Death changes people’s attitudes?

Michael Jackson was the biggest and the poorest star in American history. He had tons of fans and most of his albums received music awards. ‘Fame is equal to rumors.’ Probably Michael Jackson was the star with the most rumors. There were so many rumors about Jackson and people despised and cursed him all the time. He may have suffered a lot from those rumors and what people said about him. People even made songs about Jackson and made him suffer more. I guess being famous is not always good.

That was the attitude of people before the death of Jackson. However, their attitudes toward him had totally changed after his death. They took his death as the most tragic thing in American history and no one said bad things about him after his death. What had changed their minds? It was the media. Right after his death, special shows and documentaries were on the air. They made people took Jackson as the biggest and unforgettable American star. People are so crafty. They made someone to suffer until death and changed their minds after the death. Of course media took a huge part to make it happen. People should realize how freaky they are even though they do not realize.

Commercial War

Football is one of the American’s favorite sports. More than 165 millions of people watched this year’s super bowl game. It was the largest number of people watched super bowl games so far. According to the research of nfl.com, more than 3million people bought a new and better TV set just to watch this year’s super bowl game. It shows how much Americans like football. When lots of people watch TV, it is equal to a chance for advertisers. It cost 100 million dollars per second to broadcast a commercial between breaks. It is much higher than the regular advertising price. People would wonder if it’s really worth to pay that much money to advertise. The answer is “Yes.” Through the super bowl commercials, companies make lots of profits. More people watching commercials means more people know their companies or their products. Nobody would buy their products if they do not know what their products are. Nowadays information is a very important source for customers. Due to the development of the internet, it’s not hard to research about the products people saw on commercial. It does not matter whether they actually buy the products or not. More people know the products and although they don’t buy them now, the possibility for them to buy those products is much higher than they saw the commercial. That’s how companies make profits through their commercials.

Toyota is in trouble

It’s been couple years since the problem of Toyota car’s acceleration pedal arose. It would not be a huge issue today if Toyota took care of the problem well at the time it arose. Due to the huge progress in automobile market for past couple years, Toyota became conceited. It made Toyota be in a huge trouble. Couple people had died because of the pedal problem and customers are losing their faith of reliability on Toyota. It hasn’t been so long since Toyota took the most automobile selling company from the General Motors. Toyota finally decided to do recall but it seems that the decision was made little late. Other automobile making companies are using it as a chance to challenge to bring Toyota down from the best car selling company. Those companies are now offering customers to trade in their Toyota cars and drive off their cars with no APR. It’s not hard to see about the problem that Toyota is facing these days on the news. It seems like Toyota needs to take care of their problems before it is too late.

Gossip Girl vs. celebrities in reality

I recently watched a famous TV series Gossip Girl. In the show there are rich high school students living in New York City. They post all the rumors on the website called gossip girl. Weather the rumors are true or not, whatever is on the website becomes a huge issue among the students. It seems a lot like what happens to celebrities in media. There are always some rumors about them and sometime those rumors make celebrities go through a hard time. If the media does not exist, celebrities would not have suffered because of all the rumors. However, media is the source that made celebrities stand where they are right now. The relationship between celebrities and media can be defined as symbiosis. Although media is not always helping celebrities, media is necessary in order for celebrities to exist.

           One of the main characters in the show, Blair, leads to spread out rumors and likes to hurt people she doesn’t like. It can be seen as abusing the power of media. If media is abused, it is possible to hurt many people. As long as media is used in a good way, it will make the lives of people convenient, instead of hurting some people.

Geek if not have a smartphone?

 

As the technology has been growing up really fast, the cell phones we are using pretty much every day have developed as well. So far the highest technology in cell phone field is smartphone. It’s definitely nice to have a smartphone in our hands but I do not think it is really necessary to have one. Smartphone is almost like a pc. Wherever we go if we have enough signals, we can connect to the internet on smartphones.  It’s the art of technology, but what we have to consider is what we have to pay to use the internet. To use the internet on smartphone, extra data plan fee, which is, about 30 dollars, is required. Paying 30dollars per month is not worth the money for some people. People just buy smartphones because others are getting them. Having a smartphone is a trend for today. It wouldn’t look better by having a smartphone in your hand. So if you think that smartphone is not the right choice for you, don’t get one. That’s smarter than following what others are doing.

Students want to go back to college

Due to the rise of tuition, the number of UC students giving up to go to school is rising as well. Compare to last year’s tuition, it has increased about 15% more, which is very hard for students to afford. So what they decide is taking a long break. They work to make money for tuition. It’s understandable that UC schools keep raising their tuitions because of the economic crisis, but aren’t colleges for students. Nobody would decide to go to college if the tuition keeps rising. People used to believe and still do believe that graduating from a good college is likely equal to getting a better job and making more money. However, it is not really true. Today people graduating from good schools, such as Ivy League schools, can’t get jobs. Higher education is not equal to higher work position.

           If students can’t go to college because the tuition is too high, there is no reason for colleges to exist. Colleges are for students. No matter what the reason is students must be considered as the most valuable and the most important element to compose colleges. So colleges better find the ways to reduce the tuition bring their students back.

People in Haiti today…

After the tragic earthquake in Haiti, people lost their homes, families, and friends. Due to the destruction of the houses, people are now living on the streets. They call the streets as their new homes. Ancelot Jean is a father of his six children and a husband. The earthquake took his family home away from them. They cook meal on the side walk and hang their clothes to dry. Just like Jean’s family, today people in Haiti are suffering from hunger and despair. They are losing their hopes more and more every day. After natural disasters, there are always some people suffering. The sad thing is that they can’t blame anyone because natural disasters are something that people can control. Anyway they definitely need some helps and we can be their helpers. Any donations will help them to escape from hunger and to be hopeful. Now is the time for us to help them to rebuild their houses and live with hope.

Fantasy vs. Reality of Celebrities

It’s been about a month after the sudden death of Britney Murphy, a famous Hollywood actress. What media protests is that the cause of her death was drugs. Why does death of someone become a big issue? It’s all because of fame. Nobody wouldn’t want to know the death of somebody not famous. On today’s yahoo news, there was an interview from Murphy’s husband and mom. What they said on the interview is that Murphy did not use drugs or alcohols. According to her husband, she had mitral valve prolapse, a common condition where a heart valve does not properly close, but doctors said she will live a long healthy life. Also her mom said that Murphy had a fear of dying. She wanted to live healthy, so she would not even have a glass of champagne on New Year’s. The family of Murphy is going through a huge pain and media is giving them more pain. Just like this being famous is not always good. Then why does everyone want to be famous. It’s is because they want to receive attention from others. They just feel good by getting attention. That’s why still so many people are dreaming of becoming celebrities. They believe once they become celebrities, money and fame automatically come all along. However, such as Murphy’s case, becoming celebrities can be a pain sometimes. Fantasy is just fantasy. In reality, it’s different.

The N1H1 flu is not dangerous anymore?

The N1H1 flu has been a huge issue for last couple months but today people do think that it is not dangerous anymore. Why is it so? It is because news does not mention about it as much as they used to. According to the WHO (World Health Organization), by today, January 14, the number of people who have died by the N1H1 flu is 10,279. It is 579 more people than last week. It shows that the N1H1 flu is still dangerous and we should be cautious. If what people saw on the news is not mentioned anymore, people believe it is not a problem anymore. People easily take whatever they see on the news as actual facts. That is why it is important for the news to always broadcast only the truth. If the news gives the audience any wrong information, audiences will believe what they saw is the truth. Anyway the N1H1 flu is still dangerous and the news do not mention about it because people would worry about it too much. However, what I believe is that the audience has the right to know the truth. So no matter what the reason is, news let the audience know what is going on.

Felt the power of media through Avatar

When I first saw the trailer of Avatar, I thought it as just another dumb 3-D animation movie. My friends and I decided to not to see Avatar because the trailer did not make us that interesting about the movie. However, there was something that changed my mind. That was the media. One day  I  just turned on TV. There were two girls siting on the chair and talking about how good the movie, Avatar is. I switched the channel because I was not interested in hearing about the movie, but on the channel I just switched, James Cameron, the director of Avatar, was being interviewed. That made me wonder if Avatar is that good. It should be so good to be enough to be mentioned on two different channels at the same time. So I decided to just watch the interview and  what made me the most interesting was the money spent on Avatar. More than 300million dollars were spent to create Avatar. It was the most money spent money I’d ever known. So the movie should be good to be worth for the spent money. I called my friends and we went to movies to see Avatar that night. My friends also wanted to watch it because they heard so many times on TV that Avatar is  good  and it made them wanted to see it. I was so surprised about how powerful media is. It changed our minds and made us to watch the movie.