Author Archives: Rui Deng

About Rui Deng

right-brain thinker

Idiocracy

Actually I didn’t like the movie, I don’t think the movie can touch me not let me have a deep look of those characters. However,for human future prediction in the movie, was very cross. The future of humanity’s probably would follow this  trend, if we continue to rely on science and technology.The future of human in the movie, see a doctor, cooking, farming…… such as very basic things in life based on the technology,but techonology also take away other things from us.

Digital Nation

With the blog, podcast, Twitter’s development . “media” forms such as the emergence of the network into the era of digital. Internet users can be information gatherers and publishers, the traditional waiters and recipients of one-way relationship is broken. In today’s Internet age, the virtual network society into social media for an acquaintance society, the interpersonal relationship of joining in the network, to a certain extent, strengthened the network role in solving the problem of social reality. When the Internet into our life world, it soon became an integral part of our life, meet people’s cognition to become a whole new world. Cognitive rightly belong to the needs of the senior level. However, in today’s era of rapidly changing and increasingly complex society, cognitive needs has become a basic need of people. In modern times, people in all kinds of information convergence in the ocean, to a certain information, which can identify to eliminate uncertainty, you need some information to assist, to a large extent on the Internet can meet people’s growing cognitive needs. In a sense, the Internet is like a huge, open, flat at any time, very convenient, provides the new knowledge in the library, it can be anywhere at any time to search for his knowledge or information you need.

Radio days.

Woody Allen’s “radio days” offers a broad analysis of the American cultural world and social relations.This movie is my favorite of the whole semester .This movie has put into consideration the American cultural practices as well as various socialization factors within the American communities. To some extent, the utopian society is portrayed in the radio day’s movie though these types of societies ceased being into existence a long time ago. Specific interaction and thematic settings within this movie include the national consensus versus the nativity, the racial subcultures and immigrants as well as counter cultures. This movie of 1987 is a comedy that represents real life experience. This film also looks into an example of a typical American family lifestyle during the golden age of the radio as one of the basic socialization elements and as an impact in the cultural practices and lifestyles.

Joe explains the cultural impacts of a radio in a family’s way of life. Radio in their era was basically one of the most important agents of socialization and civilization. Through radio stations, children got their mentors. Though it was challenging as some were positively influenced while others negatively affected by the radio stations and the lyrical musical systems played (Allen, 2006). Woody Ellen’s childhood was, therefore, throughout the movie influenced by the radio factor let alone the later emergence of television (Allen, 2006). The movie portrays young Joe’s experience in mid and late 1930s in the commemorations of his urban legends and mentors who greatly affected his behavior as a teenager.

The social network

Perhaps every IT company in Silicon Valley has a long story just like the film presents, however, Mark’s story is extremely attractive, because Facebook draw an significant impact on changing the way people communicate .The member of Facebook has beyond five billions, if Facebook is an independent nation, the population is incredible huge .

Although this film is talking about how Mark build his Facebook nation, it’s more like a metaphor of how Facebook change today’s society .Every second, Mark’s Facebook page has new friend request, but in reality ,he is so lonely .

Below are two great movie reviews:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/influencing-people

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-social-network-20100930

Idiocracy

The film Idiocracy is so ironic. This film reminds me a book i read before named “Amusing oursevles to death ” by Neil Postman.In this book “Postman asserts the presentation of television news is a form of entertainment programming; arguing inclusion of theme music, the interruption of commercials, and “talking hairdos” bear witness that televised news cannot readily be taken seriously.” Just as what represent in this movie,mass media is the most powerful tool to inform public ,but today the information contained by mass media are becoming more and more dumb .The informative tool transferred entertainment tool.

There is the wiki link of the book i mentioned :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

And here is a movie review of Idioceacy:

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/idiocracy-is-a-cruel-movie-and-you-should-be-ashamed-fo-1553344189

Idiocracy in urban dictionary :

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=idiocracy

 

A face in the crowd

I found two helpful review of “face in the crowd” and the director Elia Kazan .”Like other debunking films before it that have gleefully discovered feet of clay on seemingly solid public idols, this one is more concerned with the nature and flamboyance of the idol than with the milieu and machine by which he is made. Lonesome Rhodes, the two-faced hero, is pretty much the whole show, and what he symbolizes in society is barely hinted—or discreetly overlooked.”

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D04E2D7163BE53ABC4151DFB366838C649EDE

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/74421/A-Face-in-the-Crowd/articles.html

 

Good Night, and Good Luck

I like the overall tone of “good night, and good luck”, with its leisurely pace, the tension of power really catch my attention.I also impressed by the realistic representation without artificial imitation.

Is’s just a cigarette time stand-up show, the movie tells us, behind the short time show, there are heavy workload, the high-pressure censorship. The cigarette from the light to go out can only let people hold their breath. As a party that be challenged, McCarthy, actually never appear on camera, but he is everywhere, this is the director, screenwriter, and performance’s intelligence.

This film makes me think in today’s society, what’s the role does media play? As a communication student, I can tell how much impact media does to public. However, in my country, China. There are much strict censorship and I’m afraid that no man dare to tell the truth in the future .

 

There is a short video link of Internet censorship in China : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_HxJApv3Ps

Ace in the hole

Ace in the Hole is a film released in 1942 and produced by Billy Wilder. The film focuses on the actions of Charles Tatum, who is a qualified journalist, but who has destroyed his career through excessive drinking, adultery and slander. Despite the eleven sackings that he has received, Tatum intends to maintain relevance in the industry. He is determined to rise back to fame and popularity. The fact that Wilder focuses on offering a critique of the media in a movie released in 1942 is an intriguing aspect of the film. Wilder was able to foresee some of the aspects that would arise in the media. Interestingly, Wilder does not only focus on blaming journalists for promoting self interest, but also the public for choosing to believe manipulated stories. The manipulated stories are what the public seem to enjoy compared to the truth. This implies that public demands for such stories motivate journalists to choose the path of lack of integrity (Ebert, 2010).

Ebert, R. (2010). The great movies III. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

 

Meet John Doe

In the film ,what the director Frank Capra want to express is kind of contradictory.

On the one hand, the heroine Mitchell (father) is full of idealism color of political ideal by actor John Doe impassioned speech to “carry forward”, on the other hand, just like the movie showed that Americans are the most proud of democratic political system has been kidnapped by a group of greedy capitalists, social fairness and justice, no longer exists.The end of the film is very flattering, indeed a tragedy from the big pattern (John Doe brief career as a political struggle failed), from the small pattern, is a comedy, because John encountered love.

This film also brings me some thoughts about political and media, attached are two articles about that subject:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/slideshows/5-ways-new-media-are-changing-politics

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media