British Litt 2016
Media Literacy
Social Media
Audi R8 Big Game Commercial
Audi R8, in its 2016 Super Bowl commercial compared an Audi R8 to an NASA spaceship lift off as a man took off in the new car. Audi R8 Big Game Commercial begins with a slight slide show of pictures of a man’s past life as an astronaut, the disposition is very gloomy having an old man most likely to be a grandfather lounging on a couch in the living room with a very depressed facial expression. His daughter I'm assuming then comes in to see the meal she had given him earlier was still sitting there, she picks up the tray of food and goes to dispose of it, her husband I'm assuming then comes in with groceries, he sits them on the counter and walks to greet the old man to see he looks sad. He then tells the old man to come with him, the old man follows behind and he shows him the Audi R8 parked in the driveway and hands him the keys to the vehicle. As the old man is walking towards the car he begins having flashbacks to when he was an astronaut walking towards his spaceship, they enter the Audi R8 and he grips onto the steering wheel adrenaline rushing through his body, he feels what he once felt when he was about to lift off. The flash backs become more intense and the space ship (Audi R8) lifts off leaving nothing but flames in its path. The old man smiles, nothing but bliss is what he’s feeling. The purpose of this commercial was to lure people in and to convince them that investing in an Audi R8 would be a life changing decision, it would bring you pure happiness and give you the motivation to go out and do things you thought impossible. The Audi R8 commercial is targeting wealthy car owners, older in age that can actually afford and maintain a car of this kind. The tone is very depressing and gloomy in the beginning but towards the end the mood becomes hopeful like anything is possible.
Donald Trump
"Says the man who rushed the stage at him in Dayton, Ohio, "had chatter about ISIS, or with ISIS" in his social media posts." March 12, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at Dayton international airport in Dayton, Ohio. Secret service agents had to surround and guard Trump after a man from the crowd climbed over the fence guards and lunged at Trump. That man Thomas Dimassimo was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. According to people in the crowd Trump was giving a speech and everybody was intrigued until somebody jumped over the fence and charged at Trump, Four to five secret service agents moved quickly to seize the man, handcuffed him, and took him away. Trump then went on to explain to his audience that it was planned attack. In order to have a say so in anything that occurred or why the man did what he did you must know exactly what trump was making a speech about that triggered Dimassimo and made him jump on stage. Although it is wrong what Dimassimo did, he had all the reason to lunge at Trump, I personally am not a fan of Trump and would’ve done the same thing been put in that situation.
Stono Slave Rebellion, 1739.
On the early morning of Sunday 9, 1739, about 20 slaves gathered together in South Carolina near the Stono River in St. Paul's Parish. The slaves then headed to a shop that sold firearms and ammunition, properly armed themselves and then went on to kill the two shop owners that had been working in there. After the group left the shop they headed to the house of Mr. Godfrey, burned his house down eventually killing him and his two children. They then headed south to Wallace's Tavern. One of the inn-keepers was always friendly to his slaves so they spared his life but the slave owners in the next 6 houses down weren't so lucky and every single one of them were killed. The rebellion had been going on for hours and by eleven in the morning the band was 50 slaves strong. By about four in the afternoon about one hundred whites had gone out to stop these slaves that had gone on a rampage, when the whites approached the slaves they shot two fires killing two of the whites and in retaliation the whites shot back killing fourteen slaves. By the end of the day about thirty slaves had been shot dead and another thirty had escaped and gone on the run. Over the next six months most slaves were captured and executed but one went on the run for three years and finally had been captured. Nobody knows exactly what caused the Stono Rebellion, it has never been clear. But you could guess the reasoning behind this rebellion had to do with the fact they were slaves and were fed up with being treated so horribly, it was time for a change and they were going to do whatever they could to stand up. This rebellion was so powerful, no large group of slaves had ever in history had gotten together and done anything like that, it was a huge shock to everybody who was involved and had been affected by it. The rebellion encouraged others to join together and come along because they see how powerful the slaves were as a whole when they joined together rather than when they're alone and singled out. After the Stono Rebellion South Carolina officials put an end to anything that would provoke the slaves to rebel again. For example, the slave owners were penalized if they overworked the slaves or brutally punished them. They began allowing the slaves to attend school so they could learn Christian guidelines, they also tightened control over he slaves. 1984 and the world today are frighteningly similar, for example "Big Brother Is Watching" that reminds me of the government and how they're constantly watching what we do and tapping int our cell phones and personal information whenever they feel like. Also when they have conversations in 1984 they shorten their words basically to make it easier and faster to communicate completely eliminating words out of their vocabulary, similar to what we do when we text and paraphrase and use slang in order to make it easier and quicker for us to get what we're saying across. Eventually if we keep things up the way we are we'll be living in a world exactly like 1984.
We Are A Nation Of Proles
Reflection
My views on media literacy have changed quite a bit since the first time I wrote on it. I didn't perceive media literally as negative then, than I do now. After reading 1984 and opening my eyes to the whole dystopian society thing it reformed my views on media and media literacy. I used to think of media literacy as just a way to advertise stuff through social media and television but now I see its way deeper than just that. Yes, media literacy is a part of advertising through social media and TV, but advertising is propaganda and propaganda is a way to manipulate the minds of society to get them to do things just because a picture online says to. The more social media and the internet take over our society the more propaganda and things like that go around and spread faster, the more it spreads around the more control we lose over ourselves, we won't have control over our own thoughts and actions because we'll be so stuck on what the media is telling us is "the right thing to do". I've learned an abundance of things from this class, one being that nothing in life is just going to be handed to you, you have to work for everything you want in school and in real life. And that not everybody works around me, not everything is going to be done on my time and the way I want. From the first day of school, all my teachers were always so lenient with me and let me turn things in and do assignments on my own time so I never really worried about not getting a grade and never really felt like I had any real responsibilities in school, but Ms. Hicks on the other hand never let me turn a thing in late no matter the excuse I had which taught me that I have to learn responsibility and do things when they need to be done. Other Language Arts classes that I've took have never been as real as this one. I feel like all my past teachers would beat around the bush when it was time to talk about a touchy subject so we never really learned all that we could have learned, but Ms. Hicks didn't hold anything back no matter what it was and that was the main thing I absolutely loved about this class, it was such a open environment to be in. One thing I would recommend change to make this class better is to do more socratic seminars. The seminars were my favorite part of the class, being able to sit and hear everybody's opinion on a topic was enjoyable for me.
Technology Is Taking Over
Societies relationship with technology has become very unhealthy we now rely on technology. Without it I can honestly say we'd be lost. I don't think technology was ever designed to completely control us, but the way things are looking right now and the way society relies on just their phones alone, it looks like that’s exactly what we're heading towards. I feel like there’s not much we can do to make sure that technology doesn't become a permanent necessity in our lives, people are going to do what they want to do no matter what anybody says. If a person feels like they absolutely one hundred percent need their phone in order to function through out the day why on earth would they allow somebody to tell them that they should detach themselves from their phone. Of course there are many benefits of having social media, for example keeping people in the loop. By just the click of a button you post a picture and everybody knows what you're doing and where you’re at. But the disadvantages outweigh the advantages in my eyes social media is an addiction. I would be sitting on my phone for what feels like five minutes and when I look up I had been sitting on my phone for an hour, its completely taking over my mind and I feel as if I have no control over it. Being that we clearly have no control we're just going to continue to let it take over society, all we can do is keep a little piece of mind that we do have for ourselves. If we genuinely wanted to harness technology and stop it from taking over our lives I feel we would have to completely get rid of it, its become to big of a part of our lives to just let go. People wouldn't know what to do without a phone or access to Wi-Fi, its sad but very true.