28/09/2011

Romans, Greeks and Burning Witches

After beginning to read Russel's book; History of Western Philosophy, it became apparent to be that I basically didn't have a clue what he was taking about. Personally, I have not yet understood the ways in which Philosophy, Greeks and Romans have to do with Journalism, but am hoping as time goes on it will all begin to make more sense. Looking around the room it was painfully obvious, that due to the extra long day, and many people never studying Philosophy before, that it wasn't just me struggling. Throughout the lecture and the first chapter of History of Western Philosophy, I heard a lot about Greeks and Romans; not my speciality. The only few things which I had already heard before were things i had learnt in English Language A2 about Indo-European languages and the Anglo-Saxon tribes such as the Frisians, Saxons and Jutes. Although I wrote over 4 pages of notes throughout this lecture it seems that until I read further into the book I'm not going to understand it is. However some things I did understand were this;


The first literary artefact of European Civilisation was The Odyssey which was supposedly written by Homer who is debated to be a series of poets rather than an individual. Homer also wrote the Iliad and between the both, apparently took over two hundred years to complete -roughly from 750 to 550 BC-. Following this, the first piece of English Literature was Beowulf, a story about the Saxons coming from Germany, and how they came to England. Ultimately, i have never seen it therefore that brief description is as detailed as I can give right now. However, both of these are stories of migration and the ways in which are world and language have developed throughout time. 


It can be stated that the Greeks and Romans were very similar in the ways that their technology, science and philosophy were far beyond any other research done by other countries. They knew about air, atoms, space and how the earth moved around the sun; something that was unbelievable to others. Consequently the Greeks and the Romans had a few differences, such as;
Greeks= source of culture
Romans=source of power
Being honest, just from doing History at Junior school, it is known how power-hungry the Romans were, which inevitably led to their recline. This time is called the Middle Ages (or to some the Dark Ages), the reason for this is how the Roman empire became corrupt, mainly due to slave trade. Other reasons included the way in which the Romans dropped the schools of Philosophy, meaning no further research was done into the ways in which the world and space work. They THEN declared their leader to be god, or in their words; God King, which is an Egyptian theory/Buddhist resurrection. A bit later on in this period, the Romans take on Christianity which includes the concept of only 1 God and that people are all the same (not bad theories if you ask me, even if I'm not religious in the slightest). Christianity finally adapted in the Western World in 300AD then stayed on for another 1,000 years. These Dark Ages finally came to an end in roughly the 1300's/1400's. 


Am I boring you yet? Subsequently, writing up these notes and in some ways, describing them to myself, is helping me understand this topic far more, so please excuse me as I carry on rambling about philosophy and the way our world has developed ...


During the Middle Ages the Monks (yes those ones who sit in caves to figure out their 'inner-being' and wear those odd cape things), had two main scripts; 
1. The Bible
2. The Aristotle  


Aristotle can be said to have invented logic. Logic was part of the Greek science which was presented by the Western World. He -so to speak- 'stuck' by these 3 rules;
1. All men are mortal. 
2. Socrates is a man. 
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal'
This 'craze' of logic also stuck and was eventually taken on by the Catholic Church and was then what was learnt by University students, just like I am now. Poor kids. 
Ultimately, this logic ruled out any possibility of new scientific knowledge, therefore changing the way people viewed the world. For almost a thousand years after this, civilisation as we know it seemed to 'disappear' with us now having no record of what happened during this time period; dark ages for sure!


Along came the Protestants
The Protestants called themselves the new 'Jew's; yes very charming. In the civil war they banned Shakespeare which really sounds irrevocably unnecessary - where's Romeo when you need him?- Putting it bluntly, the wore dark clothes and did extremely fun activities like holding their children over graves telling them "this is what will happen if you sin, you will die and go to hell". Even more charming, and especially offence to real Jew's who would not do that to their children! Oh and not only this, but they were witch burners! To test out whether someone was a witch, the Protestants would through them into a river, if you sank you weren't a witch, but yeah you'd die anyway! However, if you floated you were a witch and you'd get burned at the stake. Win win situation if you ask me. Concluding, the Protestants were a lovely bunch who you'd love to be born into a family with.


Image taken from Flickr, Vectorportal


Well, I'm guessing the people who started reading this have probably falling asleep now, there's no point saying I hope you enjoyed it. Although I can't promise I enjoy this topic, describing all this in my own words has actually helped me understand a topic I had no clue about before starting this post. YAY ME!

27/09/2011

Vogue and Vera Wang

Although this type of journalism may differ from the other things I am going to be writing about within this blog such as Law, Philosophy and talking about the dreaded Shorthand, my ambition in life is to become a Fashion Journalist so throughout this blog I will also be mentioning the up and coming fashions within the industry. The spring/summer collection 2012 show by Vera Wang was held recently at New York fashion week. Her ready to wear collection was inspired by Alice in Wonderland therefore the collection entailed some youthful, simplistic pieces which are far from her bridal gowns which she has become synonymous with; especially after the recent wedding of the year, the Armenien beauty Kim Kardashian.
As the models walk down the runway to the sound of a childlike melody of an antique music box, the unique pristine white outfits connotes a sense of purity of the collection, relating it to the ever-loved Alice in Wonderland theme. However, contrasting this theme, a selection of more athletic garments where included with hoods and drawstrings on jackets, short-shorts and simplistic vests, adding a significant edge to the femine frills and sharp white, included within the rest of the collection.




The significantly recognisable front rowers were Beyonce and sister Solange Knowles, Chanel embassader Jen Brill and the Vera Wang fan, Kim Kardashian. All of which seemed overally impressed by the floor-length numbers released at the end of the show, overall creating a good aura for the audience and Vera herself.

Late for Law

Due to commuting to uni, trying to figure out what time is best to leave home is a slight struggle. After leaving an hour and a half early (although the car journey only takes 30 minutes), we still managed to be rushing for time, getting lost like most frantic fresehers. Living up to that title, me and fellow journalism student Sophie got to our Law lecture with minutes to spare; first impressions count you know! After reading chapter 1 of Mcnae's essential law for journalists last night - although knowing i had a fairly high reading level - i found it slightly wordy and hard to take in so much new information due to never previously studying law. However, much to my (and my mothers) relief, i completed the first chapter with a rough understanding of what it entailed. Thankfully, today's lecture cleared many things up for me such as the main differences between civil and criminal law. Simplified, the law is important in a few ways;
1. It is important as a source of news. It is rare to find any newspaper which does not include a crime report.
2. Criminal law such as contempt of court places grave restraint on what journalists an write or broadcast, and furthermore presents a constant danger or imprisonment.


Civil Law

Within the cival law, simplified, the experts sort it out for you. The cival law deals with such issues as disputes between citizens such as divorce and marrige. It also includes actions for libal, where two parties to a dispute want the matter settled with justice or where one person is demanding compensation from another. Civil law is sorted by the County Court, and the CC often deal with big divorce cases and so on.



Image taken from Flickr, Mr. T in DC

Criminal Law
Criminal law can come under a breach of the criminal code, and that is when you know someone has to be trialed by the criminal law. They often deal with offences against society as a whole such as; murder, violence in general and blasphemy. Not only this but also offences against another person such as; fraud, dangerous driving, robbery, rape, violence or threatening behaviour.

As debating within today's lecture, how do you know whether someone is a murderer (or whatever they have been convicted for?) Is Hitler classed as a murderer?


The question asked by Chris Horrie, our journalism lecturer. Consequently, from a personal opinion, i believe he is not due to he did not commit all of these murders by his own hand. One may say he was, as he was the brains and decision maker behind it all, however, he was never convicted. From a journalistic point of view, if you have not been trialed and convicted you can not be classed as that name e.g. murderer.


More often than not the police/prosecution must stick to the standards of proof, where you must either

1. Have a confession
2. Have forensic evidence
3. Have an eye witness
Ultimately, you can not accuse the guilty on just the balance of probability.

A last important point about law for journalists is the meaning of double jeprody. All in all this means that you can not be trialed for the same crime twice if you have already done the time for this crime.

Yeah, a lot to take in right? However, after today's lecture I actually feel i have begun to understand the main points and theories behind law for journalists, and from Mr Chris Horrie, the ways in which to work your way around the law to get 50,000 in your bank from suing top magazines. Maybe I don't need a high paying job after all? All jokes aside, it seems I may have a lot more to learn throughout this sesmester however we will just have to see where that leads when the time comes!

26/09/2011

Key Concepts

Luckily for me, i already had done key concepts in my A level Media course so I already had a rough idea on what it was going to be about. However, I did learn/had an insight into a few different theories than before. For example, to begin with we went into the various module themes such as, power and control, meanings and culture, audiences and effects and new and old media. Personally, this type of stuff really interests me and I was happy to listen to my lecturer delve into the ways in which these themes can effect the media in different ways. 
From a Production aspect, media industries produce goods and services to audience and it can be debated how much media production can be compared to other patterns of industrial production. Ultimately, production involves creativity and this can be highly related to advertisement to such things as films and music videos where the production side help get the best advertisements possible in order to promote the up and coming product. Consumption relates to the way media audiences consume media texts and services. The engagement of audiences can be portrayed through new media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, where audiences can consume productions such as videos and pictures. Ultimately, this can also be shown through virtual reality and the way many people use social networking sites and video games to consume a product and become engrossed in a separate (and sometimes better) world than their own.
Many media texts can portray identity very clearly and the media use this tool in order to make an audience feel as certain way. Media texts frequently draw on images and ideas to construct
identities to do with locality, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and ‘otherness’. In many cases, the media construct these themselves. An example of this is television programmes such as Skins which use many different identities and personalities in order to make viewers get a certain view of the characters and the age group behind the characters. Ultimately, in Skins’ case and many other stereotypical teenage television programme, these stereotypes are far from the ordinary and they end up making secondary audiences such as parents and the older generation, that all teenagers are like this rather than the minority.
Regulation is another important aspect of the media and it portrays the way practices are established to shape or encourage media production and media representation to occur in particular ways. For example, the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) handle the regulation of many new media products and maintain a particular standard that new media
organisations must abide by.  Not only this, but we as the audience can be the regulator by simple ways of just choosing not to watch a programme due to it being inappropriate, not to our humour or just because we don’t enjoy the genre. Ultimately, this can relate to being an active or passive viewer and the ways in which you can choose to regulate yourself into analysing a piece of media and being an active audience, or just choosing to believe what you are told and therefore being a passive audience member.

A large aspect of the new media world is advertising and the way in which advertising functions are used to promote products. Consequently, it is a huge industry and without it many organisations would not get near enough money as they would without it. An example of this is many make-up brands, they use billboards, magazine advertisements (ones that suit their primary audience) and television adverts to branch out to a variation of audiences who before may of not heard of their product, or who may be interested in a new and up and coming product. Furthermore, a good example of this is Coca Cola who in 2009 spent $460 million on advertising globally, and £36 million just in the UK; much of this was spent on online advertising due to the way it is far more easily accessible and can be accessed globally rather than in particular countries.


Image taken from Flickr, Pictures_of_Money

Traditional commercial TV sells audiences to advertisers, NOT programmes to viewers.

Meaning and Culture
Production provides a context and the need to address ‘core buyers’. It can be argued that it is the younger generation who are the ones who are aimed at due to them having a more disposable income than other generations, therefore enabling them to buy the latest game or magazine without having much else to purchase. Meanings are often negotiated and contested by audiences and the resistances to campaigns such as graffiti can be debated widely to whether it is art, or vandalism. On one hand artists such as Banksy who travel the UK ‘vandalising/creating art’ on walls etc is loved by the world and especially Britain, and can be said to be a large part of our artistic culture. However, many youths who do a similar thing can often be said to be vandals and be giving a bad name for doing a very similar thing. 

The Boring Bit

Well, looks like i will be a frequent user of Blogger from now on due to my Journalism degree at Winchester University. Being honest, i did use Blogger previously, but only for blabbering on about my life, friends and school, nothing very interesting! So at least now I can actually be using this for a real purpose which will help me in the future.
Here goes the boring bit, hopefully and for my courses sake, many people will read this so here is a little about myself. The picture above is of (from right to left) my Mum, Grandma, Auntie and Me, then my Dad above. I have recently turned 18 (in August, so a baby in many peoples eyes) and have spent the past month wasting every penny of my money on alcohol and going to town; not forgetting buying outfits for town. However, in my opinion it was money well spent. Now i have started university, although I hope those hectic town evenings will still occur, i finally have something to focus on again and also (luckily for me) a place where i can write REAL factual information about my course and lectures, pieces on my favourite aspect of Journalism which is my ambition after this course; fashion. Oh, and maybe some drivel sometimes so I apologise in advance for any of that now!
I have begun reading McNae's Essential Law for Journalists both last night and this morning and I think i had forgotten how important Law was and is for Journalists. Without a doubt, the first page made me realise how important new media such as blogging and twitter is becoming for Journalists of the 21st Century and therefore how much I need to get into it myself!
My first lecture is today from 3-6 on the Key Concepts of Media so lucky for all of you (probably no-one) i will be updating this blog later this evening.

Pages