and more updates, which then provide for more ads. I think it is ridiculous that elementary school children have as much as I did coming in to high school. With age comes responsibility, and I think that cell phones, iPods, etc., is what is really "Consuming Kids." Of course, I asked for a cell phone when I was thirteen years old, but I never got one and I sure made it through Junior High. The video, "Consuming Kids," shows that advertisements are hurting children, even affecting their health and life expectancy. This probably won't stop because the technology advancement is inevitable. 

Blog #1

  When I interviewed my four subjects about media, they came up with pretty similar answers but from different perspectives. Everyone agreed that media is a form of communication between two sources about what is going on around us. My younger interviewee replied that it was information passed on in an entertaining way and an older woman that I interviewed said that it is interesting facts that are unnecessary but enjoyable. The media impacts all four lives by informing them of what is going on in the world. It provides my dad with conversation topics so that he can contribute to conversations with his friends, and my friend's younger sister said that it starts and stops fads so she can keep up with the latest trends. My dad, a high school student, and her younger sister believe that media is necessary, while the older woman doesn't think that it is absolutely necessary. "The media hurts people and can provide wrong information," she says, which can be true in many cases. But the other argued that we wouldn't know anything without the media, and my mom pointed out that it creates millions of jobs all around the world. However, even though it is necessary, there are pro's and con's of media. As pointed out out earlier by my older interviewee, a negative part of media is that it can provide wrong information, and my mom believes that the biased view points influence the public, which she believes is negative because is gives the media too much power. A positive side of it is that it teaches the uninformed about worldly affairs. As the high school interviewee learned in first semester government, the media plays an important role in setting the political agenda. 

Overall, the media was viewed as a good thing among my four interviewees and as an imperative form of communication.