Class Reflection 5-5-2008

In tonight’s class we finished the rest of the movie, Fog of War.  I came in a little late and the next full scene I saw was in reference to the rule Believing and Seeing Are Both Wrong.  He then went on to tell a story about how the Americans thought that the Vietnamese attacked them, and that they had even found evidence of Vietnamese shells on the ship, which had been attacked.  Evidently, neither of these played out to be true, the attack actually occurred two days earlier.  I really didn’t understand this.  It doesn’t seem possible to me that you could make such a mistake, it seems as though if bombs and torpedoes are blasting your ship, you’d clearly be aware of such a situation.

 

Be Prepared to Reexamine Your Reasoning

In this he explained how no allies, not in Japan, Germany, or France, backed the United State in the decisions for war.  He then went onto explain, that when such facts are present, you have to reevaluate the reasons you are engaging in war and decide again whether the reasons are justifiable or not.  I thought his explanation made complete sense.  Allies are supposed to have your back, so to speak, in that they are willing to provide you support and defense in times of need.  If all your allies, or friends, are choosing not to support you for whatever reason, I think you have to go back and reconsider your position in the situation to determine whether what you are doing is actually the correct thing to do.

 

You Can’t Change Human Nature

He talked about how he was extremely proud of his accomplishments, but that he was extremely sorry for some of the mistakes he made in achieving them.  He said now he has the ability to look back on the things he’s done and the decisions he’s made with hindsight.  Unfortunately he didn’t have this ability at the time he was in office, and so he can’t help that he made mistakes, but that’s all a part of human nature part, and that you can’t change.

 

Post #4 Advertising Through the Years

Advertising and promotion is one of the most important aspects of business.  It allows customers to become familiar and aware of the different products in the market place.  In the 1950’s, ads were commonly geared towards acceptable gender roles of the era, where men typically dominated the blue-collar work force and the more conservative, house-appropriate women maintained the house.  In today’s business and advertising world, it’s not uncommon to see ads expressing sex and sports as the selling point of their product.  While some of the same tactics and strategies are still used today, advertising has changed dramatically over the years to keep up with the radical swing of public opinion. As public opinion has shifted from stereotypical to more liberating roles, like in the case for women, it has shifted from blue-collar to fashionable roles for men, and from celebrity to sports star idols, so did advertising.

 

More specifically, let’s examine some ads for televisions and how they have changed over time.  In the 1950’s televisions were advertised based on their cutting edge innovations and the spectacular pictures they provided, which even today we can see is a huge selling factor amongst major competitors in the television industry.  However, ads today use the appeal of everything from the sexiness of the most recognized celebrities and athletes, all the way to the other end of the extreme, in advertising they manufacture the most eco-friendly and environmentally safe television on the market.  While public opinion has experienced a night and day transformation, the one aspect that has remained the same over time, is that it’s still all about who can provide the clearest picture.  

 

Advertisements from 1950’s used images that portrayed women as being very conservative and proper.  Women were always dressed appropriately with some type of dress or long skirt, their hair done without a strand out of place, and their make up done to perfection.  Now we see ads using women in a completely different way.  In today’s ads they are the sexiest, most scantly clad women that society will permit.  The ads from the 1950’s also tended to use more earthly tones because they more appropriate for the time era.  Colors such as electric blue and florescent greens and yellows, which we see today in ads as a symbol of extreme clarity and contrast, were not even existent back in the 1950’s because they were have been far too extreme and radical.

 

While many things have changed in advertising, such as the use of women in regards to society, they still use many of the same techniques and strategies that they did more than 50 years ago.  In both ads we can clearly see the companies trying to create a specific image with their television.  They want you to perceive their television as the most exquisite, dynamic looking television on the market, because they offer the best technologies and latest innovations around.  Another common theme in television ads that was prevalent in the 50’s, and even today, was the use of sports.  They want consumers to believe that if they watch the big game on their television, they’ll not only get the best, clearest, and brightest picture available, but their television set can actually bring the game to life, right their in their home, so they don’t miss a second of the action!  

 

Examine at the television ads below and see how they’ve changed over the years.  From the conservative 1940’s and 1950’s, to the sexy and provocative ads of today, see how advertising has changed through the years.

1947

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24320368@N06/2467186220/

1953

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/24320368@N06/2466358817/in/photostream/

2004

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24320368@N06/2467186334/

2006

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24320368@N06/2466358929/

2007

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24320368@N06/2467186238/

Wikipedia Reflection

Initially I found it difficult to implement the research I had done and incorporate it into my post; five hundred words just seemed too few, considering the amount of research I had done and wanted to include.  After a short time, I got used to the format and became fairly adept at incorporating my findings, footnoting my sources, and creating internal links to the web page.  After publishing my entry, which was the “History” portion under “MRE” (Meal Ready-to-Eat), I noticed revisions to my publication in less than just 12 hours.  

 

The revisions, or editing that was done, wasn’t so much in correcting any significant grammar errors, or in the actual content of the information, but the editor made my publication one of the main headlines under the topic page.  One specific change that came to my attention was that the editor changed some of my word usage.  Initially I had used the world “soldier” through out the post, but they changed it to “servicemen”.  Although it’s rather insignificant, I noticed this almost immediately.  There was one other minor change I noticed almost directly after I made the publication.  In the assignment we were required to include a “Works Cited” tab.  I of course did this, but the moderator deleted my tab and simply incorporated my sources into the “Other References” section. 

 

Prior to my post there was just a bunch information about MRE, a few headings but nothing significant.  Someone edited this, and changed the previous format of the page, in which they took some of the information and added it to mine, making the “History” tab the first piece of significant content you see when you enter the page.  So now when you enter the page, one of the first things someone will see is the “History” section, which is the portion I constructed. I thought this was pretty neat, because when you first enter the page, you now see the portion that I contributed right up at the top of the page.  It really made feel like my contribution was extremely pertinent and important to the article.  So far, these are the only revisions that have been done to the page and it’s now been almost two weeks.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed working with Wikipedia.  In terms of learning, this was the first time I was actually assigned topics from Wikipedia to read instead of an actual textbook, novel, or something similar.  Being that I love my computer and love to be on it (maybe that’s because I have Mac though), I found it extremely easy and convenient to simply get onto Wikipedia and read the assigned topics.  I certainly appreciated this fact and found it far easier to complete the required readings.  I also found Wikipedia far more interesting than I think I would have a textbook or novel.  I actually took History 120 my freshmen year, and a lot of the learning was done through textbook readings and monotonous lectures, so the class discussions and Wikipedia aspect made this class really refreshing and interesting compared to my prior experience.  As far a publishing and contributing to Wikipedia, initially I thought it was going to be easy.  On the contrary, I was required to do a lot of thorough research because I had to include a lot of information in a small space, I had to be extremely concise and direct in my writing.  I also thought it was going to be boring and just not any fun at fall, but I really did enjoy doing the project from start to finish.  It really felt accomplishing to be able to contribute to something that so many people depend on, day in and day out, to seek information they need or want to know more about.  So, the fact that I may have been able to help someone out or contribute to their learning experience in some way, shape, or form, really felt satisfying to do and complete.