There was a list of prompts on the board to choose from and the class were instructed to choose one and discuss it on our blog.  I decided to choose ‘Humanity is in charge of it’s own future.’ We were encouraged just to let our ideas flow on the paper in 15 minutes.  The following is the outcome of this task.

Humanity is in charge of its own future.

Do humans have any control of the planet’s destiny? Will capitalism and the chase for profit completely destroy the environment and make earth inhabitable? Unless there is a radical change in how societies and economies function, it is obvious that the planet cannot sustain constant growth. But with growing intelligence and technological advancements, humanity in the future might not be restricted to just this planet.

But that doesn’t mean the human race can’t change the fate of this planet. As humans we have a capacity to learn from our mistakes and change the direction of our future. But change has to come from the population as a whole as it can’t be just relied upon by politics and government.  Politics are often driven by private agendas and can easily be corrupted by monetary influences. The capitalist system cannot thrive in harmony with creating a sustainable planet. It is the continual pursuit for profit and growth that will eventually destroy all the earth’s resources and make this planet inhabitable if capitalism reigns supreme.  Hopefully technology can eventually change this fate.

Similar to previous weeks, this tutorial we got into our groups again and discussed our projects.  Our group is up to date with all the tasks and the project seems to be coming along quite well.  There was an issue that had to be resolved regarding a certain article.  I brought up on our Facebook group page that I felt two articles were too similar to each other.  We eventually all agreed to rectify the problem and edited one of the articles.  Brian came around to our group and we discussed what we have learnt from doing this project.  I feel that I have definitely learnt a lot about the media industry in regards to the transition of print to digitalization.  It also seems like such a coincidence that while doing this project that the newspaper MX was axed.  I was listening on the radio on this matter and the commentator suggested that this was due to people having more interest with the content on their phone than MX.  Even though MX was a free newspaper.  I never grabbed a copy of this paper due to this reason.  The paper didn’t really target my demographic and it contained mostly celebrity news which I really don’t care about.

When I heard the song at the beginning of this lectorial, I thought what a horrible remix.  John Lennon would be turning in his grave if he heard that rubbish.  What right does Jay Z have to use Lennon’s melody and completely destroy it?  The simple answer is money.  Jay Z can afford to buy the rights to almost any song and do an awful remix.  The problem with remixes today in the music industry is that only the wealthy established artists can make and sell them legitimately due to copyright laws.  This restriction limits the amount of artists that can sell remixes to consumers, even though they might have better talent than artists like Jay Z.  In my opinion it doesn’t take much artistic talent to remix a song.  But everyone should be able to have access to remix music material and profit from it rather than just a select few. I agree with the concept put forward to the class that nothing is original.  The fact of the matter is that the big music companies want to keep control, forever protect their assets and constantly delay their material reaching public domain.

Our class then listened to another remix by Girl Talk which is called ‘This is the remix.”  We were given the task to write down the artists we recognised in this song.  I could only name around 5 songs but there were over 20 songs amalgamated in this song.  I would give this remix a lot more credibility than any Jay Z remix but Girl Talk can’t legitimately sell this song to the public.  Why?  The simple answer is money again.  This song has breached copyright laws left, right and centre, but Girl Talk don’t have the capacity to pay the ridiculous amount of money needed to obtain rights to all the songs used in this compilation.  As long as the original artists are attributed to the remix, I don’t have a problem with people mixing songs.  I might hate most remixes but it shouldn’t be limited by the big music companies on who can profit from them.

During this tutorial my group were working together on the fourth project assignment.  We were proof reading each others work and discussing any issues that anyone had.  I think that our project is heading in the right direction but we have to make sure that each piece in the newspaper is relevant to the core subject.  I’m happy with the current progress our project is heading and everyone is contributing equally.

During this weeks tutorial we went into groups of four to analyse each others self portrait media pieces.  We were given criticism hats that were characterised by colours.  Each colour restricted the type of feedback given as follows.

Yellow hat – What were the things that worked in the project and what did they like about it.

Red hat – How did the project affected you on a personal level.

Black hat – What were the things that didn’t work in the project.

Green hat – What aspects can be improved or what alternatives can be implied.

I thought this hat concept was an effective exercise to help get constructive feedback on the projects.  But I  have to say that the dreaded black hat was the hardest to wear.  It is always so much easier to compliment people’s work rather than criticizing it.  I would definitely look at using this hat method if working in collaboration with other people.

The subject matter for this lectorial was institutions.  Brian started the conversation by talking about marriage as a social institution.  He questioned the class what makes marriage an institution by social standards.  Personally I think marriage is slowly breaking down as an institution as the norms and values continually change within cultures and societies.  Plenty of couples these days have children out of wedlock and I’m guessing the divorce rate is forever climbing as well.

We were given a class exercise to brainstorm the institutional characteristics of the following media organisations, Facebook, NewsCorp, Google and Community Media.  Our group analysed Facebook and we came to the conclusion that privacy is a concern when it comes to using this product.  Always read the fine print.  Facebook also has over 1 billion members which gives it plenty of power in the advertising stakes.  Zuckerberg held out on gaining advertising revenue at the birth of Facebook but he eventually sold out.

The rise of social media has changed how media institutions communicate with their audience.  For example I get my ABC local news content by liking their page on Facebook or following them on Twitter.  It is also more complicated for political institutions to enforce social control on the social media platform.  We have all heard the stories of bullying on social media but how can the government have any influence or control on what people write?  Political and legal institutions will always struggle to maintain order on the internet.  Obviously governments can block servers to suppress information.  But then freedom of speech is compromised when government restrictions are put in place.

During this lectorial Brian was presenting the topic of audiences to the class.  The discussion focused on certain aspects which included how audiences can affected by the media, the categorization of audiences into groups and how numbers and statistics can be used to target certain audiences.  Now more than ever before it has become harder to capture an audience with the introduction of the digital era.  Now with so many platforms available to watch and read media, it could be argued that audiences have become more segregated.

I’m slightly paranoid when it comes to companies specifically targeting products that I might desire.  Every time I look at a few things I want to purchase, I notice that product starts suddenly popping up everywhere.  No matter what website I am on.  I know it has something to do with the use of cookies but it still freaks me out a bit.  But I don’t mind having certain products specifically targeted to me if I have an interest in them.

I think television broadcasters would find it difficult to capture the audience that fall into my category.  I don’t watch commercial television at all and I watch most my tv shows on an illegal streaming service online.  I’m definitely not a lone wolf in this regard.  It is fairly obvious that free to air television is struggling to maintain an audience.  I just can’t reality shows and it seems to me that this is all commercial television has to offer.  Thank god for the ABC.

During this class each group discussed the direction on where our projects are heading.  It was interesting to hear other ideas that are being generated with the other projects.  My group is doing a newspaper format on our subject and today we discussed the type of content that will feature in the paper.  We will be doing a feature article on Stephanie’s Grandfather.  He currently owns an ethnic newspaper and we want to investigate how he plans to make this traditional medium profitable into the future.

We also received feedback today on our Project 3 assignments.  I was quite happy with the feedback and thought that the project was a great learning experience.  There were a few criticisms pointed out in my video which I thought were justified.  To me this is all part of the learning process and hopefully I learn from my mistakes.  I think that I am improving in my production skills and that it will be a ongoing learning progress.

In this tutorial our group got together and discussed the readings we did for the annotated bibliography.  We all shared our information and discussed on what specific medium we are going to focus on in our project and how we are going to present it.  Brian made each group discuss in front of the class on what direction their project was going to take.  Our group decided that we would focus on the dying medium of print media.  We are going to present the project in a newspaper format.  Although we are still working out on what content will actually be included.

Brian advised us that need to narrow down on what exactly we are focusing on in regards to mediums.  He also said we could do different styles of writing rather than just the conventional essay.  So we were thinking of including features such as cartoons, editorials, opinion pieces etc.  Stephanie mentioned that her Grandfather owns a newspaper business targeting the Greek community.  She said that he might be able to print our edition for us which would be great.

During this lectorial we were exploring the idea of narrative and how it functions in the movie industry.  The lecturer described a structure used in movies that is often referred as the hero’s journey.  Then he got the class to do an exercise to hammer home the point that most movies stick to the same formula.  The formula consists of building up to a climax then having a clear resolution.  But obviously there can be movies made successfully that don’t necessarily stick to the same formula.  Pulp fiction and Kill Bill by Tarantino are examples of braking the convention.  These movies were still highly successful and critically acclaimed.

The class also explored the idea of non narrative film.  We watched a short film and debated whether their was actually any narrative in the story.  Even though it appears that there is no narrative in the sensical term, our minds can form a narrative from the images shown in the film.  Everyone forms their own opinions on whether their is a story or meaning to the moving images, if at all.  A non narrative movie that comes to mind for me is Samsara.  Essentially their is no story or narrative to the film but for me it raised concerns for the plight of humanity.