4. Ice Fishing and... Huh?

          The Post Register fell on the doorstep of the apartment below mine (due to confusion on the part of the delivery man). Before dashing off to my classes, it has become my custom to stroll down to the level below mine to collect my paper.

          I perused the details of Obama speaking at the funerals of those that passed away in the shootings in Arizona, Giffords opening her eyes for the first time since the incident, the proposed changes to the education system, only to run against an article about ice fishing.

          Not being from the north, I shuddered in something akin to horror at the thought of fishing in weather like this, but then I got to wondering, “ How big a deal is this if it was the cover page of one of the sections?” Talk about your niche audiences (unless a substantially significant portion go ice fishing in Idaho)! The paper really wanted to reach out to all different groups.  

3. YouTube and the Power of Copyright Law

          Sitting in my i-Comm class, the last thing I suspected was to be shown the flash mob/ lip dub video from last year. In fact I started wondering why we were watching it. Then our professor told us that the university was in trouble from three record companies because the YouTube video violated copyright laws. Oops.

         When watching a YouTube video, it can be difficult to find a video that does not violate copyright law in some form. One of the most amusing would be the awful virus of the Rickroll. Some apologetically explain that the content of their video is not theirs but rather such and such company.

          What brings companies down on certain issues and not others? Popularity would be the best answer. Catching everything online would be crazy, so they have to show force through specific cases. YouTube touches a huge amount of viewers.

2. Book Into Movie: The End of an Era

It is the complaint of the reading public that movies are poor representations of books. It is too easy for those writing movie scripts to only catch the main plot points instead of focusing on the nuances that make the text. In fact the nuances that are hidden in the original text are often lost in a dumbed down edition for movies. Before people get too bent out of shape, it needs to be noted that movies and books are completely different mediums. One cannot expect that these two different mediums will give the same product. They were not meant to, even if we wish that they could be more similar.  

1. Text Over Time

It was just a moment ago that my roommate turned on Emma, BBC's latest and - in my opinion - greatest attempt to bring a masterpiece of literature to the television screen. When Jane Austen first picked up her object for writing, her audience was severely limited by transportation issues. From the original audience, it has spun into something past a mere reading audience. As an avid reader, I have perused this text multiple times, so it saddens me when I see it condensed into main plot points for SparkNotes. It may speak to more people, but it does not make it a better product. There was an article I read in high school that I found in a newspaper speaking of cell phone novels. It may just be me, but to see beautiful language confined to “Emma could c Mr. K. b4 any1 else” makes me want to cry. Media needs to think of the good of the product before changing its distribution. Creating inferior products reduces interest in the product as a whole!