What Makes a Good Blog

There are many ways to do good blog writing, here are the top 10 tips to good blog writing to help you with your blog writing, and they are:

• Make your opinion known
• Link like crazy
• Write less
• 250 words is plenty
• Make the headlines snappy
• Write with passion
• Include bullet point lists
• Edit your post
• Make your post easy to scan
• Be consistent with your style
• Litter the post with keywords

Another thing you should think of, is don't just write stuff, then it will look like a sea of words, and will look like it will take too long to read it, so people won't even bother reading into it. The best thing to do is put pictures, videos, and voice clips/or music clips, anything you can do to get away from just words. That is the one thing that helped me with my blog, is that when I just had the sea of words, I didn't even want to read it, so I decided to put in some pictures and a couple of video clips when it was appropriate.

Work Cited

Rowse, Darren. ProBlogger. 30 Dec. 2005. 16 Jan. 2008 http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post

Hip Hop: Masculinity, Power, and Dominance

You never really think how anything influences yourself and others, but I realized that music really influences people a lot by watching this documentary. Young rappers who are trying to make it in the business think that being rude, and raping about how they are going to kill someone, and how the are going to rape their women, is the only way that they will be able to make it. Its sad because it is true, but it should not be like that, because when you see the rap videos, it is just degrading women, which we think that it never goes on, but it does. When the young kids watch those videos they may grow up as not knowing anything else but degrading people or women. Though it may influence each man differently, it will still influence them in one way or another. Rappers always rap about homosexuals and how it is wrong, and how that if you are a homosexual you are a “pussy” or a fag” You may notice that the men in society try to be better then the other man, but it is the total opposite for women, they are trying to be the same as other women to fit in.



What Russell Simons said about how poetry reflects society so really it is the society that is the issue and not the music. I do not agree with that one bit, because not every male degrades women like how it is portrayed in the music videos. People who listened to hip-hop or rap over 50 years ago were called a certain name though I cannot think of it off the top of my head. So if music has changed since then it obviously can change back, some of the hip-hop artists are already starting to change like for example Chamillionaire, his new album was able to hit stores without the parental advisory label on it. I think that if more people step up and show the other people what this music is doing to our society, I think it can start to change other artists, and then the album record companies may refuse to put their name on an album that has to have a parental advisory label on it.

Work Cited
“Hip-Hop.” 27. March. 2007. Online Image. Culturite. 10. January. 2008

Photo Manipulation- How Much is to Much?

Knowing that almost all photo's in the magazines are manipulated to make the celebrities look bad, fat, or anything they can do. Every time I see a photo in the magazine I think to my self how badly was this manipulated? Is this even real?



As for O.J Simpson's case, the photo was manipulated to make him seem angry, mean, and like a murderer. The two magazines you see below are Newsweek, and Time, the Newsweek photo of O.J Simpson is the actual mug shot of him, and the Time magazine is the mug shot that was manipulated to make him look like a murderer, and to make him seem guilty because he looks so run down.
The Time magazine has the title of "An American Tragedy," it is almost saying, the day he is found not guilty, will be the worst day ever for Americans.
Though I do not agree with manipulation photographs, especially when it comes to making some one look uglier or fatter, but there really is nothing we can do about it because, they will say that they are not manipulating photo's but we will never know. Manipulating photo's also takes away the saying "A picture means a thousand word," it is more like a million words, because of everything you can do to the picture now-a-days.

Work Cited
“Metropolitan Magazine.” 30. September. 2006. Online Image. Heroin Chic and the Power of Photo Imagery Manipulation . 10. January. 2008

“O.J Simpson.” 19. October. 2007. Online Image. Top 15 Manipulated Photographs. 10. January. 2008

Weekend Full of Media

Friday:
-heard music blaring on the bus ride home, it was some screamo music
-I saw a commercial for the new reach brush, does it really work? They make it seem so believable but how can you tell if it is real?
-On my way to work i saw a bunch of billboard ads, some of them were for the new ipod, it made me want the new ipod nano

Saturday:
-I went to an engagement party, and the media that influenced me was the music from the karaoke machine, and the songs were stuck in my head for the rest of the night, some of the songs were Reflections by Christina Aguilera, Hero by Enrique Iglesias, and Time of Your Life by Green Day.

Sunday:
-I went to block buster to rent a movie and I saw a bunch of ads for games, such as Halo 3, Guitar HeroIII, Call of Duty 4, and advertisements for the new Wii.

I do not think anybody knows truly how much media influences our day-to-day life. Over the course of the weekend I found out so much influences my life, and that was just over a period of a weekend, just imagine how much it is over the course of your life time, from sitting on the computer and seeing the pop-up ads, that influences you, hearing other peoples stereos in their car blaring.

Media Inventory

Think about the way you use media in your home. Consider each column of the graphic organizer and indicate how it relates to each media tool.

1. Which family member uses it the most?

2. Which family member uses it the least?

3. Use is restricted?

4. Use is unrestricted?

5. Used mostly for entertainment?

6. Used mostly for homework?

7. Expensive to keep running?

8. Cheap to keep running?

1. List your family members and indicate their favourite media tool (hardware, or software)

Sister- My sister's favourite media tool would have to be her cell phone, and computer, because with technology today, you are able to go on to MSN, facebook, and anything else on your cell phone.

Mom- My mom's favourite media tool would probably have to be the television, because all of the new reality t.v shows that come out, she gets addicted to, if there is a specific time for a show, she will be there, for example, Survivor on Thursday nights, she plans her day around it just so she will not miss anything.

Dad- My dad's favourite media tool would also have to be the television because he likes to watch all of the shows like Mythbusters, and How its Made.

Me- My favourite media tool would have to be my cell phone because I can do so much on it, like go on msn, go on facebook, and take picture's/video's

2. Which is the least favorite? Why?

Sister- My sister's least favourite media product would have to be the house phone because she thinks why should she use it when she has a practically good cell phone in use.

Mom- My mothers least favourite media tool would probably be her cell phone because she does not know how to use is nor does she ever have it on, because when she is at work we can call her there, and when she is at home she just uses the house phone.

Dad- My father's least favourite media tool would have to be the computer because he has no clue how to use it, and he is one of the people who are the one finger type.

Me- My least favourite media tool would be the house phone because I never use it, I am always on my cell phone.

3. Do children of different ages or sexes prefer different items? Why?

Yes, children of different ages, and sexes prefer different media tools, because teenage girls want nothing to do with television, because they are always on the computer, or on their cellphones. Just teenagers in general do not use the telephone, because they are never at home enough to use it, and they have their own cell phone so they would just use that. Younger children may lean towards the television more with this generation because it is basically becoming their babysitter, when the parents just don't have time to deal with them.

4. Which item is used most? Why?

The media tool that is used most would have to be the cell phone because it goes on the internet, and takes pictures and videos so there really is not much sense to go on the computer.

5. Which item is used least? Why?

The media tool that is used least would have to be the house phone because all my friends know how to get a hold of me and that is on my cell phone, or just message me on MSN, which also is on my cell phone.