Thursday, November 14, 2013

Response to Sabrina's Blog

http://sabrina-carlisle.blogspot.com/2013/11/media.html

Sabrina, for the project, followed the same channel as I did (WLKY32). IN this post, we both seemed to agree on the fact that WLKY simply reports too many crime stories. They need to free up some space for more important things in the news, things that more directly affect the general population. Sometimes I feel somewhat heartless for saying things like this, and I don't want it to sound like these crime stories don't matter. Of course they matter- to the parties and the families of the parties involved, to the witnesses, even to any legal workers involved. When I or someone else says they don't matter, we only mean that they aren't importtant to the general public.

Right Now on WLKY

http://www.wlky.com/news/local-news

I haven't watched WLKY since the project was over, so I thought that I'd go check the website and see what the local news page looked like. What I found was a fairly even mix of relevant and irrelevant stories. The first story was about an investigation WLKY did on social networks. This, I think, is very newsworthy because in this day and age everyone is on social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or something less popular. However, the next few stories were somewhat small crime stories (a child molestation and a follow up on the baby found in the Kohl's bathroom), which are only there, in my opinion, because the population seems to have a sick fascination with crime stories. These two slots should be taken up by something more newsworthy.

What comes next?

In class one day this six weeks, we discussed the Internet. A fact that has come up in many lectures about different mass media in class is that every medium seems to gain popularity fast, and then have its downfall. It happened with magazines, radio, and even television. Currently, the medium of choice is the Internet, and I have to ask myself, does it suffer the same fate? Will we eventually grow tired of it? At the moment, it seems not, as the Internet is used daily by most people and that continues to be the case. Another point to raise is that the Internet contains all other forms of media. It's possible to read books, magazines, and newspapers, you can watch television and movies, you can even download music. Because the Internet can do all of this, will it overtake even the most demassified of other media? And if not, if the Internet is to be replaced, I cannot fathom what comes next. It's very hard for me to imagine something even more modern and spectacular for media than the Internet.

Classmate Response- Hannah and Movies

http://hannahtsai01.blogspot.com/2013/11/response-to-class-lecture.html

Above is a link to my classmate Hannah's blog post about movies. She brought up some very interesting points. It's crazy to me, as well as to her, to think that movies have been around for 100 years. The technology has morphed so much, from just one camera and a tiny screen to huge, fancy silver screens and many intricate cameras. I really like going to the movies, and so I hope that movie theaters will be around for along time. There's no experience in the world like going to the movies with my friends or family.

WLKY Local News

     For my local news station, I viewed WLKY over these six weeks. For the most part, they did an okay job in reporting local news, which is their priority. However, there were some concerning things that I noticed while watching. For one, WLKY seems to really like their crime stories. I mean, there was a GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN in the middle of everything that started on October 1, and their lead story for October 2 was a local murder (http://www.wlky.com/news/local-news/kentucky-news/kentucky-supreme-court-appoints-special-judge-in-dishon-case/-/9718420/22574592/-/16jm9pz/-/index.html), presumably because it made for better TV.This is disappointing.
     Also while watching WLKY, I realized that TV news is more a part of my life than I anticipated. To be honest, I don't watch much television, I don't really have the time. But this project made me understand that sometimes sitting down to watch the news is on of the most important things you can do. After all, it's always a good idea to be very aware of the world around you.