Media Chatter

Many things in life are quite funny in how they make you feel. Just like every one can remember the smell of their childhood home, when their mother was cooking and it always brings back such memories. That sense rings true with sounds as well. I can remeber being little and riding in the car with my grandmother and she would always put in a cassette of Willie Nelson. I was really close to my grandmother as a child and that always seemed to draw us closer. It wasn’t nessesarlly the song itself, but the singer and what he stood  for. My grandma always taught me to be kind to others and always have your own opinions. That was what I think Nelson’s stand on life was too and still is. As a performer, he has always been known as an extreme liberal with views that differed from most of the civilized society. I do not think my grandma wanted me to pick up those liberal views, but she did want me to catch on to some of his views on life. As I get older I am beginning to realize what she meant. In the world today you have to make your own opinions and take responsibility for your life. Not only was Nelson’s views good in many ways but his messages in his songs were inspirational as well. Many of his songs talked about missed love and the simple things that are important in life such as in the song “Hiway Man”, which was performed with three other country music legdens. In his songs you can feel with his warm and unique vocals that he believes that. There have been many artist over the years and many songs that I have really enjoyed. However Willie Nelsons soulful sounds with colorful life lessons will always be my favorite and bring back such great memories of my first favorite singer. 

I worked with middle school girls for 2 years, and in that 2 years I probably had 3 real conversations with them. I’m sorry to say it, but I think that their generation is just soaked with digitalized intimacy, which is other words means, no intimacy. I don’t know how many times I heard about relationships beginning and ending over texts messages. When the girls were mad at each other, instead of confronting one another in person, they battled it out over instant messager. I suppose there is one good advantage to digitalized interaction though, no one gets physically beat up anymore.
In the near future, we’ll see all kinds of things moving from print to digital. Take my doctor for instance, her whole office is moving toward what they refer to as “paper-less.” This basically means that the nurses carry around touch scene writing pads (not with real ink pens ofcourse) and ask you about your symptoms while touching the screen to record the information. At first I thought that this innovation was cool, I still do; but now after much thought about it, I am also very skeptical as well. What if there’s a crash in the system and all the insurance/medical records are completely erased? Then what? How would they ever know who their patients were? On the other hand, what if all the records are “hacked” into and all the patients personal information is exposed for all the world to see? Identities could perhaps be in danger. However, on that note, I’m sure that there have been precautions taken to battle these circumstances.
Eventually, I think that all public relations jobs might be completely replaced with impersonal computers. I’m a huge computer lover myself, but I’m an even bigger people lover and I dread the thought that one day I might have to order a coffee drink from a computer instead of an actual living, breathing barista. The digital age will bring tons of innovations as well as tons of set backs. The family, refering to the actual immediate and extended family, is under attack as it is and with the rise of communication devices, I think we’ll see families falling apart more and more. It’s so sad to say that, but how can a 30 or 40 year old father compete with the newest action-packed video game? Along those same lines, obesity will also continue to rise. Why would you need to walk or much less run anywhere if all that you ever need to communicate with anyone is right in front of you or in the palm of your hand? I believe that we, as a nation, as a people, must to fall out of love with immediate, instanteous results and laziness or the human spirit will surely be crushed. We need each other to converse and experience life with; basically we need each other to sustain our actual life and to keep us sane.

So I grew up in a home with basically computer paranoid parents. They have gotten better, but it was pretty bad all the way until the 2000s. When we finally got a computer and hooked up to the internet in the mid 90s, I was scared of the it. I had no idea what it was, how to use it, or even what I would use it for. All I had heard about it was that it contained explicit pictures, and that it is pretty much a bad thing. So I tried to avoid the internet unless I just had to do something in school or something. I do not exactly remember if this was my first encounter or not, but I remember a homework assignment in 6th grade to log on to the internet and print something off about Egypt or something. That is the first time I can really remember spending any substantial ammount of time on the web. After my fear had, I guess, settled in I started to log on more and more. Eventually it got to be an every day ritual for me. I got home from school, went straight to the computer to get sporting news and chat with my friends. Of course my parents (my mother in particular) did not like the ammount of time I was spending on the computer and had to have a talk with me. Luckily now she uses the internet as much, if not more than I do.

My encounters with other forms of media have been very different than that with the internet. I know that when cell phones first got huge (just after the bag car phone) I was excited and wanted one so badly I could hardly wait until I started driving. I was not aprehensive about them at all. I think that getting use to the internet and where technology was going really helped me to not be intimidated by new forms of media.

I grew up in a technology illiterate family. We didn’t purchase a television until I was 8, and even then, it was kept in the closet only to come out every Saturday night to watch British comedies. With that being said, you can imagine what our computer status was like.

We didn’t purchase a computer until I was in the 7th grade, so my internet exposure was minimal at best. My first encounter with the internet wasn’t until I was 12 years old. My technology savvy neighbor invited me over to show off her new computer that came epuipt with internet capabilities. We were so excited to get on instant messanger and talk to more than one person at a time! It was unlike anything I had seen before, and it was incredibly exciting to “surf the web.”

It wasn’t long before my friend was inspired to see if our names had been used for web cites. We decided to type her name in first, and all of a sudden my first internet encounter also became my first pornographic encounter. Needless to say, I became a little less enthusiastic about the internet after that fun adventure.

Because of my acciental porno viewing, my family decided not to get the internet until I was in 9th grade, and even then an adult had to supervise our 15 minute a day time slot. I didn’t have e-mail until I was 16, and those were read by my mother each evening.

Our Juno dial-up connection served us well for 4 years. I loved spending 10 minutes to connect to the internet and then another 5 for each page that had to upload. My parents saw that Juno wasn’t working well for our family, so they upgraded to DSL a week before I left for Anderson. Truthfully, I’ve had my most internet exposer here at school and I’ve been in my dorm for only 3 weeks. And let me promise you, it has been a bright and beautiful world since then.

During the print-oriented Industrial Age, people communicated more with each other in person then they do now. People took the time to write letters as opposed to writing a quick email at work. There was no Internet and chat rooms people could use to talk to each other. If someone had to talk to a friend, they had to actually go see them in person. Back then this allowed people to get to know each other more. Now during the digitally based information age, people rarely take the time to speak to each other in person. They rather just send an email or talk on instant messenger. Talking online makes it hard to get to know one another, because you cant see the person face to face to know there emotions or what they are thinking. I think as a nation we are affected by the diditally based information age, because we rely alot on computers to do the work for us. We now use the internet for school, work, and even just for entertainment. I think that in the future generations that students will not be motivated to get a good education because the internet will do most of the work they are required to do for their jobs.

Given that my musical taste could be called pretentious now, my love for horrible music used to be in abundance. Looking- listening back rather, I can see that my musical taste and progressed and matured. We all get excuses because we are young? Right?

Go back to my ninth grade year the band, Nickelback, the song, “How You Remind Me”. In my mind the greatest song of all time. They were on tour that year, and just happened to be playing in the town I lived in. Being the wise parents that they were advised against it. I did not let up, and in the end I was at the Nickelback concert. I loved it, and played their cd time after time.

After a period of time I began listening to a wider scope of music and put Nickelback on the back burner. A few months ago Nickelback released a new song called “Photograph.” After listening to this song and its lyrics I realized I had no hope as a freshman in highschool.

The more and more I grow and mature I realize that most things that had appeal as being popular and the in thing are able to be controlled by the media. The radio believed this was a very catchy hit song, so they played it continuously causing me to get hooked on it. The same is true for a lot of music on the radio, the more airplay it gets the more popular it becomes, obviously.

As I prefaced, my musical taste has become pretentious, but it did begin with hearing all of those bands on the radio. I was fascinated with it. I wanted to hear more and more. The older I got the more I realized most decent music will never be played on the radio, and I kept asking myself what I was thinking in ninth grade.

Virtual communities are a really popular among teenagers, especially MySpace. Even I am guilty of it. The problem with this, and websites similar to it, is that a lot of the people on it are not who they say they are. There are so many people with fake profiles. A friend of mine came across someone who had used her pictures as their own! That is really creepy! Virtual communities were probably genuine at one point, but the more people use them the less it seems like an actual “community”. Myspace is more of a “let’s see how many friends I can get” rather than “let’s have an actual conversation” tool. Since anyone can look at your profile, people seem to want to take on another persona, to make themselves seem more interesting. It’s not really about being yourself anymore, which is really sad!

 Online communities are great for finding people who are interested in the same things you are, but also hunting ground for predators and just really weird people in general. I will never forget when I was in Chic-fil-A and a girl I had never seen in my life came up to me and said “I know you from Myspace!” You don’t really think about how your profile is visible to anyone, and they can easily get your information if you are not careful. Facebook is a little better. You have to be a student and use your .edu email, so it is a lot less sketch. However, the bigger these communities are, the less genuine it seems to be.

My first encounter with the internet was when I was in the sixth grade. I had a question in class about what word sphinx meant and my teacher told me to get on the internet and look. I asked what the internet was and the whole class laughed at me! So I tried to play it off and act like I really knew what it was, but when I got home I asked my parents what it was. They told me, but they still didn’t help me figure out how to use the Internet. It took my about an hour to figure out what sphinx meant. After that, the Internet because addictive to me because I could keep in contact with my friends until I was introdused to my first cellular phone. At this point, I had just called my friends intead of emailing them (that’s all that I knew how to do at the time, I had never heard of IM).

Internet was probably one of my most exciting encounter dealing with mass media, but others that were good were the CD player, the MP3 player, and video on demand. Internet was different from all of these because Internet is more broad and CD players, MP3 players, and video on demand are made for only a few specific things.  

on the internet.

I believe I was the age of 12 when I first used this thing called World Wide Web, and I was absolutely clueless about it. (I would’ve used it sooner, but we didn’t have a home computer until nearly everyone else and their 5th cousin had one). I think I was doing a school report and the library had nothing that I was looking for. We had actually had internet at our house for a few months, but I hadn’t been on it yet, I had no reason.

        I was first amazed of how fast I was able to receive information on any subject, which in turn helped me get my research finished in record time. I don’t remember what my grade on the project was, but it didn’t matter, I had just found the Holy Grail of Communication.

   I  wasn’t instantly hooked on the internet though, I was still into watching the news, reading the paper, and any other “old fashioned way” of getting information or enjoyment. The reason for this is that with the news on television, you have a “relationship” with the broadcaster. Tom Brokaw for instance, gave a slight personality to the news, while the internet was just you reading off a screen. The personal touch was missing. The newspaper was a little more like the internet, with the user reading off words (but on paper), and an advantage was you could spill your morning coffee on the paper without fear of it breaking, unlike a computer with internet. 

     One advantage the internet had though, was that it got information out quicker. With a newspaper, something breaking may happen, but you won’t read about it until the next morning. TV has gotten faster at covering breaking stories, but come on, do you really want to listen to Fox News or CNN cover another white Bronco chase in California?

     The Internet has changed the world of communication, and still is. With it’s speed increasing, and the amount of coverage of events being posted in record times, it is forcing the old way of mass media to evolve, which is a good thing. In 10 years, who knows what the next person’s “first time” story will be, but looking back, my was slow and eyeopening.

I can remeber the first time i got on the internet. It was crazy! I was, and still am not computer savey. So when learning how to get on the internet i had a really hard time. We began learning about computers in middle school. However i still didn’t catch on very well. The internet itself is a really cool concept however it never really has made much sense to me. I have always thought of it as something else to confuse my life and make things harder. For example in many of my classes i have to do alot of things via internet. This really has made it harder on myself because i am not as knowledgable about the whole internet. In reality i am just falling behind in society considering that this is the direction of modern communication. Maybe one day i will actually catch on to this crazy concept called the internet, but till then i will just keep struggling.

The internet is the gateway to the world.  It allows you to communicate with people anywhere, at anytime.  Through evolving technology, the internet has given us access to news, music, videos, games, e-mail, chat rooms, and much more.  If there is one thing to be said it would be that with all of this great stuff, nobody will every get bored! 

Families, communities, countries, and even the world are affected by the internet each day.  Through the Net we are always connected.  Being an ocean away doesn’t stop a person in Russia who wants to talk to a friend in Brazil.   The internet has allowed us to keep relationships with people.  It has also allowed us to share interests online with others we will probably never meet.  Through websites and blogs anyone can post a message about their favorite hobby or event.  We can access news from years past and research about things we’ve never heard about.  One can translate different languages or even design your own car.  

Although the internet has proved useful, it can also change society for the worst.  People will no longer talk face to face and we will lose a sense of personal connection.  After a while our trust with others may start to linger and sincerity might be lost.  This isn’t a far fetched idea since we can’t truly say we know for sure we are talking to someone we know on the other side of the computer.  Not only can we research for good, we can research for bad, too.  People can learn to make explosives, terrorists can communicate at anytime, and each day children are taken advantage because they have logged on to a chat room. 

Although these things are scary, the internet can change people for the better.  Each day new technology is bringing families together, and people who try to harm others are taken off the streets by undercover investigators.  I believe that in the end the internet will prove successful and the new technologies brought about by it, will prove greater than expected. 

I am an Apple computer girl, so all my information is going to be based on Apple software (because let’s face it, what better way is there?). This summer I bought my newest Apple adventure, a Macbook laptop.

I have owned Apple computers for most of my life. My dad used to work for Apple, so we own more of the little one color processors where the only games we owned were the Muppets and Transylvania (the latter of which I still to this day cannot figure out how to play). Today’s Apple, lucky for me, has come a long way from the days of the 5 1/4 inch disks. My new baby comes with software like iChat, iSight, and iWeb. These programs are the features that I am most excited about. iChat allows for users to instant message back and forth, but unlike the standard instant messaging program, you can now use your own picture instead of one of the pre-selected pictures that come with the program. It makes instant messaging a little more personable. For an even more personal touch, you can use iSight. Each of the new generation laptops comes standard with a built in camera so you can have digital, video instant messaging. Not only is this software fun to use with your friends and long distance family, but this feature is also going to be helpful for conference calls after I graduate. Now you have the opportunity to never be left wondering at what the person on the other end of the line looks like. The last feature that I am excited about is iWeb. I now can use a small amount of effort, and build a gorgeous web site in a very small amount of time. Apple even has it’s own server so you can host it with little effort or strain.

I am excited about the new software and its potentials, but I worry about it being misused. Most websites and software (look at Myspace for example) have great intentions when they are created, but are then manipulated to bring harm to someone. iChat can be misused to lure children into bad situations. People have the opportunity to turn iSight into a live pornography chat. The list of possibilities goes on and on. This does not even include the horrific material that can be found using the internet (but that’s not a Mac only problem).

Although there are many troubling issues about the internet, I think the good out weighs the bad. There will always be situations where one or two bad people will ruin great features for the rest of society, but I think the overall outlook for the internet’s future and features is good.

I remember the first time we got a computer at my house.  The computer was really big and really loud.  When i tried to get on the internet for the first time, it must have taken ten to fifteen minutes to log on.  I was so excited about being able to get on the internet.  Some of my friends already had the internet and told how much fun it was to play on the computer.  They also told me I could do more than play, I could also look up things for school and find out the news. 

First time experinces are typically more important than people realize

I did not realize what a big step I was taking by getting on the internet for the first time.  Since that first time, I have used the internet for everthing I need.  I am so glad my dad knew what he was doing when he bought the computer.  He had to teach me everthing about the computer and how it works.  My favorite thing to do, of course, was play games on it.  I would go to www.candystand.com all the time. My favorite game to play was putt putt. Sometimes we would have a family tournamnet on candystand. Yhose are times i will never forget.   

                           Zach Brewer

Everyday when I was younger it was a priority to turn on CMT and listen to it a majority of the day.  Whenever Mom and I would get in the car, the first thing I would do was turn on the radio to one of the many country stations that I had forced my Mother to program. Mainly, I think I had such an interest in this kind of music because it was the only kind I had ever been introduced to.    But, when I went to Elementary school and started meeting  different people, well young kids, I was introduced to a different kind of music, rap.  Then, my taste in music began to slowing change.  I began listening to rap more and more.  I would still throw in some country every now and then, but not nearly as much as I previously had.  As I got even older I started being interested in rock and alternative music.  Today, I barely ever listen to country, but instead, rock, rap, and anything besides country!  I know thats probably rare being that I am from the south.   There are only a select few country songs that I will listen to now.  But, I just do not like the country style anymore. All it took was for me to be introduced to different types of music to really discover what I liked. If someone is deprived of something, well, he or she can never like it. 

Back in the “good ole’” days, when I was in the sixth grade. Tons upon tons of boy bands were emerging all across the country. I won’t ever forget the day I was introduced to Hanson. I remember it like it was yesterday, I was over at my best friend’s house and she told me about her new favorite song on the radio, “MMM…BOP.” Then she proceeded to try to sing it, which left me even more confused. I had not yet experienced this wonder of this song. So day and night for the next week, I anxiously awaited the radio to play it, cassette tape recorder ready. CDs were far too expensive for a sixth grader to purchase, besides CDs kind of took the element to surprise out of listening to the radio. Either way, this discovery marked the beginning of my teenage love for two things: boy bands and long blonde hair.
Looking back on those early, developmental days of my admiration for music, I can recall fondly the many times I song out loud, at the top of my lungs ofcourse, every word to any Hanson song that was playing. While my overwhelming love for music thrived and grew stronger, my support for Hanson faded. My loss of interest in Hanson can be mostly attributed to the fact that I was influenced primarily by my peers. Basicly, Hanson lost their “cool points” and I kicked them to the curb. However, in moved N’SYNC with a vengence, but that’s a different story for a different day.
I’m a full believer that my interest in music early on chiseled my appreciation for it still today. There’s nothing better to me than a concert full of musical expression. Music is an amazing vessel for emotion. I know that if I hadn’t loved music and been encouraged to by my parents in those early days, I’d be a different person, perhaps a bit unfeeling at that. To that I owe all the credit to Hanson, my first real music crush!

In my early teens, Britney Spears became popular to listen to for girls all across the country. I loved her lyrics she wrote at the time, because they were innocent and they were about issues that girls could relate to and like to listen to. I admired her fashion style and the way she looked. She was pretty and talented, and girls all over America wanted to copy her. As i grew up though, my music tastes changed, and I no longer was interested in her music. Her lyrics didn’t really catch my attention anymore, and I didn’t want to be like her. Britney’s once innocent lyrics and style changed dramatically. When she first started her career she was role model girls could look up to, but as Britney Spears got older her music was more sensual and she wanted to fit in with her competitors out there such as Christiana Aguilers, so she dressed to look like them, because she thought she would sell more albums. In the Jewish World Review by Bill O’Reilly, an article was written on how Britney Spear’s and Ludacris are bad role models for kids. “Every American should be condemning rappers and rock stars who sell children subversive values. It is tough enough these days for kids to develop maturity in our confusing society without being told that selling drugs and carrying illegal guns is fine. And children who have absent or bad parents are especially vulnerable to corrupters selling them instant gratification.” http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/oreilly091702.asp. My early music tastes somewhat changed me in that I realized that you have to be careful about what you listen to, because it shapes you into the person that you are going to be. I also realized that someday when I have kids, that I am going to make sure that what they listen to effects them in a positive way, and that they have good role models to look up to.

     Media outlets such as CNN, MTV, and e-mail have no doubt been largely beneficial to our modern society. However, this by no means implies that these resources have an equally positive effect on more traditional cultures. For instance, CNN has done much to inform the American people about the state of affairs in Afghanistan. On the other hand, CNN has also done much to give the people of Afghanistan an unjustly bad reputation. Because of excessive reporting on the subject of the radical Islamic regimes in Afghanistan, many American citizens have begun to view the entire populous of the country as a working organism for the Taliban. This revelation is ill informed considering the majority of the citizens of Afghanistan are oppressed by such regimes. 

     In a completely different vein, resources such as e-mail and MTV are dangerous because they threaten the traditional culture of the Afghan people. Access to MTV in Afghanistan would mean a westernization of the culture and therefore significant loss of one of the world’s deepest and richest traditional cultures. E-mail, in a similar situation, would threaten traditional forms of communication. Because of the destruction of modern mass media communication devices, Afghan people have had to rely largely on traditional forms of communication, and this reliance only serves to add to the richness and cohesion of their more primitive culture. In short, modern media in more traditional cultures, such as that of Afghanistan, serves to harbor ill informed bias and to make the world smaller and therefore less culturally diverse.

Postmodern forms of communication have linked the world together.  Through e-mail, the use of the internet, television, and even movies, the world can easily glance into other cultures in the comfort of their own home.  However, there are still countries based on tradition and native skills, which rarely see these kinds of media.  If the citizens from these countries allowed these types communication to affect their society it could harm the foundation of their customs, changing them into something they never would have foreseen. 

Once forms of media have found there place among a culture, it is not long before the transformation begins.  The traditions of ancestors will come second on the list to watching your favorite television show or surfing the internet.  Values and opinions of these cultures would shift rapidly due to the impact of their people using the media as an everyday outlet.  For example, one’s opinion on Western music may change when their friend discovers a new song that they too enjoy.  People will begin to mimic the actions of other places and cultures because of what they see, and things that were once immoral in the minds of the people, may show up as being respectable.   

Although sometimes harmful there is a lot that can be said about the modern media phenomenon.  These products can be used to learn new and exciting things from different places, but it is also important to preserve our traditions.  After all, it is our ancestors who made the countries we are so proud to live in today. 

 ”Children will watch anything, and when a broadcaster uses crime and violence and other shoddy devices to monopolize a child’s attention, it’s worse than taking candy from a baby. It is taking precious time from the  process of growing up”.  http://www.google.com/search?      To Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, NY Post 19 Jun 61. Today the media shows a lot of things some people are not used to. The media’s job is to help get out certain messages to the world. This quote seems to have come from a parent that feels that the media has an effect on children or mainly their child. The media has been criticized for showing things and that some parents or guardian does not want showed in their households. Many people blame the media for things that they should be held responsible for. For example some teachers and parents may blame the media for certain things that their child may be exposed to doing like changing the way they dress or the music they listen to. The media should not be held responsible for a child’s certain change in behavior. In a way it is true that media does allow children to change things about theirselve but I think that it also has something to do with what the parents show their children.If you allow kids to watch anything without talking and explaining to them what they can watch and what they are watching is good or bad then kids will get out of hand. But the media does get the blame sometimes with things they should not get blamed with .But  certain parents do restrict their children from watching certain things most of the time they are religious parents with strong religion backgrounds  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_controversy.            The media plays a role in our world but parents and guardians  player   a bigger role . Most of the time the media does really get blamed for the change of dress they do promote that also the music. I know that the media does affect certain children because as I was coming up I though it was cool to be someone else. The media helped build my thoughts up to how I could be different but kids just need a strong individual in their lifes to help guide them.

            E-mail, MTV, and CNN are spreading information and culture all over the world quicker than ever before. However, the quicker the information is spreading, the quicker the lines are blurring between Western cultures and native traditions.

            The global economy as a whole is dominated by the western countries like the United States. As the world pushes and applauds many smaller nations to become more like their Western counterparts, not only are they suggested to adopt western languages, but also their values. As the culture diffuses throughout the world, many of the values and traditions held by minority cultures are eradicated by the attempt to have a more globalized society (Irvine). You begin to see more men and women drinking Coke and wearing Nike clothing in countries that have traditionally known nothing more than loin clothes and river water.

            The saddest part of the entire situation is that no matter how hard the governments try and keep out Western culture, the more the citizens want it. Take many of the Middle Eastern countries where the only television allowed is the national news channel as an example. It doesn’t take a lot of searching to find hidden satellite dishes so that the people can watch western shows like Bay Watch. Along with that, much of the world’s infrastructure is owned by Western countries, making it easier than ever to access that media. For instance, the same man who owns the Fox network also owns the Sky Two satellite making it easy for overseas viewers to keep up with their weekly shows (Smith, Fort).  

When I was a younger more nieve little child I would watch ESPN’s “Sportscenter” religiously and always be very much concerned with certain superstar athletes. (i.e. Troy Aikman, Ken Griffey Jr., Jerry Rice, big names) Every morning was the same story all these great players and stars were always the ones given the most t.v. wether it was in an interview or in highlights. The anchors on ESPN would always hype these certain athletes up and made it feel to me as a young kid that these were the people I was supposed to like and choose as my favorite athlete. The sports reporters constant chatter or harking on these certain athletes even made me want to play the certain positions of these athletes. I can remember wanting to be a quaterback for my youth league football team so bad I could taste it, but ended up having to play offensive line. The point im trying to make is that I let the media sway me into a position I was not made for after all i was a slow husky little kid and there was no way I was every going to be a quaterback. All I had seen on t.v. was the glory Troy Aikman had recieved and I thought that was what I wanted. After this I would watch sportscenter and watch the athletes that played my position as a Tight End and i soon found out that there was no respect given to the real muscle of sports teams by the sports media. It was with this that realized that the media catered to the big name and not little names that make the big names look better. With a little more age on my side now and wisdom of sports I now have new sport heroes and you know what I doubt you’ll hear their names on sportscenter everyday nor are the stats as great as the the big names. In my mind though they’re just as great. In retrospect sports media’s one sided coverage of big name athletes has brought me to my understanding of lesser known names and lesser known positions. I learned that not everyone can be the touchdown scorer every game, but everyone can be a hero. Now that I’m older I can honestly say that I no longer would want be a superstar athlete just because I saw it on t.v. nor would I want to play a certain position because that was the one the media followed most. In a weird turn sports media has shaped the way I view what I call sports stars, just not in the way that the it’s seen on t.v.

“This is a circus. There is going to be booing and cheering;” quote Jerry Springer. The power to make ordinary people make fools of themselves on national television has become the one activity for daytime talk shows.

Shows like Rikki Lake, which was cancelled for bad ratings, and Murry Povich are some of the shows that deal with sensationalism to get ratings. Long before that, there was an investigative reporter named Geraldo Rivera, which went on police raids, and had his nose broken when he aired about hate groups on “The Geradlo Rivera Show,” which ran for eleven years.

What is wrong with America, and their need to see other people’s shame, and lack of moral decency? The Springer Show even though he claims to tell his guest not to use profanity, or to assult one another, it happens on a continuous bases on his show. A lover in adultry, incest, homosexual relationships, and the list goes on. Lest Povich has a heart and tries to help with counseling for the poor and ignorant fools that air their personal trash to millions of viewers every day. Their fifteen minutes of fame, is it worth the humiliation?

Today in television and radio the shock of the sensationalism has spread to all forms of media. Cartoons like South Park and a cartoon named Ren and Stimpy, which aired on Nickelodeon, a children’s network before parents realized the adult theme in many of its episodes is case in point to see the effects, which I call, “The Springer Effect,” has changed America’s viewing habits. I remember when just showing the navel in the pilot of “I Dream of Jennie” caused a stir.  

Rather than always requiring your readers to hop over to another site to get linked information, you might consider quoting parts of a story or blog entry.

This is accomplished with a combination of <blockquote> and </blockquote> tags, which will set the quoted material apart from your own comments.

For example, Volokh offers this reason for the growth of bloggers’ audience:

Thorough coverage of a particular issue: A blogger who’s interested in an issue may cover it in more detail than a typical newspaper would.

You might then follow that with your response to the idea.

You can monitor what’s happening in your LAL section by using the RSS feed your site will generate. Many portal sites, like MyYahoo, offer members the option of adding their own news feeds. Some of the newer browsers (Safari, Firefox) also let you access RSS feeds quickly and easily. To add your LAL site to such a site, you’ll need to know the RSS feed URL, which can be found by clicking the “Entries RSS” link on the bottom of the right-hand menu.

The link should use the following code:

http://www.commajor.com/?feed=rss2

Find the Register link at the bottom of the right hand column. Enter any username that you’re likely to remember. The system will generate and send you a password.

After a few minutes, check your email and continue the login. Before posting your first article, click the Users tab so we know who you are. First, enter your first and last names in the first two fields, then click the “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the page. Second, and before you leave that page, change the “How to Display Name” menu to display your first and last names. Click “Update Profile” again.

From now on, you will mainly be accessing the Write tab when you log in. If you are on your own computer (not in the lab) you may want to use the WordPress bookmarklet, which is displayed at the bottom of the writing page. With this in your bookmark list or browser window, you can simply select the bookmarklet while you’re reading a news story or another blog, and the browser will open a writing page for you with the URL already formatted for you. If you highlight a paragraph or two in the article you plan to link to, the bookmarklet will create a blockquote for you. Now all you need to do is alter the title, change the link text and add your own comments.

The meat-and-potatoes entry for blogs consists of a link to another blog entry, website, or news article.

For example, Eugene Volokh discusses why people like to read–and write–blogs.

Try to make your link as specific as possible. Instead of pointing to the entire site (e.g. www.volokh.com), point to the specific article–in this case: http://volokh.com/posts/1113000593.shtml. You can often find the article’s unique URL by clicking on the title or looking for a permalink.

If you find a link to an interesting article at another blog (including other LAL bloggers), blog etiquette expects that you credit the site that first showed you the link. In this case, I might do it like this:

Hat tip: New Media Journal

The composition page will also give you an option of a trackback to the blog you are citing. Whenever possible, enter the article URL or, if the blog lists it, a unique trackback URL in the trackback field. This alerts the cited blog that a fellow blogger has created a link to his or her post.

To offer more than a basic unlinked post, you will need to format your entries with some basic HTML.

To create a link, the syntax is

<a href="http://www.thesite.com/folder/page.php">Here’s the linked text</a>

Keep the linked text brief because it does not always wrap to new lines well. A common error is to list the link as www.thelink.com; remember to begin all your links with http://. The URL needs to be enclosed in quotes. To save your readers from frustration, test your links when you publish your post.

To create a blockquote section, the appropriate syntax is

<blockquote>Here's the quoted section.</blockquote>

As with the link code, the ending brackets always include a backslash: /.

For more information, check Wordpress documentation.