coreyography88

Media Meditation #8! The “Verizon Guy” is the face or “symbol” of Verizon Wireless and is recognized by consumers all over the country. He was first introduced in 2002, and according to an article written by Theresa Howard in USA Today, “he has helped, Verizon gain market share and reduce customer turnover.[…] The simple ‘can you hear me now?’ question, all too familiar to cell phone users, helped move network reliability up the ranks as a key purchase consideration for wireless users at the time when other companies were shouting about minutes and prices.” Verizon’s brilliant marketing campaign proved to work for the company. However, in today’s society consumers are constantly processing advertisements and media messages, after a while they get bored of the same repetitive images. According to Media and Society written by David Croteau and William Hoyness, “Our attention is on what is being bought and sold, and competition for that attention is hard to attract leads to a continual search for new ways to reach consumers” (64). Finding a new way to reach consumers is exactly what Verizon did. Verizon embarked on a very creative experiential marketing campaign called “Verizon Surprises.” Experiential Marketing is essentially gorilla marketing. It is any type of marketing that is live and non traditional. The first and most important step of experiential marketing is to get the attention of the people around you, and then keep it. Some ways to achieve this is through, street teams, events, face-to-face connections, word of mouth, trade shows, using celebrities, and free samples to name a few techniques. Experiential marketing is a great form of marketing, because it is non- traditional it allows you to think out of the box and really get creative. Verizon sent the “Verizon Guy” and the network to various locations to follow Verizon customers around while they were on their phone. They used “group dynamics” to prove to their cust

Media Meditation # 7 2002 was the first time I had ever seen Jason Mraz live in concert. I had no idea who he was or what he sounded like prior to the show. Once the show was over, I couldn't imagine my life without his music. I have seen Jason, (yes we are on a first name basis, I met him once and now we are best friends) 8 times in various locations. Every single show is entirely different from the last. He makes every performance personal and unique by scatting, breaking out a cover song in the middle of one of his songs or beat boxing. Overall he is very appealing to the limbic brain, talented and can act freely on stage as he pleases. He allows every member of the audience to obtain their own “value message” from his songs through “emotional transfer.” The one thing that remains constant with every show is the atmosphere. The first time I saw him was at a tiny venue, before anyone knew he was, and every show since then has been slightly bigger and bigger. Even thought he no longer plays in small intimate settings, Jason has the ability to make a big arena feel small and personal, which is why I think he is so talented. He engages everyone in the audience emotionally. Jason Mraz unfortunately, does not appeal to everyone. Which is why he has a few top 40 friendly songs. These songs such as “The Remedy” “You and I both” and “Wordplay” upset me because I don’t think they showcase Jason’s talent enough, he is better then these songs! The lyrics of "Wordplay" even say, "For the record label puts me on the shelf up in the freezer gotta find another way to live the life of leisure, so I drop my top, mix and I mingle, is everybody ready for the single and it goes[...] when it's time to get ill I got your remedy for those who don't remember me." I feel like he is making fun of himself in this song. However, if you listen to him play these songs live with an acoustic guitar they are so much better! I feel as if a lot of people don’t give him a

Media Meditation # 6Lindsay, Shelby & Ali at Borders book party aka "Twihards" About one year ago my 16-year-old sister Shelby established an unhealthy obsession with the “Twilight Saga.” The Twilight Saga consists of four books that explore the relationship between Bella and her vampire lover Edward. The series was popular, but didn’t gain much attention until the first book “Twilight” was made into a film last fall, a technological shift. This film is what turned my sister and many others into “Twi-hards” (die hard Twilight fans). The major reason why these young girls are so obsessed with Twilight are the two leading men, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, the “beautiful people” in the film. After seeing the movie my sister began to read the books. She finished all four within two weeks, and only left her room to eat. As I have expressed in the past I am a huge Harry Potter fan and constantly told Shelby that Harry Potter was much better than Twilight! After a while, I got curious and finally decided to jump on the “bandwagon." I made an agreement with my sister, she would read the Harry Potter series and I would read the Twilight Saga and watch the first film. So I watched the first film and thought it was terrible. The “production techniques” were not impressive and the acting was terrible. The only good thing about the movie was the very attractive main character Edward Cullen. After watching the movie I understood why everyone was so obsessed with it. He is every girls “dream man” even if he is a vampire. After watching the film I started to read the series. The series is told from Bella’s perspective, so the readers feel as if they are in a relationship with this mysterious vampire babe! I must confess the series dragged me in and I was hooked. I also read the four books at record speed. The books are entertaining and very emotional at times. As a reader I invested so many of my own feelings into the series that I experien

Media Meditation #5 The first time I saw this video was on Perezhilton.com, a celebrity gossip blog that has a huge following. Perez posted a trailer of the video on his blog and announced when the full-length video would premier. The day it premiered I went to youtube to check it out, proving to be a technological shift. As soon as the music video began I instantly thought Lady Gaga is crazy and I love it! The video was so much more than a video; it resembled a mini motion picture due to its “production techniques.” The video was visually stimulating, used “repetition” of “symbols,” “pacing, timing,” had a good beat and featured “beautiful people,” bottom line, it was entertaining! Lady Gaga is known for being very out of the box with her clothing, videos and performances, which is why so many people like her. She is different and has what people call “shock value.” Lady Gaga’s image makes me wonder how much say Lady Gaga has in her career choices? I wonder if she picks out all of her clothing and the themes behind her music videos. According to Media and Society written by David Croteau and William Hoynes, “the ‘promotional demands’ of music videos help determine what the videos actually look like. In particular, Goodwin focuses on the control of the video by the record company and its chosen director, rather than the musicians. The video versions of songs, in most cases, are the result of marketing decisions made by record companies, not the artistic expression of the musicians” (73). Music videos are also utilized as an advertising platform. In the “Bad Romance” video, Lady Gaga is not only promoting herself, but fashion designer Alexander McQueen as well. Alexander McQueen used “Bad Romance” in his Spring/Summer 2010 runway show and Lady Gaga wore his clothing in her music video. This shows how everything media related is connected. It also shows viewers that they are being advertised to constantly without even real

Media Meditation # 4I feel the media has the ability to warp and influence the minds of women through music, television and advertisements. These various media have the ability to distort a woman’s concept of beauty and "reality construction" through images of “perfection” in the many media outlets. If you actually take a moment and think how many times a day you are exposed to the media, consciously and subconsciously, it is a lot more then you realize. Consciously we watch movies and flip through pages of a magazine. Subconsciously, our limbic brain analyzes images of "Beautiful people" and implants into our minds guidelines of what we should look like. Celebrities, unlike average "plain folks" cannot afford to show any imperfections because interestingly enough the media will criticize them for it. Since celebrities are influenced and pressured by the media to be thin, average women, who base their image on the stars, will follow. However, the "big lie" is that these women in magazines do not have perfect bodies. Thanks to programs like Adobe Photoshop an editor can go in and remove excess fat from a leg, enlarge the model’s eyes or make their lips fuller. Their photographs have been digitally enhanced and altered to create the illusion of perfection rather than an actual person. Even though these pictures are fake and far from a true representation of the human body, women will try anything to achieve this unattainable appearance in any way possible. Some women might be completely comfortable with their bodies, but the advertisements they view have the ability to make them self-conscious. When one is constantly surrounded by these negative messages and images it damages a woman’s self-worth and esteem. According to Media and Society, written by David Croteau and William Hoyness "The most visible ad is the cover of the magazine. The standard image of the ideal woman on the cover suggests that purchase of the magazine will provide clues to how and wh

The facts according to Project Censored 2010....... 1. During the 2008 Presidential Debates Barack Obama and John McCain negotiated a secret contract stating the terms of the 2008 debates. 2. Since 1987 a private corporation called the Commission of Presidential Debates (CPD) has sponsored the Presidential debates and created debate contracts that determined who participated, what questions were asked and who asked the questions. 3. Frank Fahrenkopf and Paul Kirk are the cochairs of the CPD. They are lobbyists for multination corporations. The debates are funded by corporations and used to market products. 4. Fahrenkopf and Kirk's "lobbying practices demonstrate their willingness to protect corporate interests at the expense of voter's interests" (Censored, 90). 3. The corporations donate money to the democratic and republican campaigns but do not fund the independent third party candidates. 4. This makes it nearly impossible for the third party candidates to voice their opinions and participate in the debates, even though historically the third party candidates introduce "groundbreaking ideas." 5. The CPD's formating of the debates prohibits "in-depth examination of critical issues and allows the candidates to recite a series of memorized sound bites"(Censored, 91). Watch this video about the debates! No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates Let's see if this is truly censored............ If you were to type "2008 presidential debate" into the LexisNexis search 999 results come up. Most of the results mention that "Obama and McCain made agreements for the debates." Other results listed the issues that were going to be addressed, what days they would be on, and how the debates would follow a "format." The "format" being the "censored contract" that American citizens don't know about. If you were to type the same thing "secret control over the presidential debate" into the google search bar informa

>Media Meditation #1 Last night October 21, 2009 at approximately 5:38pm I decided to participate in the twitter world by posting my personal thoughts, proving to be a personal shift. I tweeted “can’t wait to dress up like @katyperry for Halloween! So excited! What is everyone else being?” A few minuets later I received a text message from one of my friends informing me that Katy Perry had responded to ME on twitter. Which proves to be quite the technological shift! (A friend texting me about a celebrity responding to me on a social network!) Could it be true? A real CELEBRITY responding to me, a Champlain College student! I instantly signed back on to twitter to see if this was true. Sure enough six minuets later at 5:44 Katy Perry tweeted “I’m gonna b you… creepy. RT@coreyography88 can’t wait to dress up like @katyperry for Halloween! So excited! What is everyone else being?”When I originally tweeted I never thought that she would actually respond to me, taking into consideration she has 1,317,363 followers. I was very surprised/ honored my tweet was “worthy” of a retweet. What surprised me even more was the amount of follower requests I received from people all over the globe after her tweet. Within two hours I received 18 follow requests and 24 mentions, all from Katy Perry fans that were mostly in their teens. They clearly were not following me because of my inspiring tweets. They followed me because a celebrity mentioned me, which is an obvious reason to follow someone right? To take it one step further I made my facebook status “Katy Perry tweeted @ME and I liked it.” Six people “liked” my status and three people commented on it within an hour. The mentions were quite comical a lot of people told me they were “so jealous” or “being Katy too” one person even said, “@coreyography88 will blow it. No worries.” I couldn’t believe the uproar my tweet caused. I couldn’t believe all of these fans took the time to com

Media Meditation # 2I am what you call a Harry Potter enthusiast! I have read every book in the series at least twice, camped out at Barnes and Noble’s prior to the book releases and attended the midnight showings of all the Harry Potter films that have been made thus far. Over the last ten years I have relied solely on my imagination to paint an image of Harry’s world in my mind, a world that I desperately wanted to visit and be apart of. This summer all of my wildest dreams became a reality when I went to the Harry Potter Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois.This exhibit is a traveling exhibit that showcases the costumes and major props from all the Harry Potter films. The way the exhibit was laid out made it seem as if you were attending class at Hogwarts, relaxing in the Gryffindor common room, visiting Hagrid in his hut, and even what it felt like to be in the presence of a dementor. As I walked through the exhibit I recognized things from the films such as the actual goblet of fire and the flying car, and discovered small things such as “Quidditch” flyers, candy wrappers and notebooks that were lost in the background of the films. The exhibit allowed the visitors to see how much detail went into the movies and made me appreciate the films production techniques even more. The atmosphere of the exhibit was also executed exceptionally well. The lighting, music and images appealed to the limbic brain very effectively. The entire time I walked through the exhibit I just kept thinking “this is so cool” because I never thought I would get the chance to experience this emotional transfer first hand.Now why is it that people like me become so obsessed with Harry Potter? A fantasy book series turned into a movie series which proves to be a technological shift. In the book Media and Society written by David Croteau and William Hoyness a study by Ien Ang is discussed to explain f

Media Meditation # 3 January 26, 2009 is a day that I will always remember. It was on this day that I flew across the Atlantic Ocean and landed in “Firenze” my new home for the following four months. Waiting for that day to come was torture. I was excited, nervous and really scared.I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t speak Italian, I knew no one, I had never lived on my own let alone in a foreign country. Luckily my excitement was able to surpass my fear and gave my legs the power to walk onto the plane, and say goodbye to my family that day. What happened after that (my experience abroad) is almost impossible to explain to anyone who didn’t experience it with me. I studied at Florence University of the Arts and went through a program called Study Abroad Italy. I lived with seven other girls in an apartment on Corso de Tintori 6 in Firenze, Italy. The eight of us hailed from all over the United States and established a bond that was unlike any other friendship I have ever experienced in my 21 years of existence. When you are forced to live with others in a foreign country and adjust to the cultural changes and are subjected to the socialization of another culture, you naturally become one another’s support systems. I also traveled, experienced and learned lessons with these girls that I haven’t experienced with my own family. Theses girls are the only ones who will ever truly understand the individual meaning I took away from my time in Florence, Italy. I consider myself lucky to have ended up with such awesome girls as my roommates. However, it was challenging at times being so far away from all my loved ones, and I would like to thank the many social media sites out there for helping me stay so connected while I was so far away. It is difficult and very expensive to call home when you are 6 hours ahead of time. Since I didn’t have the luxury of picking up the telephone and calling home at my own convenience, I turned towards the Internet for al