The blog did help me make connections things I knew already and the current times. Also, though this may sound dorky, I got excited when I could write about something we hadn’t discussed yet (Nixon Debate). I think the blog helped to emphasis the importance of the material as well as make people realize that some of this is still going on and we haven’t necessarily learned from our past.

Also I think this blog was helpful because we did have such a small class. We all chatted about the blog before class and it was easy to only read six other people’s posts. I can definitely see how having more people than that could be tricky especially on slow weeks. Actually, the only issue I actually had with the blog was there were certain weeks when it was hard to find something to write about, which would have been an even bigger problem with a larger class. I understand that the blog should not just be a reflection but I felt, at times, we were all writing the same thing.

As a suggestion for future semesters, I would give students a list of topics to blog about that pertain to whatever is going on in class because there were times that I would be seriously strapped for something interesting to write about.  There are posts of mine that reflect this (Radio, am v fm, Lucille Ball).   While I really enjoyed my posts on Disney and the crossword puzzle and even the Larry Flint post, sometimes a little more direction could be useful.  This is not to say you should assign topics but maybe give a list of possible topics for people to blog about.

I do think reading others’ posts were also helpful because theirs gave me more insight on topics.  It was hard, sometimes, to not mimic or copy a topic someone else had written about because I was also interested in it.  But the blog was useful, at times tedious because as I mentioned, I couldn’t always come up with a topic.  If anything, at least now I can say I’ve been part of the blogging population.

Overall, I would suggest blogging to continue for future semesters of Media History.  The amount of blogs was not too rough to complete and was fair.  It helped with studying and learning of the information.  However, I wish that the paper could have been incorporated into the blog more; I just don’t know how I could have done that more.  But, being my first blogging experience, I found it to be successful and enjoyable.

Although the blog was time-consuming, it was beneficial and rewarding. It forced me to research course topics further. It helped me make connections between other classes. The blog forced me to overstep boundaries and reach great lengths to get substantial information to complete an efficient post.

Through the experience, I became more knowledgeable on many historical and current issues. Not only did I gain knowledge from my posts, but my classmates too.

When studying for the exams, I could recall so many details from the blog about the identifications and essays even before I started to study. That rarely happens in classes. Normally, I need to relearn/memorize all of the facts. I did not have to that when studying for exams in this class.

We would learn about different perspectives or ideas about the history of media in class, and then we would critically think about its implications through the blog. The blog also forced me to keep up with what we were doing in class each week. The requirement that we had to include links in our posts was also very helpful. This ensured that we not only analyzed the implications of a topic, but also did further research.

For future semesters, I really liked having to do two blog posts a week. I thought this was a reasonable amount of work, and I liked how we could do them at any point during the week. I did not find the requirements to do comments very helpful. I guess it makes sure that we review the posts of our classmates, but I found I did not have much to add to their posts most of the time.

One aspect of the blog I would recommend adding would be some free-be blogs or prompts.  There were a few weeks that I simply could not come up with a good topic for my blog.  I am sure you can figure out which post those were.  I would have been beneficial to have a few prompts that we could pick from for weeks like that.  Maybe a few open ended questions that we could or could not answer throughout the semester.

Going back to what Dahlgren explains in his book, he explains how citizens engage and participate in democracy via deliberation. He differentiates between what civic engagement and participation are. Engagement refers to “focused attention on a subject,” (80) while participation acts upon what is taken in through engagement.  Many, however, decide to neither engage nor participate because they do not trust the system, they feel ambivalent about it, or (most commonly) they feel indifferent about politics.

He also discusses whether passion has a place in political deliberation, mostly supporting the fact that is does belong because: it instills motivation (which is needed for participation), there is reason behind passion, and passion cannot be separated from that are important to the speaker.

He furthers that deliberation is important to democracy, but it does have its limitations.  Conversational talk (as opposed to formal deliberation) is seen by some as “not the soul of democracy,” (88) and by others as deepening interpersonal interactions and thus convictions (which can motivate citizens to participate).  Dahlgren then divides the thoughts of deliberation into two – strictly rational or performance and pathos driven.  He believes that there needs to be a balance.

In the end?  He concludes that political deliberation and engagement do not just come from face-to-face contact, but also through mediated messages.  Political deliberation and conversation have the potential to be political.  The mediated messages factor in a performance twist that alters the public’s perception. The media serve as a place where people can deliberate, as well as a place where individuals can ascertain knowledge so that they can deliberate.

How did they set up these quiz shows to make them so intense? They would typically put the contestants in glass booths with the air conditioning turned off so that they would sweat. The producers would make the lighting suspenseful, with tight close-ups of the contestants as they were about to answer big questions. Additionally, armed policemen would guard secret envelopes, or there would be crazy contraptions hiding some secret aspect of one of the games. Because these quiz shows were rigged, the questions and knowledge tested during the games were very advanced.  They would be asked to recite lines of poetry, recall very specific dates in history, or explaining specific scientific classifications– things the ordinary person would have trouble recalling out of the blue, like the contestants were required to.

Interestingly, Charles Van Doren was very smart and probably would have been able to win the show on his own. He even edited an encyclopedia for twenty years. It is a shame that these shows were rigged. If they weren’t, great programming could have resulted. There would have been upsets and surprises, instead of everything being planned out so much. Something to take into consideration, however, is that it would be understandable that the networks may have been weary of allowing such unscripted programming on the air live. With the “quality TV dramas” of the 1950s, they were live but also scripted. The limited amount of live news TV was also scripted or had specific points or direction. A live,  not rigged quiz show could go anywhere.

Here is some further information about quiz show scandals.

Now that our papers are DONE and turned in I think I’ll discuss the other part of my reserach paper that I ended up dropping because of a lack of scholarship and news on the topic.

This year, the third female Supreme Court Justice was named by President Obama to the Court.  Her name is Sonia Sotomayor.  My paper focussed on the first female Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

In comparison of the news coverage of these two Justices, there is one key difference that pops out to my eye.  There is a big difference in ideology between these two women.  While O’Connor sat on the conservative side, the NY Times finds that Sotomayor’s past liberal positions on issues is in stark contrast to those of O’Connor.  A key similarity to the coverage of Sotomayor and O’Connor’s confirmation hearings is that the issue of women’s rights, abortion, and similar issues were thrown at both of these women.  These issues would not normally be as intensly addressed during the confirmation hearings of a male nominee.

I do find that Sotomayor’s nomination and confirmation did not receive the same positive, raving reviews by the media as Sandra Day O’Connor did back in 1981.  Now, the Wall Street Journal found her to be “Highly Qualified,” but the overall feeling I get from skimming articles about Sotomayor’s nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court is not positively in favor, and not nearly as sensational as they were for O’Connor.  Several articles on Sotomayor are clearly against her and even attack her, even if they are mostly unfounded arguments there are plenty more that were against her than I ever found against O’Connor during my research.

While Sotomayor was confirmed to the Supreme Court, she did not receive the same positive attention and had a lower approval rating than O’Connor did when she was nomination (Sotomayor 68-31 in favor; O’Connor had 99-0 in favor).  It is very possible that since Sotomayor is the third and not first Female Justice, the excitement no longer exists because we’ve “been there done that.”

Larry Flynt got his start in 1965 by purchasing several bars in the Dayton, Ohio area and soon after opened what he called a “high-class” bar that featured nude women.  His business was really slow until he got the idea of creating a monthly newsletter for the members of his Hustler Club to showcase the women of his bar.  He later realized he could create a profitable magazine that featured the women of his club. When he went to do this he ran into several obstacles, the first of which has to do with certain obscenity laws. In order to produce such a magazine (the movie explains) there has to be a certain percentage of written content in addition to the photographs; this is something Playboy had already been through.  Flynt’s other issue was the money.

In the process of starting the magazine, he ended up creating his own publishing company, Larry Flynt Publishing which now publishes about 30 or so magazines, most of which are similar in nature to Hustler.

After scrounging up the money to produce his magazine, he sent out his first national magazine in July of 1974.  After a year of publications, Flynt’s business had become extremely successful but he began running into trouble.  He was arrested and charged with charges ranging from obscenity to libel chargers and pursued several legal battles.  Flynt’s main defense during these court cases was mainly based around the 1st amendment right.   As the legal battle continued, media coverage of his suits.  After several years passed and Flynt getting shot and paralyzed and one of his cases eventually made it the United States Supreme Court. He continued his controversial ways much into the 1990′s and finally settled in 1999 when he feels Hustler was victorious.

This case is important for the press and first amendment rights for magazines, newspapers, anyone really. Larry Flynt may have been a crude, controversial man but he became a spokesperson for first amendment rights and left many people scratching their heads in confusion.