13. If Only, if only...

Oh, to have lived in the days of radio programs...! I was watching an old movie called A Tragedy at Midnight, where the main character works on cases the cops are having difficulties with. He then broadcasts his findings over the airwaves. The cops listen, hate him, but they still use his tips. I have only had the good fortune to listen to one mystery radio programs. Sadly, I was too young to remember it, but old enough to remember that I enjoyed it. Another excellent movie, Something in the Wind, has Donald O'Connor singing about radio programs and sitting down with a good mystery program.

Now it might just be me, but I wish that the rush of human life still could accept a radio program that did more than talk about the latest celebrity ridiculousness or political commentary with music tossed. If there is anything drier than radio political commentary, I have been lucky not to run across it yet. I would probably end up acting out!

To sit down and enjoy something as fun as a radio program, where you have to use your own imagination to discover what the characters look like, now that sounds like a genius idea! 

I have a plan: radio program or podcast, in the feel of the old mysteries.

(Radio version of the movie, The Ghost Breakers. The movie is amazing... the radio show is hysterical. This is only part one. To find part two, click here)

12. Gloss

In my Mass Media class, we were discussing the medium called MAGAZINES. 

While trade magazines may be what is keeping it afloat as much as it possible can, the consumer magazines offer so much. I may be a sucker, but I will admit that I love the look of a glossy advertisement with classy-looking people doing classy-looking things. The older ads are priceless. In fact, they are downright inspirational. With ads like that it is no small wonder that magazines were able to get away on advertising better than newspapers. Newspaper ads just leave me cold. The classifieds make me feel cross-eyed after a while. The glossy feel and beautiful images might not sell me to smoke or buy Pepsi but just looking at them helps me realize how so many people might want to.

11. Game It Up

While the Atari controversy plunged video games into a nearly non-redeemable hole, since they renewed their popularity through Nintendo, they have become a staple in households. In fact, according to latest statistics, 65% of US households play video games! The nationwide video game capital is monstrous! If New York is to be believed, however, US video game sales have dropped 4% in January.

What do video games provide us, other than a nation full of addicts? Creating vast worlds and complex story-lines certainly has no place in our current media. Oh, wait, did this creation process not exist in books? As for providing the participant moving images to accompany the story, movies already have that in the bag. What do video games provide then? What makes them a hot commodity? Video games enthrall their participants by offering them the chance to interact in a world outside their own. It is may be true that some take this to the unhealthy extreme of not having a life outside of the game, and their avatar has more friends than they do. For those that use this entertainment medium to expand their creativity, video games can provide an awe-inspiring world. One that I am willing to occasionally plunge into!

Some pretty awesome games:

           Legend of Zelda

           Mario (My dad loves MarioKart)

           Diddy Kong Quest

           Pokemon 

10. The Power of Music Is Strong with this One

I may love music, but there is a certain amount of power in the power of mass produced music that cannot be denied even by music haters.

A few songs to think about:

              "Blowing in the Wind" Bob Dylan            

              “American Pie” Don McLean

              “Maxwell's Silver Hammer” The Beatles

              “Strange Fruit” Nina Simone

              “Another Brick in the Wall” Pink Floyd

              “Defend Atlantis” Flobots

              “No Handlebars” Flobots

       and Tori Amos's “Silent All these Years”

Some of these songs are classic. Some of them should be. Some of them will be. If you search for a compelling emotion, turn to these lyrics. Watching the music video for “Another Brick in the Wall” calls one to question what is really going on in schools. It may be a dramatic example, but it shows the mindless, non-individualist schooling that is coming into play these days.

We have discussed yellow journalism that was able to create change policies by letting the populace know what was going on. Music has the same power. “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” is an example of one call to arms.

Do not discount the power of an ideal set to music. If the tune is catchy and the thought true, you may have a hard time removing it from the people's mouths.  

9. Twitter Revolution. Ha!

In the news, the revolutions taking place in Tunisia and Egypt are blamed on social medias. There is something in this, but I believe that it is placing too much power in the hands of the medium. The people are the ones that are truly behind the call to arms. If it were left up to the medium, nothing would be there in the first place. The medium is merely a conduit to the actions of the people. With the information provided by social networks, one of the key points in a objective reporting comes into play, freedom of speech. When the voices of the people are not cloaked by governmental blackouts, there is enough information to find truth. There may be a lot of junk to sift through, but the main idea is to allow the people the right to hear themselves and share this ability.

          If you want to blame anything for the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, blame corrupt governments that gagged their citizens for years. Without those gags, the occupants would have found the corruption sooner. Truth cannot be stopped.  

8. Media Messages

Thus far, we have had some fun chatting about different types of media influences, but I will be remiss if I do not at some point cover the interesting influence on personal image that media possesses. A constant bombardment on what is the “right” way to look constantly sweeps through the media. Only too often consumers do not see that the media is filling them with lies. Now don't get me wrong, because I believe that the media provides a lot of good. Every time they show the facsimile of a person touched with tools to show something just outside of the reality, they are causing damage that may be impossible to ever truly remove from society. Airbrushed and photoshopped is not the way that we live on earth. We have allowed the media to create a Wonderland for us, and we want the image on the flip-side of the looking glass rather than the one that we can experience. This is a call to get up off your tails to find the truth that is lurking in a currently unwelcome corner of our lives. You do not have to an airbrushed model to live a happy and meaningful existence. In fact, I would say that your chances increase dramatically for a happy life when you are willing to be yourself!!!

7. Germany: Part Three of Control and Propaganda

         I swear I am about to run gamut through my little rampage against horrifying propaganda and control of the media, but I simply cannot stop without addressing that media stoppage that prevailed in Nazi Germany. The free media lid was closed so tight that you faced death if you broke out of the acceptable channels of information. The case of Helmuth Hubener stands out for what the media can do for a person. Hubener was a young man in Nazi Germany who originally believed in the call of Nazism. In fact, he was a member of Hitler's youth. A chance broadcast he heard from BBC on the radio changed this thought. Hearing what was really happening rather that what the media of his own country had been feeding made Hubener realize that the Nazi plan was not the best of ideas. Indeed, with the free information provided by BBC - the democratic media – Hubener saw how misled his people were. He created a news flyer weekly – yet another form of democratic media – to tell his countrymen what he was hearing. Tragically because he was in a state against free media, he was eventually charged with crimes against the government and executed at the age of 17. His contribution to the media was so damaging to the Third Reich, although he was simply a young man with a voice and a medium.

6. The "Pravda"

           When I was commenting on the current situation in Pakistan, it made me think of the situation of the Pravda in Russia. After reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell, each person in my high school class had to choose a figure in the book and relate it to its Russian counterpart. I chose Squealer, a pig who represented the Pravda. Animal Farm is a social commentary about the Russian Revolution and the effects on the people of Russia. The Pravda were the gatekeepers of information, and their gates were almost always barred. The only things that seeped out were what the leaders of the communist party wanted the people to know. Media cannot work to provide anything useful to the public if it is not allowed to operate freely. To this degree, I would like to propose an old, reliable call to arms: Freedom of the Press. Then I shall add: Democracy for all mediums! Through the control of the media, the Russian government did not allow its people to know of the horrors that were taking place, keeping the people in check. The thought makes me ill.

5. Propaganda in Pakistan

Media does not have complete control over the minds of people is a generally accepted idea. Unfortunately, this is less true when you leave democracies. When the government is allowed to take control of the media completely, the people will suffer. The propaganda that is found in Pakistan, and before that, the Russian Pravda, demonstrates what media should never be allowed to become. Using a constant bombardment of faulty information, the people can never find truth. If they do somehow manage to discover what is really happening, they are severely punished. Radio bombards the Pakistanis as the Taliban lists their demands. One man in a PBS interview said that no one listened to the radio for fun. It was merely to find out the demands of the Taliban. Videos and commercials are produced glorifying suicide bombers, and songs call the children to the “right way.” One song in particular that made me want to cry,

"If you try to find me after I have died

You won't find my body whole

You will only find little pieces

And if God approves

He will put my body back together again."

"Why the Taliban is Winning the Propaganda War" Time

"U.S. Stuggles to counter Taliban Propaganda" Washington Post