This journal is going to be primarly for media class. Although since I can and often do find all kinds of media in my everyday life I wouldnt be surprised if I go off on tangents of all kinds. So to kick this off I think im going to simiply start with some of the bigger topics I have noticed in my life, on the internet and in the media. Its kinda interesting, when i think about it to note that those three things i was going to talk about are almost one in the same.

I am a big movie buff but one thing that i have noticed lately is that there is an increasing amount of advertisements and previews in the beginning of the showing. Too begin with you have all the ads. Pepsi, Coke, candy companies. But what got me is now even the army is advertising in the beginning of the movie. That really bothers me I came to be entertained and now its almost like im being recruited. The whole product ads last around 10 minutes. Then you have the previews which lastly exactly 20 minutes.A former professor or mine, Professor Van Gunden, told us if we looked carefully we would notice these trends in the advertising before the movie. And sure enough, 20 minutes on the dot for previews. Since I am a big movie watched I do like seeing whats comming out. But when they start hyping a movie that is not even comming out for another year and a half, that bothers me. Because at this point I am starting to get irritated wondering if i paid to watch advertisements or a movie.
What makes me even more blown away at the theaters is it isnt even just the big summer blockbusters that show these kinds of trends. I went and watched Madagascar, and it was a good movie, really funny. But in the beginning we see the exact same commericals for products, i.e- coke, pepsi but then what really got to me was they still showe ads for joining the army. This i can live with in more adult movies. But im sitting in on a G rated movie where over 75% of the audience is 12 and under and they are showing army recruitment ads. crazy.

I like the idea of doing the journal as a blog, but i am going to have to be careful about the way it is written otherwise it will seem like all thats being done is complaining.

I noticed that AMD, a computer chip maker is saying that Intel (another computer chip maker)crossed the line and is almost forcing vendors to use their chips instead of AMD's in mass productions of pc's. I think this is complete trash, and AMD's attempt at creating some media to propel their newest chip. I have built,programmed and done just about everything you can do with a computer. And for that matter I've used both of these companies chips. I believe that these vendors (HP, Delll, Compaq etc.) are making the right decision. Perhaps its brand loyalty but I have, and always will like intel better. from first hand expericnce I believe they make a quality product.


Some of my roommates watch professional wrestling, more specicially the WWE, or world wrestling federation. At times it's inevitable that I am going to have to see some of it, but what really caught my eye the other day, is the amount of media involved in something as primitive and soap opera-ish as this program. It is interesting to note that apparently this company is starting to really do alot of shows over seas in japan and australia, and now a big portion of their revenue comes from just a few dates over seas. Between the marketing, advertising, and promotion this company is almost the definition of multimedia to a tee.

Keeping with the topic of this wrestling comapny, some people say that any media is good media. The chairman of this company must truly believe that. At one of their shows in the past weeks, they had an arab character take part in a story line where he had masked people come out and attack another person. This was taped two days before the london bombinbs but with all intent to show it on thursday (the day of the bombings) Obviously any and all people can see why this would be a touchy subject to show on that night. However the channel UPN which i believe is owned by viacomm went ahead with the angle and showed it on television. The comapny itself the WWE advised UPN of the content, and told them they could pull the spot if they wished. They didnt.

Now a few weeks after and there is still a controvery with this man playing this character with UPN issuing a statement that they do not want this character on their station until he under goes a "gimmick" change and what have you.

I agree the timing sucked but this man was just doing what he was told to do to keep his job. Now what was a bit of harmless writing has escalated into something huge because of the medias involvement. My one roommate told me the incident was big enough that it was actually mentioned on a few news channels but didnt say which ones.