COMM 403 - Feminism: Ladies Of Gotham

Women are frequently objectified in media by being depicted as thin, large breasted, and almost nude. In the Batman franchise, this is apparent in nearly every female character.  Let us look at Harley Quinn, the series' main female villain.

The original depiction of Harley Quinn from Batman: The Animated Series is certainly wearing skin tight clothing. She certainly has an unrealistic body shape. She is not, however, any definition of nude. At this stage of the character's design, her body type is more a product of  exaggerated art style than objectification.

Harley's next depiction, in Batman : Harley Quinn, takes the same design a step further into sexual objectification. She's still covered, but she is much more bent at the waist than before, and Joker's mere touch seems to have put her in the throes of orgasm.

By Batman: Arkham Asylum, Harley has gone from surprisingly clothed to surprisingly not a hooker. The intended realism of the Arkham series makes a woman who was once a doctor of psychiatry into a strange amalgamation of a prostitute and a nurse. 

It's sequel, Arkham City, doesn't make her outfits any more modest.

At a certain point in the game, she is found tied up by one of Joker's henchmen. Throughout the game, henchmen make reference to wanting to rape Harley. Although these two concepts are not presented at the same time, it's hard not to link them in your head. The worst of it is that Harley being tied up is presented as a positive for Batman without any regard for what it means for her. Harley is a villain, villains aren't people, so it's okay to imply the rape of a villain (or so we are told) - except she's not evil. She's a medical professional who does evil things and dresses in tight, provocative clothing in order to avoid the wrath of her abusive, mentally ill boyfriend. 

Harley isn't even the only Batman character objectified for being a woman. Poison Ivy is actually nude for much of the Arkham series, wearing only a button-up shirt that is only buttoned enough to hide her nipples. Due to her part-plant DNA, Ivy's genitals are even in full view at all times, taking the role of a leaf that is the spitting image of a human labia. The other leaves are grown on her body in such a way that suggests panties, but that does not change their status as a part of her body, even a best case scenario presents them as her pubic hair.

Catwoman, who is supposed to be a master of stealth, has decided that massive cleavage doesn't defeat the practical thievery purpose of an all-black bodysuit.

What about the women of Batman who are not half naked? 

Which one? Oracle, the one stuck in a wheelchair and treated as a secretary? The former Batgirl who was shot in the spine by the Joker, thus going from a great example of non-objectified woman to a 1940's stereotype of woman's role?

Or maybe you mean Nora Fries, the cryogenically frozen wife of Mr. Freeze? She's a highly sexualized block of ice that's stolen and traded in the same way one might do to a statue. 

Certainly the woman who was actually turned into an object hasn't been objectified.

COMM 403: Ways Of Seeing: Context

Ways Of Seeing made me very curious as to the impact of context on media. Berger's focus on the context in which we perceive media led to a very interesting trail of thought in my mind.  Berger's work on context with paintings can be extended onto any form of media in fascinating ways. 

A great example of this is the popular television show Arrested Development. It's known for running jokes, inside information, and constant celebrity cameos. The continuity of the program is perhaps the most vital aspect of enjoyment. In it's original run on Fox, it didn't do well for good reason – the common person couldn't keep up with the brilliance of the show at only one episode a week, and god forbid someone missed an episode. When the show was released on DVD, it suddenly had a surge in popularity, and why? The context changed. It was no longer a story that needed a season's commitment,  it became a trilogy of seven hour films. This was much more digestible for the common person. When the fourth season premiered on Netflix, it used it's new medium as a reason to become even more reliant on viewer memory and continuity.

Another media problem solved by new contexts is the historical enviroment of the viewer. Jim Henson's Cube was underappriciated as a primetime film in the late sixties, but when it became a fifty minute YouTube video, it suddenly was seen through the eyes of a generation that understood it's messages about reality and perception. Cube was once seen as a stoner film, and now appears to be a narrative tackling of communications theories on perception. 

COMM 403: Media Studies and Continental Philosophy

Production is a convention that defies art. Typically the arts are about the personal expression of ideas or emotions. Artists work towards self-fulfillment. Production, on the other hand, is differentiated by it's focus not being on the creator, but on the audience. An artist is someone who creates for themselves before audience. A producer is someone who creates for themselves within the confines of audience pleasure. These ideas, however, are not inherent in the definition of the words. By definition, an artist and a producer are one in the same. The difference comes from a cultural prejudice toward these words. A producer is an artist whose work is promoted by thoughtful use of communicative models and media studies, rather than solely by name and imagery.

Continental Philosophy dictates that we cannot define things only in scientific terms (Though perhaps using the word "dictates" is somewhat paradoxical here). A particular stress is thus placed upon history and human condition, and the capacity of people to create change.

In the media, this is manifest in both factual and fictional senses to create meaning. Newscasters clearly have an excellent understanding of this idea. Edward R Murrrow used the historical context of literal witch hunts to chastise Joesph McCarthy and The House Un-American Activities Subcommittee. Murrow's work left both a historical and human consequence on the mind of his viewers. Glenn Beck is notorious for his constant comparisons of Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. Many laymen interpret this as a sign of Beck's ignorance, when, in reality, it is a sign of his incredible mastery of the workings of media. Comparing Obama to Hitler is a quick and easy way to promote a historical image of the President as both capable and willing to commit atrocities.

In fiction, the efficacy of historical context stressed by Continental Philosophy is easily seen in the work of Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and The Newsroom. In The Newsroom, Sorkin made the decision to not only depict real world events, but to depict them at a time when they were out of date. The current episodes depict the days leading up to the 2012 election. Why? Sorkin himself says this is so this is so that "the audience knows more than the characters do". The impact of this is that the audience automatically understands the weight and importance of what the show is tackling. The historical context is both fresh and effective.

352 Extra: Communications Technology Affects Society - The Story Of Feminist Porn.

For as long as I can remember, pornography has been looked down upon for being degrading to women, and with good reason. Pornography was designed for the benefit of men, and the execution of sex on film cared much more for the titillation of the man. Point Of View photography and a cinematic focus on the penis led to an entire form being devoted to a single sex.

Of course, communications technology changed that.

With the advent of streaming video and low cost digital video cameras, women broke into porn. Some of the pioneers of feminist porn were cam-girls: girls with cheap webcams who ran their own live shows on streaming video sites. Unlike in traditional pornography, the girls got to set their own limits and payment. Suddenly a girl could be in total control of her body and still do porn.

On the rare occasion that a man was involved, it was not a stranger or an actor. The men in feminist porn were always a loving boyfriend or husband, and the focus was never on his enjoyment, it was on hers.

But camming has it's disadvantages, and so eventually, live shows have become less popular and a different form of feminist smut came forth: art porn.

Art porn is adult films with an artistic purpose behind it. The most popular of these is Camille Crimson's Art Of Blowjob. The ultimate goal is to bring sensuality back into pornography. Crimson does this with creative cinematography and music that accentuates the love between her and her boyfriend.

Without growth in communications technology, women would not have the opportunities in adult entertainment that they currently do. There wouldn't be porn for women. We have growth in communications to thank for a drift in adult entertainment towards women being equal.

COMM 352 - Government Hacking

I have to say, my first impression of the story we read was something to the effect of "9 pages of government talk about hacking? Really? The government's understanding of hacking is embarrassing. Oh, and the worst of the Die Hard franchise (newest release notwithstanding) is based on it? GREAT."

Then I went to go play some video games.

There, staring at my Steam Library, I realized that the ideas this article was putting forth seemed oddly reminiscent of Uplink.

What the hell is Uplink?

Uplink is a computer game from 2001. The game puts you in the role of a hacker, working for a company called Uplink. Occasionally, one of the side-missions in-game will involve breaking into Government systems to steal data. Other times, you work for the government, deleting stolen data from other servers.

So why is this game around? What inspired Introversion Software to make a game like this?

Once, there was a game company called Steve Jackson Games. They made tabletop RPGs using the popular GURPS system. One of those games, GURPS Cyberpunk, was meant to simulate cinematic hacking on some level. The Secret Service, in it's infinite wisdom, chose to raid the headquarters of the company and confiscate a draft of the game. The raid was illegal. The government was forced to pay SJG a $50,000 settlement. GURPS Cyberpunk didn't turn out to be an instruction manual to hacking the government. In tribute, SJG made a game called Hacker, which reduced hacking to a card-game.

The incident inspired Uplink, and in turn, the recent Hacker Revolution series. It also led to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which protects companies from the government and people from companies in the digital world.

So, yes, we should be prepared for hacking incidents against our government but we shouldn't use security as a reason to control culture.

How about we start by phasing out WEP secured internet? WEP can be hacked in a matter of minutes using little more than a consumer laptop and free software. WPA is MUCH safer, and is already supported by a majority of devices in the world. WEP should not be an option. Not for the government, not for consumers.

COMM 203: Social Media and Autism

View Our Storyboard Here.

Note: Youtube's upload process made the video shake, the stabilization feature on Youtube has been turned on, but it may take a few hours before the shake goes away. 

COMM 360: Living In The Studio World

Where did I start with all this Comm stuff anyway? I've been immersed in this world so long that it's hard to say exactly what got me into it.

Of course, I'm lying a bit here. I got into Comm when I made my first film, Chef's Torment, in March 2010. Of course, one could argue that the work I did with Christian Senn on the later canceled Project-S's promotional material was also a form of Comm. Never mind that though, as Chef's Torment is the relevant piece for this blog post.

 

 

When I first started making short films (which is how I ended up in the Shepherd Comm department), I was often very limited in the actors I could utilize. This meant being in films myself, which often meant using a tripod and very static shots in lieu of more interesting fare. Even when I did have actors, one thing or another (usually chroma-keying on a budget or faking double exposure in post) led to a boring job for cameraman Angus.

Which leads me to a point of contrast: the studio. As we've worked in the studio this semester, I had a chance to do some more interesting camera work. Camera stuffs in the studio is less creative, but MUCH more interesting.

So, I guess it stands out as great to me because I finally got to do one of the most fundamental parts of what I've been doing the past few years.

COMM352 - Hacking For Justice

Anonymous - So named for everyone's favorite 4chan user name, is perhaps one of the most polarizing groups in the world. They've targeted the corrupt (Westboro Baptist, Church of Scientology, 12chan [a child-porn centric spinoff of 4chan]), they've targeted the powerful (Sony, the FBI, Paypal). They are capable of changing the world at incredible speeds.

Anonymous is not just a hacking group. Anonymous is a political idea. The goal of Anonymous is personal freedom. They went after the FBI to stop SOPA/PIPA. They hit Paypal to assert the view that it is creating an online monopoly. The takedown of 12chan (as well as the tracking of several high profile child pornographers) was a very political move.  Anon was upset that the government was not taking adequate action against these criminals, so they used EXIF data to locate offenders and turn them in. They attacked sites like 12chan with DDOS methods and made access to their heinous resources impossible.

This is what freedom is really about. A world without corporate control over your life. A world where the bad are punished properly.

Long live anonymity.

COMM360 - Learning in The Studio

I LOVED working in the studio the past few weeks. I was particularly drawn to a couple of areas of the production.

I would say my favorite job was as talent. I'm know for being a very vocal person, and I do very well when I am being watched. After that, I liked audio work. I ended up doing the soundboard a few times, and I was quite taken with the process of that. I liked doing camera work, but it wasn't nearly as compelling as talent and audio.

I wasn't too excited about the floor jobs. Lighting and audio lost their magic when all I was doing was running wire and flipping switches, but to each his own.

COMM 203: Podcasting About Women In Music

Download Podcast Now

Show Notes: In this podcast, we discuss the role of women in music. First, we discuss Courtney Love and Gwen Stefani's 2004 feud that led to the creation of the song "Hollaback Girl". Next, we touch on the Grammy Awards and the strict dress code that was broken. Sarah brings in a job posting for female musicians, and we discuss Bikini Kill's Riot Girl Manifesto.

Starring - Angus Russell, Amanda Leguizamon, Sarah Myers, Jacob Teague.

And now for our sources -
http://www.onewarart.org/riot_grrrl_manifesto.htm

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/live-in-concert/201301/do-better-looking-musicians-make-better-sounding-music

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/arts/curse-beauty-for-serious-musicians-young-women-find-playing-field-far-level.html

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=789628 

http://www.spinner.com/madonnas-most-controversial-moments/

http://now.msn.com/grammy-dress-code-violations-included-rihanna-and-jlo

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/britney-spears-opens-up-pressures-228539

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery?sid=ad6fcb8c-baca-4abf-b3ab-f938ca4b913a%40sessionmgr114&vid=2&hid=112

http://www.starnow.co.uk/listing/291072

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/blog_post_349_width/2012/02/lady_gaga_grammy_awards.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fash-track/grammy-fashion-lady-gaga-nicki-minaj-289878&usg=__3ZXVaStFHx7sZH9rJp8FMMm5eD8=&h=466&w=349&sz=85&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&tbnid=BjL6uVMuPPmSXM:&tbnh=128&tbnw=96&ei=384bUZKzG5OA0AHCpIG4Bg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dlady%2Bgaga%2Bgrammys%2B2013%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&sa=X&ved=0CCoQrQMwAA

COMM 352: Wifi Everywhere

WiFi is such a ubiquitous term in our society, everything is advertised for it's WiFi capability these days. Of course, now that we have recievers of WiFi signals everywhere, people naturally want routers everywhere.

Hey, Hot-Spots are great. There's enough hot spots in even a small town that you could, with relative ease (and a small investment), you could use WiFi to eliminate your need of cell-phone service. If there was Wifi everywhere, then BOOM, free phone and internet for everyone.

But free WiFi everywhere won't work.

"ANGUS! Hot-Spots work and they're free!"

Let me tell you a little story. Last Summer, I spent a weekend in Indianapolis. Downtown, there's a WiFi network run by the state of Indiana that is accessible anywhere you go. It's called the State Public Wifi, and I used it like crazy.

It was slower than dial-up and told you upon connecting that it's DNS blocks any and all Dating, Piracy, or Pornography related websites. Pretty much what you'd expect in the blocking department, but nonetheless, it was a domain block, so if you knew the site's IP Address, you could still connect.

A few things people don't realize: The government would make a crappy ISP, The more people use a service, the slower it is, and radio waves are finicky bitches.

The government being the ISP solves the piracy issue. Right off the bat, they can block access to any material that allows people to commit crimes. They don't have to fight a middleman. Free Public WiFi would not contribute to piracy because they would block you from pirating.

The speed of the service is something easier to see: Our area has two choices: Comcast or Frontier. Both are massively faster at about 3 am. In the case of Indiana's WiFi, so many people were connected to it, it took the Google homepage a full minute to load. This is because the bandwidth sucks.

That leaves a radio-wave sized hole in the Free WiFi issue. Right now, start downloading a movie. Now put a microwave in the same room as your computer and heat up a Hot Pocket. Unless your router is only a few feet away, you'll notice the slowest download speeds ever.

This is due to the fact that the radiation from your microwave is stronger than the radiation from your router. Now imagine trying to get that free for everyone WiFi anywhere near a power plant, fast food place, or radio station. Hell, go sit in the parking lot of McDonalds and try to get their free WiFi during business hours. Untill you get into the building, you'll notice speeds that would make Dial-Up look AWESOME.

So, you know, maybe try to think of a way to overcome that radiation, make the bandwidth big enough to sustain the whole country, and preserve our right to steal from rich people, then we'll talk about free WiFi.

COMM 352: The Future Of The Computer

Today, I am a PC gamer. The nature of that is a consistently full hard drive. With 500 Gigabytes, I fill 450 with installed games. The future of the computer will change that, in an exciting way.

Two years ago, my hard drive was full of music, but Spotify came about and changed that. I no longer needed to keep Mp3s on my computer, I could stream everything I wanted for free.

Four years ago, I was using DVD Decrypter to save films I had on DVD to my hard drive, then converting them to play on my Iriver h10 Media Player with a 1.5 inch screen. Today, I can sit in the parking lot at Food Lion and find a movie on Netflix to watch on my 4 inch phone in seconds.

The industry is moving towards media that takes up no hard drive space. To this end, the service OnLive could someday solve my dilemma of gaming space. They offer streaming options for video games that use a server to store and render, then send you video feeds of the game while you send them input feeds. The service works better than you think, but it has a few huge drawbacks.

Streaming media can be taken away at any time, without notice. In fact, the only game I'd owned on OnLive was revoked. It's main competitor, Steam, does not work as a stream, but as a download. As such, they don't have to pay the streaming loyalties that OnLive pays. Steam has, since 2007, become the number one gaming download service in the world, while OnLive has been on the verge of bankruptcy several times.

The technology trends are moving to streams, but people would really rather have a permanent copy of things they pay for. Spotify and Netflix work because of a disinterest in re-experiencing films and popular music, but Amazon MP3 will always surpass Spotify in my mind because I feel that I own it more.

So, computer tech will work towards a world without local hard drives, and consumers will resist the hell out of it while also embracing it. That is the future.

COMM 203: Relating With Technology

Last night, I experienced this whole "medium is the message" thing in a very real way.

This past Christmas, I received Nirvana's Nevermind on vinyl record. Last night, it occurred to me that I had not yet listened to all the bonus tracks. So, this being the only medium on which I had those PARTICULAR versions of the songs I've heard a million times (CHECK IT OUT GUYS, in this version, he says "Pay to play" instead of "Stay away"!) I was obliged to bring out the record player. 

Of course, listening to vinyl records when you could get the same experience in a more convienent format, such as, perhaps Mp3 or YouTube or... I was sitting at a gaming PC with a high speed internet connection and I opted to go physically out of my way to listen to the music in a format that was obsolete twelve years before I was born (Also, Nevermind is two years older than me, so there's that). If that's not the medium being the message, then I don't know what is.

You beautiful sonic reproduction utility with your pops and clicks.

Of course, it's hard to imagine lugging around a record player as an extension of myself. For that, I have my MacBook. It goes with me everywhere and I use it for everything. Of course, the primary way one uses a computer as such an extension is the ability to, like, um, not... remember... hold on, gotta Google this... oh yeah, NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING OR LEARN EVER.

An excuse for me to use xkcd as part of school? Yes please. (Yay for Creative Commons!)

So, I'll admit to doing the whole internet as an extension of knowledge thing. On a certain level, it's good, but I'd hate to see how smart people are without being able to look everything up in five seconds.

I have to say, the biggest way I interact with that thing you youngins call the "information super highway network web blog pancake" is purchasing digital download games. Now, here's a little graphic I made to explain how insanely amazing and global village-y that process is.

I can communicate fast enough with the world that I have, on multiple occassions, bought products from a store based in London, had them tied to an account on a server in Seattle, and minutes later had the product downloading to my computer here in WV. 

The global village thing is also a lot of the reason that an awkward person like me has a number of friends. One of the people I'm closest to lives in Massachusetts and we can talk on Facebook almost as well as we could in person.

So, all that structuralist or determinist stuff- I think it's overwhelmingly a structuralist world, and, for the sake of arguement, I'll go back to the VCR and Betamax debate, sort of.

This article talks about Blu-ray and HDDVD, and how pornography was thought to be a big part of who was going to win, based on a similar situation that occurred in the VHS/Beta battles. Today, we know that a large part of why Blu-Ray won was, in fact, the other half of a 14 year old boy's interests, not pornography, but Playstation. 

Whether it's adult films or Duty being Called Of, this situation shows that, honestly, we all only will adopt a technology if it allows for, just, an insane advancement in entertainment. Excepting the IPad, which does nothing that a Windows XP Tablet from 2005 didn't do (consider Moore's Law where applicable to actual processing power) when it was laughed out of the market for being a useless luxury. If we have the free will to decide which technologies will win out, then the technology is not responsible for the way our society changes, we are.

COMM 352: Patent Hounds

     OF COURSE the tech companies are doing patent hounding again. The idea of owning ideas is the entire basis of capitalism in the information age. The current patents on rectangular display devices held by Apple are, of course, ridiculous. Most tech patents are.

Windows XP Tablet circa 2005, violates Apple's rectangular display patent filed in 2010.

This is nothing new. In the 90's, game companies tried to patent basic elements of game controllers. Nintendo included D-pads and Analog Sticks in it's N64 controller that were subsequently copied by the PSOne controller. Nintendo raised up suits on both counts, but only won on the D-pad count. The Analog Stick was too similar to the most basic of Arcade joysticks. The D-pad win continues to this day, which is why Sony and Microsoft's controllers have much less functional directional pads.

Of course, in the mobile market, the patents can be very restrictive. Patenting thin, rounded rectangles basically eliminates all cell phones currently on the market. That would create a monopoly for Apple, which is awful.

Except, there are three smartphones not described in anyway by the patent - Motorola's Photon and Photon Q are rounded OCTAGONS, and are therefore exempt for trouble. Also, The Kyocera Echo has a folding screen that makes it exempt from this patent.

So, if you have anything besides one of those three phones or the iPhone, prepare to have your phone discontinued as Apple tries to create an evil monopoly, which is illegal, so, FUN.

Patent laws are something I have always been against, clearly, I have good reason.

COMM 203 - Creative Commons

Creative Commons is something I have a lot to say about. Here we go.

Let me preface with some shameful self-promotion. I am a Creative Commons artist. My album, Whores In My Head was released in the CC this weekend. Obviously I have some faith in the system here.

Now let me do some autobiographical rambling that will seem to be a non-sequitur until you get to the end. The only real concert I've ever been to was a folk music show, which is odd for a punk fan to say, but follow me on this. The show was Arlo Guthrie. Arlo's father was Woody Guthrie, who has often been called a communist sympathizer. Why? The words that accompanied the copyright of every song he wrote.

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

If you're versed in modern society, and in what Creative Commons means, you'll recognize that what Woody said to make himself seem communist is totally exactly what Creative Commons and GPL are.

More like Creative COMRADES!

The thing is: this works. Sharing and public ownership are GOOD when it comes to creative endeavors. Which makes sense, because that's how it's always been. Guthrie was called a communist because it was a popular thing to call people at the time, but the truth is, all of folklore and folksong come from the idea of a commons.

House Of The Rising Sun was written over many decades by many people, working and adapting the song until it was nearly perfect. Bob Dylan recorded a version of it, and he had the decency to only copyright the performance. The Byrds covered Dylan's version, and they copyrighted the arrangement. So now if you play the very public domain song House Of The Rising Sun, you better not happen to choose the same key and tempo as The Byrds, or you're violating copyright.

So, in a capitalist society, there will be people who game the system and try to ruin public ownership for everyone (see also "tivoization"), but all in all, the common property system seems to work in creative ventures.

"So, why didn't it work in Russia, Mr. Red Angus?"

Well, there's a difference between sharing songs, which are infinite and dynamic, and turnips, which are finite and bland. People are willing to share culture because it's only cost is time, and the time you spend sharing it is time you spend enjoying it. As annoyed as I was with the endless parodies of Gangnam Style, I recognize that people actually enjoy adapting and sharing that culture. However, when it's turnips or starvation, you bitches ain't gettin my turnips.

COMMrades, I bleed community. So long as the artist is respected, their work should be adapted. If you followed the link to my album above, you'll notice it lacks drums and bass guitar. If someone adds those elements, will I be mad? HELL NO. I'll be ecstatic that someone loved my work enough to improve it. If you download it, it belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me, and it's your duty to enjoy your property in any way you see fit.

COMM 352: Freedom, Digitally

          The recent death of Adam Swartz has brought me to question how free the internet is in reality. I had always thought of the internet as the first true implementation of Communism (It works because there are unlimited resources, as in computer files). The Humble Bundle, Pirate Bay, and Creative Commons, among other web concepts, has led to a free and open world where something's value is based on utility. However, this does not please those companies that use the internet as a source of commerce.

        Which is where we come into net neutrality. Companies like Comcast do not want a neutral internet. Without it, they could prevent access to sites that compete with their business. This, of course, would mean that they could control our perception of media. They could control the audience of Free Speech. In our digital world, the audience and creator are rapidly becoming one. If we limit the power of the audience, we have removed the freedom of the speaker.

    The ability to effectively censor someone's beliefs, whether or not it is harmful to society, is the loss of freedom. If we lose that freedom in the digital venue, it sets a nasty world forward. Companies could end up with far too much control over society. If we are controlled by companies, we will lose those freedoms that a world of limitless gratis media provides.

COMM 360 - Syllabus

The syllabus for COMM 360 is one of the most robust syllabuses I have ever seen. I am excited to begin working in this class. My future plans include work in film, and the ability to work in a studio space will certainly help with that. I need more experience in editing and production if I want to get into this field and know immediately what I am doing. I have other ideas for my life that would be enhanced by the experience of this class, including working on music in-studio among other things. The experience of direction, management, and production that this class provides will benefit my life for a very long time.