McMaster`s Next Top Crowd: Every Wednesday at 8!! ****MARK***

The idea of crowds and crowd mentality recalls me back to my first year of university living on rez. According to the Understanding Human Communication, crowds all have emotions, sentiments and ideas that all members take into one direction, a ``collective mind. `` Now I was a teenage girl at the time of my first year, I liked to watch television, as I still do, but I was intently concentrated on certain shows that could not have been missed that week such as `American`s Next Top Model` and ``Grey`s Anatomy`. As a result of watching these shows every week in the common area, it resulted in a crowd of girls getting together every week and basically taking over the television for a couple of hours.

Now every week, the same girls would barge into the common room and basically take over the television from anyone that was watching at the time. This was a perfect example of Individual Invincibility. (Sevigny, 2005) Us girls got together as a crowd and were fearless, we didn’t care who was watching TV and what they wanted to watch at that time, we just wanted to watch our program and we wouldn’t take it any other way.

Time continued and hockey season started which coincided with these girly shows which everyone watched every week. Now as much as I liked watching my shows I was also very much a Toronto Maple Leaf fan and watch to watch the game even more than I wanted to watch the shows, however I sacrificed my own interest and continued to meet every week and miss any games that would have been on that night (contagion).

Once these shows started to finish, we no longer had a reason every week to meet, and I guess some of the girls missed the weekly meeting to talk about the show and other girly things on our mind that day. So once I was able to watch the Leaf games without disrupting our weekly meeting because the shows were over, the girls got together and suggested watching another show the same time slot that American`s Next Top Model was on. This suggestibility then made me feel as though I needed to obey to the suggestions of the crowd. (Sevigny, 2005)

https://elm.mcmaster.ca/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_11_1

Dr. Sevigny`s tweet about life as a university student, made me realize that the ideas of the crowd are those that are followed because of fear. First year is scary, I was alone in this huge residence and didn’t know anyone, and it was a little lonely and completely terrifying. The crowd technique is a way of fitting in first year, a way of surviving first year. Looking back I don`t remember what happened in that show or the hockey games that I missed, I remember the fun and friendships that I made that first year. So all in all, crowds aren’t always bad..... just as long as you`re not in one forever!

Be Green or not to be Green? **Mark**

As a student, I watch the news daily and read online articles that interest me at times. However, it may be because of my generation or maybe just the way that I was brought up but I tend to take in information as a grain of salt. I figure it’s extremely difficult for me to write any type of paper or article without in some way wording or completely expressing my thoughts on them. Newspapers and television are in turn supposed to be biased, it’s their job right?

Now as I sat in my communication tutorial the article for that week was “Information Deprivation in an Information-Rich Society.” (Gerniner et al, 1996) Having done the readings I found them very interesting to understand that large corporations are basically dictating and manipulating the media outlets in which I watch on a daily business. With this article, one thought came to mind. Fox News Vs. Barak Obama.

The United States has seen major change within the last couple of years; Barak Obama is now president, first ever black president. I noticed watching the View a couple of days earlier that Bill O’Reilly was on discussing how Fox News had been seemingly attacking the President on all aspects of his term so far from his family, his religion, his beliefs and even to the colour of his skin. So I went on youtube to find some of the news reports that they were discussing and found a collage of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN823dUu6KA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouKJixL--ms

Now Fox News is known to all as a Republican network so it comes to no surprise that the news that they are broadcasting and the specialists that they are inviting onto discuss issues are all anti-Obama Republicans. It was even escalated to a point in which Fox was making up stories about Obama being Muslim and comparing him to Osama Bin Laden, a famous terrorist which many Americans are familiar with his infamous name. They were able to create great controversy about the fact of his smoking habits as well as the significance of his middle name.

The funding that is placed into the Fox network is all Republican based so it seems that they will go to any lengths to avoid being objective when it comes to voicing opinions about the President.

So basically the only positive thing that I can say about Fox News is that they aren't trying to hide their biases in any way, however it worries me that others are not as critical to hearing everything that is being said on these programs to the point in which they are transfering their own beliefs about the President.

However are marketers and advertisers just manipulating information for us to swallow and be able to be believe? In the article posted by Dr. Sevigny entitled "Green suasion or mind control? Officials hoping to stem emissions are getting their message massaged by psychologists. Can manipulating media be justified when some people feel its for the greater good of everyone as a whole?(Porter, The Toronto Star) Now some may refer to The Toronto Star as more of a liberal paper, and the ideas about global warming to be a liberal thought, so are they manipulating information in order for people to make a change in their beliefs? Whether you want to believe it or not, something is changing in the environment, call it what you want, global warming, global changeing, but should these same manipulations be categorized as the same manipulations as Fox's news coverage on Obama?

Personally, I think your comparing apples and oranges. Fox is trying to destroy the image of a single person, where in turn psychologists are simply manipulating ideas about conserving the earth to the masses for the greater good.

The Office- MARK THIS ONE

Now I watch a normal amount of T.V. for a university student don’t get me wrong but in today’s world I find myself relaying a lot of my learning’s back to television. What I learn in the classroom, what I learn in the workforce, pretty much anywhere I can bring it back and make reference to a television show. Now one show in particular I find relates to communication so much that it should be an entire course called “Communication: The Office way.” It shows multiple examples every episode how different characters in a setting communicate, no less in a hilarious way.

The Office! (http://www.megavideo.com/?d=58HFE74H. The season premiere episode covers many of the ideas of perceiving self and persuasion ideas within it. The character Michael starts rumors about everyone in the office and then this changes the perception of everyone in the office towards each other.

One rumour in particular is about Andy being gay, in which Andy becomes confused and is uncertain himself of his own sexuality. Andy becomes so unsure of himself that he starts to think that he may in fact be gay and leads him to ask “wait Michael am I gay?” Perceiving the self explains that we confirm who we are by confirming with others. Now this is an extreme, also hilarious example of this but goes on to explain that we confirm ourselves through others eyes.

Perceptions also change around the office setting also so how others perceive you can be changed instantly with persuasion from others. Resisting persuasion would be a useful tool in this setting ideas such as yes but, exculpation, confusion blame, many of these tactics were used my Michael in this episode to persuade people into believing his rumors all these examples from the article “Resisting Persuasion” (www.changingminds.org).

Perez made me do it. (Mark this one)

Now I tend to look at myself as an individual, a person who has a mind of their own, I can take information from sources, filter through it and then come to a conclusion and be able to form my own opinion about the subject, I’m like many others my age. Now, also being a 20 year old girl who likes clothing, magazines and gossip, I find myself on websites like Perezhilton.com. Some days I find myself on there because I’m bored, other times because I am actually interested in a celebrity story, want to hear new music or maybe its out of routine now, I’m really not sure. Communication wise- this is where I get my fix- it’s my link to the celebrity world that I get for free and on a timely basis. However I’ve now come to notice the hold its coming to have on myself.

The other day I was discussing something with my roommate and she happened to bring up Miley Cyrus, my automatic reaction was “oh I hate her” in which my friend asked why- and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. Its not like I ever had a bad encounter with her personally, I’d never even listened to her music or watched her show to be able to hate her. Then I realized, Perez Hilton, he has been bashing her for month’s now- Perez Hilton brainwashed me into hating Miley Cyrus!!

It goes hand and hand with Perception, the Self and Communication. Perez is constantly building his personal brand with his website, www.perezhilton.com, he understands his personal beliefs which he strongly portrays on it and is able to manipulate the beliefs of others, ie MYSELF!

''If Hollywood is high school, like so many celebs claim, then Perez, TMZ.com, and even YouTube are the digital equivalent of the writing on the girls'-bathroom wall, littered with secrets, rumors, and bitchery” (The Influence of Perez Hilton, www.ew.com). Perez Hilton is a major influence on pop culture today, he turns local musicians into overnight sensations, he has major influence on people who read his page, more influence then they realize.

The article “Green Suasion or Mind Control” talks about the idea of spinning ideas to people in order to get them to be more green, basically almost tricking them into making a greener choice then they would have before. It goes on to say that “We’re being influenced anyways…if there purposeful efforts to help people make choices they want to anyway, why is that bad? They still have a choice.” Now I get that I’m comparing making our lives “greener” to Perez Hilton talking about Miley Cyrus but it’s the same small factors out there that are influencing the way I act without me even knowing about it.

So in conclusion, do I really hate Miley Cyrus or did Perez tell me to do it? Who knows, all I’m saying is that he has the magical power to change the way people think, sometimes without them knowing about it. Communication is tricky in way,s communicating ones beliefs to the world constantly can change a couple of minds out there, who knows, but now I think about what Perez is saying on his website and try to not hate people I’ve never met, well most of the time at least.