Semester 2 Blog 3

Since the advent of social networking, today's society has been morphed so drastically from society 10 or 20 years ago. When it came to communication, many people relied on handwritten letters and telephones to maintain a relationship with someone far away. If the person was close enough, you simply went to see them in person.
Now that there is Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, the way we reach other people has become completely digitized. We send emails, text messages, Skype, Facebook messages, tweets instead of letters or phone calls. A person can maintain a close relationship with someone on the opposite side of the Earth. That same person could also be friends with someone only through the internet and never ever hear their voice or see their face in person.
Because of the negative aspects of social networking, many people think that it is taking over our lives and will eventually overtake gatherings and other social meetings. They believe that we are slowly isolating ourselves from one another.

Even though that social networking requires a small amount of effort to maintain a relationship it could never overpower human’s primal need to be physically near one another. Bringing a sick friend some soup and company is far better than wishing them well on Facebook. Because most socializing is done online, physical gestures hold more power than they used to which is something that many may consider progress. Our society is not letting go of our old ways of communication, they are only treasuring the real effort it takes to show you care when compared to a minimal effort.

Social networking is the same as mass media. They can both take up a large portion of our lives but they will never dominate.

Semester 2 Blog 2

In Mondello's article, "Our Media, Ourselves: Are We Headed For A Matrix?" it talks about the way sci-fi stories have depicted the future and that we are slowly headed for that same future that frightened us years ago. He mentions E.M. Forster's short story, "The Machine Stops" and how the author correctly predicted many things about the future almost a hundred years in advance. Forster describes a room that is hexagonal in shape with artificial light, music and air that features only three pieces of furniture. Later on he shows the reader how everything in the room is automated and how attached one of the characters is to this type of environment.

"Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance amd stidded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everwhere- buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose from the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of cours buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, although it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world." (The Machine Stops)

This paragraph coincides with Mondello's arguement that we are losing many of our material items to be replaced by digital versions. Proving his arguement, he includes data that book sales have been dominated by e-books and cd's have been replaced by mp3 sales. He agrees that we are headed toward a future like Forsters.

"There are good reasons for imagining a sterile environments in stories about the future. Space travel requires elimination things that might float around in zero gravity; clean lines feel "modern" because they contrast with the accumulated mess of everyday existance. But isn't accumulated mess what defines us as individuals?" (Mondello)

While Mondello makes a good point that modern design has become all about simplicity, it does not mean that this is permanent. In society, popular trends in fashion or design don't last very long and old trends come back. It's as if trends are just recycled and used later on when it is "retro".

A good example of circular trends are in fashion. One week lace and boxy style dresses from the 1920s will become popular. The next week high-waisted, bell-bottom jeans are back from the 1970s. The next week dresses from the 1950s will come back. In another 20 years styles from the medieval times will return.
When it comes to design for our homes, we will someday return to the cluttered mess that it was years ago. If you look back to furniture designs from the late 60s and early 70s they too tried a style that looked futuristic.

However, Mondello makes a strong arguement when it comes to digital movies, music, literature, et cetera. It is unavoidable that many things will slowly become more digitized because of the rapid growth of technology in this age. With the rise of social networking it seems as if we have started putting personal relationships on a computer screen.

The thing is, while many tasks have become automated, it could never overpower the primal feeling humans have for physical needs. Humans are not the machines that they've grown attached to because humans have thoughts and emotions and wants and needs and not everyone of these things can be taken care of by a device. A child would rather have a parent physically be at their baseball games instead of a screen of the parent watching from halfway across the world. Hugging and kissing someone is better than sending a text message of Xs and Os. Technology cannot satisfy everything we need. That is why a future of isolation that both Forster and Mondello predict will not happen.

Second Semester Blog 1

Image Number 2:

In the image you see a white dove with wings spread outward as if in flight, a branch with green leaves in his mouth, the dove is wearing a gray and black vest that appears to  be bulletproof and on his chest appears to be red cross hairs from a gun.
The flying dove with the branch in his mouth has a very biblical connotation and symbolizes peace. In the Bible, a dove with an olive branch flies back to Noah as a peace offering from God. The bulletproof vest is associated with violence and protection from danger. The cross hairs symbolizes immediate danger or a target.
I would say that the message here could be interpreted in many ways. I see it as saying that peace is artificial now because if you are to really offer peace you wouldn't also be protecting yourself. Or that having peace in our world is in danger. With all the sickness and violence in our world peace has had to find a way to protect itself but with the cross hairs on it, it really seems as if this bird will be shot soon.
The audience that this image would appeal to would probably be adults of all kinds only because it takes a bit of prior knowledge to understand what is happening in the picture. Because the audience is adults I would say that the purpose of the image is to shock people when they see something so innocent in danger that it will make them see what violence has done to humanity.
The creator of this image used the dove wisely because of the pure, innocent and biblical connotations it has would evoke a feeling of shock, sadness and maybe even anger when it is portrayed with a bulletproof vest and cross hairs on his chest and that is what makes it effective at conveying its message.