There are over 7 billion people in the world today. Communicating face-to-face has just become ancient with the gap in distance and space. Media has virtually taken over the world in communication. Media is today’s way of mass communication and is taken place through various mediums. Media allows for multiple people across the world to communicate to each other, whether it’s from the coldest tundra of Antarctica or a scorching desert in the Sahara. A simple “Hello”, “Hola”, or “Namaste” is all it takes to allow for two people to interact. These greetings comes in many forms, but the main form today’s world has been accustomed is this pixelated cluster of words, that you are reading this very moment actually, which is used to express our thoughts over complex, but yet so simple, keystrokes. Many people also communicate today with photos, sometimes of themselves, which is also known as a “selfie” for those who are media literate in today’s generation. But what is media literacy? In my own words, media literacy is the ability to comprehend and produce the various forms of communication that is involved with media. Referring to the “selfie”, a person who is media literate would understand this because a prominent way of communicating to another person is through sending one. A person who is aware of this form of communication is also aware of this slang used in communication through photos. In today’s society, many of the younger children are media literate, but the side effects of this are causing children to be illiterate in other things such a science or even something as simple as verbal communication in person.

Axe, the famous men’s body care company, released an ad on the day of the Superbowl 48 titled “Make Love, Not War”; the commercial portrays figures that are inclined toward violent activities (such as North Korea) that display acts of love. Axe supports this “Make Love” idea by showing scenarios of people who look like they are about to enter in a war-like engagement (like an Arab man who appears to have a bomb switch) and then cycles back through the situations in which the war-like engagements become heart-warming acts of love (the Arab man’s bomb switch ends up being for fireworks). Through this, Axe’s purpose is to show that their products make peace in order to prove to men (and probably the women buying the products for men) that their products are superior and are meant to, in a way, seduce women. By placing this ad during the Superbowl (a sporting event that is mostly watched by men), Axe intends for all of the men who are interested in football culture or watching the Superbowl to see this ad and hopefully purchase their products to clean themselves after a long (and manly, of course) day.

Gwinnett County Public schools announce graduation dates and times.

Omar Sharifali, Reporter

Mon Mar 24, 2014

GWINNETT COUNTY- With thousands of students anticipating, Gwinnett County Public schools finally announces the schedule for graduation. Peachtree Ridge, Berkmar, and North Gwinnett are all set to graduate at 8 am at the Gwinnett Civic Center.

The schedule has every Gwinnett County high school graduating after noon with the exception of 3 schools. Schools such as Brookwood, Mountain View, Central Gwinnett, GSMST, Lanier, Mill Creek, and Parkview are set to graduate on the last day of school. Students from other schools showed resent of the schedule because of some school having a much earlier time than others and some schools also graduate days earlier.

“I have not been able to wake up for school in the mornings for the past semesters. I have probably woken up late about 20 times the whole school year. I couldn’t even imagine having to wake up at the same time to leave for my graduation” said senior at Peachtree Ridge Omar Sharifali.

From the beginning, 1984 inspires a rebellious theme that made me feel like we are victims of our government exerting control. I felt like the ending would have been a group of people overthrowing the government or something to that sort. However, the ending just made me feel like in the end that resistance is petty once a government entity becomes extremely powerful. This made me realize that Orwell did a brilliant job with the ending. It is an ending that is not predictable, yet still very effective. Orwell inspires his readers by learning from the mistakes of Winston and all of the people in 1984 and not allowing the government to get so powerful to a point of no return. Orwell showed a world where things did not work out and that is why 1984 is such a powerful novel. Although a bit harsher than the scale it is at today, 1984 criticizes the governments of today's world fairly accurately. It criticizes the government in the aspect that they should not been in control of what we do and that we, as the people, should take action against the injustices to our freedoms. I would have kept the ending the way it was, because although it was unconventional and unexpected it conveyed the message. This message being that humans have to right to privacy and when this freedom, or any of our freedoms, is violated we have the ability to do something to prevent it.

This media literacy course has really opened my eyes about the inner workings of our daily media use. Something important that the course has taught me is that our information and data is very monitored by various different outlets. I have realized that I should be careful which images, posts, and links I post to the internet because there are people who are monitoring your e-footprint every minute of the day. This e-footprint, which is also known as a digital tattoo, is a trail of everything you have ever done online and in most cases it cannot be destroyed or removed. If I am going to remember anything from this class in the future, it is that I should be conscientious of how I add to my digital tattoo, almost like Winston in 1984 (at least until he met Julia). The typical language arts class archetype is reading books and being tested on your knowledge of it and also learning random vocabulary, half of which you don’t even remember after the class. However, this media literacy course is completely different. This class was very technology oriented: a majority, if not all, of the assignments were submitted online and everything we learned and discussed is relatable to everyone this day and age in one way or another. In order to make the class better, I believe that it needs to be completely media and technology based. Some platform should be instituted which keeps the students involved from their devices every day in order to keep participation levels higher. I also believe that there should be more paper assignments. I believe that this would solve the problem of people not showing up to class because many students do not show up primarily because many of the assignments can be completed from home. My point is that there needs to be some incentive for students to come to class by keeping them involved throughout the whole period. Overall the experience of having the class was not that bad and I am happy that I took the