Chapter 2 The Internet and New Technologies

To start off I did not know that back in the day the internet or the book term "ARPAnet" was only for the use of the military and researchers(thats kind of cool). The chapter goes into how the internet started to boom in the 90's because of this guy name Tim Berners who basically developed the world web, which is the computer language that creates Web pages and links(at least thats what Campbell says). Now leaving that history lesson, let us get a better understanding of one the most booming trends in 2011 known as media convergence. Media Convergence in the book refers to the technological merging of different mass media content on fewer platforms. In english this means our computers being able to use skype(to make and recieve calls), watch TV shows, movies(some may be bootleg at times), and downloading music. Chapter also gets into the evolvement of how videogames have skyrocketed since the 80's. Now videogames are a $45 billion dollar industry(now thats a lot of money). This change has happened ever since they made the gameplayers into smaller units so that kids can play them in their house. Critics had their arguments about how addictive videogames have been becoming, but the lovely spinoff is the introduction of "educational" games(good luck getting your kid to play that). To end on a good note the internet is a fast paced epidemic right now and is a major necessity in the way our economy functions. So if you don't have one get one, I mean HELLO!

Chapter 1 Mass Communication

What I believe you should know about this chapter is for starters you must truly understand the definition of culture. Culture can be thought of as the symbols of expression that individuals, groups, and socities use to make sense of daily life and articulate their values.Whats funny is the book says that we "the people" are assigning meaning to the songs, books, TV programs, or Websites we visit. In other terms when we look at something and it invokes a feeling we connect it with whatever is going on in our lives. I know when I listen to Aerosmith "I don't want to miss a thing" I connnect it to me not having a relationship or me missing a significant other. I felt that this definition was important because I never thought of culture in that terminoloy. When I think culture I think backrounds, peoples ethinicity not something people use to make sense of their lives. The rest of the chapter just basically talks about the five phases of how communication has evolved starting with oral, written, print, electronic and digital(our lovely world today). The chapter begins to break down how communication works. First, the sender sends the message into what is know as a mass media channel(this could be the internet for example) ,and then the reciever "the audience" gets the message. Not to skip over anything, but what I also found interesting was the steps on how to have a critical perspective on things:

1) Description: you have to be very attentive, you have to take notes and do plenty of researching on whatever the topic is at hand. For example the rise in celebs cheating on their spouses:

i.e.: Tiger Wooods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse James, and so much more (on the low).
2) Analysis: focusing on the patterns that come up from the description page.
3) Interpretation: the fun part of trying to figure out the meaning with whatever dots you connected in the first stage. Like with my example I am discovering that the husbands of hollywood are cheating bastards that can't be momgamous.
4)Evaluation: in this stage you begin to make your verdict on the subject and I think with my example my judgment on them is pretty clear.
5)Engagement: lastly connecting our findings to make our points/questions to all media institutions.

So apparently everything on the top helps us to better recognize the highs and lows of media forms. Now isn't that interesting folks!