Building Sibley Day

I know when the concept of Sibley Day was announced, there was a portion of the student body who thought: No School? Sweet. Wait, you want me to attend a seminar? Yeah right. I was not one of those people. I thought the concept was a wonderful idea and I planned on attending several activities.

I ended up attending two. The first was a lecture on making the most out of a resume. That was helpful (no, I’m not being sarcastic, it really was a good use of my time.) The second one was less clear on the pamphlet: “Art - a found objects sculpture happening.” I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew it was about art, therefore, I would like it.

It was outside by the flag pole near Roemer. When I approached the spot, there were several people securing a wooden arch to the ground. Next to it was a large assortment of random objects: traffic cones, computer parts, toys, decorations, wire, bike parts, a sink, plastic bottles, pipes, etc. The small crowd of art majors that had gathered was overjoyed when we were told we were all going to make our own sculptures with the objects and attach them to the wooden arch.

Everyone scrambled around nailing and cutting and wiring things together. I spent a good portion of my time sculpting a fisherman out of a tennis ball and a Dr. Pepper bottle. After attaching it to a lifejacket that was already nailed to the arch, I helped other artists with their projects.

The small crowd of artists grew larger as the time went by. We even attracted a fairly decent crowd of spectators. Working on this sculpture was so exciting. I was happy to be a part of it. I thought making this, and working with my hands was much better than sitting in a seminar. I’m not saying the seminars were bad. Many of them sounded interesting, but coincided with the sculpture time. I really felt like I was celebrating Sibley Day to the fullest by participating in this event. And every time I walk past that glorious arch, I feel a sense of pride knowing I put I piece of myself into it.
My own contribution: Tennis Ball Fisherman

So you want to be a journalist

If the world of journalism and being a reporter fascinates you, grab a back pack; you’ll be in college for the next 4+ years learning the tricks of the trade. Or you could simply grab your lap top in the next four minutes and blog about anything you want. Granted, you will not be considered a “professional,” but it doesn’t take much to make a person a “citizen journalist.”

You may have acted as a citizen journalist without even realizing it. Like to blog about current events on your free time? Congratulations, you have participated in citizen journalism. A lot of things you do on the internet can be classified as citizen journalism as well. The article you wrote for Wikipedia, those videos you post on youtube, even those comments you leave on your favorite news site can all be classified as citizen journalism. Even your vacation footage can end up becoming a part of the citizen media collection. On September 11, 2001, when the first plane hit the tower, there were no news crews anywhere near the area. The footage of the first attack was shot by regular people with home video cameras.


Citizen journalism allows all people to express their opinions and share information with the world. It is a wonderful tool, especially for women and minorities (who are often over looked in the professional journalism world) as well as teenagers and college students, to have their voices heard.

If you’re looking for your fifteen minutes of fame, keep in mind that very few citizen journalists will have their name recognized for their contributions. With the billions of blogs on the web, your chances of standing out are pretty slim. Although, at times anonymity can be used to your advantage. Bloggers of controversial subjects are able to create a false screen name to protect themselves from their objectors. On very rare occasions, some citizen journalists can be famous. The most famous citizen journalist right now is probably “Joe the Plummer” who is currently in the Middle East “reporting” for an online news site. If fame is what you seek as a citizen journalist, wait for the next presidential election and become a candidate’s poster child first.

But in all seriousness, citizen journalism has its critics. Most criticism comes from reporters and journalists, people who went to college and studied journalism. Of course they criticize citizen journalism. They get paid for their expertise and if people prefer to get their Middle East reports from a plumber, they loose a portion of their audience. While traditional media will give us reliable facts, professional journalists should not disregard the citizen reports as uneducated babble from journalist wannabes. Any news station can deliver the facts about Hurricane Katrina: How did it happen? What was the cost of the damage? What is the government doing as a response? But it is the ordinary citizens who can deliver the emotional side: What was it like to loose a home? How are you receiving help? Did your friends suffer similar loss?

The events we see on the news affect every person in a different way. Citizen journalism allows everyone’s viewpoints to be heard. Not all media is blind to this fact. MSNBC actually has a webpage that gives ordinary people topics to blog about such as the war in Iraq. This major news corporation understands that citizen journalism doesn’t take jobs away from professional journalists, it simply gives us a broader view of current events.

Return to the Tribe: a Marshall McLuhan theory

Among many of Marshall McLuhan’s media theories is the theory of the Global Village. This is a theory about how the media makes our world more connected and shortens the distance between all people.

Most people might assume this new closeness is due to new advances in transportation (jets that travel over 200 miles per hour) and technology (video phones), but the media plays a bigger role in this new global closeness than we might realize. How did we find out about Hurricane Katrina? Flood victims did not call us on the telephone to let us know what was happening, media did. If one city suffers a tragedy, the entire planet can know about it while it is happening simply by turning on their televisions or computers.

Marshall McLuhan’s global village theory says that before media, ancient man depended on each other to survive, forming tribes. As humans grew more civilized they began to write: books, newspapers, magazines. According to McLuhan, “print is the technology of individualism.” McLuhan favored print media because it allows humans to remain individuals. When electronic media emerged, McLuhan said humans took steps backward into the same interdependent tribes of pre-history.

According to McLuhan’s theory, the more technologically advanced we become in our media, the more primitive we become. How is this possible? When humans depended upon tribes for their survival, they shared similar beliefs. If one tribe member experienced a tragedy, the whole tribe learned and responded in the same manner. How did they learn about it? Audio. They heard someone tell them about the tragedy. This same thing takes place in this new Global Village (Tribe.) One person suffers a tragedy, and it is broadcast to the world. How do we learn about it? Audio. We hear the newscaster deliver the news on T.V. Hearing the news requires little effort on our part.

Now, in an individualistic society, in a time after pre-history and before the radio, people got their news from print. Not everybody heard the news at exactly the same time. Everyone read it on his or her own time. It required more than simply hearing about it, it was visual. Receiving the news required people to read the text, comprehend what was being said in writing, and seeing it gave people the option to reread it for complete understanding. With the news process being so long as it was, it gave people more time to think about it and form their own thoughts on the subject instead of having it jammed down their throats while it’s happening. This is why Marshall McLuhan believed print to be the media of the more civilized individual man.

But, is being part of a tribe really all that bad? Yes, McLuhan believed electronic media makes humans dependent on one another, which in a way it does. But in a positive light, our smaller world has contributed to more peace negotiations and understanding. It connects people who might have been enemies in an individualistic society. All forms of media have good and bad qualities which is why we can’t just depend on one form. Yes, watch the news on T.V. and surf the web, but don’t forget about the wisdom that can be gained from a book or newspaper. “The medium is the message.” Don’t limit yourself to just one.

Way to spice up a web search, Google

Generation Y, we've all used it: Google. We all can recognize that familiar simple yet colorful logo when we surf the web. Heck, we've turned it into a verb.

Have you ever gone on the site and seen something different?

Yes, it's usually something clever for Christmas or Easter and just recently, election day.

Have you other logged on to see something like this?

Now, most millennials don't really stop to appreciate the creative logo tweak because, let's face it, we go to Google to find things on the web, not look at artwork right? Well, before you hit that search button, maybe you should appreciate that pretty little "Google doodle" (as they've been affectionately called by the creators.)

I came across this lovely little article called “30 Google Doodles We Love: Could Your Kid’s be Next?” The title caught my attention because Google is such a familiar company and as an art major, “Doodles” caught my attention as well. The purpose of the article was to announce a competition for school children to design the next altered logo, but before it announced the guidelines, it took some time to analyze some “Google doodles” from the past ten years.

You may not realize it, but most Google doodles have a reason behind them. Christmas, Easter, Veterans Day, etc. Those ones are obvious. Google Doodles often recreate pieces of art in the logo design.

It may seem like a clever design, but it is also a tribute to the original artist. Logos inspired by artists like Michelangelo, Picasso, and Munch are used on the birthdays of such people.

Google also celebrates the birthdays of other historical people such as Albert Einstein, Gaston Julia (the mathematician who devised equations for fractals), Louis Braille, Ray Charles, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Google even takes the time to celebrate the anniversaries of historical events such as the 50th anniversary of understanding DNA, the 50th anniversary of Sputnik (the first man-made orbiting satellite), and also the 50th anniversary of NASA.

What is it that makes Google different from other media? There are hundreds of other search engines on the internet. Most of them contain other pictures and text on the page besides the search engine. Often the pictures and text deal with recent news stories, shopping tips, or sports news. You’ll never see a tribute to a famous artist or scientist.

Even with a simple logo change, Google reminds us where we’ve come from. If it wasn’t for great people like Einstein our world would be much different. While other media are glorifying current events, Google is glorifying history.

So, thank you, Google, for taking the time to remind us of our past as well as giving us something pretty to look at when we surf the web.

Freedom of the Press=Freedom of Individual Thought

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press get used as an excuse whenever we feel our rights threatened. Any censoring by the government and we whip out the First Amendment. We often forget why our forefathers made freedom of the press part of the first amendment. Censorship was actually well enforced before the First Amendment was passed. During the Revolutionary War, those who publicly supported the king were often silenced by revolutionary leaders. Of course when the country was formed and the Constitution was written, the founding fathers put an end to such practices, right? Actually, no. The government and the press have been battling since the First Amendment was signed and many journalists have been censored because of it. From 1830-1860 during the Ant-slavery movement, many southern states banned abolitionist literature and articles, and even arrested certain people for possessing anti-slavery material. Even during both World Wars, the government flooded media with pro-war messages, banning anti-war journalism, saying it was in the best interest of the American people during a time of war.

If our government ensures our freedom of speech, then why do they interfere during times of crisis? It’s simple really: they understand the power of the press. It has the ability to shine light on the truth, to change people’s opinions, and to even cause riots and rebellions. Many historical figures have known this as well and have restricted the press to gain power. Napoleon Bonaparte said it best: “I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.” He was able to take over an entire country twice and invade other countries because he had so much support from the French people. Of course, he silenced anyone who spoke against him. Adolf Hitler did the same thing and took it a step further by using the press to his advantage. He silenced anyone who stood against him, but also spread propaganda throughout Germany during WWII which glorified his leadership. Hitler even discussed the importance of propaganda in his book, Mein Kampf, saying it was necessary to share the “truth” with the audience. Of course his propaganda did not share the entire truth with the people. If it had, Hitler may not have accomplished all that he had. Hitler and Napoleon gained their power from silencing the press.

So what is it about the press that is so threatening to dictators like Napoleon and Hitler? The most important thing the press does is revealing the truth to the public. It reveals the good and bad of a situation when the leaders only want the good revealed. With a free press, many opinions about a single subject are thrown to the audience every day. With so many options, people are able to chose what they believe. One guy says taxes are good and another guy says taxes are bad. A person hears both arguments and has to decide which one he thinks is true. When you get into a place where the press is not free and all propaganda is one sided, a place like Nazi Germany or Napoleon’s France, only one opinion is being fired at the public. Taxes are good. If that’s the only thing a person hears every day, he’s going to believe that is true. Without the press telling the whole story, human beings become like sheep following the shepherd and believing everything he says. Hitler and Napoleon used this to their advantage.

One could say that freedom of the press gives us the freedom to think for ourselves and form our own opinions. Every day we are bombarded with thousands of other people’s thoughts and feelings: T.V., books, newspapers, blogs, etc. With so many options, we have the ability to chose what to believe, and that makes us human beings, capable of thinking for ourselves instead of sheep blindly following the shepherd.

Welcome to Japan

Most people don’t know the impact Japan has on American media. It may sound absurd to some. A tiny little island on the other side of the planet? But just think about how much pop culture in America came from Japan: Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Toyota, Naruto, and Nintendo just to name a few. Japan has even influenced art. Anime is becoming a popular style even for American artists. Even Japanese game shows are gaining momentum in America.

Truly that tiny island has a larger impact on the world than one might think. With Japan standing tall as a mass producer of global entertainment, it is important to learn the modern culture that a typical Japanese teenager experiences every day. What kind of media is Japan exposed to? How much does America influence Japan? I asked my friend Miyu, a nineteen-year old Japanese girl studying in America, such questions.

I met Miyu in my band class at the beginning of the fall semester, and despite some language barriers, the two of us became friends. Even before a class assignment to interview an international student about media, I have been interested in learning about her culture. It’s usually an even trade. She tells me how Japan celebrates Christmas and then I tell her how we celebrate the same holiday in America. I have already learned so many things from her about Japanese holidays and traditions and have been surprised at how many differences there are. In our conversations, however, we never really discussed media in Japan. So I wrote a list of questions to ask her about Japanese media, and I was very surprised by most of her answers.

Beauty Standards

The thing I was most surprised to learn about was Japan’s standards of beauty. I asked about the standard of beauty because the media plays a big part in what kinds of people we see as beautiful. Gatekeepers show us models in magazines and T.V. (usually thin, busty blondes in America) and we try to be like them with weight loss, boob jobs, and dyeing our hair; and for guys, weight sets to get that Mr. Universe physique. So I asked Miyu what Japanese people were encouraged to look like by the media. She said men and women were expected to be thin, I expected that. She also said that men were expected to be toned, but not overly muscled. I expected that response as well because I have never seen a hulk-like Japanese man. I was surprised to learn, however, that Japanese women are seen as more beautiful with brown curly hair, something that the majority of them aren’t born with. I Googled “Japanese fashion magazine” and saw that, as Miyu had said, the majority of the models were sporting curly brown hair. Is it really human nature to be something we’re not?

Entertainment

I was also surprised to learn how much American T.V. and music the people of Japan watch. Miyu listed many American artists who were popular in Japan including Avril Lavene, Myriah Carey, The Fray, Rhiana, and Sean Kingston among others. “’Bad Day’ [by Daniel Powter] is really popular in Japan,” Miyu added. She also listed High School Musical, Heroes, 24, Hairspray, and Pirates of the Caribbean as popular movies and T.V. shows in Japan. Japan gets a lot of its action movies from America, she told me, while romantic movies are made locally. Our interests in sports differ slightly. While both America and Japan enjoy watching baseball games on television, Miyu had never heard of foot-ball before coming to the U.S. And although we’ve heard of it, televised soccer isn’t as popular here as it is in Japan. America is mentioned a lot on world news in Japan, especially with Barack Obama taking office, and according to Miyu, most news of America is positive. “We like America,” she said.

Japan and America share another thing in common besides entertainment: advertisement. Go to Japan, and you will find just as many billboards, commercials, and ads as in the States. When I asked Miyu what are the top three things advertised in Japan, she said cars, make-up, and food. Some things are universal.

Observing the Millennial in its natural habitat

After reading the Millennials section in Mass Media in a Changing World, and watching a news story about Millennials on the Internet, I have come to the conclusion that the older generation views Millennials as a different species. “They are highly skilled at multitasking and working in teams.” “Millennials are less violent and less inclined to participate in risky behavior…” And my favorite: “They tend to posses short attention spans.” These were all quotes from the text book. While reading it, I felt like I was watching a nature documentary. I could almost picture Steve Irwin saying, “Crikey, isn’t he a beauty!” Or Jack Hannah declaring: “Millennials like to travel in herds across the grassy quad. Notice how the alpha-male t
akes care of the other herd members by sharing the ear-buds for his iPod. Such magnificent creatures!”

The news story took the same attitude, calling Millennials narcissistic praise hounds who have low work ethics. The reporter even mentioned that many work places have training groups to teach older generations how to deal with and interact with Millennial coworkers. One interaction rule was to not use harsh words around Millennials because they are so used to praise, criticism would confuse and anger them. Now, if that doesn’t make us sound like animals, I don’t know what does. Again I picture Jack Hannah saying, “When approaching a Millennial be very calm and quiet because they startle easily. The last thing you want to do is start a stampede.”

Human beings try to make everything easier by classifying many objects into one category. Flamingos, robins, peacocks, and kiwis. These are all “birds.” All of them have feathers and beaks and all of them lay eggs. And it is possible to describe the individual species. All kiwis are brown. All kiwis can’t fly. All kiwis are small. Etc. Well, that is certainly easy to remember and all of these descriptions are true. Human beings even feel the need to classify other humans. Blacks, whites, baby-boomers, millennials. These are all humans. All of them breathe oxygen, have warm red blood, and soft skin with hair. All of these are true. But unlike the birds, you can’t really describe individual categories without using stereotypes. All Blacks are… All Whites are… Filling in the blanks can cause a person to appear racist which is frowned upon in this culture. However, books and television personalities see nothing wrong with doing this to generation categories. All millennials hate to work. All millennials have an iPod. All millennials have a short attention span. Etc. All of these statements apply to some millennials, but it is not true for all.

Why did this classification system work for the birds but not for humans? It was easy to find true statements for birds in general as well as kiwis in general, but finding true statements for humans in general and millennials in general is harder. This is because millennials are not the separate species that the media makes them out to be. Millennials are humans, and like all humans have different personalities, dreams, likes and dislikes and should never be categorized otherwise. A generation shares an age range. That is all. They do not share interests or personality traits. Let me do what the media fails to do: introduce millennials as individuals.
(Names have been changed for privacy reasons.)

Lisa shaved her hair into a Mohawk and wears all black with skull accessories. But she would rather listen to Mozart than heavy metal.

Jane spends a lot of time online talking to friends. But at least six hours of her day are spent practicing her French horn.

Mary goes to college, has a job and spends her money on car insurance, tuition, and other necessities. She is very concerned with her grades and works hard in both her job and school work.

And then there’s me. I have never own an iPod or a camera phone, and I don’t want either one. I spend most of my day doing homework or chores. I have no time to text my friends or talk online. I’d rather talk to my friends in person. I pay attention in all of my classes and I consider myself a workaholic.

I, like many others, am a millennial, and I am a person.