Le Commoonicayshun Mo-dels

Here we go.

2 a)

i.  Sender – the original creator of the message.

ii.  Receiver – the intended or unintended person or thing that encounters the sender’s message.

iii.  Encoding – the process when the sender prepares their message in a way they think will be most easily understood by the recipient.

iv.  Decoding – the process the receiver applies to the sender’s message so that it can be easily understood.

v.  Channel – the transporter that transfers the sender’s encoded message to the receiver to decode.

vi.  Noise – interference that happens, usually in the channel, to the message or the intent behind it that can change the way it was meant to be presented.

2 b) I remember back when I was getting a degree in graphic design (didn’t finish cause it wasn’t interesting enough for me), there was a scenario in one of my classes where we were doing a critique of one of our projects.  I don’t remember what the specific project was, but I remember the emotions and experiences I felt then.  The project was half-way through and we were doing a mid-project critique, so I took the concepts here (though I didn’t think about them in that way at the time) and improved my project later on.  I was the sender, telling the class what I had intended the piece to be and what message it conveyed.  I completely didn’t understand my receivers (classmates, in this case), though, because the way I encoded it, which made sense to me, was completely opposite of the way they decoded it.  So the channel was the piece being presented, but the noise that interfered with my message was the channel itself, which was interpreted differently by the receivers.

2 c)  A Lead Environment Artist, who is the channel through which the Art Director, the sender, encodes his message, tells the lower Environment Artists the vision that the Art director has in mind for a certain level.  The Environment Artists decode the message the Lead Environment Artist gives them and produce art for the level..  The Art Director tells them that the art is good, but not quite what he was thinking of.  The Environment Artists, get back to the Art Director and Lead Environment Artist to try to clarify the intended message.  Both of them elaborate on the details so that the lower Environment Artists can produce artwork closer to the original vision.  The noise in this whole exchange is the first time the Lead communicated the message to his underlings, where he interpreted the Art Director’s message differently than the Art Director himself because of differences in background knowledge.

2 d) The above scenario is an example of the Westley and MacLean model of Communication, which I believe is the most prominent model in today’s workforce.

First Amendment research project

For this assignment, I needed to interview six people- 2 from my own generation, 2 from my parents’ generation, and 2 from my grandparents’ generation.  The questions I asked each of my interviewees were:

“If Congress were considering the following law-

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

-would you approve of it?”

“Do you agree or disagree with the freedoms? Explain.”

“Which do you support and which do you think are excessive or provide too much freedom?”

“Do you recognize the law?”

It’s apparent to anyone who already read the title of this post that I’m talking about the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

One of my test subjects was my manager at work.  As soon as I sat down in her office to ask her these obvious questions, I felt a bit awkward asking them.  Rightfully so, she knew what the law was right away.  Although she didn’t recognize it as the First Amendment, she said that there was already a law out there that protected those freedoms.  She agreed with the freedoms, saying that if it weren’t for the amendment, we’d not have the ability to do things like express our worries or concerns with companies *cough*FedEx Office Corporate *cough*.  She also thought that freedom of the press should have its limits, as excessive freedom can create problems of libel.

I also interviewed two of my neighbors.  One was my mom’s age and one was in between my mom and grandfather, but has grandchildren and therefore counts as one of my older generation interviewees.  I then interviewed my grandfather over the phone (he lives in Arizona).  At work today, I interviewed my assistant manager who is only two years older than me and another co-worker that is about seven years older.

Contrary to the goal of this assignment,  every one of my subjects knew from the start what the law referred to.  Not all of them knew it was the first amendment, but they knew that it was already a law and that those freedoms listed in it were protected.  They all gave me weird, concerned looks when I asked the first question.  I guess my lack of persuasive interview skills was the reason I couldn’t convince them to question whether it was already a law or not.

Their answers were mostly similar, with only a few saying they fully supported the freedoms and the others saying they supported them with reasonable restrictions.

I did notice slight differences in concerned facial expressions when I asked them the awkward questions, though.  The men seemed more confused as to the point of the questions and the women had a more “are-you-off-your-rocker?”, concerned look.

Those that mentioned that certain freedoms should have limits discussed the same kinds of limits- “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a theater”, “You can’t put bigoted or racist opinions in a newspaper or magazine”, “You can’t make a protest and burn down the buildings that house the people against whom you are protesting”, and so forth.

In this activity, I learned that, while it may be true that many young people couldn’t tell you any more about the first amendment than they could what state is directly south of Washington, most from my generation and those older than me know the basics of what constitutes our government and freedoms.  I was not really surprised by the responses I got.

Web War XXLV: The Napster Axis and the Metallica IP Allies

Intellectual properties.  The subject of hot debate for thousands, nay, millions of years.  Though the thought of protecting one’s own idea has probably been around since the invention of the wheel, the technical term for this desire wasn’t coined until the mid-1800′s.  There are many definitions for it depending on whom you ask, but my definition is quite simple.  When a person or company comes up with an idea for a product, service, process, etc. they deem original or deviated enough from an existing product, service, process etc. to be original, they want to make sure no one but themselves is able to use that idea to make money.  Therefore, they go through sometimes lengthy procedures to protect the “intellectual property” from being stolen by others.  In short, an intellectual property is an idea that belongs to the entity or entities that first think it and decide to act on it and is protected by some means from the use of others.

This hot-button issue of IP infringement took one form as a nasty court case back in 2000.  Metallica, one of the most famous metal bands out there, discovered that a yet-to-be-released song was being played on the radio. Tracing the string all the way back to Napster, then- a free file-sharing site, they also found that all of their albums were being freely traded by thousands of users.  This, naturally, enraged them and they sued Napster pretty viciously.  Napster was forced to ban well over 300,000 users that had downloaded Metallica songs for free.  After rap artist Dr. Dre jumped on the bandwagon from discovering his music was also being misused, over 200,000 more users were banned from the site.

In 2002, Napster filed for protection from bankruptcy and was later bought out by Best Buy, who changed the services over to a  pay service (traffic on the site largely decreased and it was hard to obtain label licenses).  Metallica and Dr. Dre reported that they had no further qualms with the company.

Although Napster is gone, its primary services have gone to influence many more peer-to-peer file trading softwares and websites that have been much harder to track down and suppress.

I happen to agree with Metallica’s stance in their case.  While I don’t think they would have lost their livelihood and become naught but homeless guys over this incident, I do respect their stance on protecting their music. It’s a bit odd that no one was ever making a profit off Metallica’s songs, thus not really taking anything away from the band, but I’m sure the free file-sharing would have probably grown exponentially and kept people from going out and buying the cd’s had Metallica not put their foot down to stop the river from overflowing.

I personally don’t condone piracy of any material or software.  Sure, some companies and artists are making money hand over fist and could live just fine without a few extra sales, but the smaller fish really depend on those cd and merchandise sales to keep them afloat.  Stealing from them would be condemning them to a very hard life.  I think that paying for the music you like also shows that you’re willing to put down some hard-earned cash to support the artists out there and keep encouraging more creativity out of them.  It shows you care.  If you can’t afford that new cd right now, have patience and buy it when you can.

Lawsuits occur quite often in my field, but one that comes to mind concerned my favorite game company, Square Enix, against an import company in France called Sakura.  Square Enix denounced them for selling counterfeit versions of their products and marketing pirated products all over Europe.  Square Enix is filing for an injunction against Sakura and financial compensation.  As it was only filed this year, there has been no conclusion one way or another.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/04/BU138263.DTL

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35670

http://news.cnet.com/Metallica-fingers-335,435-Napster-users/2100-1023_3-239956.html

http://release.square-enix.com/na/2009/07/2.html

INTERNET AND WIRELESS MEDIA SCAVENGER HUNT

Hypertext.

Many people can recognize it when they see it and most of them know what it is, but I’ll detail it out for those that haven’t correlated the word with the meaning.  Hypertext is a form of text, usually with the appearance of blue and sometimes underlined text that stands out among black text, that, when clicked upon, opens another page with information, pictures, and other items relating to the original word or phrase that is the hypertext.  It often links to a source of reference that helps explain it.

Hypertext is part of the base of almost all online sites (with the exception of XML and XHTML, which, themselves, are more advanced forms of HTML).  HTML stands for “HyperText Markup Language”, by which most websites have at the end of web addresses.  It has enabled websites to be interconnected with each other and make the network that is the internet.  Otherwise each website would be isolated and invisible from everyone but the computer on which it was made.  It can drive online business and enable researchers to find much more information more quickly than if they had to search each site individually.

Sources:

http://www.palmtoppaper.com/ptphtml/39/pt390021.htm

http://www.bsu.edu/web/acmaassel/hypertext.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext

The Medium and my design field

After hearing the podcast and reading the chapter, The Medium and Message, I was able to alter my traditionally held cynicism for these new forms of media.  Changes in communication will always happen and constantly transform its look to whatever will fit best at the time.  Although I still have a strong distaste for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, I can see from a different perspective how they are just another form of communication whose essence is what brings people closer together.  I just think that they keep making people’s attention span shorter-”Oh my gawd, I can’t wait for a response for my email, I’ll just put it on Facebook!”, “Oh my gawd, I can’t wait to find a computer to put this on Facebook, I have to Twitter it right now!”  Soon, people will have such short attention spans that they can’t hold a decently long conversation; plus there are also all the inane things that people put on these sites that no one really cares about, just because they can.  Those are my main gripes, but I can also see the usefulness of them in more practical situations.  I think that they will probably be a good resource when I get into the gaming field, as I might not know how to find someone’s contact info, so I find them on Facebook; or I see something from the outside world that inspires me that I would forget about by the time I get back to work to use the new idea.

I am personally not in the “field” I am working toward, but I can relate traditional media to my current job: FedEx Office (Kinko’s).  Since we mainly offer printing services, print has obviously had a tremendous impact on my job.  Were it not for the invention of movable type, the copy center we know today wouldn’t even exist, or Paul Orafalea (the founder of Kinko’s) would have gone down a completely different road.  In terms of my prospective field, video games, print has enabled the industry to be able to print the game covers, instruction booklets and even the guides that other companies make for games.

Photography birthed Photoshop in the late 1980′s, which is a largely used program both at my job and in my future career.  We would not even think about manipulating photos or using them for reference or creating textures from them if someone wasn’t persistent in creating and improving photography over time.  Photos would also not be used on various pieces of printed media if photography weren’t devised and handmade artwork would still be used in every printed publication.  ”Photo”copiers would not have the technology they have today if advancements in photography technology were not made.  Many video games wouldn’t be striving to be “photo”realistic were in not for this introduction of capturing reality onto a piece of paper.

Cinema has had less of an effect on Kinko’s and video games than the previous two, but has still made a strong impact nonetheless.  Kinko’s offers video conferencing at select centers and DVD duplication services.  Though were it not for cinema, the relevant technologies (monitors, DVDs, webcams, etc.) would not have been made or would be very different.  For video games, cinema has had a little more influence.  Arcades of the past can be seen as cinema for gamers- many people with the same interest going to one place to enjoy it, like moviegoers to a theater.  Cinema spawned television in homes, which spawned video games in the home and on the computer.

Radio has had the least impact of all of these traditional media on Kinko’s and video games.  Sure, radio advertisements for games and Kinko’s are sometimes out there to make promotions, but news that was heard on the first radios and music that pervades most stations today haven’t really boosted business much or created many technologies which are depended upon.  CD’s wouldn’t be an important step in the ladder of audio media if radio weren’t there to promote the musicians that eventually recorded to them in the first place.  That would make the services of CD burning at Kinko’s and the transition from game cartridges to game CD’s nonexistent, but there would have been ways around it.  It does have slightly more impact on software, though, as most software that you would install on your computer came on CD’s until DVDs became the more prominent and efficient way of storing software to sell at retail.

In terms of new media, everything has had a huge impact on both my job and my eventual field.  The internet has made it possible for Kinko’s to stay up-to-date with all the new technology that is constantly introduced.  We have T-Mobile wi-fi hotspots in all of our centers, many customers use the internet on our self-service computers, it’s possible for tech support to instantly help us with any problems we can fix, many of our services would not be possible without a connected network to the rest of the company, the list could go on.  In terms of  gaming, it wouldn’t be possible to play online games without the internet, you couldn’t go online to get help from guides or forums without it, online communities of gamers wouldn’t exist, and game journalism websites and game promotion websites would not exist, resulting in much less awareness of the games out there.

The advent of wireless communication has helped quite a bit, if not as much as the internet, in both of these areas.  As I mentioned above, T-Mobile wi-fi hotspots wouldn’t exist in our centers, customers wouldn’t be able to call home or work from our store in case they needed help from someone else to find a file or get job specs without cell phones, and tech support wouldn’t be able to access our computers to help with complex problems if they couldn’t wirelessly access our computers through the IP addresses.  Video games have become more and more wireless in the last several years.  There have been wireless controllers, wireless internet from computers, wireless keyboards and mice, and even “wireless” cell phones that have games on them or that people can buy from online stores within the phones.  For game developers, there may even be some companies that wirelessly connect all their computers to a network where everything comes together.

The recent surge of interest surrounding 2012

With the movie 2012 coming out next month, buzz around the year and movie and Mayan calendar has increased tremendously.  Along with the movie itself being a form of mass communication; it’s website and trailers, interviews with Mayan scholars and the Mayan people, and even the Mayan calendar itself are forms of mass communication.  Posters, fan websites, and blogs also fall under this category because they often reach many people.

The movie, whose website is http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/, was produced by Columbia Pictures and Centropolis Entertainment.

I don’t think that this “apocalypse” is really going to happen.  I think that, just like the scare of Y2K, the events surrounding this day (December 21) and year are being blown out of proportion.  Everyone was afraid that all the computers would die or something terrible would happen, but nothing happened.  The year was just like any other year except for the buzz and hype leading up to it.  You might argue that that was just the media hyping what was only speculation by scientists and programmers and that 2012 is supported by the ancient wisdom of the Mayans, whose calendar has accurately predicted events up until now.  It seems a little hypocritical to imply the genius and wisdom of these ancient cultures where, at all other times, we patronize them for being “primitive” and we are advanced.  I say that if you actually look for interviews of Mayan historians and the Mayan people, you find that most of them say that the Mayan calendar only predicts the end of their Long Count cycle and that a change is about to occur.  This idea of an apocalypse is just made up to scare the masses of people out there.  It’s a distraction made by the media to make people stop thinking about the real underlying problems in the world like the viruses that keep getting invented every few years, “terrorist” attacks (which are not actually what they are presented to be by common media), and the economic crisis which was created by the governments themselves.  Fear is a powerful tool that is commonly used to manipulate people into doing what you want them to do and keep them stupid.  The media and governments are just using all this mass media to purport lies and fear into the populace so that they can more easily be persuaded to buy into the “protections” and “securities” those institutions are concocting for us.

I think the implications of this film (even though it should just be entertainment) will be disastrous among us receivers.  Many will still be skeptical and see the movie as nothing more than what it is, but they will still be influenced by it.  It will give out subliminal messages to audiences, as well as governmentally funded merchandise and propaganda that will come with it and in the future, that we should give in to our self-victimization habits and fear for our lives.  Then we can be more easily controlled.

My sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8MXwQXKW_w

http://www.whowillsurvive2012.com/

http://www.2012planetalignment.com/6.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/

http://www.history.com/video.do?name=armageddon&bcpid=3887230001&bclid=5983807001&bctid=6085856001

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/05/19/no-doomsday-in-2012/

The Recluse

Daniel had run away from his parents when he was young.  They were going to send him to a private school that he furiously refused to attend. At first the freedom was euphoric- he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.  He soon found that reality in this society was much more cruel than he would have thought.

He soon found himself digging through dumpsters for scraps and old clothing.  The food shelters for the homeless turned him away because of his bad attitude and selfish behavior.  It was hard for him to lose the habits that living in a high middle class home had ground into him.

He soon found solace from society in a room in the sewer that was filled with old abandoned electrical equipment.  From observing the rest of the sewer on his way to find refuge, he concluded that this technology was at least a decade old.  No doubt, with technology advancing so rapidly these days, it had all been cast aside and forgotten only a couple years after being introduced.  That was great for him, though, as he would take whatever he could find, even if it was obsolete.

He soon found that much of it didn’t work from years of stagnation and decay, but was satisfied when he discovered that what he would have considered important was in decent shape.  He was still able to tap into the power lines connected to the room and hook up an old television he found on the street.  He also found a ragged, but semi-comfortable chair to which he could sit and watch whatever was on.

It wasn’t long before he settled back into an old lazy habit he brought from home and just sat watching junk on any channel he was able to receive.  Though the number of channels he could get underground was limited, it was enough to keep him there all day.  Other than occasionally returning to the surface for his nightly food hunt, he did nothing to better his life.  He felt safe from the world in his little hideaway.

He watched the world and it’s problems on the news from time to time, feeling invincible from it’s effects.  Other countries were being invaded, new diseases were being invented and spread around, people were being murdered, kidnapped, and had gone missing, and a whole list that he eventually lost track of.  Since no one knew where he was, he thought he would be immune to it all.

There came a time when his country was invaded and cities were being bombed.  Numbed by all the news and the apparent effects none of it had on him, he watched one day in a dazed stupor as the local news reporter announced that bombers had been spotted approaching his city.  He watched without interest as reports streamed in of different places that had no meaning to him were decimated by the barrage of explosions.

It wasn’t long before the news station went dark and Daniel assumed it was hit, but didn’t give it a second thought.  He just laid back in his chair and closed his eyes to sleep.

Off in the distance, he could barely hear the rumbles of the explosions and didn’t even register them as they gradually got closer.  It only took minutes before the power went out and he was left in complete darkness.  He then became anxious, as the only sensation he could experience was the audible booms of the city around him.  It occurred to him that he wasn’t as cut off from the world as he wanted to be.

A huge rumble knocked him off his feet and as he got up and scrambled to get out, he realized the door was blocked by a large piece of fallen concrete.  Through a small hole created when the road outside the door had collapsed, he saw swarms of black vultures racing through a red sky.  As their silhouettes rapidly approached, he knew what was coming.  He realized he was trapped in his small room and looked around frantically for a way out.

There was nothing.

Post-it’s for Team “Tank”

In Team Tank, we divided our post-it’s into 4 categories and each took one to post on our blogs.

I had the ENTERTAINMENT/BROADCASTING category.  Prepare to be awed.  Or not.

TV, Kindle, Word-of-Mouth, Radio, Satellite, AIDS Commercials, CNN, Texting, FOX, Microphone, Product Placement, Movies, Reality Shows, Laser Shows, XBox Live, Forza, MTV, PlayStation Network, Sports-Cheering, GTA

And now for something completely different.  It’s…   The Five forms the might take a little thought to see why they’re mass communication!

1. Radio- Ok, this doesn’t really take much thought, but the evolution radio has taken is an interesting one.  It was originally used to communicate news and a little music to people around the states.  Radio has changed into Music stations of all kinds and news stations that broadcast popular music and important, up-to-date news, respectively, all over the globe.http://vator.tv/news/show/2009-07-08-evolution-of-radio-and-music-genome-project
2. Microphone- The microphone was invented in the late 1800′s to emit and receive sound over long distances.  Today, through various applications, the microphone is used to communicate music, speech, signals and other types of sound to as few as one to as many as thousands at a time.hhttp://belegendary.com/
3. Product Placement- Oh, how this can sometimes annoy the crap out of me.  Even starting as early as silent films in the early 1900′s, the idea of selling a product through a form of entertainment has been around for a long time.  In the last 2-3 decades it has exploded and been seen everywhere from TV to Video Games to Movies to Magazines and Books.  As long as they can be seen by many people, at least half or more of the audience responds to them.http://www.theshiznit.co.uk/feature/top-10-worst-movies-for-product-placement.php
4. Laser Shows-Although they aren’t always as publicly televised as other forms of communication, the fact that they are observed (often with ooohs and aaahs) by many people at the same time is a sign that it is also a form of mass media.  The intricate movements and complexities of the lasers allow them to put on many different displays designed to impress the captive audience.http://livedesignonline.com/news/lighting_ilda_honors_worlds/
5. Cheering in Sports- Cheering for a side in competition goes back as far or farther than Rome with it’s Coliseum.  It has been used for many purposes such as getting troops on one side of a battle riled up or for sports teams to win.  Sports cheering is a unique form of mass communication.  It can communicate whether a team is winning or not, if something bad has happened that videos just can’t capture, the general feelings the crowd has toward the teams, and even what’s happening to non-sports fans outside the stadium.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_GTv416-3Y