Response to Maddie's Post: Demassification of Radio

Link to Maddie's Post

  After reading Maddie's post about radio demassification, I definitely agree with what she said. This was one of the lectures I was able to be very engaged in because I had no prior knowledge about the beginning of radios. Maddie and I share similar thoughts about radio; we both think it's very intriguing that when radios were first invented, they were the big craze and everyone was fascinated with them, but now, we don't give a second thought to pressing a button in our car or in our homes and instantly hearing music or a talk show.
  Although Maddie did a great job explaining radios and their demassification, there were a couple of things that I didn't totally agree with. First, radios didn't really "create" our national culture, magazines were the first to do that, they just enhanced it and enforced it in a way. Second, in my opinion, radios weren't really art of creating the teenage image. It was more of television and movies that made this happen because of the combined visual and audio of the characters.
  Overall, I enjoyed reading through all of Maddie's blogs, but when I read this one, I wanted to respond to it because we shared ideas and at the same time had different views on certain ideas.

Response to WDRB "Man dies after crash in Trigg County"

  Link to full story here

  Today, I chose to respond to a story that WDRB decided to post on their news tab on their website. One of the first things that I noticed about the story was "Trigg County"; Trigg County is not all that close to Louisville, and last time I checked, WDRB was a Louisville news station. The story was about a man making a turn in his car and then going off of the road, hitting a tree, and passing away at the scene. Because this happened in Trigg County, a county that is almost 200 miles away from Louisville, this story breaks the yardstick of local relevance. It may be in Kentucky, but it doesn't have any relevance or impact on the people in Louisville, and this is where the story was posted because it was on WDRB. I'm finding that WDRB does this a lot; they find accident or crime stories that take place really far away, then they include it on their news website.

Response to WDRB Homepage

  As I clicked onto the WDRB website and started scrolling through the top news stories, I started noticing a trend. Almost every other story was related to crime or about crime itself. EVERY OTHER STORY. Nine out of twenty-three stories on the front page of WDRB were about a crime. 

  One of the stories that particularly stood out to me was the title of, "Louisville woman reportedly hits step-father with broom handle in argument over Donald Trump." Not only does this defy the yardstick of journalism of newsworthiness, it also is not up to par with the yardstick of local relevance. The story may be local, but it is definitely not relevant; it a family argument does not affect the citizens of Louisville, so they don't need to read about it on their local news station website. 

  The story isn't newsworthy because it won't affect a large amount of people for a long time because it's a family argument that got a little out of hand, so people don't really need to know about it because it's not going to affect their personal lives for a long time

  Today I was really disappointed in WDRB. I was stunned to see that almost half of the. reading new story were about or related to crime: it's not good journalism, for they're not abiding by the elements and yardsticks of journalism.

Link to Story

Response to WDRB Target Clown Mask Removal

Link to Story

  Recently, Target has announced that they have removed a variety of clown masks from their stores and online website due to the recent phenomenon of clown sightings and social media posts of clowns with weapons. It's been frightening people all over the country as people start to continue this hobby across the nation. The removal of masks from Target stores has had a wide range of responses from customers and also other stores. The  owner of the Caufield's Novelty in Louisville, Tracy Caufield, said that this is a decision that they never would've even considered. She also said she feels that there are still little kids and people who want to dress up as clowns who don't mean to scare anyone, so she said she owes that to the customers who still want to dress up as clowns.
  To me, it's utterly astonishing that this event has taken over the country and that people are so scared that Target felt the need to remove clown masks from all of their stores. Dressing up as a scary clown to scare people is neither funny nor amusing, it's just weird and creepy, and it makes me sad and embarrassed that something like this is happening so much in our country.

TV Terminology

  Today in class, we learned about all the different television terms we can use when awe are talking about our news station. Once I learned all the terms, I was able to identify the parts of WDRB, my news station, that went along with the terms. For example, I now know that when one of the reporters is at the location of the place they are talking about in the news story, this called a remote. They are reporting live from a location outside of the news studio. I also know that when an anchor or reporter says, "Back to you Tom," this is called a toss because they are introducing someone else with a new story. I also am able to identify WDRB's blocks, or the parts of the show between breaks. WDRB usually has three blocks with the beginning being the longest, the second starting with the second very long weather report, and the last is really short an usually covers sports. One of the things I found kind of funny was that when WDRB has teasers of stories that will be later in the show, they ALWAYS say, "Still to come..."; I have never not heard them say that when WDRB is giving teasers. Now that I have learned all of this TV terminology, I will be able to successfully use it in the future and in my media critique.

Connecting to Ella-Response to Ella Treinen

Link to Ella's Connecting the Dots Entry

  After I saw that Ella had chosen to discuss and make connections to a similar topic of class discussion that I did, I knew that I wanted to respond to this entry, or "Connect the Dots", in Ella's words. I discussed the topic of television in one of my entries, while Ella discussed radio broadcast and then the time when television came into focus and how that affected radio.
  I definitely am intrigued by the point that tells us that without television, there would be no so-called, "teenage years". There would be no idea that there is a time in everyone's life when they are free to let loose and have some fun with their friends without an adult constantly peering over their shoulder. We would be considered adults by this time in our lives; we would be getting married and starting a family if it wasn't for the image of a teenager that television was able to create, as Ella brought up in her blog entry.
  I was definitely able to delve deeper into the topic of radio demassification after reading Ella's entry. I find it interesting how when a new technology becomes more prevalent, the big technology craze that was before it is forced to demassify as people become more interested in the newer technology, in this case television, rather than the old craze, which would be radio.
 It makes me happy that television created the teenage profile, because without it, there wouldn't be that carefree time in your life when you're able to make your own decisions, rather than a playful child or a serious adult. Ella's entry definitely helped me to pursue more of the knowledge that comes from radio demassification and television invention.

Taunted by Telvision

  Ever since we finished our lesson on broadcast and television in class, I can't help but ponder the history of how radio broadcasting and television came to be every time I am sitting in front of my television at home. How did people come up with the idea of television? Why do so many people seem to be entranced in the world of TV? What is it about TV that creates such a semblance to our real lives? These are all questions I am able to answer after having learned the history of radio broadcasting and TV.
  Radios used to be something that people would go to their friends houses and listen to something that would be on the radio show. Nowadays, that description seems to fit more into the TV category, which proves that when television was invented, it did indeed steal some of the spotlight from radios. When television was first created, people were amazed. Back in the 1930s, TV could be deceived by many people as something from the future; they simply could not imagine that they could have a box in their home that would show them moving pictures with audio. It shocks me that today, I don't know anyone without a TV in their house and more people have a TV in their house than indoor plumbing. So literally, TV has become more important to people than having running water, but there was a time when running water was new and not many people had it, so we can definitely see the process of technology turning into something basically everyone has as time passes.
  Our perception of reality is influenced a great deal by TV. Because TV is so lifelike, too often we turn what happens on TV into how we think society truly is. For example, when people watch lots of crime shows, they think that the world is more unsafe than it actually is, because they see real people living in this altered version of our world on TV. Also, so many of the fashion trends, sayings, and stereotypes come from what we view on TV. When we see lots of people wearing a certain style of clothing on TV, that style becomes so much more popular in real life because we can think that TV is our actual reality. This process is followed for things we say and stereotypes we believe to be true; we see it in the TV world, then we incorporate it into our world.
  I was so interested in this particular lesson because I was intrigued by how much TV plays a role in our daily life and how much we perceive to be our reality. It was super interesting to find out the reasons behind the rise of television and why it influences us so much, it was a little bit creepy; this topic definitely makes me want to find out more about how television taunts us.
 

Mass Communication

  Before this lecture, I thought that I knew everything there was to know about communication, because I communicate everyday along with everyone else. Let me just say, man was I wrong. After listening to and processing the ideas of mass communication, I was very intrigued by the whole process. The thing I found most fascinating was that in order for something to be mass communication, it has to have the potential to reach everyone. I thought that was the coolest part; if you have the means of getting the message or idea, you're good to go to be a part of mass communication.
  To study for the quiz that would be the next class period, I memorized an acronym which was S.E.T.D.I. These letters stood for the steps of all communication. The 'S' stood for stimulus, which provokes all communication. The 'E' stands for encoding, or putting the message or idea into a form people can understand. The 'T' stands for transmission, and this is where you get the message across to the audience. The 'D' stands for decoding, and is when the audience gets the message. Lastly, the 'I' is for internalization, and this is when the audience retains what was communicated. I'm excited to dive deeper into the world of communication and learn how to apply it to journalism and everyday life.

Media Critique

(Link to full article here: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/09/15/18-year-old-sues-parents-over-childhood-photos-posted-to-facebook.html)

  Anyone who knows anything about journalism would have thought, "Are you kidding me," after seeing this article published by Fox News. The title of the article is, "18-year-old Sues Parents Over the Childhood Photos they Posted to Facebook". Not only does this article violate the yardstick of newsworthiness, but also the yardstick of local relevance.
  This article is not newsworthy because it does not affect a lot of people for a long time. This is because the article is about an 18-year-old girl suing her parents for posting over 500 baby pictures of her on Facebook since 2009. Sure, this may affect that particular family for a while because their own daughter is suing them, but it doesn't affect anyone else outside of the family.
  The article also violates local relevance. Not only does this story not take place in Louisville, it doesn't even take place in this country. It takes place in Austria. Let that sink in for a moment. The article is telling citizens in the United States about a family lawsuit going on in Austria. This has no relevance to Louisville or the United States in general because it's taking place in another country and it will have no lasting impact on anyone here.

Response to Addison

  I was having a great time reading through all of my fellow Journalism and Communications freshmen blogs; I enjoyed seeing all of the different writing styles and what each person brought to the table. When I clicked on Addison Evers's blog addawarness.blogspot.com, my immediate thought was, "Wow. She has all seven blogs done." And it was true. All of her blogs were in great detail and very thoughtful. When I came to her blog about print journalism, I couldn't agree more. When I go back to that day, I was already exhausted even though the day had just begun, and I was hoping Mr. Miller would bring another intriguing lecture for us so that I could wake up. Print journalism had always been something I really enjoyed and was interested in, so my mind flitted awake when the word was brought up, just as Addison said. I thought we would be learning about the basics of print journalism and how it was different from other mediums. We did learn about print journalism basics, but that day's lecture was really about the evolution of print journalism and how it came to be today, as Addison stated in her post as well. I definitely agree that I want to learn more about how to write print journalism, but I do realize that we need to understand the "backbone" first, as Addison called it, in order to be able to write great print journalism.

Why Newspapers?

  For today's class I was writing up on the board so Mr. Miller could still lecture without focusing on that as well. The discussion was newspapers. Why were they still around all this time even with new technologies? Well, after this class discussion, the answer was clear. Newspapers are a tradition in that many people still get up in the morning and sit down and read the paper. Newspapers are a physical object; they are able to be saved and it's a source of news people can touch and hold instead of listening or watching it. This brings me to my final point. Newspapers will always be there. Because they are able to saved, people can always go back to them. People can read and interpret the news at the pace they want to. Even though these are only three of the six points, I felt that these were the three most important to share.

Meddling in Mediums

  When everyone had finally finished presenting their answers to the now infamous question, "Why is Jerry Mander opposed to television," I was wondering what the point of this whole thing was. Was I really supposed to know why Jerry Mander didn't like television? Well, I finally got the answer when we started discussing the purpose of everyone having to present in a different medium, and the answer, as I had supposed, was no. When people, were presenting, I noticed I was definitely more interested in some than others, such as the white board drawings and the powerpoint. For me, that was because visuals were involved and I'm not an auditory learner.  So, when we finished talking, I had a deep understanding on how different mediums affect how we understand and interpret different things and how some give us a deeper understanding.

Response to Kate

  Earlier today, as I was browsing through my classmates' blog posts, I found one that particularly stood out to me, and that would be Kate Frey's. You can access her blog at enteringtheworldofjournalism.blogspot.com. I found that her blog was very honest and personal, and I definitely agree with some of the things that she said. As Kate said, I am not an auditory learner as well; I can't absorb information just by hearing it. However, Mr. Miller's lectures have me not just learning the information, but stepping out of my comfort zone and taking a guess I know might not be right, which is more than okay in our classroom environment. I find myself poised and focused during lectures, which is most definitely not the case in other lecture-filled classes.
  I think Kate would agree that Mr. Miller's class constantly makes us consider new ideas and processes and has us on the edge of our seats ready for the next question, as she said in her post. I would love to see what Kate continues to post and look forward to reading her thoughtful responses!

The Keys to Journalsim

  As I sat in one of the first of many Journalism One classes, all of the ideas and key concepts of journalism started to fit together like a puzzle inside my head. I began to not just admire great journalists, but also consider myself a beginner learning the ropes. Truth is the number one element of journalism, because who wants to read something they think is true but then find out it's not? Independence is for journalists to remember they should write just to write; not to please a particular group or lean toward a certain outcome. Watchdog, one of my particular favorites, is basically a version of spying, in which journalists keep a close eye on people with power. All of these standards plus more combine to make journalism, well, journalism.
  I started to notice all of these elements as I listened to the radio and read the newspaper. I was listening to NPR in the morning and heard the term "watchdog". Not only had I heard it before, I knew what it meant and why it was significant to journalism and the world around me. In this case, NPR was referring to keeping watch on Hillary Clinton and why she wasn't doing any public appearances or press conferences; she was only attending closed door fundraisers. Minutes later, they had one of Clinton's campaign managers talking over the phone on the show, and he got upset about what NPR told him they had observed. He told them that the number of public appearances she was doing might not have been enough for them, and then NPR cut him off right there and politely responded that they were only trying to get information for the people, which is the element of loyalty. It amazes me how much I've learned in the little time I've been in Journalism; I have been able to apply the elements to real life and learn how to become a better journalist.