Old Media vs New Media

Since we've been discussing both New and Old Media I started to think about the advantages and disadvantages and the impact they have on people.

Examples for Old Media are cable television, radio, books and newspapers. Do we still need and use them??? I think, due to the internet could we easily give up on these media. We read the news there, probably much quicker than in newspapers, are able to listen to the radio and can even watch tv. So why would one want to keep up using old media? I guess, some people prefer holding a newspaper in their hand and being able to read it whenever and wherever they want to. Same thing with books: it's much nicer to buy books and have them stand in your shelf than to read them online-your eyes may also prefer that =)

New Media are mainly digital, and often deal with social networking sites. Personally, I am glad that there are such things as New Media Tools because it's a nice way to stay in touch with yout friends and also to get informed about tha daily news very quickly.

But my problem is, that there is such a massive range of New Media Tools that I find it hard to select the best and important ones.

But many people seem to need these tools, as this table shows:

http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.enthusiastgroup.com/files/enthusiastgroup/images/timechoice2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://steveouting.com/2007/05/02/what-would-you-do-with-15-minutes-of-spare-time/&usg=__M2PuNWNC9cvio-OM7UFDe6uh5d8=&h=325&w=400&sz=70&hl=de&start=12&um=1&tbnid=ReuUX-9bROZ7CM:&tbnh=101&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3D15%2Bminutes%2Bspare%2Btime%26hl%3Dde%26rlz%3D1T4GGLR_deDE212DE212%26um%3D1

Howard Bragmann, an American public relations practitioner, writer and lecturer says

and I would agree with him in the fact, that New Media may have less quality in their journalisic work, but are still a good way to read news
My conclusion is that there are pros and cons for both Old and New Media and I myself hope that Old Media will not disappear but stay in our minds and be used by us!!!

Faith in schools?

First of all, have a look at what faith schools are:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/nov/14/schools.uk2

I think this is an interesting topic and worth discussing it. Obviously, there are arguments for and against faith schools, which you can finde here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6986398.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article609028.ece

Personally, I think faith schools should not be forbidden-they just need to be observed and stay in contact with the government concerning their curriculum, especially in order to avoid the teaching of unacceptable faith theories. Faith schools can have a positive influence on children by teaching great values-and they can also help them to understand the countries' culture better. In general, I would say that it is not wrong to teach children a certain faith, because to most of the children it's the faith they have grown up with and it might also be the dominant faith in their communities/cities/countries...
But then foreign children and children without any faith at all might be disadvantaged because their will of freedom of religion is pretty much limited. To avoid this one could install different schools with different faiths, but that would then lead to a separation of cultures. It seems to be a vicious circle.
My solution is to have faith schools, yes, but they should not only teach their own faith but also discuss other ways of faith and therefore give all the children the feeling of being welcomed in that country - no matter what their belief is like!

Thinking about handicapped people...

I found it very interesting when we talked about handicapped people being sexy and attractive and I looked for some photos that have been taken in order to draw more attention to the Paralympics 2008:


Arent't these beautiful???

Moment of Zen 12.05.09

It was mentioned last Tuesday that Google actually signed a 900 Million Dollar Deal with MySpace (advertising). Well, that really doesn't go into my mind. I just can't imagine that being worth it. Google is already pretty famous, isn't it? ;-) Can somebody explain me the point of such an enormous deal and how they are gonna get their money back?

Amazon Kindle

It was pretty funny this week: As soon as I had finish my presentation on books I watched a couple of TV-reports about "Kindle", which enables people to read books without having to buy them but rather download them. You then can save them on your digital reader. Have a look:

http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons-Wireless-Reading-Device/dp/B000FI73MA

Actually, I'm not sure whether I like this form of New Media...Ronald J Zboray wrote in my chapter that the book will certainly have a future and resist all these new inventions, but, as we know, the book was publishes 15 years ago and time changes. Now might come the end of the printed books. I think that is really a bit of a shame since books have had such an important role in history and I just like the look of books standing in shelves-although my shelf is pretty empty ;-)
But I guess on of the biggest advantages is that you don't have to carry your heavy books around anymore. Or if you are on holidays, you can just grab your Kindle, download several books and that's it! Well, that is actually interesting for my Mum, whose suitcase is always pretty full of books =) Never mind...
I found a video from the Daily Show, that might convince you of that invention:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=218392&title=Jeff-Bezos

Remember, most importantly: it can be read with only one hand =)

Moment of Zen 05.05.09

While listening to the presentation on films I was wondering who is in charge for the PG-guidelines. I mean, who decides that films are only suitable for a certain agegroup (if it is not that obvious, e.g. the use of violence) and what do they base their argumentation on? Do they have a valuesystem? What is it like?

Socially dependent???

When I read the text "It's the conversation, Stupid!" by Valid Krebs I was surprised by the fact that voters are that influenced by the people around them and I asked myself whether I would make my vote dependent from a friends' social activities or votings. I wouldn't have thought so, but the more I think about it the more do I believe that I might actually get influenced by these people-even it that only happened subconsciously.
Assume I had a good friend who belonged to a certain party and told me all the good things they fought for I'd probably believe it and support this friend by voting for that party.
But then I (or we) have to aks ourselves whether we oughtn't to be more scrutinizing and independent in order to vote for the parties that support our own ideas and interests.
So this comment leads automatically to the idea og going out and voting, and I found an interesting article by New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/magazine/06freak.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(I'm interested in what you think about the Swiss system! Did you know that before?)

as well as a video explaining the voting system in the US



What do you think?

I'm looking forward to reading your comments =)

1st try =)

I'm gonna put my Moment of Zen concerning the interview with Herbert Gans first:
If our news were more multiperspective, as Gans suggests, would people actually still watch the news? Would they be interested in "small" news, that don't seem that important? Or would nobody watch the news anymore so that they would have to be changed back again?