Female Directors

         

        I watched this Ted Talk which was about the overlooked legacy of Hollywood’s first female directors. Alicia Malone began by giving facts of how many female film makers are well known which is only 4%. Most people picture a man as a director but with a female director there is better representation of women in films. Unfortunately, the majority of women don’t make it past creating short films with their own money because women aren’t seen as directors so therefore companies aren’t likely to give them money to support their future film ideas. Women are hired for jobs when there is proof whereas men are hired on potential. This makes it difficult to show proof for women because they never get the chances since no one will let them. Malone ends the talk by encouraging the audience to support female directors by going to see their movies at cinemas and multiplex’s. I think this is an important Ted Talk because I want to edit videos in the future and it’s interesting to hear about the statistics of male directors to female directors. I didn’t realize how unlikely it would be for me to work with female directors and I found that kind of crazy. Personally, I thought there would be more female directors but it’s good to learn about how we can change that.

https://www.ted.com/talks/alicia_malone_the_overlooked_legacy_of_hollywood_s_first_female_directors

Coronavirus

The coronavirus outbreak is something that continues to surprise people throughout the world. This pandemic has caused the public to start wearing masks, social distance, and isolate. For many of us this is nothing we have ever witnessed before. The majority of people have read about diseases like this and what happened in history but have never been personally involved or impacted. During this time each generation hears about new information in many different ways. Some watch the news from the TV while others read articles online.

Media consumption from the coronavirus has shown to be very different throughout each age generation. Most Gen Z have started watching more online videos and streaming shows since the outbreak while boomers watch broadcast television. Gen X have also been watching a lot of broadcast television as well as listening to the radio and streaming TV online. Millennials have been very similar to Gen Z as the most they do is watch online videos and stream shows online. It’s very interesting to compare the four generations that include almost fifty years of people. Personally this doesn’t quite surprise me since most boomers normally only watch broadcast television while the other generations mostly watch TV online.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/media-consumption-covid-19/

Propaganda

       Propaganda is something that can be misleading or promoting a certain cause that is biased. This is something that can have both positives and negatives. During many world wars the United States used propaganda to promote citizens to join the military. Doing so was a positive because it lead to less people being people sent through the draft. On the other hand, false information can be promoted causing people to believe things that aren’t true. This affects society as a whole because it changes peoples opinion on topics when they are being mislead by advertisements or news. After citizens find out that the government way lying about something it can cause controversy that could be difficult to find a solution to. In some cases propaganda can be used to help different groups of people like the majority or the minority. If news is produced about how something one of the groups is doing is bad, even though it’s benefiting everyone, people will believe that it is bad. Personally propaganda affects me by giving me false information that I could or could not think is true. There are cases when propaganda can be good but it can also make people loose trust since they are being lied to.

https://www.prweek.com/article/1498281/culture-secretary-calls-greater-public-awareness-fake-news-propaganda-war

Social Media

My online presence is surprisingly very low. For being a college student, you would think that I’m all over social media but in reality, I am not. I’m only on three social media apps, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. Most of the pictures I post on Instagram are of me and my friends or wherever I travel to so everyone can see beautiful places and my gorgeous friends. Personally, I try not to post too much or make anyone jealous because I know social media has those negative impacts on people and their feelings about themselves. On my snapchat I like to post videos or pictures of what I did that day that was cool or interesting so everyone can see what’s going on in my life. Most the pictures are of my dog since he is so cute, and I want everyone to see him.

My Instagram and Twitter are both private so random people can’t see what I post unless they follow me or know someone that follows me that could show them. However, I don’t post anything private that I don’t want anyone knowing or anything bad or illegal that could get me in trouble. Social media has different effects on everyone and to some people it can make them lonely or depressed. This is difficult when others are just trying to share their experiences, but other people get jealous. Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do but we can be kinder to everyone online. There’s no need to post hate or hurtful comments. Overall social media is convenient to see what friends are up to, but it can hurt people’s feelings as well, so we need to be conscientious of that.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/

Free Speech

          Personally, I think the most important of the eight values of free expression is participation in self-government. It’s vital that each candidate is able to fully express themselves and who they are so that the people voting have a better idea of who they like more. If people were restricted on what they say, then it would be difficult to have a full discussion and understanding of someone. To me it is more important that we know as much as possible about candidates so we can make the best decision for ourselves and others. By restricting speech, we may not get the whole picture of who someone is which could end poorly.

          This is the most meaningful form of free expression to me because I need to know someone before I can support them. It’s also important for everyone else to truly know the candidates before choosing someone for a somewhat permanent position. Overall, free speech and its relationship with government is something that shouldn’t be restricted so all citizens are fully informed of candidates in elections.

https://jackmillercenter.org/cd-resources/alexander-meiklejohn-free-speech-relation-self-government/

Birmingham Church Bombing

The Birmingham Church Bombing is a perfect example of the identifiable victim effect. By posting pictures of four young girls all over articles, the public was bound to feel bad for those victims. However, there were 12 other victims that died in that same bombing but we rarely talk about them. It's important for everyone to remember everyone that died in the bombing and not only the children. Although it's terrible young girls died, other young girls die everyday. Unfortunately attacks like this happen, but we can't forget about everything else that continues to go on.

The First Telephone

The first telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell which started off as a harmonic telegraph. This is a device that allows multiple messages to be transmitted at the same time over a wire. This led Bell to become preoccupied with trying to find a way to transmit human voices over wires. However, in 1875 with the help of Thomas Watson, they came up with a simple receiver that was able to turn electricity into sound. Many other scientists were working on very similar technologies which causes some debate as to who should really be credited with the invention of the telephone. Scientists like Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray are some examples that could have created the telephone first and not Alexander Graham Bell. The first-ever telephone call was Bell saying to Watson, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you”. This happened in 1876 and by 1877 the Bell Telephone Company was created, later known as AT&T. About thirty years later in 1915, the first transcontinental phone call was made from New York to San Francisco.

            Today the telephone brings us instantaneous communication, as opposed to writing and delivering messages by hand. This method of communication allowed for governments to steer the course of battle and war. It eliminated the delay of previous communication to positively affect the government, journalism, business and exc. One major impact is the use of emergency response time. By being able to call 911 the telephone greatly reduced the response time of emergency responders as well as the increase in the number of reported emergencies. The telephone also led to economic growth and increased profits. Quick communication improved the ways business could deliver its goods to fill customer orders. This also gave farmers a way to see the most current price for their crops. Mobile communication allows anyone to work from any location at any time. This decreases the worker’s time to commute by allowing them to work from home or help the company save money by not renting office space.

            To me, the invention of the telephone is one of the most commonly used inventions today. Every day we send messages to others just from our phones. Although this started with just talking on the phone, it eventually improved to be able to send messages as well. The telephone is something that we don’t really appreciate everyday but simply take it for granted that we can communicate through a device to someone that is across the world in another country.

Sources: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/alexander-graham-bell

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/positive-effects-of-telephones

The First Email

Email, also known as electronic mail, is a way for people to message each other using electronic devices. The first email was created by Ray Tomlinson and sent in 1972. He was working on this as a personal side project. Tomlinson also initiated the use of the "@" symbol to separate the names of the user and the user's machine in 1971. The first email he sent was a message from one Digital Equipment Corporation DEC-10 computer to another DEC-10 computer. Nowadays email operates across computer networks, but mostly the internet. At one point, email systems required both the author and the recipient to be online at the same time, common with instant messaging. Today, neither the user or the computer needs to be online to receive mail since servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. This allows for users to be “offline” but still receive messages from others that were sent at any time.

         I think the invention of the email is something very important since it is similar to texting but is still used today. It’s interesting that one person came up with the “@” symbol just to have a separation between someone’s name and a company. I find it surprising that email is still commonly used today since there are many similar forms of communication. Especially, texting seems quicker but in reality, it might be easier to read a long message over email than through text message. Overall, email has come a long way with several companies offering free emails and allowing anyone to make as many emails as they want.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/60at60/2015/8/1971-first-ever-email-392973?fb_comment_id=911794135560930_1810110339062634/

Antiwar

         From both of these websites we see very opinionated writers on the antiwar side. However, on mainstream news sources we never read about antiwar. Most people never read articles with the opinion that war is bad. All we see in the news about war is what’s going on and what we can do to help. Nobody says anything bad about it except for what’s happening to people and how if we have stronger armed forces, we would be much better off. When we think of war all we think about is how can we help so we win and come out strong.

         We’ve probably never heard of these websites because no one teaches us to hate war. War is all our history is, over land, materials and more. If we just go through history, we see all the wars we’ve been through and how we don’t want to get involved but somehow do. Another reason we may have a hard time finding these websites is because the government doesn’t want us reading things like this. If there is a war and everyone is against it and we have to have a draft, there won’t be any unity since nobody will want to fight. Therefore, the government probably tries to hide antiwar writers, so others don’t get that idea in their head.

https://www.antiwar.com/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/

Antitrust Investigation Against Facebook

As of Friday February 6^th, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that the attorneys general of eight states and the District of Columbia will be launching an antitrust investigation into Facebook. This is meant to focus on Facebook’s impact on advertising prices as well as consumer privacy. James states that she is “proud to be leading a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general” in this investigation into Facebook. The bipartisan coalition she is referring to includes Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. Facebook’s vice president Will Castleberry commented, “We welcome a conversation with policymakers about the competitive environment in which we operate”. He said this days before dozens of states are expected to launch another antitrust investigation but into Google. This has begun more antitrust investigations into Amazon and Apple as well. In the meantime, the Department of Justice is performing an antitrust review for all of the nation’s largest tech companies.

           

            In my opinion I think performing these investigations is something that has been needed for a long time now. I don’t like talking about buying something with my friends and then going online and seeing ads for those items when I never searched for them. Even if I did search for them it concerns me that these companies are going through my personal information that is private and nothing they should be able to look at. For me to lookup a product on google and then go on Instagram and see ads for that same product really concerns me for my privacy as well as others. These companies should not be able to monitor what I am doing on my devices since it is none of their business. It’s also not fair since I never agreed to receiving ads about items I have searched for or simply just talked about with a friend in person.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/tech/facebook-antitrust-investigation/index.html