MCS222 Assignment one

My name is Emily Thompson and this is my first blog, created for assignment one in MCS 222. My hometown is the city of Niagara Falls, New York and the primary reason I attend UMBC is to play softball. I would say that my relationship with the media is fairly strong. In my spare time I typically spend time surfing the Internet on sites such as facebook, and using instant messenger. Academics and athletics contribute to my Internet use. I check blackboard at least once everyday, while also checking my e-mail numerous times. All updates and changes in my schedule for class and softball are made public though e-mail. I watch movies to relax and recently more box sets of my favorites television shows have made their way onto my DVD rack. I listen to music both on the radio as well as on my laptop. I enjoy hearing new music, however continual repeats of the same songs leads me to turn on a CD or my ipod. In recent years, technological advances have led to the large expansion of media. Items such as laptops, cell phones, and ipods have made their way into our everyday lives. Changes in technology have paved the way for a change in the way people live their everyday lives. We are constantly connected. Communication is no longer limited by time or location thanks to cell phones and networks that apparently consist of hundreds of people in hardhats walking around ensuring good service. Im amazed how much the media has changed within the last few years. VHS tapes have been replaced my DVD's. Data used to be stored on 3.5 floppy disks, which were replaced by CD's which were then replaced by jump-drives. The Internet was once extremely slow and during connection made an extremely terrible dial tone sound. Today, I have a wireless router in my apartment that provides a high speed signal. When i was younger the only hope of hearing a song that was not yet released on CD was to listen constantly to the radio and if i were lucky, and prepared, record it onto a cassette tape. How far illegal downloading has come in a few short years. Essentially, the media has dramatically changed, impacting every aspect of society. Politics, academics, economics, and advertising are only a few areas that have changed. I am really excited to closely examine the relationship of the media and the way it shapes society.

The political blog i will be following is the Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/