Chapter 3

The music industry has changed by leaps and bounds over the decades and will continue to change. Personally, being a huge music fan, the fact that music has gotten more and more portable over the years is a great thing. Now we can listen to he music we want where ever we want, in our car, on the bus, and just walking on the street. MP3s changed the way people listened to, and acquired their music. This also brought up the issue of illegal downloading which has exploded over the years. Even though downloading music illegally is against the law there are songs that I have gotten (yea, illegally) that aren't on iTunes. I know that iTunes does have a very large variety of music but they don't have everything. I think that some of that has to do with the industry.

I believe that the industry does change what we hear but if a person wants to hear a certain kind of music now that there is internet radio there is nothing stopping people from getting their music out there for people to hear. Yet, even though those radio stations open up different kinds of music, like Pandora, you still don't own them. I think that programs like Pandora and other internet music programs are great because they do work against the industry. They opened up a whole other world of music for me. The music that I like to listen to is not on the radio so I don't get exposed to new kinds of music very often, which makes the internet radio stations so valuable to me. 

I know that downloading music is wrong, but I don't have money to download music from iTunes. I am not saying that the artists don't deserve to get paid, because it is their job, but I guess as Americans we are always able to figure our way around things. Seeing the chart of who gets paid what does make me realize more that it is just more than the singer getting the money, that other people rely on that money too.

Chapter 2

While reading this chapter it is so fascinating to me to see how much the internet has grown by leaps and bounds. Starting from a strictly military operation in the 1960s to being able to see and talk to some one on the other side of the world in 2010. I really makes me think about how the internet is going to continue to change. When television fist came out it was the best thing since sliced bread, and now maybe the internet is taking over that too. All of this really makes me thing about how the internet will continue to change in the future, and what it will change. As of right now other medias are holding their own, although newspaper and magazines have taken a hit, but the as the internet evolves more and more what is it going to take over next. Also now thanks to Google, and other search engines, use for the library, and actually looking up something in a book, has become a thing of the past. When I was younger and didn't know how to spell something I would have to look it up in a dictionary, now we just go online.
Not only did the internet change how we got our information, it changed how we interacted, or didn't interact with other people. The invention of e-mail made it no longer a requirement to talk to a person face to face or even on the phone. This I think was the first start of the separation of human to human contact. Now with instant messaging, blogs and too many different social networks to count, you don't even to know a person to know about them. This is in a way really cool that the internet has come this far and also it is kind of strange. I remember the days that you get home from school and call your friend to come over and play. Now you write it on their Facebook wall, or send them and instant message.
Another thing that the internet has brought to the table is a limitless media that people have never seen before. Unlike television and radio on the internet anyone can post anything they want and get in touch with anyone they want. Which on shows like To Catch a Predator seems to be a very scary thing. And so now the question is brought up of, should there be regulations on the internet for what people can post and what people can say. Personally I believe that that would be a great thing to have, yet at the same time who is anyone to say what people can and can't talk about. And how would it be regulated? I think the quote that says it the best is by Time Magazine, "You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world."

Chapter 1

Being a psychology major I have never taken a critical look at how media affects us and what we do and how we relate to people. This chapter really opened my eye to the effect that media had on the 2008 elections. Sure the campaign adds played a roll in what we saw, but the things that most caught my attention were all the new media frontiers that the election over took. For example you could be Obama's friend on Facebook. There were also programs done by celebrities, like P. Diddy's vote or die campaign. He was not urging for a specific party but he was just urging young people to get out there and cast their vote. By having these different kinds of media be out there I think that it totally affected the 2008 elections. Many of the people who went out and voted didn't even know their party's positions or what they stood for. So was it really good for these people to vote? They had no idea who they were voting for. The idea to get out and vote, and the election as a whole, what more or less shoved down our throats. I totally agree that voting is important and that people should vote, but is it really doing any good when people have no idea what they are voting for?

As media evolved over time, I think that turned more and more into something to make our lives more easier.  I can't help but think that maybe in 100 years there will be no need for us to leave our homes. In the 1840's families with people serving over seas were able to get telegraphs, making it easier for families to be updated on what was going on. As media continues to evolve one, there will be less and less need for actual human interaction and two, life will become more and more easier. As of now there have been studies that are done that shows that are brain is becoming more and more dependent on technology.

And as out brain functioning decreases because of media, it is also having us grow accustom to media that is, how shall I say... sub par. The shows that are on prime time now are, while entertaining, and not doing anything to help us out, intellectually. I will be the first to say that I partake in that few hours of mind numbing television but some of the shows that are on today, I am not sure how they qualify as t.v. shows. The entertainment that we have let ourselves be mystified by is not even high grade entertainment. American has stooped to a level of mediocrity when it comes to being entertained.