Cameras: A Link to the Past and Future

"I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything." This quote, originally uttered by author John Steinbeck in 1962, stands out to me because it really shows how with the rise of cameras a sense of innocence was lost. In the time before cameras the only visual a person could recieve of a foreign lands and its people was the one created in his or her head. It left people to see what they wanted to see and leave things the way they wanted to see them. With the birth of cameras, it was no longer up to the everyday people as to what people from Greenland wore to keep warm, for example. Society began to lose that old world feel and seemed to be on the cusp of a total technological revolution. As true with many new inventions, the camera left people bewildered, yet filled with wonderment. It was in many ways a portal to the future and the past. It connected people to ancesters and cities that were before one's time while keeping people looking forward to the other technological breakthroughs that have had people marvelling for the past century.

Media Transformation

As a person who is fresh to the blogging scene, it has just started to dawn on me the drastic transformation that media has underwent. From scribes handwriting books and newsletters to the instant information age that we live in today, the changes are almost unimaginable. Today's media is such a staple of a society that wants to know what happened even before it happened. If there isn't a good video posted on youtube within an hour of an incident, there is a cyber uproar of malicious blogs and slanderous accusations against various news organizations that is completely unwarranted. It's somewhat distressing to find out that 95% of our media is owned by just 5 companies. I feel that we get slanted versions of stories depending on Disney's, for instance, personal interests. If a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume went on a killing spree, the costume might just be left out of the article, until the inevitable video is posted on youtube that is and the backpedaling soon ensues. As i said previously, I am new to this whole blogging thing but it's good to know that everybody has an outlet to get express themselves and give, for the most part, neutral and unsided opinions on whatever is on their mind that day.