Global Media in a Digital Age

For my multi-media project, I used TikTok and my podcast to cover baseball.  We had to use at least two different forms of media to cover a topic or tell a story, so I felt that revitalizing my podcast, One Chief and a Guy , was an obvious pick for one of the forms of media.  Also, I have experience with posting on TikTok and just using the app, so I figured doing something with TikTok would be a good choice as well.  I chose baseball as my topic because it is pretty much what I'm most passionate about in life, and I have extensive knowledge in that subject, so coming up with content wouldn't be too much of a difficulty for me.  Also, my co-host of One Chief and a Guy is also a teammate of mine on the North Central baseball team, so baseball would be something he could talk about on the podcast as well. My teammate and I were excited that we had an excuse to record some podcast episodes so we recorded an episode at the first opportunity available.  We reserved o...

 I think I speak for pretty much anyone when I say I'm ready for this COVID stuff to be over with.  I'm tired of masks, I'm tired of not being able to go everywhere I would want, I'm tired of hearing about vaccines and politics.  People can go on about how much negative COVID has brought to the world.  Too many people died from the virus.  However, I think the lockdown helped shape me into who I am today.  It was months of sitting around by myself (if you don't count my parents and brother) so I pretty much had every part of me vulnerable to outside influence.  While some of it sucked, I was able to extract some good things out of this period of time.  I learned a lot about myself and my relationships with other people. The main thing I learned is that my introverted mindset is not worth it.  Remote learning was a disaster in my opinion.  Being completely honest, most lectures went in one ear and out the other when listening to them in b...

We are living in the middle of the rise of social media.  As a result, misinformation and disinformation are spreading much quicker than before.  Everyday citizens each have their own digital footprint; each citizen that has access to social media has an influence on the content that circulates through the social media platforms.  Many people enjoy clutching their pearls when it comes to their first amendment rights.  As we all know, the first amendment grants US citizens the right to pretty much say whatever they want AS LONG AS their speech isn't a threat to the safety of the American people. An issue that I keep bringing up in my assignments, my blogs, and my participation in class is that truth is a relative term.  Truth can mean one thing to someone and a completely different thing to another.  People have their biases that dictate what they see as the truth.  This is dangerous because, tying this back to our digital footprints, social media users...

I was late to the social media game thanks to my parents.  I never really had any fancy social media related technology when I was young (pre-teen).  Smart phones, tablets, iPod touches, and other early technologies were around when I was in 4th and 5th grade.  As much as it was kind of a downer to not have a phone at that age, it was probably a good thing I didn't have my head in a screen that early on.  Yeah you look like a dork to your friends, but nobody knows their best interest at that age. In the Netflix Documentary, The Social Dilemma , we hear about the addictive nature of social media and the things our smart phones and other technology do for us.  Almost everyone has a phone in their pocket that takes their attention away from the physical world in front of them.  Phones were originally just for communication with other people; more specifically, verbally speaking to one another.  Later, texting was added to allow for quicker and more conven...

Veteran stand-up comedian Dave Chapelle recently performed a show for a Netflix Special called The Closer .  For decades, Chapelle has been known for his edgy and dark humor, which includes making jokes aimed at certain marginalized groups.  He isn't afraid to make an audience laugh at the expense of those groups.  Chapelle constantly uses the N-word in many contexts ranging from casual conversation to deliberate racism (in other words, he sometimes brings out the "hard R") and is known to say 'bitch' in just about every sentence.  So clearly, he doesn't have much of a filter and in turn, he can say some gutsy jokes.  He also starred in some movies, such as Half Baked and Blue Streak to name a couple. In The Closer , Chapelle includes stories and punchlines about various groups, such as the LGBTQ community.  Chapelle's main talking point in the special is how LGBTQ rights have advanced far quicker than racial justice.  He constantly compares the stru...

I was raised in a household of video games.  Having two older brothers, I was exposed to most gaming consoles that existed anywhere from the 80s to the current consoles.  My oldest brother is 31, so he has been around for most of the development of video games ever since the first 1 v 1, 2 dimensional tennis game was created.  My other brother, who is now 25, was exposed to those games just as I was, except he really enjoyed them.  He enjoyed them more than the next guy.  So not only did I grow up with a brother old enough to experience most of the old game consoles, I grew up with a brother who was infatuated by them.  Therefore, I have played a wide variety of games and used a wide variety of gaming consoles in my life.  So, I will list my favorite video game for each system I have used in my life, from oldest to newest. The oldest system I have used is an Atari 2600 .  This device is just a box that plugs into a TV via RCA cables (the red, whit...

When I was younger, I would watch cable television just about everyday.  I would flip from Nickelodeon to Comedy Central to Comcast Sports Net to Animal Planet.  Every now and then, I would use my cable provider's "On-Demand" option to choose certain shows to watch, but the selection to choose from was very limited.  Now, through media convergence, all media forms are available however we want and whenever we want.  A few taps on a smartphone screen can bring us to a news article, a video game, or a tv streaming service.  People no longer need to flip through channels and wait for their desired show to come on; they can find their favorite shows on various streaming services. I have noticed lately that I don't use cable television unless it is for watching a sporting event (Marquee Network made it more difficult to watch Cubs games, but luckily they partnered with Xfinity last-minute).  Even then, North Central doesn't offer cable television anymore, so I h...