A television memory

A television memory from my childhood that I will never forget is when my younger sister (who was about 3 or 4 at the time) and I watched the Wizard of Oz.

I remember our lounge room was relaxed atmosphere and had an extremely large television. The screen was about 45 inches, however the box behind it was bigger than me! The TV wasn’t the centre of the room like my flat screen is now. I believe this is because the box on the back of the TV was so big, it had to be backed up into a corner for it to not take over the whole room. I also recall have a large number of remotes to control all the different boxes we had for various things. We had a silver surround sound to match the silver TV. I also remember not knowing what half the buttons on the remote even did.  This large TV was our main TV in house where the family would gather to watch TV at night. During the day my sister and I would watch movies together (most notably the Wizard of Oz).  We had one more TV in the kitchen which was a small black box. I can vaguely remember that only being used when we ate dinner at the dinner table and the only thing watched on that was the NEWS. However I remember my sister and I switching the channel to The Simpsons when Dad wasn’t in the room.

I remember the only television we used to watch as kids was in the afternoons we spent at Nanna’s house (that was the most exciting thing we could do there). Other than that, we watched Saturday Disney on Saturday mornings because that was the only access to ‘Disney Channel’ shows we had as we didn’t have Foxtel. I guess this is why we used to watch video tapes of movies so much. The movie that stands out the most is the Wizard of OZ.

 

We must have watched the Wizard of OZ on video tape over 100 times! I loved the movie however it was my sister that insisted we watch it over and over again. I remember she used to laugh uncontrollably every time without fail when the cowardly lion runs out of the room and leaps through a glass window smashing it to pieces.

 

 

You could be anywhere in the house and know what she was watching when she giggled like that. (I don’t even think it that movie was intended to be a comedy).

I even started to find that scene funny purely because I was always laughing at her when she was laughing. I can even remember the little Banana In Pajamas kids sofa she would sit on to watch it. SO CUTE!!

 

I would like to watch that movie again with her one day and see if I will get the same reaction out of her.

Until next time…

Britt xo

 

 

 

 

 

Playing Pool – A reflection

Finding parking is something that affects a great majority of uni students. I wanted to investigate why this is a problem and what could be some potential remedies. My research began with surveying BCM212 students as to whether they thought parking was an issue for them.

Through this I discovered a startling realisation that students want to use the carpool system that the university already provides. However, the main reason they don’t is because their friends go to uni on different days/times to what they do. This made me realise that there is a bigger root to this problem, timetabling issues. If students could secure similar times to their friends, they would be more inclined to carpool and there wouldn’t be a large number of free carpool spots left over every day.

I didn’t want my research to stop there. I was investigating parking, not timetabling issues. It was also brought to my attention that the university would argue that driving is not good for the environment, which I fundamentally agree with. With this in mind, I wanted to take a different direction with my research and present the idea of an app that is designed to make carpooling easier for students. It works similar to Uber but only UOW students can access it. It has many safety design features and lets the user be in control of what information other people can see about them.

I feel as though my research has been a success. Both my interviews and survey results returned positive feedback about the app. I found the gantt chart I created to be very helpful. Through this process, probably the most notable thing I have learned about research practice is:

Qualitative data is just as important as quantitative data.

Actually listening to people’s opinions and taking them on board with your research can be extremely helpful. For example, a student I interviewed said she felt unsure about the idea of getting into a car with a complete stranger. It was imperative I took this opinion on board because if one student feels this way, chances are many other students will.

Reflecting back on this research task I feel a sense of pride that I have come up with a unique idea. If I was to continue with further with this research I would love to actually create the app for UOW students…CALLING ALL APP DEVELOPERS!!!

 

by Brittany Livingstone

détournment

The French word ‘détournment’ means ‘rerouting’ or ‘hijacking’.

It can be defined as a variation on previous work. The artist or commentator making the variation can reuse only some of the characteristic elements of the originating work.

This is what remix culture is all about. Combining or editing existing material to produce something new.

The term remix was originally applied in music. During late-last century, Hip hop was the first popular music form to incorporate sampling from existing recordings.

Today anyone can remix anything from videos to photos, to sounds for free!

I find it interesting (coming from a creative arts background) how long it took the art community to catch up with the music community and jump on this remix bandwagon. Appropriating artworks has only come into existence in the postmodern era, whereas the Hip hop culture has been appropriating music since the early 80s. A good example of one of these is artists is Banksy.

Check out some of these other clever ‘remixed’ artworks.

Indulge yourself in this amazing remix of ‘Home Among the Gumtrees’ by Jesse Bloch:

WHO OWN’S THE MEDIA?

As a daily user/reader/consumer of all different forms of media outlets, I have never once sat down and thought about who controls the media, until this week…

Australia’s media would be perfectly described as very ‘concentrated’. Our level of media ownership concentration is already one of the highest in the world! – Shadow Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, Press Release, Nov 8 2016.

Whenever I thought about concentrated media, I always assumed it would be the government having control over every source of media outlet, like North Korea. The government control every new channel and prohibit citizens from accessing their own source of media. As we’ve seen from looking at the past, when a government organisation has very tight control over the media, it can be a powerful thing. For example, in 1930s Germany, Hitler as awful as he was, knew how to control the media in Germany and gain a mass following of the Nazi party using radio, specific poster techniques etc. Nazi propaganda was an incredibly powerful tool in winning Hitler such large support.

This almost parallels certain people in the media today who try to have control over what is said about them. However, due to the overwhelming amount of citizen journalism (individual’s ability to post what they like, when they like) control of the media is at the forefront of their concerns.

 

Media ownership in Australia, is alarmingly concentrated. This means that is owned and controlled by few people. The person that comes to my mind when I think of this, is Rupert Murdoch.

The unfortunate issue with this is, with media ownership of a vast amount of news sources, leads to bias stories being reciprocated throughout.

As far as trust in my news sources go, I will definitely be more conscious when reading, viewing and sharing news.

Until next time,

Britt xo

 

The Medium Is The Message?

To quote the classic Marshall McLuhan, ‘personal and social consequences of any medium (that is the extension of ourselves) result from the new scale that is influenced to our affairs’

What I have derived from this as well as Ted’s examples of changing media platforms in our week 3 lecture, is that we tend to miss the changes in that happen in our lives subtly.

We live in an era where spectatorial culture is giving way to a more participatory culture. This is due to the available technologies of today that give average citizens the power to tell their own stories through media technologies. Ultimately, this allows for a far more diverse media landscape with different perspectives.

This idea provoked a memory of a Youtube video that appeared on my Facebook newsfeed this week. Re-posted by the Daily Mail, this video depicts a previously oppressed North Korean girl ‘Yeonmi Park’telling her story about her fight for freedom and calling for action against Human Rights violators in North Korea.

Check it out… warning though, you may cry…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufhKWfPSQOw&t=252s

Not only does this video indicate that average citizens do have the opportunity to tell their story, but can have it reach millions of people. In the video this girl was so emotional that the few hundred people in the room she was giving her speech to could hear her story (when she was in North Korea, she thought ‘Only the stars care about us’)Little did she know, once uploaded to Youtube, the video gained over 2,890,000 views and even though it was posted two years ago, it is still making headlines in 2017.

Welcome to my blog

Hi I’m Brittany!

Welcome to my first blog post…

I am currently in my 2nd year of a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Communications and Media Studies degree at the University of Wollongong. I live in Cronulla, Sydney and thoroughly enjoy painting, dancing, watching beauty vlogs and basically anything that will distract me from my legal readings. I work two part-time jobs outside of full-time study, Woolworths as a checkout-chick, and a medical receptionist at Hurstville Private Hospital, so if you’re ever in for a colonoscopy, come say hi!

I have, from a very young age been interested in producing content to post online. I remember when I was 11-13 years old my best friend and I would film ourselves posting silly skits and posting them to YouTube. A website I’m sure you’re very familiar with, but in case you’re not, a free video sharing website. As cringe-worthy and embarrassing as this was, looking back now, I realise that I have always had the desire to create. Whether that be in the form of a youtube video, an artwork, a dance routine, a piece of academic writing, a design/invention etc.

In other words, I can’t wait to start posting content on this blog, which will hopefully provide an insight to some of my interests relating to law and outside of my university study.

Btw if you’re wondering ‘Rose’ is my middle name – and I’m seriously considering changing it to Rosé which is also a keen interest of mine.

Until next time,

Britt x