North.East.West.South.

In light of our recent John Dos Passos writing assignment, I have been thinking a lot about newspapers and how our means of receiving media have changed so much in the past hundred years. Traditional newspapers used to be the only way to stay up to date on current events. Now we have TV, radio, internet, and a much faster word-of-mouth network due to the rise of cell phones and instant messaging. In the future, each of us will probably just have a little transmitter in our head that beams news stories directly into our brains. (This may seem far-fetched, but imagine what cell phones would look like to someone from the 1800s. It'll happen.)
      Whereas before we had a few major newspaper corporations that decided what stories to report on and what angle to take, we now have every person with an opinion and access to an internet connection. But getting news from the internet only provides the illusion of a wider base of reporters.Those same big corporations still tell us how to think and feel about what is happening in the world today, but now they have several additional means of doing it. Now, instead of going out and buying a newspaper, the news comes right to us at home or in our pockets via cell phone. This is an even more dangerous way of being taught how to think because we are not always on our guard and conscious of it. Sometimes I just want to go online to play sporcle games, and my homepage blasts me with twenty headlines. 
    News in today's world of instant communication and sharing is an even bigger part of life than it has been ever before.

Everything's An Advertisement

What is an advertisement?
I have been grappling with the answer ever since that question was raised in class. According to dictionary.com, the word has a few different definitions:

1.a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc.

2.a public notice, esp. in print.

3.the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public: The news of this event will receive wide advertisement

 

     The first part of the definition seemed like the most obvious to me. It is the definition that people think of as soon as they hear the word "ad". These are the conscious commercials, the ones that we are aware of when they assault our brains. When you hear or see one of these "paid announcements", you know that they are trying to sell you something because they are relatively obvious about it. Any billboard or TV ad is there for the sole and explicit purpose of raising awareness and tempting consumers to buy, buy, buy. 

     The second definition is used less and less in today's modern America, most likely due to the fact that the first and third definitions are so widely referred to. In fact, under the word origin and history section the mid-fifteenth century definition was "'written statement calling attention to' something, 'public notice' (of anything, but often of a sale)". The English word comes from the French stem avertir, which means "public notice".

     Finally, we come to the third definition, which is "the action of making generally known". In contrast to the first definition, this is the one that the average American needs to worry about. Everywhere we look, we see logos and pictures and brand names. These are the 6,000 ads that most Americans will see every day (according to Jimmy's most recent blog post). Even those who don't watch a lot of TV and don't listen to hours of radio and don't drive down billboard-lined streets will see thousands of commercials aimed at them (although most of us do all of these things daily). Each of those little images that represent a brand or company sends our brain a tiny message that says "recognize me! buy me! consume!!!!".

       This third definition most clearly captures what an advertisement is. In the article from the LA Times titled "Mapping the Mind: Searching for the Why of Buy", Robert Hotz explains why we recognize brands so quickly and easily. He wrote about a modified Coke-Pepsi challenge in which test subjects were given cola to drink without any indication of which brand it was. There was no real preference towards either brand. Next, he they were given a sip of cola while they were shown a logo, but not necesarily the one matching the drink. The preference for Coke was staggering.

     What this means is that advertising is everything. It determines how we think and creates associations in our brains. Every time we see a logo or picture or brand name, we are being assaulted with ads. 

 

    Is this a bad thing?

    Probably, but welcome to the free-enterprise system. 

The Importance of Artistic Education: Blogging Live from Piano Lessons

I am currently seated in a pink armchair, listening to my brother take a piano lesson, having just finished my own. Our teacher, Barbara Rubinstein, coaches him on the different chords that make up his latest jazzy endeavor. Musical terms that have become so familiar to me over the years drift past, reminding me of how much we have learned.

      After today’s class discussion about the way our society values the arts, I began to wonder how much different my own life would be if I had never been exposed to music in the way that I have. The first thing that strikes me would be a real sense of loss. Music seems to be the basis of many other aspects of my life. Music education has taught me how to focus and set goals, how to be creative while being disciplined, and how to keep a sense of constant discovery while learning.

        When you learn how to play a musical instrument, much of the study is self-driven and self-motivated, so the student must understand how to keep themselves practicing. The teacher is not present and monitoring all of the time, unlike in other classes that a student might take.

      A second point is that of inspiring creativity. Learning music requires a lot of rules that have to be followed at first, but most of them can be bent or broken as the student progresses to higher levels. As the saying goes, “You have to learn the rules before you can break them”. This enables students to be creative while providing them with some structure and foundation, rather than just saying "do whatever".
     Finally, music teachers seem to truly understand the value of learning for learning's sake. They have always preached to me that no one should ever stop learning or stop appreciating the journey of discovery.
     Learning music, similar to learning a foreign language, is best started at a young age. This is why every school should give their students the opportunity to experience music education. American society currently does not place a very high value on artistic education, saying that "America's business is business". But as we have seen in light of the recent economic downturn, that is not really working very well. Why not try to change the system at a time like this, when it is clearly not working anyway?