Media Meditation #4 : Flailing on Facebook

Koobecaf No Gnilialf : 4# Noitatidem Aidem

Everyone uses Facebook. And if not everyone, it's pretty damn close. But this week I just about lived on Facebook. Facebook became my lifeline, my one connection to the humans out there, my means of survival: it told me where the zombies were.

The symbol of HvZ from the HvZ website.

Humans vs. Zombies is the game to make you paranoid. Every time you enter a building you need to scout out the corners of exits and make sure no one is waiting to jump you and kill you. Walking through the heart of campus is a death wish. Walking out of Joyce alone is a sure fire way to get you killed. Your Nerf guns and your socks are your life lines.

So how does Facebook come into it?

Through this.

On the Facebook group you get messages from both sides. You can communicate with the undead without risk to your own life. Besides this group there are the private Human and Zombie pages respectively for whatever you happen to be.

You survive by living on these pages.

Zombies post their hitlists.



Video Footage of a Fall '10 Champlain HvZ Mission

Humans post where zombies are at the moment, if they know of any hits, and when they need rescues.

Facebook led to quick responce times and the quick sharing of key information. Without Facebook, my team would have been dead awhile ago. We learned to use the information to our advantage. We learned who to trust... and who to shoot on sight.

Time : An American Journey

Yenruoj Nacirema Na : Emit

The Time Logo

Thesis
Time magazine aims to bring a sense of understanding to its readers by presenting the facts as they happen globally from entertainment to war news.

Five Facts
-Fareed Zakaria has recently joined Time as a regular columnist and cover-story writer.
-Time now has an app for the Android to get news out quicker and faster to the readers.
-The mass of foreclosures that fueled the housing crisis was triggered by predatory lenders who targeted minorities in low-income neighborhoods.
-Druidry has been recognized as an official religion; there are about 10,000 druids in the U.K.
-In 19 days there were 4 suicides in the U.S. because of bullying.

Brain
Neocortex: as a magazine it is text based and requires reason and logic and thought to understand the squiggles called words and turn them into something that can be understood.

Limbic: the images used alongside the articles are there to inspire sympathy or empathy to whatever cause the article may be trying to promote.

An image from Time about the recent suicides.

Principles
Production Techniques: the images and font used for both the print and the website are designed to be the most visually attractive to a potential consumer.

Pacing: because it is print/text the reader is able to absorb the knowledge at their own pace and is able to, at anytime, skip something they have no interest in.

Trends
Aesthetic Shift: the information of Time magazine can be found both in print and online on their website. Now it even has apps for the Android.

Personal Shift: the news offered is something that is very participatory, you can choose whether or not you want to sign up for newsletters or if you want Time mobile apps.

Persuasive
Beautiful People: seen in advertisements throughout the magazine, the models are always gorgeous and appealing.

Testimonial/Strength: in the piece Bullied to Death they have Jennings of the Obama Administration offering his own thoughts on the tragic event.

A tribute to John Lennon from YouTube.

Nostalgia: John Lennon’s career is revisited in this Time issue to celebrate the former Beatle’s 70th’s birthday in the article Lennon Lives.

Mid-Semester Reflection

Noitcelfer Retsemes-Dim

After studying 21st century media for eight weeks I've learned a lot about blogging. I've never blogged before and never had a reason to learn, but I'm glad I have. It's definitely a skill I plan on using in the future. I've also learned about the thought that goes into a commercial regarding how to suck a viewer in. It's been interesting to apply when just watching TV with the guys in the dorm.

This class has also taught me a lot about myself. It hasn't taught me anything I didn't already know about my writing self since I am a writing major, but I've learned I need to be a much more critical reader and thinker. I tend to take things at face value and don't usually dig deeper unless prompted or very interested in the matter.

If I were to take this class again I think I would take the blogs more seriously from the start. I thought they would be boring busy work assignments at first but I've grown to actually start appreciating them and I wish I had done so from the beginning.

But if I took the class again, I would like to get more use from the textbook. It was the most expensive book on my list and I feel like I hardly get any use out of it. I love the classes, but I feel like the assignments from the book are just busy work things - probably why I didn't take the blog seriously to begin with.

At first when I was given the power tools packet I groaned. It seemed like a lot to memorize and nothing worth remembering. Now, they're not so bad. a lot of them were just common sense concepts given new names so there was hardly anything to learn there.

The course blog has always been helpful. I'm not a fan of posting the book responces there, but it makes it so much easier to find out what the assignments for class are. Soooo much more helpful than Demon (aka Angel).

The personal blog has also grown on me. As I said before, I thought it would be a bit annoying, but I actually like it. I love making the posts my own.

The everyday quizzes definitely help to drill in the power tools that I didn'y already know. Occasionally they can get annoying sicne we have them every week twice a week, but overall they're handy to have.

The in-class films are usually fun to watch and discuss. I really like the discussions following "Reel Bad Arabs," it was the type of interactive discussion that makes a class both fun and informative.

I don't thing the book is very useful at all. We basically use it for busywork-homework. Rarely do we use what we read about in class. There should be more ways to incorperate it in the lessons.

Media Meditation #3 : Warring With Wix

Xiw Htiw Gnirraw: 3# Noitatidem Aidem

For those of you who don't know what the heck a 'wix' is, Wix.com is a free website creator. The process is ungodly simple and makes other host sites like Freewebs.com look archaic and cruel. To join Wix you make yourself a screenname and then you get to work. There's over 270 templates you can use and from there you can customize them in an infinite amount of ways.

With the drag and drop format you don't need to know a thing about coding to be a website god.

And yet, despite its simple and sleek design, I have waged war with Wix for the last week.

Yes, it was easy to access.

Yes, I got everything how I mostly wanted it.

But wow are there a lot of of buttons and things for someone who cannot manage to follow tutorial videos.



Tutorial video for Wix.com

It was just mind blowing. With a menu on each side of the screen, for those who can't count that's four menus, and multiple tabs with tabs with tabs it was just an overload. After three miserable attempts to figure out how to make a page, I began to get the hang of it and just flew through the process.

Put this here. Drag that here. No! God damn it, you're supposed to stay there! Lock this here. Add this. Delete this one. No! I thought I locked you there!

Image from Hyperbole and a Half.

I think my room mate and our boyfriends thought I was a little insane after awhile, but that was perfectly alright. I had fun.

In the end, I built a gorgeous website that I marvel at anytime I'm on a computer (I have a tab open now with it in fact).

Soños is my creation, my pride and joy. In Galician, soños means dreams. This was the perfect title.

Galician is not only a beautiful language, but a language that appears in my novel Dreams as the language of magic and spells. See how it all just ties together?

I love this site, not Wix of course, just my site. It's something I'm going to keep around for awhile, update and keep pretty until I'm big and famous and can hire people to make me a website with my own domain.

Can anyone say Soños 2.0?

Camp Champ Radio Spot : For Pony!

!Ynop Rof : Tops Oidar Pmahc Pmac



Come to Champlain!

Do you want a spectacular education? And a pony?

Well, you can find out which one of the two you can get by coming to Champlain!

Come to Champlain!

Champlain has a pretty campus and pretty people come here. Come here to be amongst people almost as pretty as you!

Come to Champlain!

Here are just a few successful stories of people who came to Champlain!

“I graduated from Champlain and instantly received a million dollars! You can too!”

Come to Champlain!

“At Champlain I met a celebrity! Celebrities go here!”

Come to Champlain!

Did you know Champlain grads are 13% more likely to survive a nuclear Holocaust?

Come to Champlain if you want to live!

President Warlord Finney demands you come to Champlain! He fights bears and catamounts!

Come to Champlain!

College doesn’t cost that much! Only ten thousand easy payments of $9.99! Sign up today and we’ll throw in a free Snuggie!

Come to Champlain!

Come to Champlain!

Come to Champlain!

Have we mentioned come to Champlain?!

Come to Champlain!

Audeamus! Come to Champlain!

Or the pony gets it!