Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Activity on Sexual Images in Media

Although we have no idea what this commercial is saying, it is clearly advertising something through using women as sexual objects. The whole opening shot is filmed looking down a womans shirt, then it zoomes into her glossed lips, and ends taking a full shot of her on her hands and knees. There is nothin non sex appealing about this commercial. It makes no difference whether you are male or female, your eyes are all automatically drawn to the same thing.
In my mind, there is no question whether or not this is inappropriate. This is far too much to be shown on public television. It's one thing for adults to be watching it, but when it is open to the public, children and young teens also have access to it and in my opinion this is not acceptable.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Racism in Disney

They say you learn the most of your values and beliefs in the first few years of your life, whether it be growing up at home with your family or from your peers and teachers in school; hence the saying, "you can teach an old dog new tricks". And although racism isn't nearly as big an issue today as it used to be years ago, you will still find it in many places. The response I get from most people when I ask them why they have a prejudice against a certain race or ethnic group is, "I don't know, I just don't like them". I think this is because this is what they saw as a child. There was most likely racism in the household and young children grew up believing in all they were surrounded in and held true to their beliefs to this day.
One major reason behind all of these feelings though, could have been through watching Disney movies as a child. It caught me off guard, the first time I heard this. But after looking into it further, I find it to be true.
One of the most popular examples is the movie Dumbo, a story about a young elephant with ears big enough that it gives him the ability to fly. The opening scene in the movie begins with a group of faceless African American men all performing labor work in the rain while singing "we work all say, we work all night, we never learned to read or write, we're happy hearted rounsabouts", a roustabout being a laborer, typically performing temporary, unskilled work.
Another example from this movie happens in a scene with a black grow, the only two scenes in the entire movie where the color of the character is black. His name though, being Jim Crow, is the worst of it. To most of us, Jim Crow means nothing. But after I looked into it, I came to find that the Jim Crow Laws are the segregation laws used in the Unites States separating "blacks" from "whites".
But there are more movies than Dumbo and more racism other than that of African American people that you will find in Disney movies. Another example is from The Lady and the Tramp.
I'm sure we all remember the Siamese cats, given Asian-like features like slanted eyes and thick accents. After we see the way the cats behave, it gives off the impression that Asians are cunning and manipulative.
Also, take the main character in the movie Oliver and Company. Alonzo is a Chihuahua given a very thick Latino accent. Throughout the movie, it gives off the impression that Latino's are nothing but troublemakers.
And as for Tarzan, the movie is said to take place in Africa but you will not find a single dark skinned person in the entire film.
Even movies like The Jungle Book and The Lion King have scenes where racism can be found.
Some of Walt Disney's stories date as far back as the 30's and only now are we really beginning to see a change in the way he writes. The Princess and the Frog, which opened last December, marks the first time the hero in one of his films is an African American. It's taken a long time, but it seems Walt is finally coming through.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Deconstructing a Visual


Of course, everyone hears songs in many different ways. To me, Here And Now is saying that this is your time, and there is no better moment to live than now. When GBS explains the meaning behind this song, they say "The difference between the past and the next......is Now" and that is exactly right and everyone should live according to that. 
The song opens up with the line "the sun must set to rise". I live according to these lyrics on a daily basis. In fact, I chose these as my words to live by when doing my grad write-up for the yearbook. To me, it is saying that everything gets worse before it gets better, and I find life really does work that way. 
We only live once, it kind of makes you think of how you want to be remembered and how you want people to see you. 

Here And Now - Great Big Sea

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Conflict Resolution

The perfect movie for this assignment in my mind is Paranormal Activity. There are only three characters in the entire film, two main actors and one minor.
The movie is filmed through a hand held camera to give us the image that it was a home video and happened for real. It tells the so called "true story" of a young couple who are "engaged to be engaged" and what happens when a demon possesses Katie, the female of the relationship.
I would guess that Katie is in her early twenties, she is going to school to become a teacher while Micah, her boyfriend, works on a regular basis. They have a lot of money for their age, a huge house with an in ground pool and a convertible.
Considering Katie is being possessed by a demon, the character most often portrayed in this story would definitely be the devil.
There were several instances that happened, progressivelyy getting worse each time. Everything started off when they set up a camera in their room to watch it while they slept and discovered things they would have never known about otherwise like the door swaying mysteriously for example. As time passes, they wake up to very loud bashing noises throughout their house and Katie even claims at one point that she woke up to the feeling of the demon breathing on her face. They call in a psychic to help them, he does what he can, makes some suggestions, and they take his advice and try to follow his directions. But then it continued to get worse,  so they called in another psychic but he would not even step foot in the house because he could feel such a strong resentment to him being there and felt it would only make matters even worse.
In the end, the problem is never resolved which we later found out in Paranormal Activity 2.

To view a link to the movie trailer for Paranormal Activity, click here.

Friday, April 29, 2011

My Favourite Media

My favourite media would definitely be the radio. Some people may prefer to listen to CD's or their iPod's but I prefer the radio because when you listen to other compact forms of media, you are isolated from the rest of the world. The radio though has music along with news and events that are happening on a daily basis everywhere around us. It keeps us up to date with current happenings and sometimes even has open discussions with viewers or celebrities getting different opinions on a certain topic.
It could be related to a magazine in that way. There are obviously no photographs but there are often times interviews and news reports.
I find it perfect to wake up to in the morning before school. I find out everything like the daily weather or even maybe what song was #1 on this day in history or famous birthdays. It also helps to fall asleep to, just to turn it on low and listen to the music

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Commercials


The first commercial I found is an advertisement for T-Mobile. The advertisement was filmed in the Liverpool Street Station on January 15th, 2009 and today has nearly 28 million views on YouTube alone. It begins by looking over a train or metro station and then out of nowhere, music begins playing and one man alone starts dancing in the middle of the station. Slowly, more and more people join in and by the end of the ad, the entire station is moving on their feet. Everyone who is not dancing is holding their phone above their head catching the entire thing on video. There people young and old, black and white, every type of person out there is participating in this video.



The second commercial I found is an advertisement starring the young and beautiful Vanessa Hudgens using the Neutrogena Wave, the "secret to softer skin". It is a face cleanser that is believed to give you silkier and smoother skin. I believe the reason they close her to advertise it is because she is young, beautiful and popular, and some people may believe that if they use this product, it will help them to look like her.



The third commercial I chose is an advertisement for "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", also known as Old Spice. It is a commercial directed towards women, saying that even though their man doesn't look like the young attractive African American man we are seeing, doesn't mean that they cant smell like him.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

My Role

If I were to play a role in a movie or TV show, I think I would either play the roleof the blonde chick that everyone presumes to be the "dumb blonde" but is actually extremely intelligent, or the roll of the out cast kind of kid that doesn't really belong to a particular group because she doesn't allow herself to be labeled. 
I would hope to play either of these roles because in a sense, this is the kind of person I am in real life, therefore it would be much easier to play that roll rather than the bank robber or the emo kid which I clearly am not. The director would not have a hard time training me to play these roles because it would come naturally.
Sure, we all have our "blonde moments", unfortunately I seem to have a few more than most, but I know I am smart because my grades prove that I am. Also, I tend to hang out with all kinds of people and I try hard not to judge or label them because I know how it feels to be judged myself.
If I were to be picked to play either of these roles, as unfortunate as it is, it would most likely be on a chick flick or a teen movie, mainly because those roles are most commonly round in movies like those.

Characters in Television

Basically the only TV show I keep up to date with is One Tree Hill. Through out the 8 seasons, the actors all take their part in high school, graduate, and are starting out their life in the real world with everything from marriage to kids to careers.
Lucas is a white male who has a passion for basketball and more or less plays the part of the hero. He's the nice guy who is always there to lend a helping hand. For the most part, Lucas keeps himself out of trouble but whenever he does mess up, he messes up bad! He is also best friends with Haley and a step brother to Nathan.
Peyton is a white female who plays the part of the rocker chick. Her passion is music and has even opened up her own studio called Tric. Her and Lucas have had a never ending romance for one another and always end up running back to each other. At the end of season six, the two drive off together and we don't see them again in the seventh or eighth seasons.
Haley is a white female with a strong passion for singing and an amazing voice. Her and Nathan get married at the young age of only 17 and have their son Jamie shortly after. Currently, Haley is busy touring the globe performing concerts regularly for all her fans. While in high school though, she helped out Lucas's mom Karen with waitressing in her cafe.
Nathan is a white male who has been a basketball star since the day he was born, he definitely plays the roll of the jock. He played it all through high school and is currently playing for the NBA team, The Charlotte Bobcats. Between him and Haley getting married and having Jamie at such a young age, and both being so well known to the world with their careers, they both lead very busy lives.
Brooke is a white female who has finally overcome the somewhat promiscuous reputation she led in high school. Since she was young, Brooke has had a strong passion for the fashion industry. She is currently living in Tree Hill running her own clothing line, Bros Over Hoes, in one of her many shops.

My Favourite Personalities

One of my favourite male celebrities would have to be Allan Pineda, or better known as apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas. One of the main reasons I envy him so much is because of where he came from and where he made it to despite all the hard work. Born to a Filipino mother and African-American father in a small town called Angeles, Pampanga, Apl grew up with very little money and struggled most of his childhood just to find food to eat and a shelter over his head. Allan never met his father, and at the age of fourteen, his mother and stepfather allowed him, with his consent, to be adopted into an American family with hopes of having a more promising life ahead. Apl is now huge, and known world wide. He is part of one of the biggest hip-hop bands available and the last worry he has is finding enough money to survive. He came so far but never ever forgets where he came from and what made him who he is, which he sings about in many of their songs. The main one being The Apl Song.

One of my favourite female celebrities would be Alecia Moore, or better known to us as P!nk. I love her, everything about her. She doesn't care what people think of her and that, in my opinion, is the main reason why so many people are so attracted to her. So many people claim "I don't care what people think of me, if they don't like me for who I am then they're not worth my time anyway". But I have never seen someone live up to that as much as she does, whether it be with her unique style or different beats. There is just something about her that draws in people from all over the globe. Even her name is enough to catch your eye. If you heard of someone who refers to herself as "Pink", most would think of her to be all flowery and girly, basically "pink". No one expects her to be the rocker chick with the tom boy style and screaming beats that she is.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

The hero always saves the world, the villains get what they deserve, the boy will always get the girl when I am king!

I'm sure it would be easy for Great Big Sea's lead single, Alan Doyle, to relate to many of us after growing up in a small town himself with just one main road connecting them to civilization and spending much of his childhood playing hockey like many of us do.
Growing up, Alan always had a strong ambition to play music. And although there was no room for him to be the lead singer or play the guitar in his school band, he didnt let that slow him down. Instead, he settled for the drums.


Alan had his first run in with Hollywood when his hometown became the main set for infamous "whale" movies and although most of us know him for his singing and guitar playing, he has also starred in the 2010 film, Robin Hood along with several other small parts in various films.

My favorite song by Great Big Sea, Here and Now released on their 2007 album Fortune's Favour.


Canadians are often viewed as being down to earth and realistic. This is one way I see Great Big Sea to be purely Canadian. All their music is real, no auto tune on their voices and no lip syncing whatsoever. Unlike many other artists, their live performance was almost better than on track. Also when I saw then in concert, they gave shout outs to everyone in the crowd and even went as far as to mention us little people in the Miramichi. They have to be the least big headed celebrities out there, no matter where they are or how far they made it in life, they are always keeping in touch with their fans daily through blogs. Also, in one of the blogs I read written by Alan while on tour, he told us about some ideas he had for their future album and looked for thoughts and advice from fans and made a space available to give input. Another reason I consider them a down to earth, Canadian band is because many of their songs are about Canada, Newfoundland in particular with one of their songs being titled Banks of Newfoundland. All in all, they keep it real and simple and down to earth and they never let their fame take control of their life or seize to remind them of the country they came from.


- On March 11th, 2011 GBS celebrated their eighteenth anniversary together. 
-Currently has three band members, Alan Doyle, Sean McCann, Bob Hallett and past member Darrell Power who retired in 2003.
-Released 9 studio albums and four other albums. 


Monday, March 21, 2011

Violence isn't always evil. What's evil is the infatuation with violence.

The first example of violence in movies that came to mind was in the movie United 93. I believe this film was created with violence because :
     1. Movies can portray violence with spectacular realism through the use of computerized special effects.
              and also because
     2. Production companies want a good return on their multi-million dollar investments.

September 11th, 2001 was a very memorable day for nearly everyone who lives today. Obviously people are curious to know what happened on that day and in my opinion, Hollywood did a very good job of retelling the story and sharing it with the world. If I were giving the option to make a film on 9/11 verses a film on planet earth, I would definitely choose 9/11 because it is excitement and drama and something that attracts and interests many people. It also makes it better because it is realistic and was something that happened close to us just 10 short years ago.

The second example of violence in movies that came to mind was from the film War of the Worlds. I believe this film was created with violence because:
     1. Historically, stories have contained a hero and a villain and any conflict between them is resolved by violence.
       and also because
     2. Movies can portray violence with spectacular realism through the use of computerized special effects.

In this case, War of the World's contains a villain; the aliens, and a hero; us humans. It is the classic story retold time and time again of the alien invasion of earth. How they plan to take over the world and eliminate man kind. This is very well portrayed through the advancements we have in today's technology. It is so life like that could easily be believed to be real footage, that is, if aliens themselves did exist. I believe this is one the the reasons so many films about alien invasions have been created and why they continue to make so much money in the release of them, because it has been a question for centuries of whether aliens really do exist. I believe that until that question is answered for good, films like this will continue to be created.

Q:  Does violence make a good movie?
A:  Some might say yes, but not all movies have violence in them. This question will be answered differently by everyone because everyone has different preferences in films. There are all types of movies: comedy, romance, action, horror. But not all movies have violence. You're not going to find very much violence in your Walt Disney cartoon movies, yet they all sell just as well as the other. So no, I do not think violence makes a good movie.

Q:  Consider whether you feel there is too much violence in some movies.
A:  I agree, in some movies there is too much violence. But every film is made differently and people are drawn into watching violence and the unexpected. It's what keeps us entertained and at our seats edge. The unexpected that's about to happen. Whether there is too much or not, people are still going to watch it. We don't limit ourselves to much in this day and age. There is not much out there that people will stop themselves from seeing.

Q:  Is the violence realistic or necessary? Is it justified when you consider the storyline?
A:  It may not be necessary but most times it is realistic, just very unlikely to happen.

Q:  Can an effective action or fast-paced film be produced without violence? Why or why not?
A:  Sit down and try and think of an action based film without violence? In my opinion, I'm not sure there is a film like that out there. No one wants to watch a car driving at 200m/h, scale around the edge of a mountain and making it without any slips or close calls. It's boring. People want risk, they want to live on the wild side and see the unexpected.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology.

"My grandmother has facebook" was a statement on the chart we looked at in class. This really struck me as surprising because facebook is a now generation site that has only existed in the past few years. I've grown up with computers all my life so for me to know how to use one is just second nature. But even when it comes to mom, she wouldn't know how to turn on a computer let alone get onto the internet and search a site. So for a grandmother to have facebook would be twice as surprising. None of my friends grandmothers even have a computer that I know of.
"There are 11 TV's in my house" was the second statement that really struck me as surprising. According to BBC News, the daily household is led by one married couple and has on average two children. So I would never imagine the need to have 11 televisions. There isn't even half as many people in the house as there are TV's, and unless technology has discovered a new way to be in two places at once, than that just seems like a complete waste of money and space to me.

"The majority of my music is illegally downloaded" is something I can relate to. Whether it's right or not, everyone does it and we have access to it on countless number's of sites such as Limewire, Isohunt, Ares or Bearshare. It's free, and it's easily accessible. I'm in no way about to go out and spend money that I don't have on CD's. Why buy music off of iTunes when it is justt as easy to access for free and the same quality somewhere else?

"I'd rather check the news online than on TV" is something else I agree with. Although it is easy to lay back on the couch each evening and get caught up on wordly events, it is much easier to do it on the internet. When watching TV, you cant fast forward to watch exactly what you're looking for, if the news you are looking to hear more about is the last on the news report, than you are forced to sit through all the other reports just to get to that three minute information session you were looking to hear more about. On the internet, you google what you are looking for and hundreds upon thousands of sites pop up giving you options to all the information there is known on it. It is much more specific and easy to access whether it be on your laptop at work or your cell phone on the bus ride home.

If I were given the option to survey Blackville School on two media related subjects, the first one I would choose would be cell phones. I would love to find out when students in high school got their first cell phone, verses when the students in middle school got their first cell phone. I got my first cell phone when I was 14, and I believe most of my friends got theirs around the same time. I wouldn't see a need to have one when you are any younger. Cell phones are to keep in contact, and when I was 14 I was beginning to go out with friends alone and go on sports trips and what not, and the cell phone was mainly so my parents would have a way to contact me when they needed to find me. But now I'm seeing kids who are seven and eight years old with the newest and most technologically advanced cell phones out there. I don't see any point for that. When I got my cell phone, I was in charge of paying for it myself. I was forever doing yard work for neighbors whether it be shovelling the snow or mowing the grass to gain the money to pay for it. But how is a child seven or eight years old to pay for it? They are too young to work and also, are too young that they shouldn't be out without their parents at that age. So who would they have that the need to keep in contact with? Friends that they see every day at school?

It would also be interesting to see which students have facebook as a home page on their laptop/computer, mainly because facebook is definitely one of the most popular and most visited sites out there right now. We could do a survey including everyone in the school who has their own personal laptop/computer. See which students have facebook as a home page verses which ones have say, google or hotmail as a homepage.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Critiquing Blogs

Great Big Sea
This blog entry by Alan Doyle, a group member from Great Big Sea, was very well done in my opinion. There are lots of blogs out there, one that may interest one person might completely repulse the next, this blog isn't for anyone. You probably wouldn't be interested in reading it unless you are a GBS fan or a young musician. But for those of us who fit that profile, its very entertaining. He talks about his home life and life on the road and the way his life flows, being a musician of such high demand. Although his blog is not posted in point form, it is broken up into paragraphs to make it easier to follow and read. He gives his thoughts and ideas for up coming albums and new things he would like to try within 2011. He asks his readers many questions and looks for feed back and ideas and has a place available on the web page to do so. He is very personal with his readers, he really seems to be himself and I as a reader love the idea that he is looking for his fans ideas and suggestions and the fact that he really seems to take them seriously and into considering makes it all the better. He really communicates with his fans. Replies back to what they have to say and always says thanks. He uses humor and makes fun of himself and the fact that he has no clue whatsoever how to use Twitter, but he explains that the reason he got it was to really keep in touch with his fans. It really makes us as viewers see him as down to earth and not too famous to live beyond his fans. Also, there is a link on web page to the blogs of the other GBS members and tour dates along with their entire discography and online store.

Go Travel and See The World
This blog was extremely well done as far as I can tell and I, as a traveller, will definitely be visiting this blog before any trips I will be taking in the future. It gives tips on everything! It tells how to make your own blog (which has nothing to do with travelling but I found very useful because we will be making our own blogs soon), told of her personal experiences in many many places in the world, and even has an alphabetical list of links to all the places in the world in which she has posted blogs about. It tells of the best way to really get the full affect of the city or town you plan to see and the "must see places". The site of full of links to travel sites such as Expedia and hotel deals all over the world. It even has links to other travellers blogs and "deals of the day". She keeps it personal, all the pictures that are on there are taken by herself. All in all, its full of color and kept up to date and lifelike. No wonder her blog was suggested to us!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Key Roles of Mass Media

Strong and Free
This book is definitely one that informs us about events that happen internationally. Before speaking with Becky and reading her book, I had no idea about the kind of things that still happened in the world today. I thought there was no place on earth that acted in such inhumane ways. It really makes us aware of the way a big part of the rest of the world lives, we should all be more thankful and really appreciate the life we live as Canadians.

Mean Girls
This movie has got to consume most of the cruelest humor out of all of the movies I've ever seen. The way girls back stab each other and talk behind each other's backs, they do it so much that it almost seems normal. It seems to come natural to most of these girls. In the movie there is a book they call the "Burnbook". The girls take pictures of all the other students in the school, paste it in the Burnbook, and write a nasty comment or rumor about them under it. After this movie was released, things got to the point where even girls I know were making their very own Burnbook. Life is cruel enough, we don't need Hollywood giving us ideas on how we can be even more horrible to each other.

National Geographic , "Inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888."
National Geographic is by far one of the largest and most well known magazines in the world that links us with all sorts of information we could never imagine. It opens us up to the world of anything from Cenotes to the worlds most dangerous fish. I'm sure you could list off any topic in the world and National Geographic would have done an article on it. The best part is, all of their information is researched and factual.


Lollipop
This song and video, produced by Lil Wayne, is the first video that came to mind. I've been singing this song for a few years now, and knew all the lyrics off by heart, but never stopped to think about what they actually meant until a few months ago. I couldn't believe that I had been singing those lyrics for such a long time without cluing into what they were actually saying and the meaning behind them. Songs like come everyday to us, were all at the point that we sing them without even listening to ourselves and for most of us, even after realizing the meaning behind them, still don't stop because this kind of thing is so common to us that we believe it has no impact on us whatsoever. If this were even ten years ago though, there is no way it would be playing on radio stations and seen on TV.
Also, even from working in a movie theatre, I see the way the ratings are changed. I couldn't believe it when I saw a grandmother and her young grandson walking into a sex scene during one the movies and not even thinking twice about it. What really caught me off guard though, was the fact that the grandson was even of age to see this movie, ratings have dropped so much even since we were young. Cartoons now come with swearing and what used to be a parental guidance film has now dropped to children.

The Coolest "Billboard" Ad's Ever! 
I was originally looking for the ad with the wire's travelling through the bald man's nose (advertising for nose hair trimmers) and found this site with the top 10 "Coolest "Billboard" Ad's Ever!". I couldn't choose just one so I posted them all. I think all of these advertisements are awesome, they all interact with the public and some even get them involved in making their own ad like the Sharpie ad for example, where it was a digital screen that allowed to you write on it with their digital markers in any color you chose. I also like the ad for the batteries, it made it seem like they had the strength to power an entire city bus. The ad for skydiving was the best though I thought, where they painted a scene looking downward onto a city on the floor of an elevator. That would have a huge impact on people! I know for sure I would not be able to go on that elevator, just the idea that we were crashing onto the ground would be enough to scar me. They are all very memorable ad's, ones that I'm sure people will never be able to forget about.

Simon's Cat
Simon was just a normal guy who made up cartoons about the real life experiences with his cat. He then began publishing them on Youtube a few small years ago and has gained tons of recognition since then. He has also just recently published his own cartoon strip book called "Simon's Cat". The videos are absolutely hilarious, we literally sat around for about an hour at our last family dinner, everyone crowded around the computer, watching these cartoons he published of his cat.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Media Literacy and Your Expectations

What is media literacy?

The first video is summarizing the actual definition of the term "media literacy". Media basically being anything from commercials and advertisements to billboards and computers and literacy being the way we read and create, AKA how we interpret what we see. It "summarizes the 21st century digital media landscape" says Rob Williams during an interview. The video also rhymes off facts about the media, for example; people see about 3000 discrete advertising messages a day. Its quite a big eye opened and makes you more aware of what you really see everyday. It also discusses the useless media today, saying that the read media producers of the world have to work especially hard to stay on top of and keep the attention of viewers today, getting across the important facts rather than the useless ones.


Media Literacy, Education & Choice

"Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in all of its forms" is the opening line in this video, and it also describes what the video itself is about. It describes the five core questions of media literacy and talks about the way we need to learn to interpret and deal with today's media and the different ways people interpret things. Maybe the message we view doesn't include all the true facts and evidence behind it? The video is telling us that we, as viewers, will probably never know everything that is actually going on behind the news stories we are hearing. There are probably many things that are and are not being said.

One of the major things I would like to look at in this course, is the racism and manipulating going on behind many of the Walt Disney movies. For example, in the movie Dumbo, all of the characters are white in the entire movie, except the circus workers who are all, for some reason, black. What kind of image are they really trying to portray to the public?

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Predictions for 2011

After looking through the list of technological predictions for 2011, I believe the disappearance of the DVD and Yahoo are most likely to occur.

For years, VHS was the way to go. But slowly, DVD players and DVD's began coming to the stores and replacing movies on the rental shelf. Then it seemed that out of nowhere, movies were no where to be found and DVD's were the way to go. VHS's disappeared completely and VCR's were no longer being made. It forced people to buy into more technology and spend more money. If ever the time came where they wanted to rent a new movie on a Friday night, they had no choice but to buy a DVD player. Now slowly we see the BlueRay coming to shelves and the players replacing the DVD players. I would bet anything that out of nowhere, DVD players will disappear and no longer be produced and that it will yet again, force people into getting rid of the old and buying into the new. Its all about money making. There are not many people who will go out every weekend and spend $10 per person to watch all the new videos in the movie theatre. Most people will wait until they come to the shelves and if they plan on watching them, then they will have to buy a Blueray player.

I also  believe that Facebook is very rapidly replacing Yahoo; but not only Yahoo, replacing all sources of email including Hotmail and Sympatico. Why would you go through the effort of checking your email when you can easily long onto facebook and check your in boxes, and check several other things such as pictures and status updates at the same time? Facebook even makes it easy to create a group of contacts, ex. Jessica's surprise birthday party, and inbox a message to the entire group of people all at once. It serves all the same purposes as email servers, plus more. It makes that much more sense to get Facebook rather than open an email account. Literally the only person I know today that still uses their Yahoo account regularly is my mother. I used to check my Hotmail daily, now I check it once a week for my work schedule and that is only because it is against guidelines to post it to Facebook, other than that I never check my Hotmail, Facebook has all that already waiting for me.

Two technological predictions I believe will be less likely to occur is Apple dominating the cell phone market and the electronic wallet.

Although Apple is a huge company and growing larger and larger every day, there are a lot of things to consider when comparing it alone to all other cellular devices. Apple may dominate when it comes to music players, considering MP3's and CD players are basically unheard of anymore. Why bother buying CD after CD and having to change each one once it has played through when you can just download music off of the Internet for free and buy an iPod dock and listen to days on end of music? That part is understandable. But there are tons of other cellular phone companies who all make different models of phones. From a personal point of view,  I would never buy an iPhone simply because I hate touch screen phones. They become dirty quickly and break even easier. A close friend of mine had an iPhone and he simply pulled it out of his car trunk one day and found the screen shattered. Even if people do like touch screen phones, there are lots of other models of touch screen phones such as the Blackberry Torch which also comes with just as many applications as the Apple iPhone. From another personal point of view, I find the Apple iPhone way too large. I like a small phone which is easy to stick in your pocket and not uncomfortable to have on you.

And as far as the electronic wallet goes, it may become big one day, but I definitely cannot see it dominating in this year mainly because I have  never heard of it until day, so there are probably a lot of other people who are yet to hear of it. Also, although it may be useful in the fact that you can store everything in one, but what happens if it breaks? Or what if you lose it? Losing your debit card is much simpler, you just go and get another one from the bank at a low cost. But buying electronic wallet after electronic wallet will quickly build up in costs and people just don't have the money for that these days with the state our economy is in.

Although I do not fully understand even a fraction of the media predictions, I am going to try my best and respond to them.

The main media prediction I can see happening in this year, 2011, is Social vs. Search. I for one nearly never watch the news, and I know nearly no one I go to school does either. Everything we need to find is posted on the Internet, ex. Facebook. If people find it important or interesting, it gets posted on there. Even though I never watch the news, I know I am still not behind in what is going on in the world today. I still know what people are talking to when they bring up the latest pandemic. Therefore it just goes to prove that anything you need to know about, will eventually find its way to Facebook. If you are not a Facebook, I'm sure the same thing goes for Twitter. If it gets posted on there, or talked about on there, people have complete access to it.

TV's, but I believe the television will still be here for a long time. They are much cheaper than the interactive TV and households are going to want to have more than one screen. I believe most households will probably have one of the interactive TV's and one of the regular televisions.

One news prediction I make for 2011 is that the newspapers are going to disappear. Why would you go out and buy a news paper when everything you'll ever need to know about the news can be found on the Internet? Or ever more, on the Internet on your cell phone? It's a waste of money to go the extra mile and buy a newspaper. The Internet makes everything easier, instead of flipping through page after page trying to find what you are looking for, why not just Google it? It just doesn't make sense to me.

One media prediction I make for 2011 is that 3D is going to take over all theater and home theater systems. From personal experience, working in a theater, I see how fast these changes come into play. This time last year I had never heard anything about getting a 3D movie player in our theater, and last July, two got installed. It happened that fast. And now whenever we don't have a movie in 3D, people are becoming very upset. There is such a high demand for it. We live in such a small city which most of the rest of the world has never and will never heard of. What about the big cities like New York or Tokyo? They have probably been using 3D for years and we are just the last to hear about it.