Student Reviews

I Found two students who i thought did a wonderful job on interpreting Mr. Miller's lectures

Keri's Blog: I thought Keri's introduction was composed very well. She tied in a personal experience and it flowed right into it. She also explained certain words that people may not have understood and gave examples. P.S. Love the title! I can't get enough of those BOOKS! Job well done!

Ryan's Blog: Not only did I love Ryan's intro, I could tell he spent a bit of time pondering over the ways of communication. I think he did a great job of telling his opinion and stating facts at the same time. I liked how he took a real life situation as an example to explain how his mind was working. Great Job!

Media Critique

         While i was reading the USA Today News, I found an article that was not newsworthy. It was about two dogs and one got trapped in a concrete wall. The other dog stayed for a whole week and tried to get his friend out. I am an animal lover don't get me wrong, but this is not newsworthy. Newsworthy articles contain information you are going to remember for a long time. I bet by tomorrow half the people would have forgotten the story already. The worst of it all, they had the story in the NEWS column! USA Today even has an entertainment column. The story was also very short, and it was originally a tweet. Information could have been falsified to make people want to read it. To read the article click here.

John Peter Zenger

       At first the newspaper lecture got off to a slow start, and find myself losing the battle with sleep. Then Mr.Miller started explaining the court case of John Peter Zenger.  John had been writing rude but truthful things about the governor  in his town. So he took him to court for libel, which is claiming that someone is writing false things about someone that is hurting their reputation. The governor  admitted that everything John wrote about him was true and the jury found John not guilty. The truth is the ultimate defense against libel.

        I thought this case was very important for the future of journalism. Without this case, freedom of speech would be very limited. News nowadays is about people in charge and journalist wouldn't be able to express how they feel or tell the truth in their articles.  The John Peter Zenger trial will definitely be remembered in the history of journalism!

Magazines

                The magazine lecture was the one I found the most interesting. It kept me engaged the entire class and soaked up the information like a sponge. I thought serialized fiction was the most important innovation of the magazine. Serialized fiction is publishing a chapter at a time in a magazine instead of the whole book. Back in the early years of book writing people were paid by the word. That meant books were long,boring, and no one read them. Serialized fiction brought the aliterate to the world of the literate. Aliterate by the way means people who can read, but they choose not to.
               In 1879 the Postal Act was passed; which led to subsidized magazines. Subsidized means finacial support, and in this case financial support from the government. The government realized that magazines were good for the country and made 1 cents per pound to mail magazines. Subsidized magazines finally gave America a national identity, and literacy rates started to rise.

Binary Models

       I thought the binary models lecture contained the most information. The two main categories are hot and cold medians. A hot median is something that requires your full attention, such as reading a book. A cold median is the exact opposite, for example you can watch tv while cooking dinner or doing homework.
       My favorite part of the lecture was when Mr.Miller explained information/entertainment and how it was becoming infotainment. The informational story/journalist is called elitist. Elitist journalist write to inform the public and not entertain them. The entertainment side is called populist. Populist journalism writes on what the public wants to get money.
      Sometimes large companies will buy smaller companies. That is called conglomeration. In the charts below it will explain the pros and cons of conglomeration for the company and the consumer.

                               Company

          Pros                                 Cons

 Money                                                            Decreased quality 

 Diversified 

 Replacing and promotions

                              Consumer  

      Pros                              Cons

so much pop culture!                         Less diverse content
                                                          Decreased quality

     

                                         

                                 

Printing Press/ GutenBurg lecture

                                      Printing Press

         In the beginning of the lecture  Mr. Miller asked," What do you think is the most important invention to date?" After a period of silence he answered his own question with the printing press. At first i disagreed with him, but my knowledge on the printing press was very limited. By the end of the lecture not only did i understand his point of view, i agreed with it.

        Johannes GutenBurg was not the first to invent the movable printing press, but he was the first one to do it using steel. He didn't realize how much his invention would make on the world only that it would make him a lot of money. Before him the Romans tried using rock and the Chinese tried using wood. 

                                                  

                                                   Life without Printing Press

                   1.  Lower Literacy

                   2.  No free public information

                   3.  No democracy 

                   4. No global culture

                   5.  No global and rapid exploration

                   6.  Smaller middle class/ widespread poverty

                   7.  No standardized language or history

                   8. fewer large scale wars

             The list above is only a small amount of what life without the printing press would be like.  I am unable to think of one thing that can be on this earth now without being effected by the printing press in some way. Mr. Miller did a wonderful job explaining this lecture. I was able to understand it and it kept me interested!