Hmm…

I would agree that television is addictive. Everyone gets hooked on certain shows, like Lost or Grey’s Anatomy. Or some get sucked into reality television like Flavor of Love or Dancing with the Stars. Think about American Idol. Without viewers, that show wouldn’t exist. Look at the people who have won AI but whom didn’t have the support of the people. They weren’t the favorite to win so they haven’t been as successful. Several have any lost their recording contracts like Taylor Hicks or Ruben Studdard. Their big winners, Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood were the favorites to win so they released their first albums already having a band of followers. Kelly Clarkson has successfully escaped her AI identity and has formed her own identity as a musician. I’ve read some interviews with her where she has remarked on how hard that has been to achieve. Notice that she doesn’t show up on AI like some of the others.

Also, the video touches on how their is no privacy is the US. I would agree with that as well. Society is addicted to celebrity gossip. Videos and pictures are posted on the internet and published in magazines creating a million, possibly billion, dollar industry. People enjoy the lack of privacy. They want to know everything no matter if its their business or not. If this were to happen to regular people, chaos would ensue. Everyone wants their own privacy but its ok if someone else’s is taken away. I guess Myspace is a way of getting rid of personal privacy but with that, you can choose what is known about you or who sees it, just like Facebook.

Some of the things that this man is theorizing are far out. Especially the thing about booze and natives. I feel like this is a 70s video so maybe there wasn’t as much backlash from saying something like that as there is now. Television has altered the perception of teenagers??? Interesting….

The article below is from Foxnews.com. Here is the link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,3313…

When does gaming go too far?

DELHI, La. — A call mistakenly made by a victorious video gamer led to his arrest on an outstanding warrant.

Authorities arrested Thomas Ballard, 29, of Delhi, early Monday after a woman reported receiving a late-night call from someone saying, “I have killed them all.”

Ballard’s number showed up on the woman’s caller ID; he’d called by mistake, meaning instead to get a buddy to talk-up his success in an Xbox game, said Sgt. Julie Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana State Police.

Authorities following up at the address, to investigate whether there had been any foul play, found no evidence of wrongdoing, she said. But they did find, in the process of identifying Ballard, that he had a 5-year-old warrant out of Baton Rouge, charging him with failure to appear on a possession of cocaine charge.

Ballard was booked into the Richland Parish Detention Center for extradition to Baton Rouge.

“It was weird the way this all came down,” Lewis said Tuesday. “This isn’t something you could just make up.”

I can’t remember if it was in this class that we talked about schools regulating student’s usage of the internet or not. The conversation was about how schools would give students computers to use but the computers were so locked down that they could barely use google. I found some articles today on the regulation of blogs. Back in 2006, a huge uproar was caused in an Indiana school district when the schools decided to try to regulate what students do on the internet when they aren’t in school. The schools had a problem with Myspace and worried that things posted there would affect the dynamic within the schools. Currently, this kind of thing is coming into the news again.

Students from some of the largest colleges and universities in the country are fighting back against CampusJuicy.com, a website where bloggers can post gossip and pictures about other students. The website boasts that its posts are 100% anonymous and the posts are usually degrading and embarrassing for the students that they feature. About 57 schools are currently featured on the site and many are starting to ban it. Unfortunately, under the law, CampusJuicy bears no responsibility for its content and protects its users from libel through its anonymity. On the actual site, according to the Washington Post article, it states, “our terms and conditions require users to agree not to post anything that is defamatory, libelous, etc.” But a few paragraphs later, the blog implies that it will rebuff anything short of a public safety query: “If your school calls upset about some girl being called a slut, we’re not handing over access to our server data. If the LAPD calls telling us there is a shooting threat, you better believe we’re gonna help them …” Seems to me like sometimes the internet goes to far. I know people are obsessed at this campus with Facebook but what if everyone suddenly became obsessed with CampusJuicy instead. Would our campus resemble the dog-eat-dog world of the paparazzi filled LA? We have a group on Facebook already that gets close to this type of surveillance called “Overheard at UMW.” While that seems innocent enough, I’m sure it would be easy for it to get out of hand.

Also related, Myanmar is cracking down on blogging as a country. They are monitoring the internet, blocking blogs, and arresting people who use the internet as way of expressing their frustrations with the government. How would this work in our country? How many people would go to jail for criticizing the government? Thinking about all of the anti-Bush people out there, I think the jails wouldn’t be large enough to hold them all.

I’ve attached both links to the articles below in case you’re interested in reading them.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…

 http://www.ibnlive.com/news/myanmar-step…

Anyone have anything narrowed down for their project? Anyone working on their project yet? I’m still in the brainstorming mode myself. I have tons of ideas but no focus currently. I think theres a lot to be said for the current Writer’s Strike and its effects on new media. Internet based shows like Quarterlife are taking off right now because there isn’t anything else new to watch. Maybe something can be done in that realm. Blogs are also huge right now with people like Perez Hilton becoming well known for blogging his celebrity gossip thoughts and doodling on celeb photos. There are also tons of interesting programs that could be mastered and used to create something. I think I just have to keep brainstorming and I’m sure something will grab my attention.