Blog 10 - Reflection

As far as my own writing has gone throughout the semester, I think that it has actually decreased, not due to the fact that I wasn’t learning anything, but the fact that the paper topics seemed to get further away from what I was comfortable with. The music genre paper went really well because music is what I love, being a music major and all. The movie analysis paper wasn’t as good, but it still hit home with me. Star Wars is like my favorite movie, story wise and how Lucas put it all together like a puzzle. It is easy for me to appreciate his work in the movie industry and to all the creative artists that were a part of it. However this last paper could really hurt me, because I do not really like discussing the news. I had no idea what to write on. I don’t actually think hard about what the news networks are teeling us.

Anyways, I do think my writing has improved in this class and I really enjoyed it, for the most part. Keeping these blogs really helped me get to know my classmates because it is easier to talk about yourself in writing than it is verbally. I hope I get a decent grade in this class, because I know that I got a little bit lazy in the closing of this semester. It has been great Mrs. Welter and all of you in the class. Have a good summer.

Blog 9 - Responding to McGowan's claim

I think McGowan’s claim that the “media machine has become a propaganda organ of the state,” is very factual and true. Although I think the sentence in the syllabus is different than what he was actually saying in the text. To me, after reading this, it seems that the media is a complete joke. And that the Free Press is not actually “Free”, but rather pre-ordained views on issues that have little relevance to us as concerned citizens of the U.S. McGowan hits right on the nose. There are so many different things that we do not even get to hear about, because it is the news station that chooses which stories are to be considered “newsworthy” as to promote their company and beat their competitors for the better story. If this is the case, then the news media or any medium cannot be trusted, to a certain extent. We as Americans are being brainwashed to think certain ways because television is such an important part of our lives (as sad as that may be). It is a deadly disease and authoritarian way of getting Americans to think a certain way. Are we really free? Everything and everyone is trying to bombard us with pre-planned thinking to get us to believe them. The saddest part of it all is that we are blinded to this illness. It is a cancerous cell that has gone undetected and slowly but effectively destroying our country. We might ask why there is so much violence going on. Could it be the fact that everyone is just confused by conflicting messages by political propaganda, promoting a certain partisan viewpoint? Anyways, I think it is a scary thought having corporate owned news stations, who are not giving us the whole story to a particular case or an entire important story not being aired at all.