Assignment #3 - Parental Discretion Is Advised

Today most of the Cd's that you would see on the top ten list would most likely have this warning label on it. It is what children want and what they think is cool, to have the latest rappers CD where he is talking about guns, gangs and hoe's. I think the the labels are a good idea to have. Parents today can barely keep up on all their children get into, from the music they listen to, to their myspace account. I think the labels are a good indicator weather they should be listening to it or not. We have warning labels on everything from Cd's and video games to even out coffee cups telling us the contents is hot, so why not have one on books? Some of the books out there for teen age girls gets a little raunchy and if her mom were to pick it up and just judging by its cover would be happy her daughter was reading a book instead of on the Internet, but she would have no idea what her daughter is actually reading. Schools shouldn't ban books from coming into the library just use the rating system to help dictate whose hands the book falls into. Obviously the rating system isn't perfect, kids sneak into rated R movies, I even remember when I was in high school I went to Media Play to try and buy the new DMX CD, but the cashier wouldn't let me because I wasn't 18 at the time, so I just walked out and had my brother walk back in and get it for me. Nothing is going to be fool proof but its a start.

I think that is definitely appropriate for music, movies, video games and even books to have warning labels. Ratings for all media can help parents have a better understanding of what their children are looking at with just one glance, we all instantly know the difference between PG-13 and R. The ratings are especially important for video games, music is just words, but in video games you can actually act it out. In games like Grand Theft San Andreas, players can recruit new characters into a street gang and take over by leading drive-by shootings against rivals, without some sort of rating how else would parents have any idea what goes on in the game when all their kid tells them is that its just a driving game.

I used to read Goosebumps when I was younger, I don't remember exactly how young but I do remember getting nightmares from them. On Amazon.com the books are listed as unrated and I think to have a rating there could help. For me personally after reading Stay Out Of The Basement, there was no way you were getting me to go down there, it took me years to go down there, even today it still creeps me out at night. The Goosebumps books are classified as Horror, so that right there is an indicator that it might not be to child friendly.

Assignment #2 - Freedom of Speech...For Now

3) So far the internet has allowed anyone that had something to day, the ability to say it and for anyone to hear what they had to say. Even we are able to say whatever we want in our blogs and let our voices be heard. The Internet has been an open market for opinions to be heard on anything from the latest pictures of Britney in an ambulance to the hottest book on the bestseller's list. The internet is a great tool to help people start home businesses or look for their treasured childhood lunch box on eBay. But will it always be this way?

Some day can the companies that run the internet monolopies actually censor what we can see and post? It may be a possibility. In China their government already filtering their internet and watches it carefully. According to CBS News, Internet sites on democracy, Tibet and Taiwan were among Web destinations most frequently blocked by the Chinese government. Other sites that were also blocked included those on health, education, news, entertainment, religion and pornography.

If this is already happening in China whats to stop it from happening to us? It may be happening today but in its early stages. "After September 11, the government has the access to increased email monitoring, retention of Web logs and communications data. A wide variety of methods are used to restrict and/or regulate Internet access. These include: applying laws and licenses, content filtering, tapping and surveillance, pricing and taxation policies, telecommunication markets manipulation, hardware and software manipulation and self censorship" (Source). This sounds scary to think about but it may be an issue that is so far off in the future that it will have no impact on us.

Even though we might have that whole freedom of speech thing behind us, there is probably a good possibility that someday in the not to distant future the government and the huge cable company tycoons will probably be limiting what we say and see on the internet. It is sad to think but its bound to happen, I'm sure the government will say its for our own safety or scare us into thinking it is what is best for us, and what can we do about it? Nothing, hang our heads and just accept it. Well while its all still uncensored I'm talking full advantage of it while we have it, and I would urge you to do the same.

Assignment #1 - Media...Making us dumber since 1704

I think that the media can help improve peoples' media literacy, if used in the right way. Reading an article from the New York Times of the USA Today are some of the ways that the media improves peoples' literacy, but for the most part that is not how the majority of people are using the media. The media is just bombarding us with as much information as possible without giving us any time to process what we've just heard, how can that help even the smartest person?

For me personally I use the media for entertainment purposes, thinks like surfing the web at TMZ and Perez Hilton are the things I generally do online. Even when I get a free paper at school all I do with it is the word jumble, and for the most part I think that is also what other people are using the media for. People get easily distracted or bored so we are in need of a constantly changing environment, if we don't like the particular song on the radio, we change the station, if we don't like the re-run of Full House, we turn the channel, we need to be entertained at all times by physically doing as little as possible.

Even now a days people are beginning to not trust the news because they say that they are biased one way or another and might not give you the other side of the story or leave out some unfavorable information. It is impossible to know weather or not you are getting the whole story or just what that news broadcaster wants you to hear, their acting as a filter and that should not be allowed. The public should be given all the information and the correct facts and then leave it up to them to come to their own decision on the subject. When the media smacks us in the face with all of this ever changing information, it can confuse us and we may just believe what is being said even though we may not know for sure.

For the most part the media is not helping peoples' literacy because the media is just that, media. All the news is, is people reading the paper to you and you can see them, they give you fancy pictures to look at and keep you entertained, you really don't have to think about anything, its all told to you. For the fast paced world we live in today picking up a paper and spending all morning reading it over a cup of joe takes to long, we want to news and we want it fast, some news channels start airing as early as 5 am. The media is only out there to scare us into believing what they are telling us, they spend more time on things like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton, when there are far more worth while things to spend their air time talking about. The media is not helpful for the most part, if you want the real news minus the celebrities get an AP.