The more the creativity exists around us, the more the cultural development will be, and the more the new media will appeare!

Since the creative people like Michel Lauziere are living with us in this "small world", no doubt one day we will never be satisfied with ordinary sort of media and technology, as the message will be more important than the media as a tool!

Maybe Bob Garfield is right that "TV culture is gone!". I don't think that if these people stayed at their home for a favorite TV series, could be enjoyed like when they are at a street for watching a brilliant play like this one!

How "The power of nightmares" can be relatet to the Media Imperialism?

The power of nightmares is a BBC documentary production that is trying to clarify some true stories behind today's crisis, wars and terrorist activities. The stories which the imperialists hide from the world to maintain their powers. The power which is achieved by uniting people against a phantom enemy; The enemy which may not exist in a way that imperialists are showing through their media. Here is a question that is all the pictures in this documentary had been captured during the crisis were happening, but why they are showing them to people today?

The media is in their hands, imperialists have money and power, as they may make an imaginary terrorist organization which may or may not really exist then may attack it then they show people that have succeeded in destroying the enemy, but after few years broadcast something totally different from what they someday had shown or exclaimed to the world.

The media actually is the power, if any country has a medium with such an output amount of productions and advertisements with people trusts as the west has, it would definitely has the power itself.

This video show us that we are only audiences of any messages that the imperialists show us, whether it is real or not we just rely on it maybe because it is brought to us by the west, and we will never find out the truth.

Reflection on Media Culture class:

The class was so interesting on last week, the topic and the video conveyed a lot of abilities about the media. We understood how media is really powerful in either positive or negative ways!

Tetrad of Media!

The Medium is the Massage! (by Marshall McLuhan)

Media analyst, Marshall McLuhan, is describing how media, specially the modern media, is extensions of human senses by the book, The Medium is the Massage.

Well, for an example, a cell phone is an extension for our voice, or a TV extends human senses like the eyes and ears.

Any extensions have the effect of amputating other extensions; for example, by inventing the cell phone and telephone, no body uses telegraph or Morse, so these media now are obsolete and useless as the new technology like telephone is a better extension for human voice. Now by technology development, newspapers and books are not the only media that any person can refer to get information from, as anyone is able to learn from different different sources and media like TV, Radio, Internet, SMS, and so on. As a result, technology made the globe like a small village which anyone could figure out about someone else or society or culture, event, celebration, or anything elses as soon as a news was distributed in a small village ages before! Hence the term "Global Village" make sense.

Marshall McLuhan explained his ideas by examining a medium or technology in a society and studying the effects of it by dividing any medium effects into four different aspects which are Enhances, Reverses, Retrieves, Obsolesces that all together make a diagram which is named Tetrad of Media.

Now I am going to explain each value of this Tetrad through an example:

Medium: Video Camera

Questions:

1. What does a Video Camera extend/ enhance?

A Video Camera could extend human eye, ear and memory.

2. What does a Video Camera make obsolete?

Theatre has been obsoleting since the video camera has been invented.

3. What is retrieved?

Cinemas has been retrieved.

4. What does a Video Camera reverse into in case of over extended?

Mankind will never trust his mind and memories without a camera, and everything must be established on a tape or disc to be acceptable! OR Maybe people like to see live events instead of recorded videos by over extending the Camera!

Reflection on media culture class:

To be ownest, I prefer to see more pictures and videos instead of PowerPoint documents, as there are a lot of information in a PowerPoint page which takes long to read and hard to understand while we are listening to our lecturer at same time.

Obscenity, pornography and indecency: What are the differences between these terms?

Generally all these terms are referred to discreditable and ugly materials in media, however there are some differences between them which I'm going to explain in a very simple English.
Well, Obscenity means lewdness, or offensiveness in behavior, expression, or appearance that
violate accepted standards of sexual morality which means any media that show sexual materials in a very direct and abnormal way such as ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, Masturbation, excretory functions and lewd exhibition of the genitals; and
Sadism and masochism which can be appeared in any kinds of media like motion pictures, film,
printed media, digital media, stories and so on are obscene.

Indecency seems is not as heavily as obscenity because it usually refers to materials that may
contain some nudity or sexual behaviors, but it is not prurient, and according to many countries'
law specially United States, these shows can be distributed on TV at safe harbor time (when there is not a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience which differs in countries but in US is 10pm-6am).

Pornography is sexually explicit media, and mostly refers to photos, videos and magazines which are contain sexual scenes. The objective of pornography, these days, is mostly sexual pleasure, although it might also have an educational purpose. On the other hand pornography might be known as obscenity in religious societies or many countries around the world. Pornography overally is not good because of its bad influences on mind and soul and besides because of its addictive nature.

In short, any of these terms may changed in different societies depending on people's cultural
backgrounds, religions and believes, so for example these definitions are true in western countries like Europe and US but they might all be known as obscenity and sin in many other countries.

What is Media Literacy?

Media Literacy was developed first in Britain in 1930s. The purpose of this study is to give the consumers of the media of any types the ability to protect themselves from negative effects. Everything we hear or watch everyday has the purpose of directing minds in a way that a person or a group of people benefits from it. If we do not ask from ourselves who is benefiting and for what purpose then we could be a victim of negative effects of it. The more questions we ask the more we get to know the truth. According to the video posted below, we should not stick to one source of information, otherwise we could be affected by that media. For example if we have only access to one TV channel and hear news everyday only from that channel then how do we really know if the channel is not injecting a certain ideology to our minds?

Stereotype

Stereotype is making a different look of people around the world by exaggerating ethnic or racial specifications to introduce the society through media specially motion pictures and cartoons. Stereotype sometimes is positive to show someone or to represent a society so strong or immortal, like Batman, Superman, Spiderman and other heroic marvels. On the other hand it could be led in negative way to show the people or society so funny by exaggerating the negative points of them; for example, in my country, Iran, people tend to tell jokes for each other which the jokes are mostly about some poor ordinary citizens of different states and cities of Iran with different moods and attitudes which make them specific. In these jokes for instance, people of Isfahan are so stingy, people of Yazd are so accountant, or Tehranis opt to tell their memories exaggerated until it seems not so real.

Here is an old joke about Yazdi people to show you how I experienced stereotype in my country:

"Some day a Yazdi man calls his son and advices him to mind his steps when he is walking in street for two reasons. First his shirt collar never get dirt of sweating (Because the weather in Yazd is so warm), and second is he never miss the coins and notes which are lost unintentionally!!! "

Reflection on Media Class

I think if we could understand what is tought in the class every week using multimedia and more interaction it would be more interesting, since I think this is a very important subject for us.

Is the Internet trustworthy or not?

"Rumors, lies and innuendo spread far, wide, and fast on the Internet." taken from "Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture" by Stanley Baran, pg 324.

Do you often take what is on the Internet as truth without thinking much about it? If yes, why? If no, why? Discuss this in your own words.

Almost any information you read or research on the Net these days are not compelitely trustworthy, as anyone has the ability to distribute information without any authentical references. For instance, anyone could have a weblog, and s/he could write anything s/he wants on it, and who really cares that what you write on the blog is true? Who really cares what you want to project about a matter on the Net is reliable specially when this matter is somehow not related to politics and religious issues so that there is no control on it? Thus, it is not so hard to conceal the reality.

The second critical point that I think is political reasons. Since the Internet is one of the greatest way to publish and broadcast information today, it can easily lead people's mind in a way that is appropriate for a society or a political party inside a country. Therefore there is a probability to read a news in a website which is different in another site.

So it is so hard to find the reality as what it really is because you need to read several pages on the Net and spend a lot of time in front of your monitor, and what you get could be a way different from reality.

Social Media in my life

I was thinking what would be happened if we were living in last century when there was no word of networking and digital society. Well at that time your interests were definitely not so important for producers and companies, they produced only what was so popular at the moment, so the ice-cream makers; for instance, couldn't make a brand new ice-cream with a new taste of watermelon and green apple because it never worth for them. However, everything has changed by growing this social networking and digital technology. For example, today if you want to buy a new PC or laptop you just go to one of computer manufacturer web-site and customize your system and order by a few clicks. Well you chose your own PC depends on you requirements, your job and your life-style. Social media in my life mostly affected in fields like social communication and multimedia, although it usually affects people's life in economical aspects more than others.

Discussion about how the Social Media is affecting our lives!

Well, this Social media is really a phenomenon in this era! By developing the social media, people will be connected to each other more than before. As a result each person can project his/her ideas, interests, votes and so on. Actually this is because of fast-growing networking technology which is known as social networking. In social networking any of us is able to have a place in Cyber-space to communicate with others in different ways like blogging, pod casting, video broadcasting and etc. Therefore anyone can even introduce his/her products with this system, and others can buy the products without any mediator, so now you buy a product from someone's website and test it, and leave a comment about that on your own blog or wherever and then others can find their interest easier by reading your experiments about that product. So by social media you no longer are needed to advertise your products because the social networking has already done this favor to you, and anyone will have this chance to find and enjoy online services depending on their discrimination and interests, and also they can rate and comment on services. For example; if you once search for a video in YouTube, next time the system will show you a list of videos which are related to your searched keyword and subsequently your interest. This is the social media and networking in our age.