Fish.

Marshall McLuhan once said, “Whoever discovered the ocean, it was not the fish for whom the water was the medium of their lives.” (Pg. 212) The interpretation of this quote prompted a mild discussion in class. I forget what was said in class but my initial thoughts on this was that if it were not for the water, the fish would not have an intermediate or channel between one another to communicate and or live their life. Much like what the internet is to us in today’s aspect. And we're all in a sense like fish, living through media. It's becoming such a big part of society all around the world. And I would like to see how others do interpret this quote. On a side note, leaving the word "internet" in lower case it will give me a grammatical error message, so why is the word “Internet” capitalized?

The web's mass collection of information and means of communication has opened up a massive network powered none other than by yourself and the millions of other people. Everyone is able to bring in his or her own knowledge and share it in one place. From my own experience, forums are very informative networks, yet at the same time, socially corrupting. On a frequent forum I read/post on, honda-tech, I become addicted with the amount of information I can gather about things ranging from how to fix an oil leak or paint wheels. I wouldn't have ever been able to do this on my own, and having a network of other car enthusiasts and hobbyist mechanics greatly helps my cause. Now this information is mainly gathered in technical sub forums that's on this website. There's also a "General Discussion and Debate" section, where almost anything goes. This is where the socially corrupting part comes in. When a new member poses an honest question, that isn't to the liking of other members, they’re likely to get, what has been deemed, “flamed”. How does the saying go? Big fish eat small fish? That’s the downside to having such a vast network, there are those who consider themselves “elitist” who probably aren’t anybody but spiteful losers sitting at home trying to put up a tough guy façade, also called an “e-thug”. And I'll honestly say these people really get under my skin even though they shouldn't. But that's the thing with media and networks, sometimes there's no control over anything and any one, or it just may not be to your liking.

As I've been posting, the words that my group has chosen has been in bold. From my two posts I have related what these words mean to me as well as my personal experiences with them. It's interesting to see how other's see have experienced these words because no one post is the same.

modern media.

I wouldn't be writing this here today or able to keep in touch with many acquaintances without the use of blogs, facebook and all these modern channels of communication and information. Media used to be nothing through word of mouth or words on paper. The definition of media as given in the OED is "the means of mass communication, especially television, radio, and newspapers collectively."

Nowadays this word has been greatly affected by technology through the use of the internet, cell phones, and computers. I'll admit I use each one of those as if they're required for my survival, and even in some cases they just might be. If it were not for Yahoo! or Google I wouldn't know what was going on in the world. Andhow often do we hear on the news that parents blame the "media" as the source of violence or anything unjust? It just shows to you the amount of power and influence the media can have on our society.

It is almost best said in New Keywords that, "we increasingly live in a mediated 'global village,' in which our very sensibilities are transformed by the changed relations with others into which the electronic media now insert us" (pg. 213). The way we perceive things through media is just an extension of what someone else had to represent. We've all heard or maybe even seen some documentaries and how they try to emphasize a particular side of a controversial topic, whether it be about 9-11 or global warming. Every time I'm on campus I'm somewhat bombarded with fliers, one in particular that annoys me...the meat activist people. And that's just their medium of reaching out to whoever their target audience is, but it's just not me or any of the other people who threw the flier on the ground. The point I'm trying to make is that wheneverthere is a medium there is a representation of something.

I'll close with this...It's funny how text messaging has evolved into simplifying words and even expressions. The all too familiar "LOL" stands for "laugh out loud", and thinking back to the days of the telegraph "SOS" would stand for "save our ship". Are we moving forward or just falling back into the simplicity of an earlier century medium?

First

Walking into my first class of summer session 1 I felt uneasiness about an upper division writing course. Reason being it has been a few years since I last taken an English class. So I'm not quite sure what to expect, especially with this new way of going about doing assignments. At least the required text for this class wasn't as daunting as a 1500 page anthology that I've seen a few of my unfortunate friends carry along with them to class.
Having time after class to pick up the book, New Keywords, I went ahead to the bookstore and got myself a copy. With time to pass before my next class I pulled out the text and started flipping through a few pages and going through the keywords. I thought to myself, this is quite a list because I see such words as "pornography", "gay and lesbian". This will lead for an interesting discussion in class. Also looking up the original version I found a small list of keywords from Raymond Williams himself. I compared the new and old and found a couple words taken out and or renamed (Source: http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Keywords:_A_Vocabulary_of_Culture_and_Society). For example the word "Western" in the original Keywords has been changed to "The West". I don't know if there is a great significance to this or whatnot but I found that quite interesting.
In closing my first actual post/assignment, my overall feeling about this class is optimistic. It's great to have a teacher that wants to experiment from the traditional way of teaching. Looking forward to improving my writing in and out of the classroom.

Intro and info

This blog is being created for my UWP101 class at uc davis. I probably wouldn't have made a blog on my own but having one is definitely a good place to put random thoughts or whatever. Well currently i'm a third year at uc davis majoring in civil engineering, i wish it sounded more interesting than that but that's it. I went to high school in San Leandro, Ca, but i have since then moved to Alameda, Ca. I'll leave it at that, and if anybody wants to know more feel free to ask :).