That's me, Kylie. I'm from a small-ish town in Maine called Scarborough. Scarborough is right on the ocean only a few minutes away from Maine’s biggest city Portland. When I decided to check out Champlain, I had never actually been to Vermont in my life, which is relatively surprising considering how close Maine and Vermont are. I have one brother named Kevin. He’s a freshman in high school this year and I can’t believe how big he’s gotten. I also have a dog named Rosie; she’s a mini dachshund who thinks that she’s a cat. I really enjoy music a lot. My favorite band is Arctic Monkeys and one of my favorite songs by them is “Brianstorm”. I also really enjoy the video for that song:

Like everyone else in the world, I of course have a relationship with media. Unlike everyone in the world I want to make it my job. I would like to have a profession in advertisement as of right now. I would like to work in the creative aspect though, not the business-y side.

I’ve learned some very important aspects from our book this year:

In Chapter One I learned that media is the thing that connects us to the world, makes us aware of our surroundings and informs us about the world as a whole. Without media we would only be aware of what’s happening in our small environment and rely on word of mouth to inform us about larger things. And as the author says “the media try to bring an understanding to events that affect all of us.”

In Chapter Two I learned advertising has evolved on the Internet through the years just as the Internet itself has evolved. In the early days, ads were basic and “weren’t anymore effective than newspaper or magazine advertisements.” They eventually evolved into sometimes being sponsored link when you would do a search on say Google or Yahoo. The companies would pay Google or Yahoo or any other website when the link was pressed. Now, advertisement has spread to all realms of the Internet universe. Advertisers will use sites like Facebook to find out your interests and advertise products or other things that would relate to your interests. And as the author says “For advertisers- who for years struggled with how to measure people’s attention to ads- the Internet makes advertisement easy to track, effective in reaching the desired niche audience, and relatively inexpensive because ads get wasted less often on the disinterested.”

In chapter three we learned “rock and roll was the first popular music genre to overtly confuse issues of sexual identity and orientation.” The best example of androgyny in the rock and roll genre was Elvis Presley. He was sexually outrageous, which was not something that was largely seen in the time period surrounding early rock and roll. Little Richard was also an overtly sexual performer who inspired this new concept of extravagant rock stars.

In chapter four we learn about the affect that the radio had during World War I. The were “primarily used for shore-to-ship communication.” Wireless telegraphy played a larger and larger role throughout the war. The navy actually shut down all amateur radio operations when the U.S. entered the war to make sure the military sustained security.

We have also been learning about the four tool sets in this class. I think that I am becoming more well acquainted with them and it is becoming easier to recall them and make sense of them and how they relate to the media we look at.

One question I would like to know the answer for by the end of the semester is “Is it possible to completely rid yourself of the media?”