Getting on the blog

Yes its blogging time yet again! after being particularly lazy (hanging) over the past two days that I planned to post in my blog I feel it’s time that I actually man up and do it. I’ll be sure to get started on my proper lecture notes soon but for now, enjoy. My student loan finally came through on Monday and needless to say, the money instantly went to my head! After trawling around Amazon for a large amount of time looking for only the coolest things to buy (these ended up to be a kids SpongeBob square pants watch and an Official Sesame Street Elmo belt buckle) it became apparent to me that I should probably moderate my spending. Can anyone guess what ended up happening? Correct. I spent more. As the week drags on, filled with more spending (mostly alcohol, which is acceptable) and nights out we arrive at Wednesday. Wednesday was our day off, so in my head it was something like "Ferris Bueller’s Day off" though in the harshness of reality it was more along the lines of me lying in bed... hung over.

So yes, my day off wasn’t exactly production insofar as it was a day I could have been reading. Instead, I foolishly put it off just to be lazy. I later rallied and got down to some light, light reading before again going out to bop at the SU. After Bop I pretty much pulled my first all-nighter at uni, which im not very proud of, mostly because it was just me in bed unable to sleep - so hardcore. After getting like 2 hours of sleep Thursday morning it dawned on me that I had to be awake and "fresh" for a visit to Southampton to see a friend going there and more importantly, shopping.

UNCOOL.

It was pretty much the best day ever to go to Southampton, because of this heat wave we’re currently having - it was a lovely sunny day but it does have its obvious drawbacks; it’s absolutely boiling hot. While in Southampton we took a much needed trip into possibly the greatest shop in the world - Toys 'R Us. It truly is a magical place - I managed to get myself a super-cool SpongeBob note pad. So clearly our outing to Southampton was very productive!

Keep checking for new posts, most importantly my HJC and short-hand lecture notes and more notes from my man Bertrand x

Youtube Account

So yeah, I've had my YouTube account for a very long time, roughly made it in January - never uploaded anything though which is kinda disappointing! But yeah, I just wanted to clarify that I have a YouTube account, in any case here's my YouTube account http://www.youtube.com/user/Jackwebb77?feature=mhee

Introduction to Law - Ft. McNae's Essential Law for Journalists. (mmm foam)

Read, read, read!

So, this is what we were welcomed to this morning at 10:00 (totes 9:30). As you will all know I was feeling rough from the foam party last night and I definitely remember being crushed by bare amounts of foam and dyeing on the dance floor. It was worth it, I probably wouldn’t go again... but when I think about it, I really would.

So yes, this is what we've been instructed to do, read one tabloid and broadsheet each day - after this morning’s lecture I learned that news papers are definitely fun... if they're read by Chris. I found this lecture particularly interesting as im quite partial to learning about the law - I kinda used to want to be a lawyer when I first went into sixth form but I don’t know if I’d cope; mostly because I would feel the need to constantly use film quotes to help me fight a case, which would utterly work like without a doubt. But yes, let’s get down to the notes.

Law: Basically, the truth is by far your best defence - so you might as well stick to things that are very true, this will decrease your chances of being sued by like a million (more like 99) percent. So this is important when it comes to writing an article - you must make sure that you have a story, a way to strengthen it and then a way to defend it. So the truth is obis vastly important.

as I’ve already mentioned the Up’s Uncodified constitution I’m going to skip ahead to a part I previously omitted - the Up’s constitution is also a very good source of news and stories but it also has its drawbacks insofar as it also places many restraints for example the human rights act gives the right to privacy, but then again in McNeal essential law for journalists it explains that it’s to a degree of interest. For example, the right to privacy depends mostly on how the story would be viewed in the public eye and really as a journalist you’re going to want to write what is interesting. Then to flip it more on its head there's also the freedom of speech which allows people to express their options so long as they're not inciting racial hatred and so on. Cut short - constitution = a great source.

Again this introduction lecture linked heavily into AS politics insofar as the reference to the executive, legislature and the judiciary - all of which are in place to keep the others in check and make sure that there’s never too much power concentrated in one place. These institutions act as checks for each other and this dividing up of major powers is known more commonly as the "Separation of powers". However many people are arguing that there is a 4th institution that actually keeps parliament honest and free of corruption - this is the "Press" and their freedom of speech; this ties into the famous quote:

 "Who shall guard the guardians?"

 The answer? The press will apparently.

There are two types of law, civil and criminal law.

• Civil = things between civilians such as divorce and other disputes like "this dude has totes put his fence in my garden, I’m going to drown him" these disputes are all done in the "boring" civil court which is not the place to be, it’s like going to a bar in Kenilworth thats filled with 50 year olds. Another dispute settled in civil court are counts of LIBEL - more commonly known as the journalist's nemesis - just like Ash and Gary from Pokémon.
• Criminal = the place where it all goes down, counts of murder, theft, burglary and all those other serious offences come right here and are settled in a Crown Court. This is the place to be if you’re a journalist (who’s good at shorthand) who wants to write a bus load of articles. 
• Note to self - LEARN SHORTHAND.

Then it comes to the issue of the truth. As a journalist we must always be sceptical, taking Chris' advice I’ve now been very suspecting of everyone and everything I’ve seen today, what was real? Did I even go to pizza hut today? Im confusing myself now...

In any case, and this is very important, for civil and criminal offences there is a very strict standard of truth. Remember that!

Standard of proof: The standard of proof is different for both civil and criminal.

Civil = Balance of probability.  

Basically, this means that if it looks like they did it then they totes did, for example someone standing above a corpse with a knife and there’s blood everywhere then they're nicked. Very simple and effective way to judge the crime. However, as I learnt in a Key concepts seminar yesterday all is not as it seems! We were told a story by Paul Manning about a hit man ordered to kill a cheating husband's lover - to cut a long story short the hit man knew the hit and so they staged a photograph of the hit covered in tomato sauce and could easily pawn it off as if the hit had been fulfilled. Again linking back to today's lecture - always is sceptical. Boom.

Criminal = Beyond reasonable doubt.

This one’s a bit trickier to pull off. To convict someone of a murder or a more serious offence then you need to acquire one of three sources of evidence.

1. You need a confession!

2. Forensic evidence.

3. Eye witness accounts.

Without these necessities the jury don’t have enough evidence to vote guilty and therefore the justice system has many draw backs.

Well I managed to get this done in the right amount of time! I’ll post today's second lecture about philosophy tomorrow with my free day. This is me done for today, three blog posts in like two hours, boom. I'm now off to drink outrageous amounts of alcohol at Bier Keller which starts at 8... For you Scott Pilgrim fans I’ll leave you with this

 "So yeah... 8 o'clock?"

Bye and stuff x

Key Concepts in Media Studies - First Lecture.

First off, must remember my seminar group and the lecture / seminar times!  Let’s see... *looks at notes* lecture starts at 15:00 pm, seminar group E at 17:00 pm. Sorted. This introduction lecture had many amusing anecdotes and stories from Paul Manning, which I'm now devastated that I can't remember them - all of those there know what I'm talking about.

Key Themes:

• Power and Control - who exerts power
• Meaning and Culture - when engaging in media texts
• Audience and Effect - how to engage with the target audience
• New and Old Media - basically the same thing, new media is influenced by old media and so on

Key Concepts:

• Production = goods and services
• Consumption = the media audiences consume media, texts and services. How much control do media consumers have over the media production is a key topic of debate in this section.
• Representation = this deals with how structures, symbols and images give particular meanings in adverts or on posters - for example today a beautiful work of art could also be a sign of fear to another (totes learnt just under an hour ago)
• Identity = Media texts draw on images and ideas to construct certain identities to do with locality, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and a fancy category dubbed "otherness"
• Regulation = Practices are established to shape and encourage media productions and media representation to occur in certain ways.

Now, this is all well and good but it really comes down to how much power adverts and advertising has on the consumers, are we all just mindless drones that will be so bought into anything we see on TV or are we rational individuals that can regulate ourselves and choose what not to buy or what not to watch. I like to think that it’s the latter but advertising is (one of) the dominate forces in society today.

A prime example of power in media would be Coca Cola. They spent $460 million on adverts in 2009 and then £36 million in the UK.

 When listening to Paul in the lecture I couldn't help but link in some of the ideas of the media being dominant to what we studied in sociology. We studied the ideology of Marxism and how the proletariat (working class) are nothing but pawns (in this case mindless consumers) of the bourgeoisie (the ruling class). Marxism states that the working class is oppressed and it has always been the case, this can be linked to advertising insofar as the media and advertising is run by, essentially, the ruling class / the state and therefore the people are being controlled by the state. Another thing that linked me to this was when Paul put forward the idea of rebelling against the media and advertising when someone defaces an advert and so on. Nice bit of sociology for you avid readers there.

Audience is also a key thing to think about; during the lecture we were shown an advert about L’Oreal with your classic models of the product. Then when the pictures of these models were replaced by an elderly couple the advert completely changed its meaning - the point of the advert was gone and this opens your eyes to how advertisers really choose their target audience, the idea of “core buyers” floods into the equation here also! I personally found it very a-Mew-sing (yes Pokémon)

So yeah, that's my first lecture done! Pretty decent stuff there I can see myself enjoying this module a lot. 
Bye and stuff x

Hanging.

Firstly I want to clarify that yesterday was not my birthday - awkward times for everyone who commented on Facebook, it’s pretty Onyx-cepptable. I'm Ash-amed of that pun.

Just having a much needed lie down and thought I should probably bust a move and get my blog on. After today's far too early lecture, albeit it funny, was a challenge to sit through due to being at a foam party last night - it became very apparent when I got in last night and "woke" up this morning that the foam had pretty much settled in my lungs, which can’t be good. Still coughing. It’s messy.

Had such a nightmare after the lecture. I needed to print off a copy of my CV to hand in to "Pizza Hut" today for my interview, so I trudge off back to my flat get everything I need to go to the library to print only to find out, to my horror, that I’ve left my damn memory stick. FLIP. After this horribly embarrassing revelation I mustered up my energy and set off back to my flat just to walk back to the library and sort everything out. EFFORT.

So, this was clearly the best day ever to have my job interview at "Pizza Hut", totally hanging from last night, coughing up foam and generally just shattered! Don’t know if I have the job yet but I’ll be having a phone call either soon or tomorrow. Just going to do a new post talking about my lectures, enjoy.

Bye and stuff x

Work..?

Yes, the realisation of actually having to do work at university is surfacing and eventually being pushed back down with copious amounts of alcohol.. and so this brings us to today! Having been out last night, I was dreading my alarm clock this morning, which was ambitiously set for 9:30.

Well, after a very rude awakening from my unwelcoming alarm clock, I had to be up and out for a "very important" run down of the gym and its many facilities; this is when I realised that just the sight of the machines were slowly making me feel tired. After a tour of the gym I revelled in the fact that it was actually the weekend - something I'm proud to say that I worked out for myself after losing track of the days since being at Winchester! this meant that i had absolutely nothing to do today.. oh yeah apart from all that reading.

After running out of things to distract myself with, ranging from looking through my many freebies from the fresher's fayre and a trip into Winchester, I got down to the reading. Going from the first 10 pages, I've discovered my politics A Level was actually useful! Seems I've already learned some of the basics - more specifically the details about the Uk's uncodified (unwritten) constitution - this means that the Uk's constitution is not written down but instead held up throughout traditions and institutions that have withstood the tests of time. Uncodified constitutions are seen as advantageous as they are flexible - making them easier to update laws or rights to reflect social change.

On a way less serious note, I'm very excited for the newest episode of Doctor Who tonight, whats more I imagine there will be more drinking involved - which was another thought I had today, just surviving freshers to then realise its fresher's fortnight.. I'll see you all there x

Start of University and FRESHERS - Very First Post :)

So this is going to be my first ever post; how very exciting! Lovin' the start of uni life, I'm very proud of myself for being out every night of freshers so far.  What I'm more impressed about is the fact that today has been the only day I've not woken up still drunk or massively hung over - off to a good start. Meeting new friends has been great and I'm getting on well with my flat mates (who are cool, obvs). Now that I'm finally sober, I've managed to make a To-do list which is slowly becoming shorter; from applying to the gym to finally getting my Internet working! Maybe with this gym membership I can overcome my perpetual laziness.
Keep reading and keep checking for more posts! x