Examples of Multimedia

Before my 8-grade elementary education, multimedia and I are both strangers to each other. Forms of media I exposed were the traditional five: book, newspaper (both are text-based), radio, television and computer (note: not the internet, it had not prevailed in China at that time.

The first time “multimedia” bumped into my life was at my mathematics class. Our math teacher told us that he would gave us a multimedia math class. Interesting! The traditional projector was disappeared placing by the computer-connected projector. While he was elaborating the quadratic function through the graphic math software on his keyboard, we had explicit vision of a changing graph each time when he changed the coefficient. Instead of memorizing the formula, we had a better understanding of its attributes. Since human beings learn more efficient when most of the basic “five senses” are applied. I guess this is the primary reason for the birth of multimedia.

Quote from the wikipedia:" The information is presented in various formats, multimedia enhances us experience and makes it easier and faster to grasp information. Presenting information in various formats is nothing new, but multimedia generally implies presenting information in various digital formats. It is also used in visual arts to describe works created using more than one medium." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia)

Time flies and technology evolves. Now, most of us contact with multimedia the time when we get up until the time we go to sleep.

The second example I want to introduce is a web-based called fancy world (Chinese version). It contained 10 columns (art, build, dance, letter, visual, illustration, DC, dress, face, movie), within which there is a bbs discussion board. Users can share by uploading their ideas/thoughts, music, movie clips, ps pictures/ animations on this website. Furthermore, the bbs format can let people interact with each other by getting feedback immediately.

Inevitable, there are also tons of commercials on which they lived. Like the other websites, only after you are in their membership, you can have the rights listed above.

Voice of Image---Digital Truth

original photos

the combined one

I wonder what is the botton-line of morality to thoes photographers or editors in this digital era?

Sensation, job, or people who have the right to know the truth?

The National Geographic moved two of the Egyptian pyramids closer together on a cover, to fit the vertical format.

Quoto from the former chief photographer of National geography-Robert Gilka. "To control the usage of digital technology in pictures just like to control the usage of atom bomb."

Is that we really can do nothing about it?

The "examples" become more and more. Some use the images of celebrities for entertainment, people don't take serious or just take for granted. When come to news or science, although some are from the concern of aesthetics, those purposely tricking are being angrily reproached by people.

Truth matters to us. It can change the way we perceive the world as well as we judge the truth itself.

Hi-tech products---convenience or troublesome

People always refer to digital era as a description of the present time. Digital, as a form of technology, penetrates our daiy lifes. Once, a teacher of mine said chalks are strangers to him simply because of the keyboard of computer. A joke? No, a tragety indeed. Advocaters especially the "native of digital"(people who were born after 1985) proclaim the indispensable functions of such and such technologies while the opposing side decry the negative effects (eg. health problems) which those tecnologies caused on people. I belong to the neutral group and tend to believe technology, being used as a tool instead of our master. Here, I will take mp3 for a typical example and mainly focus on its virtue and vice.

Mp3(and the recent mp4), a popular digital audio encoding and lossy compression format, can also mean the broadcasting device, such as ipod, yepp. Because of its versatile attribute, people use it as a mini music player, a radio or a removable disc. Receiving subscribed news from the internet, a great platform for mp3 file music and also wma, acc, mp3 operates like a medium between huaman beings and digits. More, it itself represents a sort of culture. On the street, subway, everywhere you can spot folks with their earphones on, swinging or murmring.

Mp4 even joint with "some"Tv corporation, provides "wonderful" soap operas to its audiences.
What a giant media net!

There is usually a "however". I recently came across a piece of news talking about the side effects of ipod. Not only will people generally get the hard-hearing problems(which also exists in cd player), but can also suffer from what is now called "ipod hands". According to the English Vertebra Nerves experts, frequently unnatural movements adopted by thumb and the rest of the fingers can cause arthritis. In some serious cases, pain spread up to neck and elbow.

Lots of similar harsh reality illustrate the abnormal relationship between people and technology: they are dependents of the technology!

Mind everyone and myself, try to be a smart user.

A little thoughts about the film "Outfoxed"

From my personal perspective, the film, outfoxed reveals how political figures and powerful celebrities go hands in hands with the mainstream media.

The film well presents the variety techniques Fox used to target innocent citizens’ political stand, by focusing exclusively on some influential issues. The 2000 President election and the Iraq war are the two examples. Through the whole process in the election, Fox utilized some kinds of ugly strategies as follow: confused poll which differentiate with the other networks, fake truth, words chosen to modify Kerry and Bush, the first one who reported the result, in order to let Bush be the winner

As refer to the Iraq war, Fox was like a bridge which made the Bush government easily change the tone and turned the terrorism “arrow” to Iraq. Moreover, It aimed at creating a “happy Iraq” image during the war so as to convince people that they were reconstructing a new Iraq. How funny!

Here are some of the techniques I jotted down from the film.

• Insert political ideas into journalism---which leads to biased news reports with no news judgment.
• Disproportional guests from the two parties---in total, Republic takes up 85% while 15% for the Democratic.
• Contradiction---by numerously saying “Some people said blablabla”. An expected debate happened.
• Generate fear/danger on unnecessary issues instead of the truly natural disasters.
• Those so called experts and strong people are indeed not at all.
  

In the end, the film concluded that “The more you look at it, the less you know about the truth and the more you support the government.

This is inevitable in the context of capitalism even in the socialism. But as we are aware of it, we can just stand up and make some noise. Don’t let the media colonize our imaginations and thoughts.

Too big a hat

First, I want to quoto the what was present in TIME magazine(　By Susan Jakes 　　Posted Monday, October 3, 2005; 21:00 HKT )

Chinese showbiz rarely produces icons. Sure, there are the dozen or so movie actors who can carry a film, and the odd rocker who fills a stadium. But seldom does a face on China's small screen really stand out. Even singing, the national pastime and TV staple, seems reserved for an interchangeable lineup of warbling coquettes, husky crooners and jolly fellows in brass stars and epaulets belting out odes to red flags.

Which helps explain how a 21-year-old Sichuanese music student named Li Yuchun has become one of the most popular figures in China. In August, Li won a televised American Idol-like singing contest produced by Hunan province's Entertainment Channel and bearing its own inimitable name: "Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl's Voice." (Its sponsor makes yogurt.) The show drew the largest audiences in the history of Chinese television. As the competition narrowed, the media covered it like a war or the O.J. Simpson trial. By the time the finale aired, some 400 million people were tuning in.

The Li Yuchun phenomenon, however, goes far beyond her voice, which even the most ardent fans admit is pretty weak: her vocal range drifts between Cher territory and that place your little brother's voice went the summer before seventh grade. As a dancer, she's not much better. Hei Nan, one of the event's judges, told the Guangzhou Daily that Li was "the worst of the top six in terms of singing skills," but noted that she garnered the most audience votes.

What Li did possess was attitude, originality and a proud androgyny that defied Chinese norms. During the tryouts—in which 150,000 contestants were winnowed to 15—Li wore loose jeans and a black button-down shirt, with no make-up and the haircut (and body) of David Bowie during his Space Oddity phase. She auditioned with In My Heart There's Only You, Never Her, an oldie made famous by Taiwan's Liu Wenzheng—a man. In the main competition she sang other songs written for male performers and called herself "a tomboy." For an audience reared on the bubble-gum, lip-gloss standards of Chinese girl pop, Li's disregard for the rule book produced an unfamiliar knee-weakening. Her fans wept openly and frantically shrieked when Li took the stage. The show ruffled feathers among Beijing's commissars. By the final episode, Li and her two remaining rivals had switched their repertoire to patriotic folk songs.

Li's victory was unusual in other ways: like American Idol, but unlike China itself, "Super Girl's Voice" is run democratically. Eight million SMS votes flooded in on the night of the finale. For a few weeks after, the mainland press debated the relevance of this format. "Only something that smashes social norms could elicit such a response," Yu Guoming, a media expert at People's University, told the Beijing News. "After all, in China the opportunities to use votes to choose are relatively few." An editorial in the China Daily wondered: "How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?" As Li prepares for a nationwide tour with the other finalists, her handlers are loath to discuss the political dimensions of the program or of Li's triumph. Hunan Entertainment Channel refused TIME's requests to interview or photograph Li. According to one of her many agents, they were worried the story would portray Li as more than just an entertainer. But she is more: Li represents unabashed individuality, and that's why she's a national icon.

At the first glance, the exaggerating title which TIME used was to grab readers attention and curiosity. Asia's hero? So first, what is the definition or concept of hero? No matter from the external or the internal side, it makes no sense to me who experienced the process the whole summer session.

Secondly, hero for what? Wonderful singing, unabashed individuality or even democracy? Sure, if you saw her performance, from the attracting way she present a song to the unexplored potential she have inside, you would agree with the statement that she will be a shining star for tomorrow. Despite the talent/ability she has which definitely deserves the champion, I saw little connection the word "hero". Or "some people" may argue that the way she "defied Chinese norms" is worthy of the name "hero". Defied Chinese norms? Chinese norms or international or American norms( otherwise, you won't think it has newsworthy). What I think Li conveys to us youth is " find youself and be yourself". Just be natural. Rather than those big and also inapproprite words that TIME modified her, such as androgyny or tomboy. In addition, reason for different people who appreciate her varies.

Last but not least, why people always purposely refer an issuse/topic, this time a entertainment show, to political? Million SMS votes? Partially true. To some extent, people did vote for the singer they favored. However, one vote needs 1RMB, how about the people who are not interested( note that is show is mainly for teenagers, so there is a age gap and the poll is mainly teens) and who live in rural area even cannot afford to eat. They won't and can't spend money on that type of thing. 800million votes? I doubt it.

Clearly, because of the techniques(change the tone) TIME applied, the story which present to you(most of Americans) or what they want you to believe has been distorted.

Images---manipulate reality

According to the film “Consuming Images”, visual images manage the pattern of what our behavior should be. Have you ever noticed that? I bet most of us haven’t. Because of the nature of persuasive, images which flash before people’s eyes reflecting our consciousness are the basis of our decisions, perspectives, and how we view our world. Corresponding with one point from the film “The Ad and Ego”, “Consuming Images” also reveal that images-the symbolic meaning which shape and influence values we hold within the culture are built into strategy of persuading and are applied in the advertising industry.

With the development of technology, unfortunately, computer editing which is able to arrange, re-arrange, becomes one of the clever tactics images use. For instance, if you are on the Red Line, you may have just mused over an animated filmstrip for Target or Hummer on the tunnel walls. If you are on a bus, a glance upward will draw you into competing appeals from area colleges, public organizations, and the latest iPod accessories. And if you are on the street, a cab probably just zoomed by, complete with sports scores and news updates flickering on the letter board. Not to say the TV images. Wittingly or unwittingly, you will be involved with it. True. Images can manipulate reality. Hence, because we are struggling between what we think of ourselves/what we believe between the senses provided by the images, we never know how wide the gap is between visual images and reality, or we cannot tell whether the images are true or false.

In addition, both films indicate that images in the Ads being part of humanity not only touch our internal feelings but also push our desires and emotions.
Advertising has proven itself the cockroach of the media mix.

Tabloid

Quote from--- China Daily---Updated:2005-01-14 09:46