Videos

      In the video Will Mankind Destroy Itself?, Michio Kaku explains that their are different types of civilizations that range from zero to three. The type zero civilization is what we have been living in we rely on oil and plants for power, but have evolved by creating nuclear weapons. The type one civilization is what Michio Kaku says we will reach in the next hundred years. This civilization is planetary control the energy of the planet by controlling natural disasters and the weather. The type two civilization is said to be where you reach immortality. The civilization is "stellar" or can consume so much energy that they can play with stars. Michio Kaku says "It's like Star Wars". The final type is type three civilization which is consider to be "galactic". Michio says that he sees two trends forming, a multi cultural, scientific society and terrorism acts against type one civilization. We are in the transition from type zero to type one. The evidence is that we do rely on oil and plants for energy, but we now have the internet, fashion, youth music, and an economy that are all planetary.

      In the video The Empathic Civilization Jeremy Rifkin says that in the past ten years the development of evolutionary biology, neuro-cognitive science, child development research, and many other fields has led us to questioning human nature, meaning of the human journey, and the institutions we have created (educational institutions, business practices, governing institutions, etc). He then explains how in the early 1990s in Parma, Italy they discovered that humans are soft wired with mirror neurons by studying a monkey trying to open a nut. You might be asking, "What are mirror Neurons?" Mirror Neurons are what allow us, through observation, to experience the same thing another person is experiencing. For example, when someone is excited, sad, angry, or when we see a spider crawl on someones arm. Michio then explains that we are soft wired for socialability, attachment, affection, companionship and that we were not soft wired to have aggression, violence, self-interest, and unitarianism. The main drive is the empathic drive. He explains that by the age of eight years old humans understand life and death and that we are completely aware of our ability to be empathetic. Do not get Empathy and Utopia are the same thing because Michio says that in a utopia there is no suffering so there is no empathy. Michio closes with the thought that could todays technology bring together such a diverse group, who were ironically came from the same two people, of 6.8 billion people to think viscerally as a family?

      Is the internet larger and more universal than we think? I do believe that it is much larger than what we think especially sense we have constant access to it 24/7. The example in Michio's video about how within 3 hours of the Haiti earthquake the inter universe knew and were reaching out because of the internet. However I do not believe that the internet will do everything that was stated in these films because of personal beliefs. I believe that the internet is something that will make or break this country. Its great to keep pushing for newer and better technology, but we have to make sure that we do not make it something our life revolves around.

The Medium is Massage

          This article opens with telling the audience that everything and everyone is changing and media is the reason for this change. We learn that our time is the time for over coming barriers, learning in ways, and seeing what is happening around the world. We then are presented with the question, "how will the media environment be programed now that we are so involved with each other?" This question leads to the thought that parents are no longer the only influences and teachers of a child. "Do we every really go home?", "What is childhood?", "Will computers take over jobs?", "Do we really see how much politics are changing?", and "Nothing goes unnoticed" are some of the things that he makes us question when he breaks down all of the areas of life that are being effected by the media. We are then sent back all the way to the formation of words and the alphabet to explain the dominate organ of sensory and social orientation. We slowly see the evolution of "printing, the ditto device", the fact that being punished and put in the corner is being changed, all the way up to our world have no time or space and becoming a "global village".

       Mcluhan's view point of media is very unique and very relevant to today's contemporary society. The reason I believe that it is relevant to today's society is because of how well educated he was in the evolution of technology and how he knew that his research did not start when the first electrical device was created, but it started from the very beginning of man. I enjoyed how he broke each aspect of our lives and explained how they are being effected. This was very eye opening and allows the audience a chance to connect and relate their lives to the article. It was also very interesting how he went way back to the beginning of the creation of words to show just how much media has changed everything. The way he added pictures and such an artistic spectacle to article was so interesting and kept me interested in the article. I also found it captivating how throughout the article he had quotes, different fonts, and snippets of articles to prove his point.

       The Media Education Revolution article goes through the ways and history of  media and the way media education is taught. The article also goes into more depth by showing how it has evolved into changing the definition of the teacher in the class room and how students and teachers are equal in knowledge because of media. The article also shows the three different paradigms that media has gone through, Inoculative, Popular Arts, Representational. He also critiques these paradigms. The Inoculative paradigm was how they viewed media as a negative source, The Popular Arts paradigm was how they viewed Pop culture and high culture as equals, and the Representational paradigm was how they began to closely analyze media. This article overall shows the struggle of how people viewed and the many ways media has been used throughout time. Then we are given advice for the future in the hopes of growing more and more in the media world and in media education.
      The article Critical Media Literacy, Democracy and the Reconstruction of Education talks about the ways we as students can use the media to do more than just socialize. This article explains to us how the media is an outlet to discover our views and thoughts on major topics in the world and in our culture. We are also shown that media provides the means to morph the identity of our culture. This article gives great insight into how media allows us to analyze and give us the information needed to pick a side to arguments in an intelligent manner. We are also able to work on our critical analysis skills when using media; which is a crucial tool in this day in age. Overall this article shows its audience that when using media their are skills being taught without us even knowing it.
    New-media has had positive and negative impacts on me and my generation. The internet has allowed just with a click of a button we have any kind of information from ancient history to modern art. The negative side effect to that, and something I am guilty of doing is that books are no longer a primary source of information. I believe that the more the internet and media grow books will become more and more unneeded. With the convenience of media, we would never have to leave our homes to live. The internet gives the means to run your own business, buy things, go to school online, and even order food. Television provides you with what is going on in the world and entertainment. It is sad to think that we would never have to leave our house again, though the positive side to this is that we are able to stay closely connected to our world and what is happening in it. In my life I have found that media has helped me stay in touch with people from all over the world through social media. I feel that my generation heavily relies on social media for that purpose as well. I feel that the downside to social media is that it does cause controversy, cyber bullying, and ruins social skills. Overall I believe that media has become a great outlet, as long as we use it in a positive way.
     I feel that critical awareness is everywhere in media. There are websites that are just to critique films, you have television shows for specific political parties that critique their opposing parties, social media (facebook, twitter, etc) is a melting pot of constant critiques and opinions, and you have magazines (fashion, theater, tabloids, etc) that are constantly criticizing their specific field of interest. I have also found that critical awareness has also become apparent in the classroom as well. For example, reading articles and then having open discussions that allows students to not only criticize the opinion in the articles, but also see other sides that may be brought up in the discussion. I think that being critically aware and teaching critical awareness by using media is very important in this day in age and will be important from here on out.