May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor...

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past couple years it's almost certain that you've heard of the Hunger Games franchise. Originally it began as a dystopian trilogy written by Suzanne Collins however, with the release of four movies so far the franchise has reached new heights. To summarize, the Hunger Games is based on the idea of an annual competition where...

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A Critique of Little Mix's "Salute"

Little Mix, a recently famous all-girl group released their song "Salute" and its accompanying music video in 2014. The lyrics of the song quickly single out the sole audience with phrases like "Women all across the world listen up we're looking for recruits". So from the lyrics it is obvious that this song was meant to empower females and call them to arms in the war...

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FOA Reflection

I recently completed my first further oral activity which was based around the question of "What does advertising reveal to us about society?". The topic I chose to explore for my FOA was racism against African Americans in advertisements throughout history. To explore this topic I chose four different advertisements from varying time periods. The first advertisement I chose was a recent advertisement from computer technology company Intel. The...

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Written Task 2

       The advertisement I will be looking at for this task is a recent advertisement from computer technology company Intel. This ad is obviously directed at a specific audience due to the subtle racism that is present in the ad. From the scene in the ad it can be deduced that the target audience of this ad is white male business owners. If this advertisement was aimed at a different audience, such as an African American audience...

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Advertisement Analysis

Recently we've been looking at the practice of advertising and also what it says about our culture and society. In order to investigate this further we were divided into groups and given an advertisement to analyze. This is an advertisement from Marlboro - a popular cigarette brand - which was produced in the 1950s. At the top of the ad we see the tagline "Escape from...

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Should the practice of using Photoshop in the media be banned?

For many years Photoshop has been used to "re-touch" images portrayed in the media however recently people have begun to notice just how ridiculous this practice has become. Models and celebrities are now being altered almost beyond recognition in order to promote an unattainable idea of beauty. Just looking at a few examples of this one must ask themselves "How many...

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Written Task #1

Rationale Ever since technology has begun integrating itself into our everyday life we have been able to see and track a change in the English language and the way we use it. One technology in particular has had a significant impact on the language we use every day: texting. The first text message was sent in December 1982 and it simply read "Merry Christmas". Throughout the 1990's texting became more open to the public but still was nowhere...

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"Textspeak"

Technology is ruining this generation. At least, that's what any of your stereotypical older people would say. But let's be honest in about 10 more years those same people are going to be relying on the technology of our generation to keep them alive. Yet for some reason they continue to prattle on and on about one thing in particular: texting. If someone heard my grandfather talk about texting and cell phones they would think that he was describing...

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Letter to the Editor

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anjali-joshi/why-a-bindi-is-not-an-exa_b_5150693.html A breath of fresh air Tyler Williams 5 October 2014 I must admit that before reading your article I had an opposite view on the matter of the cultural appropriation of the bindi. While I still agree that there are many examples of cultural appropriation in society today I realize now that a bindi may not fall under this category. The point you made...

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Interview with Music Legend Bob Dylan

Recently I've had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Dylan, an American singer-songwriter. Dylan is known as one of the best-selling artists of all time and has received numerous awards throughout the years. Tyler: So we'll go ahead and jump right in. I know our readers sure have a lot of questions about you and the early years of your career. In the early years of your career you were known for writing a lot of protest songs. A famous example...

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Mother Tongue

I recently read an essay by Amy Tan titled "Mother Tongue" which addresses the idea of a language of intimacy and also brings attention to the struggles and unfair treatment that some people face due to the fact that English is not their first language. So I'll go ahead and just give you guys a quick summary of the essay just so we're all on the same page. In the essay writer Amy Tan talks about her mother whose first language is not English. While...

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Just A Quick Introduction

Let's see... I've spent much more time than I probably should have trying to find a way to keep this first post as un-embarrassing as possible. I'd love to skip this step all together but it's got to happen sometime and like they say first impressions are everything right? So I'll do my best to keep things interesting and maybe you'll actually be able to stay awake while...

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