Marinating on Some Media!

The big bad wolf of media has taken over society. With Netflix, Xbox 360s, Ebook readers and the iPhone 4G, media has begun to completely dominate.. This epidemic is most common for the younger generation, because personally, besides my Media & Society teacher, the adults I know still use old school flip phones and use internet for email only. Now, there are so many fancy, new contraptions that you can have email, YouTube, and even Facebook on your smart phone itself. It is the “technological merging of content in different mass media – for example, magazine articles and radio programs are also accesible on the Internet and songs, TV shows, and movies are now available on iPods and cell phones” (Media & Culture, 9). Media has converged into one giant super power.

(iPhone 4 commercial showing off the updated "FaceTime" option.)

I use the internet every day. Whether that means checking Facebook off my phone, or checking Tumblr (which is a blog, a “site that contains articles in chronological, journal-like form, often with reader comments and links to other sites” (Media & Culture, 52)) in between classes, there is not a day that I do not open up Safari and go to town. Internet is also used for so many of my classes; checking Angel for assignments, signing onto my personal mymail account, or reading articles online for Concepts of the Self or Rhetoric. And of course using Blogger for Media & Society. The other main purpose of my personal internet use is Gmail, which allows me to be in constant contact with my father via email.

(The creator of my favorite blog, Tumblr, David Karp. Image courtesy of Tumblr media.)

The internet also allows me to be always in contact with the latest and greatest music. Reading current blog posts, or seeing the newest music videos is easy thanks to YouTube, Blogger, and personal sites of bands. My music intake usually does not take place over the internet however. I usually only listen to the radio when I am in the car with my roommate, or when I'd like to hear something that is not on my iTunes. If that is the case, I resort to listening to Pandora. What's fantastic about Pandora is that I can type in something like “Elton John” and spending my homework time listening to everything similar to Sir Elton John, like John Lennon and Billy Joel. And if I find something that I must have on my iPod, so I can listen to it at any time, I can skip on over to iTunes, and buy it right up! Apple opened iTunes in 2003, and since it has flourished, becoming “the number 1 music retailer, and digital sales now account for almost 30 percent of the music market in the United States” (Media & Culture, 96).

(The newest Pierce the Veil video, I was able to find immediately when released thanks to the internet!)

I would venture to say that sound recording itself really plays no part in my everyday life, however. I am a huge music fan, and I frequent shows and live concerts, I play no part in “the relationship between music's business and artistic elements” (Media & Culture, 95). I would have to say that overall, the sound recording business does that a large toll on me, considering how much I enjoying seeing live bands, and getting actual hard copy CDs. Over the years, I have seen a lot of bands struggle to get their music out on CDs anymore, and have them sell thanks to iTunes and illegal downloading.

(Recent iTunes/iPod commercial, featuring music by The Ting Tings.)

The same thing goes for television. Since I am at college, I no longer watch television on an every day basis. It was decided between my roommate and I that we would not have a TV in our room. Now, whenever I would like to watch any television series, I have to revert to Netflix. The existence of online television sites like Hulu, and Netflix have to be doing the same amount of damage to the television networks as iTunes is doing to the music industry. The capacity of “ordering or streaming DVDs through online services like Netflix and downloading movies to iPods...threaten to end the era of the local video store” (Media & Culture, 200). Hulu offers interviews, and inside previews of shows like “Glee” that make watching it online more enjoyable than watching it on the TV. There are also considerably less commercials.

(A special clip from the "Special Education" episode of Glee, featuring the song "Hey Soul Sister.)

The same goes for the ability to watch movies of Netflix, instant stream. Netflix allows me to go beyond just watching the same old movies that I have laying around, in DVD form. Watching movies online has allowed to me to non-mainstream films like “The Edge of Love” and “Pollock.” I do enjoying going to the actual movie theater for big time event films, like the opening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.” Movies that are not big ticket items like this usually end up being projected on “two or three screens at the same time; films that do not debut well are relegated to the smallest theaters or bumped quickly for a new release” (Media & Culture, 240).

(The trailer for "The Edge of Love," a movie I discovered thanks to Netflix.)

Something I do touch and work with every single day is books. Ever since I was very young, I was an avid reader and once I began reading a book, I could never put it down. I especially got into the “Harry Potter” series, and those seven books were the reason I was incredibly devoted to become getting into the book world and becoming a author of young adult novels. Harry Potter “in terms of commercial success...has broken all records: more than 375 million copies of the books in sixty five languages had been sold in 2008” (Media & Culture, 314). Books are yet another aspect of culture that have been taking over by the internet. Ebooks, like the Nook, and Kindle, make it possible to no longer purchase hard copy books.

(The first of Kindle's stop motion commercials.)

Newspapers have been undergoing the same sort of makeover. Because sales have been going down for daily newspapers, many have began building up their websites, and making sure there are applications available for phones to use. Today, “rather than subscribing to a traditional paper, many readers begin their day by logging onto the Internet and scanning a wide variety of news sources” (Media & Culture, 261). I do not even touch the newspaper on a day to day basis. If I do, it's on Sunday, and it's only for the comics.

(CNN coverage of the decline of newspaper sales in the United States.)

Another form of media I only use occasionally, is magazines. There is only one magazine I subscribe to, which is Alternative Press. It keeps me updated on what is going on in the alternative music scene, and is full of band interviews and articles that I find interesting. But even such an anti-mainstream magazine like Alternative Press is forced to focus on their website to stay afloat with subscriptions. What is nice about magazines is that there is such a large “diversity in magazine content and ownership” (Media & Culture, 303). You are able to find magazines about the direct topic you're looking for, like GQ being directed at middle class, middle aged men, or Cosmopolitan being directed at women aged 18 and up.

(Alternative Press coverage of the last night of "The AP Tour." Alternative Press was celebrating 25 years.)

Media has become more and more a focus of every day life. Thanks to convergence, it is easy to check email, your Netflix account, and your Facebook account all on your train ride into work on your smart phone. As media becomes more of a pinocle in everyday life, it has become clear that “the arbitrary lines between information and entertainment have become more and more blurred” (Media & Culture, 27). The use of technology has now overtaken the lives of some of the younger generation, and some of the older too (here's looking at you Doctor Dubs!). However, in some cases, the technology is all for the better; at least the newspapers, and E-readers are keeping our neocortex working.

(And something fun to send you off with. Charlie McDonnell reading "Twilight." That's some convergence. A boy on YouTube, reading out loud from a book, that was turned into multi-million dollar movies and a multi-billion dollar franchise!)