Microsoft is buying Yahoo , or are they? If you google search “Microsoft buys yahoo” you’ll get a whole lot of blog posts about the issue. (Go do it, read some and come back here. Yes, now.) Yahoo is reviewing the bid, and the Justice Department is also interested at looking into it.

Many of you in Com 300 were asking questions about regulation in the media. One regulation issue is who owns who. What are the implications for ownership, how does that affect what is/isn’t presented, and what is best for the society? Anyone have any thoughts?

Cross posted on my own blog, here. (Yes, I have a blog, do you?)

-Sarah Whitehead

Attn all com majors! Your future job might be in jeopardy! As stations look at getting rid of TV pilots (money, damn writer?s strike, etc) how will this affect the future of TV? The content? The audiences?

Push marketing at it?s strongest. Advertising people, this one is for you.

I heard about this on NPR this morning. What do you think?

If you’ve taken SPE 130 with me you should remember me talking about mythos. Are they using mythos here to persuade these women to join?

What does this say about the state of Islamic women, about the state of global feminism and the impacts of culture?
-Sarah Whitehead

Let’s face it: Cell phones can be annoying. I always hated when my one friend would receive and answer text messages while talking to me. The conversation would come to a screeching halt, she’d lose her train of thought and I didn’t feel like it matter that I was there in person, since the person texting her always got her immediate and full attention.

It can also be annoying when people are chatting in every location: bathrooms (ew, guys, really think about that), the grocery store, the gym…But what gets me the most is that cell phones are constantly ringing (or buzzing if it’s on vibrate). Can’t you show some respect in class, meeting with people or other situations?

Well apparently a local judge had enough. When a cell phone starting ringing in his court room and no one would own up to it he sent everyone to jail. Yup, all 46 people.

read about it here and tell me what you think!
~Sarah Whitehead

Apparently Google and Microsoft were competing for a small ownership in the online social network website, Facebook. Facebook began as a way for just college students to socialize. It then expanded its boundaries and anyone can join. It seemed to be much like Myspace.

I remember, when I first started college, and had friends into it; all they talked about was Facebook. I was excited to set up my account, and join the “elite.” It’s not like that anymore, since the various adjustments made to Facebook.

Facebook, however, is the bible of what’s going on in people’s lives. If you want to know something about someone, like if they’re single or when their birthday is, Facebook is the place to go. Everyone is constantly checking their Facebook’s multiple times in a day, people update their status and the information is plentiful.

Microsoft paid $250 million for a 1.6 percent ownership in Facebook. That’s a large chunk of change for such a small piece of action. Microsoft is now the sole advertiser on Facebook. It’s sort of like a monopoly, in the respect that Microsoft has so much control and power now, even though they hardly own the company.

I personally like Facebook better; it’s easier to use. I think more college students use Facebook because it’s less time consuming and doesn’t require different backgrounds and graphics and such even though Facebook is expanding into that stuff. They are optional.

~Nikki Gawel

In case you couldn’t tell from the glut of negative advertisements on radio and television, Election Day is quickly approaching. It’s easy to become disillusioned with the entire political process after being bombarded with name-calling politicians who heatedly accuse their opponents of everything from corruption to incompetence.

Have you stopped to educate yourselves about the candidates? A more important question is, are you registered to vote? If you’re not, it’s too late for you to make the 2007 election season, but you can get yourself registered for 2008.

I like to think that political communication is one of the more fascinating topics out there. I was a political science major, so I might be biased, but more than any other field, it mixes most conceivable communication subject into one great mess. There’s the interplay between mass (advertising) and interpersonal (campaigning) communication, broadcast strategy and media buying, social scientific research in polling, among others. Best of all, after each election, the whole strange cycle begins anew.

No one can tell you who to vote for, but if his campaign for the presidency picks up steam in the next 12 months, consider voting for my personal hero, Stephen Colbert, a man for whom truthiness and factiness still mean something.

Related Links:

Rock the Vote (http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php)

New York State Board of Elections (http://www.elections.state.ny.us/)

Indecision2008 (http://www.indecision2008.com/)

 ~Kara Kane, Assistant Director of Communications

There is a movement in Dallas to get youth to stop “saggin’. ” This movement brings about a few questions:
1) Is it your right to wear clothes the way you want, or is this racial profiling?
2) Where did sagging come from anyway?

Those organizing the movement in Dallas say that sagging started in prison and indicated that one was sexually available. But according to Snopes.com–a website that aims to dispel Urban Ledgends–this is incorrect. It was really due to prison clothes that didn’t fit properly. You can read more about that argument here.

My question to you: Is sagging a fashion statement or just annoying? If you do it yourself, why?

~Sarah Whitehead

On my way in this morning I kept seeing spray-painted signs, mostly handing from highway overpasses, saying “Ron Paul: Revolution.” After the fifth one I decided I was curious enough to Google this Ron Paul person. The first link that came up was his campaign site. Apparently this guy is running for president. Of course on his site it doesn’t immediately state if he is a Republican or Democrat. Turns out he’s Republican, running a campaign for freedom.

In my public speaking classes we talk about the “6 C’s of language”, one of which is Concreteness. That is taking an abstract idea, such as freedom and making it concrete: defining it to your audience. If Paul is the “leading advocate for freedom” as stated on his site, then what is he trying to say? Especially since he’s not outright with his political learnings on his opening page. Thoughts?

Cross posted on my SPE 130 page.
-S. Whitehead

Some interesting stories from NPR’s Morning Edition:

Wal-Mart sees no value in customer service. How’s that for a PR move?

Art imitates life? The movie The Kingdom opens today.

An interesting approach to Children’s Televison: Nickelodeon air a blank screen in an effort to get kids to go out an play. While it seems like a good idea, what about encouraging kids to be active the rest of the year? And how does this affect programming–telling kids to go play instead of watching TV?

Check out those stories and more and leave your thoughts in the comments section!!

Listening to NPR last weekend, I heard an interesting story about journalists trying to cover war crime trials. Journalists were trying to cover the trials, but information wasn’t being made available to them in the same fashion it would be if it were a civil trial. For example, instead of documents being read aloud and made available to journalists, lawyers would ask a witness “Can you verify that the statement on page 23 paragraph 5 is your swore testimony?” When journalists pressed for information they were told to go through the Freedom of Information Act.

I asked a colleague of mine, former lawyer and current adjunct here at Medaille, Tracy Kacher, for her thoughts. Kacher agree with the lawyer interviewed for the story: that it is going to take a lawsuit for the military to change their ways, and she clearly stated, “Journalist should not have to request info through Freedom of Information Act.”

Future and current journalists, what are your thoughts? Listen to the story, (it’s brief), and comment on how the situation should be handled.
–Sarah Whitehead