De Anza Students and Financial Stress
By Khalil Bourgoub
Week 9: Internet
Video Game Addiction
By Khalil Bourgoub
When I was in high school I used to internet much more than I do now. In high school I was addicted to online gaming pretty heavily. I played as soon as I got home from school and this definitely affected me negatively. I would probably play for six to eight hours a day and I missed out on a lot of homework and school activities. This dropped my grades pretty significantly while I was addicted and I could tell my life was negatively affected because of how little sleep I got every night. I ended up realizing how negative it was affecting me and I completely stopped playing video games for months. After I felt like I could control myself I felt like it was okay to play again I occasionally play with friends and that’s about it.
Week 5: Movies
Favorite Movies of the Past Year
By Khalil Bourgoub
My favorite film of 2015 and 2016 is probably The Hateful Eight. This movie had a very interesting plot and very awesome cinematic moments. The movie is definitely a gory movie, even for Quentin Tarantino movie, which is saying a lot but I don’t think that should scare away people from the really unique mystery twist it has. I also have to admit I am a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, so him releasing a new movie made me very excited to watch it, even if this particular movie was not my favorite out of his past work.
My all time favorite movie is probably Fight Club directed by David Fincher. I think this movie identifies and addresses a lot of important life themes and predicaments. I feel like this movie represents beautiful cinema because I think anyone could watch this movie and learn something about themselves after watching. I first watched this movie in my third year of high school when my friend asked me if he could come over and watch it with me and since that day I have watched the movie and felt that I truly have a different perspective on things after it.
IMDB for Fight Club: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/
IMDB for Hateful Eight: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3460252/
Week 7
Advertisement and Propaganda Research
by Khalil Bourgoub
I found a Nike ad called Unlimited You and it uses many propaganda techniques such as Beautiful People and Exaggeration. They used the Beautiful People technique by getting many professional athletes that are all sponsored by Nike to “demonstrate” how Nike can really push you to the limits of your sport. This technique works really well with the other technique they used : Exaggeration. Making every professional perform inhuman things correlating with the sports that they play made for a very exaggerated outcome if you bought Nike product.
Nike ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEX7KhIA3bU
Week 4: Audio, Favorite Musical Pieces Over the Years
By Khalil Bourgoub
My favorite sound recording of 2015-2016 was my favorite band’s new album Disappointment Island by TTNG, that I listened to on Youtube for the first time earlier this year. This recording was my favorite recording of the this year because this specific band hadn’t released new music since 2013 and I was really looking forward to their newest release. TTNG’s music always has a large impact on me because I look up to each member of the band as a huge musical inspiration personally.
My pick for one of my favorite oldie recordings would have to go to a live recording of one of my other favorite band’s playing their song “Goodbye” with a guest vocalist. The band Toe is an extremely interesting band from Japan that I have always loved and that specific recording is probably my favorite live recording and original rendition of all time.
Disappointment Island : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpnK7IAl65g
“Goodbye”- Toe : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0RWnzd_b_k
Week 3: Books, Books That Made an Impact on my Life
By Khalil Bourgoub
When I think of all of my favorite books, it is really tough for me to pick out all of my favorites because most of the books that I enjoyed reading the most were parts of series. Growing up I read through the entire Series of Unfortunate Events book series by Lemony Snicket. Those books really affected my childhood because they always made me excited to read, and I feel like those books made my connection to literature and books in general a lot stronger. I felt a huge connection to all the characters, which made reading each book fun and exciting. The next series I want to talk about is the Millennium Series by Steig Larsson. These books were probably my favorite books of all time because of how captivating each book was to me. The characters are interesting and each plot is new and extremely intricate. I don’t know if I am completely biased to murder mystery novels, or just mystery novels in general because I always find them the most interesting because they keep my thinking through out the whole book. That facet of mystery books is definitely my favorite trait about almost everything I find fun, if something is thought provoking and makes me think about how everything works within its own system, it will definitely be intriguing to me. That is also a good transition into my last book I want to talk about, Edgar Allan Poe poem compilations. Poetry definitely made me much more analytical of literature which taught me to look deeper than just the surface level text, which is most of the information that we read and digest. Even though this isn’t a book title I can list I do have a huge book of all of his work that I can reference. I think it’s important to mention this book because it introduced me to one of my favorite genres of literature. Poetry has always intrigued me more than most other forms of literature because it reminds me the most of music, which is my favorite art form. Edgar Allan Poe definitely also inspired me to write poetry on my own, which is something that will always be very important to me.
Series of Unfortunate Events: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Wreck-Unfortunate-Events-Books/dp/0061119067 (All 13 books)
The Millennium Series: https://www.amazon.com/Stieg-Larssons-Millennium-Trilogy-Hornets/dp/B00EB215SE (All 3 books)
Edgar Allan Poe’s complete poems and tales: https://www.amazon.com/Edgar-Allan-Poe-Complete-Selected/dp/145150506X
Week 2: Business Aspect of Media, How Much of the Media Does the Consumer Control
By Khalil Bourgoub
In 2016 we have more options when it comes to media than we have ever had in the past. Media is evolving and is a very lucrative field to invest in and businesses definitely caught on to that from the beginning of mass media. Modern media has so many different platforms that six major companies have formed monopolies over these platforms, such as: newspapers, magazines, television broadcasting, cable broadcasting, movie studios, internet services and a couple more. Even though these six major companies own all of these platforms for mass media I still do believe that us as consumers have more choices than we ever have had before in terms of media selection. These private companies have such a huge influence on our lives because of the amount of media intake the average person has on a daily basis but at the same time there is an interesting cross road where the consumer also has some control over what they chose which media to expose themselves to. With the consumers choices the big companies also have to cater to the majority of the population to maximize their profit on the media services they sell. Also another relevant point is also, even though there are monopolies on Internet services, the companies do not have control over what people do on the internet, so with huge social media platforms that can be accessed on the internet or on smartphones, these companies do not have control over the other forms of mass media that we people have access too. So in that sense, we have mass media choices that are also not part of the big six companies which is why we have more options now than we have ever had. My outlook on who controls mass media definitely has changed after reading the last chapter in our textbook because I now know how much of the media that I do not personally expose myself to is ran by such a small selection of people and now I can choose if I want to support such companies and have more of an understanding of what I am supporting by accessing certain forms of media.
Week 1: Media Autobiography Reaching Mass Media Through The Internet by Khalil Bourgoub
In terms of media usage, I would say I am among most of my piers in terms of daily media intake. I would say that I am in touch with only a couple of the major eight mass media that we are studying in class. Personally, I use the internet or just about any media you can access on my computer the most. I find that my computer is my gateway to most of the news and media I receive on a daily basis, I use social media and consume most of my news from reading articles on newspaper websites for the most part. I also like to read books but not much more of the other forms of mass media such as a hard copy of a newspaper or magazine. When I do watch Television or watch Movies they are mostly accessed on my computer as well. I don’t really watch Television very avidly, which the exception of the occasional series recommended from friends. When it comes to Movies I probably watch about one or two movies in a month, which is more frequent than my Television intake. I do enjoy reading books and just recently joined a book club because I realized I wasn’t reading as much as I previously was. I look forward to my experience with that because it is hard for me to pick out books, so this club will make it easy for me to pick up more books to read. Also, I have cut out most of the radio that I used to listen to because of applications on my phone that make accessing all of the music I want to listen to easy, without having to listen to people talking in between songs, which is an experience I find to be more enjoyable. For the last couple of mass media platforms such as Newspapers and Movies, all I have to say is that I hardly ever pick up anything to do with those. In conclusion, I receive just about all the media on my computer or phone through the internet, with the exception of books.
JournalismDada 