August 26, 2009
So, right now I – Alex Ewald, star freshman – am trying to start my Mass Comm. homework, my first real college assignment. It’s really a big moment for me, so I’d appreciate some sympathy here.
Anyway, back to the, quote, “Mass Communication, Culture, and Media Literacy,” otherwise known as Chapter 1. That’s the simpler way to refer to it, so we’re just going to go with that. This chapter opened with a reference to Kanye West, as “I,” in this hook apparently, get out of bed to the clock radio playing “Stronger.” I then apparently hear an ad for Fry’s Electronics (you know, the one with the crazy computer chip that flies all over the place?) and then walk into my currently-nonexistent living room to see the TV blaring news that the Supreme Court turned down an affirmative action appeal. I even happen to put on Levi’s and an American Eagle pullover, which is pretty much my favorite store so… I like that part. But I don’t wear Levi’s, and our TV is still in the box until this weekend.
As a college freshman, this book has already done for me what no high school textbook has done before: Gotten me interested. It has taken relevance to a whole new level. Back in high school, if a class textbook interested me, it was probably a fluke. Back in high school, a class textbook was the kind of thing I tried to avoid looking at, sort of like pulling your gaze away from the sun, or a PDA-infested couple of horny monkeys in the hallway.
But that’s not the point. This college textbook is trying to teach me what culture is, and how it’s messaged and interpreted by each one of us about a thousand times a day, or probably more.
From what I’ve learned (not from just this chapter), communication will never be something that can be avoided, just like the sun or PDA. As long as the apolcalypse never comes and wipes everyone out on the planet except for maybe me and Taylor Swift. But, then again, of course she would talk to me. I’m thinking more like my sophomore algebra teacher, because I’d prefer to avoid communication with her than with Taylor Swift. But in all seriousness, mass communication is shared, and it creates the foundation for building up a shared culture.
Like today, I was walking back to Couch from History class, where my professor shared communication so much I was ready to end the transmission, when I turned and saw an overly large blackbird swoop down into the basketball court next to Walker, and it just turned and glared at me. This animal then proceeded to open its beak and perk its tail upward, as if to say “What you lookin’ at?” At least I’m pretty sure that’s what went down.
It communicated enough for me to get the heck out of there. And I learned something too, go figure, considering I get distracted enough from homework with my alternate forms of mass media a.k.a. Facebook and iTunes. Hopefully you did too!
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