Week 14 - New Concept - CMC

In the textbook, there is a section on page 325 about Computer-Mediated Communication and it is about the communication through the internet and how it has grown so rapidly over the years. Books too 400 years to develop, Newspapers in 200, magazines in 170, sound recordings in 60, movies in 50, radio in 40 and television in 30 years in order for consumers to ascend the use of it. It took only 15 years for the internet to not only be accepted as a norm, but to become a media powerhouse.

I absolutely loved this section because in my journal #5 I wrote about the growth of the internet and how it has changed the way things work in today's society. It is so true that internet is the newest and largest medium for mass communication. An extreme example of this is when I saw on the Philippine news channel that an actress had a sex tape scandal with her doctor and it was released by the doctor on the internet and instantly she was defamed by the media. The doctor expressed his deepest apologies but it was too late, millions of people in the Philippines and in America had already seen it. Her reputation was instantly destroyed all because of the internet. That is just one example of how powerful the internet is and with the way our technology keeps moving, it will only become more powerful.

Week 14 - Marshall McLuhan Theory

McLuhan's theory is very interesting to me. I actually felt that it was so interesting that I would have chosen this as my concept for question 3 lol.

I feel that McLuhan has something going when he stated that the channel through which the message is being sent is just as important as the message itself because in a way he is right. When he stated that printed advertisements like flyers use linear logic, a sequence that follows one after the other, and television uses mosaic logic, bits and pieces of information are all over the place and it is our job as viewers to put it together, I felt that he had a point. Then I realized that McLuhan is wrong.

I have noticed so many times in public places and even on the SJSU campus that there are advertisements for everything that are more than just word after word, sequential idea after the other using only linear logic. I have seen collages, elaborate portraits, a simple picture and very little to zero words on it and the advertisement says so much. A picture says a thousand words and artists and creative advertisers have taken printed ads to a new level.

When it comes to television, it is no different. McLuhan states that television advertisement uses mosaic logic, bombarding us with changing bits of information that we must cognitively reassemble. I feel that this is also a wrong statement. TV does not just throw out a bunch of random clips, unordered mixed signals, which leaves us to put together on our own. If anything, commercials, with the exception of the few humorous ones, are very straight to the point. Even if McLulan is referring to older commercials, I still disagree with his statement because even in the 1980's, when Apple first came out with Macintosh, it had scrolling text on the screen as a narrator read it aloud.

I think that McLuhan to an extent is correct when stating that television is a "cool" medium, meaning that viewers must fill in detail. I think even today we all still have to fill in details to some commercials but for most of them, there is almost nothing to fill in. Let's take a look at the newest Old Spice High Endurance Body wash commercials with comedian Terry Crewes. He has so many commercials where he "fights odor" and his comedic skills are what make the message funny. After watching one of those commercials, what detail is there to fill in? There is nothing left up to the viewer to figure out. This is just one example of many out there.

I usually read theories and agree with them or at the very least find them interesting, but I think this is the first time I read one and did not agree with it after assessing it for a few minutes.

Week 14 - Cyberspace Friendships

I think to some extent everyone, at least in college, has cyberspace friendships whether they be a lot or a little. Social networking websites are making such a big boom and they are only getting bigger. Websites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter allow people to connect or reconnect with each other without having to meet face to face. I personally have multiple friends that I only seem to talk to through Facebook. Just about all of those friends on Facebook are people I have met before in person but either rarely see them face to face or never have seen them face to face since I met them. Since I am friends with them on Facebook, I am able to talk to them and see what they are doing and our friendship never goes beyond Facebook. So I do technically have friends that are exclusively on cyberspace.

I would say that the differences between the face to face relationship versus the cyberspace relationship can be both a good and bad thing. The good is that it allows people the capability to connect with others without having to spend the time and money meeting up with them. Sometimes in a friendship all there is to talk about is what is new in their lives and how things are and meeting up is not necessarily needed. The bad thing about cyberspace is that it takes away from the intimate emotions that come as an attachment to the friendship. If two lonely people only talk to each other online and never meet, it is possible that a great friendship, or more, is being sacrificed. Cyberspace becomes this barrier between people and friendships, although could be massive in numbers, lacks intimacy.

Week 12 - Rules of Disclosure

The section in the text book that covers disclosing personal information really intrigued me because I applied it to my own personal experiences and I must say, Trenholm hit it on the nose with this one. Disclosing with confidence to someone is always a major risk no matter who it is that you could be talking to. Some of the closest people in your life can really turn on you and expose your personal business to anyone at any time. The scariest part is that you do not know that until it actually happens AFTER you have already told them.

I reflected back to some of my own friends who randomly share things with me when the moment is inappropriate and I will admit that I do not keep their information to myself. I go around and I start to tell so many people about their personal information, but that is not 100% my fault. It is actually mostly their own fault for sharing sensitive information at the wrong time. A particular situation where it was not my fault and actually their fault was when me and few friends went to a bar. We drank a lot and we had a good time and we talked about the typical guy stuff. The night was going well, when out of nowhere the designated driver (who happened to have a few beers in him, bad I know) started to vent about his girlfriend drama. He shared that his girlfriend has a father or uncle ( I do not fully remember) who disrespects him and one day threw bones at him while they were eating lunch or dinner. As sad or messed up as it sounds, I laughed so hard at him. That night I had so many beers, I'm having a great time, I want to relax from a long day at work and out of nowhere I hear this story. How was I supposed to know it was supposed to be serious? Not only that, but I had a fair amount of alcohol in my system so I am not in a state where I can be serious.

Trenholm in this section covers the different rules, which seems to be more like common sense, on the when, how and why someone should disclose personal information to anyone. As simple as these rules are, people should read it just so they can appropriately share personal information and not have to worry if it was the right time or not to do so.

Week 12 - Filters

For me, I feel that I have filters just like everyone else does when it comes to deciding whether or not someone can be a potential romantic partner. I typically find it very attractive when a girl wears Jordan shoes and has a sense of humor. If those two things are not within her traits, then it might take me a little longer to consier this person to be a partner. I learned when I was in high school that I found myself more attracted to girls who wore Jordan's rather than girls who did not, but the of those girls who worse Jordan's I did not enjoy being around them or wanted to talk to them if they did not have a sense of humor. On the flip side, when there were girls who had a great sense of humor, even though I enjoyed being around them I subconsciously was not attracted to them. I met probably a few girls when I was in middle and high school that had both traits and I tried my luck at them but of course, I did not succeed.

Before any of you who are reading go on to disagree or think of me as shallow, I just would like to say in my defense that girls who don't wear Jordan's are NOT ugly to me. I do not think girls are horrible romantic partners based off their shoes, I just automatically have this bias towards girls who do wear Jordan's versus the ones who do not when it comes to finding out if I would like to have a romantic relationship with her or not. There has been times where I meet a girl who wears Jordan's but as soon as I get to know her, I find out the hard way that she is NOT what I am looking for in a partner. There's just something about those shoes that really attract me and plenty of other guys. In the culture of loving shoes, I would say in some cases that shoes can literally make someone physically attracted to someone, I am a product of that theory. The reason I went into such detail with that is because it follows one of the four filters in Duck's Theory.

Duck's theory does make sense to me because I do agree that in order for a relationship to occur, these steps are usually taken, sociological cue, preinteraction cues, interaction cues, cognitive cues. The reason why it makes sense to me is because when I look at my own relationship I have with my girlfriend, we went through this process. We liked the fact that we both went to college, we lived within a minute drive from eachother, our body language did not conflict with eachother's, we were able to hold conversations for long periods of time without any awkwardness and we were open to each other with our own values and beliefs.

When it comes to whether or not I have eliminated sociological or preinteration cues only to reconsider a girl based only on interaction and cognitive cues, I would say yes, very much so. Before I ever got into the relationship I am currently in, I was considering talking to girls who lived far away and/or had body language that did not compliment my own (the way she dressed vs the way I dressed) and only considered in a romantic relationship with them because of the way we were able to talk to each other an enjoy each others company. It obviously did not work out because of the living situation, but that's more than OK with me because I am very happy in the relationship I have now. =P

Week 12 - Hardest pattern to change

When I first read this in the textbook I was seriously undecided about two specific patterns, submissive and symmetrical, in terms of which was hardest to change. I had to really sit back and think about it and although I found reasons for why both were valid reasons, I knew I had to pick one. When I finally came to a decision, I felt that the HARDEST to change is the submissive pattern.

The reason I chose this one over the symmetrical pattern is because the symmetrical pattern is a battle of who wants power and who will get it. When a couple fights for the dominant position, tempers can flare and arguments will eventually arise. One major set back that I saw in this one that does not make it as hard to change is the fact that I have personally seen a number of couples, married and not married, in this pattern. Usually when there is a disagreement over a decision that needs to be made by both sides, they usually have to compromise whether it is meeting the middle of that immediate decision or one partner gets to decide now and the other gets the next decision on something else. This pattern, from what I've seen, can worked around by slightly altering the one-up position for those in the relationship. I think the reason why people are willing to change when they are in this position is because their love for the other person is greater than their desire for dominance. On the contrary, some people love the other too much to establish dominance.

The reason why I feel that the submissive pattern is the hardest to change is because, I have seen this in couples, but only the non-married ones, and I am yet to see one of these kinds of couples get married. They never make a quality decision without getting approval from the other person. Nothing moves forward until both can not only agree but make sure that the other is happy with the decision. It seems that both are scared to take the dominant position because he/she does not want the other person to feel bad or controlled. When I am at work, selling a TV to a couple or family that comes in, the ones that take up most of my time are the ones who cannot seem to make a decision because person A is not showing any interest and will take what person B wants. Person B in this situation will not choose a TV until person A makes a decision as to which one he/she likes.

For example: A man and a woman came in and the man wanted a TV with certain features, which we had a few that fit his description. So far so good. Then after a few minutes of talking about it, the man asks the woman which of the three TV's she wanted. She did not care, she just wants a TV. The man kept asking which one and the woman kept replying by telling him to pick one he wants instead. Then they got into an argument in front of me, the man started saying that he wants her to pick the TV she wants since she will be watching it too, then the woman said the same thing back. The end result, they left the store without buying a TV because they could not decide on which one to get because neither wanted to get a TV the other might not like.

That is just one example of many that I have seen, and in my particular case, my girlfriend and I go through something like this too and we end up fighting over it. A simple example would be when we both cannot decide where to eat. It will be 6:00pm and we end up eating somewhere around 9:00pm or not at all because we both would continuously say to each other that the other should pick. I think this is the hardest pattern to change because both people will always feel bad for trying to be dominant.