Mike W: Week 12
Topic: Week 12
This week's class looked at several media theories. The biggest idea was convergence. Often times we don't think about how the technology we use is made or developed. We just take it for granted as there. We must appreciate that technological messages are made by us humans. As Franklin stated "it is part of an organization that requires special processes and procedures, creates new words and jargon, carries a minset and creates new words and symbols." Indeed technology will forever shape our thoughts, culture and society.

Today was the last class of the symester. Wow, the speed of this symester was unbelievable. I still remember the first week of being completely overwhelmed by the amount of work. I found that this class was quite informative and the assignments created a good sence of teamwork and initiative that a high school student may struggle without direction. I remember the first week when Mark said that we are now in University and we are old enough to create our own direction. Lastly i'd like to thank John and Mike G for their hard work and dedication in the completion of these tasks.

Great Symester Guys,
Mike

Mike W: Week 11
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Week 11
This week's lecture was based on alternative media and culture jamming. This is making media in the face of big business. This form of media is made for a deeper purpose. I think this is a very important tool in our culture. We are so focused on mainstream until we are introduced to a way to find and create media that can satisfy a personal message we want to send or get.

The portfolio is basically done. We just need to link everything and double check our sources properly. It was important that Ravi told us to not take to much pride in what we created with the final tasks; rather we should explain the process and experience in adapting to different forms of using, creating and learning about media.

Mike W: Week 10
Topic: Week 10
This week's class was canceled. I stayed up working hard on my Mass Comm Semiotic Analysis assignment. I guess it's a positive to have another week to improve my work.

Meanwhile we set a date for friday to do our charity event and our film. We are planning on using media to get people to donate money to the Canadian Cancer Society. Our movie idea is credited to john for his idea to make a superhero fighting cancer plot. The script will crack you up.

Mike W: Week 9
Mood:  party time!
Topic: Week Nine
We began this week by looking at the maps of various groups in our class. Our map was not properly linked to our web page so we couldn't present. We then looked at the control companies have and vertical integration. Bigger companies continously buy smaller companies to the point where everything is owned by someone. I found it interesting how we learned that people think that small label bands are independent and different. The fact was that nobody is really independent and the big companies mess with our minds in hopes of attracting the public.

We are still working strong on our portfolio and we are now planning on getting our film done and our charity event. We are planning on combining these two into one project just like the blog and the weekly response i am typing this very second.

Mike W: Week 8
This week we had off in Mass Comm so there is no weekly lecture to report.

As far as the portfolio is going: we are are a few more tasks away from being done. Exam week was stressful but i feel i did a good job overall. I found it relaxing knowing that all my mid terms were multiple choice. It is a change from high school where exams had so many categories and different ways of evaluation.

Mike W: Week 7
Topic: Week Seven
This week's lecture focused around globalization. This is the idea of a global village. Media is essentially a foundation for globalization. If you think about it; it is because of media that we are able to know about what is happening in China or Afghanistan, or even what is happening in British Columbia. It is quite mind boggling to me how people were completely isolated within their own cultures and customs centuries ago. I believe that is part of what caused wars, prejiduce and hatred. People knew nothing about the outside world and anything different seemed wrong and hatred ensued.

My group worked on the "mapping who owns what" task. We found it interesting how basically every media source is owned by a three or four companies. Basically if you are a little guy, you will either be bought or simply not make it.

Mike G- Week 12
Topic: Week 12
Today’s class was the last lecture for the semester, and also the last class before our portfolios are due. The topic of discussion for today’s lecture was Nicholas Nicarpante’s idea of convergence. The idea of convergence was not strictly referring to technology, but about the convergence of ideas and mediums that made it easier for us as people to understand the ways in which we live, differing of course from the ways in which other cultures live.
After class today, our group will meet for undoubtedly the last time. Our group has finished all of the tasks that we need to complete as a group, and the meeting will primarily deal with going over the tasks and preparing ourselves to individually complete our portfolio project.

Mike G- Week 11
Topic: Week 11
This week began discussing our portfolio, which is due next week. The semester is coming to a close a lot faster than it feels like it should. This is a big project to undertake, more important than the tasks themselves it seems. The work that has been put into each of the 13 tasks does not appear to be of the utmost importance, it is the description of the process of creating each of the 13 pieces to our group projects. We then looked at technology as a system through the views of a professor Franklin, a female physicist that broke the gender barrier. Lev Manovich wrote “When old technology were new,” stating that we have overlooked so much natural stuff because we have been focusing so much on technology that does the work for us. What we ignore is that along the way of creating new technology, someone had to decide that it is us that do not understand computers, not that computers are not made for our lifestyles. Bank machines were used to describe this way of thinking. Bank machines in the United States are different from those in Canada, and they do not always make sense; however, that is how it is going to work because that is how the machine designers determined these interactions would occur. Technological determinism goes against Marshall McLuhan because it is the idea that the medium is merely an extension of us. McLuhan would say it is not the content that attracts us to certain mediums (TV, Radio, Newspapers), it is our familiarity with it that leads us to use it over and over again. I find that this is true because I, along with many people, have a high comfort level with the internet, because it is updated quite frequently and is easy for my generation to use. The digital divide was brought up again, the idea that everyone has access to technology; however, there is a divide between those that do and those that don’t.

Mike G
Topic: Week 10
Week 10 began understanding the difference between mainstream and alternative media. It was interesting to hear that library searches done by university students in Canada are regulated under the patriot act in the United States. This seemed a little extreme to me, and pretty much came out of nowhere. I never would have thought that the patriot act, created by the American government for the American people, would have ever intruded into the lives of Canadian University students.

Mike G- Week Nine
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Week Nine
Week nine began with the viewing of media ownership maps. Ours was completed on the website; however, at the beginning of class I had not yet been able to properly link all the pages together, so we were not prepared to present. We then moved on to media ownership, specifically BMG Music (Bertelsmann Media Group). This class was spent talking about how the world is turning into an oligopoly. The cross promotion in companies has become secondary, and at the top of many industrial chains, companies that would be on opposite sides of the cultural spectrum are actually connected. What this is doing is giving the control of what every person is exposed to.