Aliza Fegan's Media Blog

TOPIC 1: MUSIC'S INFLUENCE -   1.     Describe an instance in which you or others may have tried to "protect" someone from music's "corrupting influences," or a time when something you listened to "crossed the line" or raised the eyebrows of others.   I honestly can’t say I myself or those around me have ever tried to “protect” someone from inappropriate or “corrupting” music. My family has always had wide-ranging musical tastes and I was brought up in that environment (in fact, my parents discovered the best way to get me to sleep when I was a baby was to put me in my carseat and play the Butthole Surfers-to this day, I frequently listen to music to help me fall asleep and it’s frequently rock or techno, not what you’d think of as calming tunes). Sure, Raffi and other “kid’s music” was in rotation, but so was a lot of punk, experimental, rap and other kinds of music, including some which some people would view as “corrupting.” I’ve always h

TOPIC 1: BANNED BOOKS AND YOUR BOOKSHELF Do you see any books on the ALA list that you've read or know about? List some of them and what you thought of the book. I’ve read a fair number of these, including ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’, which I loved. Titles I’ve read and enjoyed on the list are: ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ by Mark Haddon, ‘Fun Home’ by Alison Bechdel, ‘ Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee, ‘Nickel and Dimed’ by Barbara Ehrenreich, ‘The Color Purple’ by Alice Walker, The Harry Potter series, ‘Julie of the Wolves’ by Jean Craighead George, and ‘Summer of My German Soldier’ by Bette Greene. When I was 12-13, I loved the Captain Underpants books, and the His Dark Materials trilogy has been one of my favorite series since I first read them at 15. What’s your take on limiting access to various books and other materials in public schools or local li

Topic #4 -- Media Product Review Introduction I chose to do a review of the album ‘Under Your Spell’ by the band The Birthday Massacre. I chose it because it just came out (on June 9 th ), they crowd-sourced the funding for the album (which I thought was an interesting distinction), and simply because I’m a fan of the band and really love their music. Here's a video of the band performing the title track 'Under Your Spell' live: Description/Background ‘Under Your Spell’ is The Birthday Massacre’s 7 th studio album and was funded by PledgeMusic, an online platform allowing fans to fund or pre-order artists directly. They also used PledgeMusic to fund their 2011 album ‘Superstition’.’The PledgeMusic goal was opened on June 4 th , 2016 and was reached later that day. According to the PledgeMusic page for the album, 232% of the original goal was funded total. ‘Under Your Spell’ debuted at the number 7 spot on Billboard’s Independent chart. The Birt

TOPIC 1: NEWSPAPERS Most of the local news I get from Facebook, largely from posts on the ‘Albany Happenings’ page. There’s a lot of first-person reports from people on there (largely involving car accidents, fires, road hazards, etc.) but people also regularly post links to Democrat & Herald or Oregonian articles, which I usually read. Hasso Hering, a former newspaper editor and local resident, also posts his pieces about the goings-on in and around Albany there. I trust the reporting of the Democrat & Herald and Oregonian and take everything else on the page with a grain of salt. I also watch various OPB segments on occasion. The Washington Post , my main source of news, gives you a free digital subscription if you have a student e-mail address, so while I’m technically a subscriber, I don’t pay for the subscription. The normal standard digital subscription is $9.99 a month and after having the student subscription, I would probably pay that if I had to in the f

TOPIC 1 There were a number of things I learned watching “RiP! A Remix Manifesto”. The first was that the U.S. government had made other countries agree to follow American copyright laws in order to sell goods to the U.S. I had never heard that and was shocked (although, I will admit, not surprised) that this country had used its economic clout to push our laws onto other nations. I also had heard of the copyright lawsuit brought against The Verve for their song “Bittersweet Symphony” but was unaware of the long history behind the songs in question. Another topic I had glancing familiarity with but that the movie illuminated much more fully for me was the slowing of scientific and medical progress due to broad copyrights and patents on concepts and research. As a long time fan of Radiohead, I remember paying what I wanted for their album “In Rainbows” and having even more admiration for them for ‘breaking out’ of the music industry standards. I hadn’t heard about the Warner-Cha

Description I watched the first episode of the third and current season of  Black Mirror , a show that for its first two seasons aired on Channel Four in the U.K. but was picked up for its third season by Netflix, titled “Nosedive”. I watched it on Tuesday, July 18 th , 2017 and it was released (along with all of Season 3) by Netflix on October 21 st , 2016 (I started the episode at 3:54 pm). Black Mirror  is a drama anthology series, set in the near future, which examines how easily technology and current societal trends could lead us into a dystopia. While there’s this common theme, the show is a true anthology, with completely different casts, crews, settings, and storylines each episode. In “Nosedive”, our protagonist is Lacie Pound, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. As with most episodes of  Black Mirror , the setting is our world, just slightly into the future. In this reality, everyone is logged into a social media app that seems to be a mixture of Facebook a