Extra Credit Blog

*I had never used a blog before this course.

*For me, there were many positive aspects of using a blog in the course.  Firstly, having blog posts for our weekly writing assignments as opposed to the typical paper, helped make me feel more at ease when writing as well as less crunched for time because it was a more relaxed format.   I felt as though the blog allows students to focus more on the actual facts and points they want to express rather than wasting a lot of time focusing on proper formatting such as sentence structure and how “fancy” we sound.

*I never faced much conceptual difficulty with the blog.  The only technical difficulty I encountered was that I never could figure out how to insert a video or advertisement into my blog.  The farthest I could get was attaching a link that you could copy and paste into the URL bar to take you to the page.  I’m not very tech savvy so a quick tutorial on how to do stuff like that would have been helpful.  Although my blog might not have always looked as nice or been as convenient, you could still find it as needed, and I also tried to explain any link I had in depth incase it did not work.

*I enjoyed the blogs at the beginning of the year that asked us to discuss a topic or key term (straight forward) and provide an example.  Sometimes the blogs were a little bit to vague (more conceptual blog prompts) which could get a bit confusing at points, but I never struggled with a prompt too much.  For example, I enjoyed the second blog asking us to define one of the key terms from lecture and then apply it to an example of the term/concept at work in the media.  I’m a big fact person.  I did not enjoy the eight blog asking us to break down a familiar film into it’s three-act-structure.

*Yes, I would recommend the use of blogs in this course again as well as in any other course.  I feel as though it puts a more relaxed feel to the course as well as is a writing form that students of today’s generation is more comfortable with.  It keeps us thinking about lectures throughout the week by typing a blog on them a week later as well as is nice to read what some of the other students in the course got from the lecture and there take on the blog prompt.
*To better improve the blogging experience I would recommend asking students to relate the concepts they discuss in their blog to examples from that weeks screening instead of a random media example.  I don't feel as if the screenings were ever really I big part of the course and this could help incorporate them into the class as well as increase awareness of the films' relevance and understanding of the topic.

I will end my final blog post with “Yes, you can use my blog in a paper or report.”

Globalization and Glocalization

Globalization, as defined by Professor Straubhaar in lecture, is the process of increasing interconnectedness among nations, cultures, and people.  The dominance of the United States in areas of cultural technology, such as film, has led to what many refer to as the “Westernization” or “Americanization” of the world.  The idea of globalization is reinforced by the rapid advancement of technology in the world today.   These new technological developments have made intercontinental communication easier (world wide News networks, Skype, etc), essentially making the world appear a smaller place.

Globalization is connected to what we call glocalization.  Glocalization is when someone will take an idea or formula that has been successful in one place and adopts that idea to fit the culture of another.    One could see this process as a barrier to the idea of cultural imperialism where the US seemingly has started to overpower some local cultures to near extinction, because glocalization is in a sense a way of preserving local cultures. You take one media and change it to suite the culture of another.

Glocalization can be done on a smaller scale but for me where it is most powerful and noticeable is in the film industry.  The United States has “glocalized” several foreign films from many different nations to become major box office hits in the US.  For example, in 2009 the Swedish film Let the Right One In was remade in the US to better appeal to the American crowd as Let Me In, a vampire tale.  Another remake that proved a major success was when the 1968 French film of adultery and the chaos that resulted, Le Femme Infide?Le was remade in the US in 2002 into Unfaithful.  These films all proved big successes across cultures although they were remade to better suit each audience’s cultural differences.

Advertisements that satisfy curiosity-STRIDE

            An advertisement campaign that has currently caught my attention is the new stream of commercials promoting STRIDE gum.  In particular, the commercial promoting their newest flavor of the gum, STRIDE MegaMystery.   In this commercial a man is recording a web blog, about to reveal what the mystery flavor of this gum is.  Suddenly three men riding ostriches burst through the walls of the room to attack the man telling him to “zip it” and putting an end to his web stream.  Pretty funny stuff.  This advertisement is powerful in that it is so completely bizarre it catches everyone’s attention leaving them laughing and confused asking each other, WTF?  It commands attention through this utter bizarreness as well as persuades people to go buy the product to see what in the world the ad was talking about.

            One of the general advertisement appeals that we discussed in lecture was that of satisfying curiosity.  This advertisement appeal usually aims to supply target audiences answers to key questions they might have about a product or gives them a solution to a problem they might have through their product, but other times the appeal to satisfy curiosity takes on a different tactic.  One where the advertisement will do something so odd and unexpected that is raises curiosity about the advertisement and thereby the product itself.  We see an abundant use of this type of “satisfy curiosity” appeal in many of the commercials that air during the super bowl.  Everyone is fighting for your attention so the idea is to make your ad more bizarre than the last and it will stick in your target audience’s heads; they will be curious about your product.  This is every advertisers goal; raise curiosity and get them thinking about your product.  If they are thinking about your ad while shopping and pass by your product they will be more likely to pick it up and explore just what your product is.  I know for me personally, as long as the price difference is not too large, I tend to choose my product purchases for nominal things such as chewing gum, razors, etc, based on which advertisements I like the best.

            The advertisement for STRIDE MegaMystery chewing gum exemplifies this advertisement appeal to satisfy curiosity by shocking the viewer by the utter bizarreness of it all.  Who in the right mind would think to have nerdy men in helmets ride in on the backs of ostriches and peck them to stop a “secret” from being told?  Ha. Ha.  I know for me at least, the ad left my asking myself, “what just happened?”.  SRIDE thereby succeeded in making me curious of there product and answered my curiosity of why men on ostrich-back just stormed through the walls by letting me know that their gum flavor is a mystery and that it is important that it stay that way, so I will go buy some and try to figure out what the flavor is myself.   I have attached the commercial for a good laugh.  You’re welcome. 

Just incase that didn't work b/c I'm not very computer savvy, here is the link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLkRr2g3aA