TED

War of the Worlds

Have you ever thought about the magnitude of media impact? We always think about how media can convince us to buy clothes or how it can change our ideologies on certain topics. But how about killing yourself or killing somebody else, do you think media can cause us to do such things? 

I'm going to confirm this accusation. media can, and in fact has, caused us to kill people or kill ourselves.


War of the Worlds Radio Quito 1949

Context:

• The War of the Worlds (book) 
• Written in 1898
• Science fiction novel by H. G. Wells
• Adventures in London and the countryside around London as Earth is invaded by Martians.  
• One of the earliest stories that details a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. 

• The War of the Worlds (radio drama)
• Episode in American radio drama anthology series
• Halloween episode on October 30, 1938
• Directed and narrated by Orson Welles
• Adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds. 
• Suggested to many listeners that an actual alien invasion by Martians was currently in progress.  

Who, When, Where: 
Leonardo Paez
February 12th 1949 
Quito, Ecuador

What: 
http://www.war-ofthe-worlds.co.uk/war_worlds_quito.htm
 
Impact: 
Demonstrates how media can convince us of wrongful information and can cause us to take extreme action

connected

media connects us. we dont really think about it but because of media we are all connected. at this exact moment i have my facebook open (you probably do too) and i'm talking to my friend alexia. she has lived in portugal, germany, arizona, hawaii, bolivia, peru (where we met) and now texas. 

through media she has been able to maintain friendships with people from all over the world, like for example me. its pretty amazing how in a matter of seconds i not only find out she won her soccer game but i can also see a picture of the crowd going wild and a video of her penalty kick. 

the power of facebook is mindblowing. 

not only does media connect us physically in the fact that we can communicate with each other but it also connect our ideas. also through facebook newspapers twitter and other forms of media we find out what is happening in other parts of the world and inclusively we can become involved.

a couple months ago, there was an organized pillow fight in the boardwalk here in lima. through different tipes of media like newspapers, magazines, facebook, twitter a huge crowd of a couple hundred people showed up (including me, hehehe)

on a more scandalous note, not so long ago a dutch girl accidentally made a facebook event of her 16th birthday party public. this turned into a real-life version of the movie project x which for those of you who saw the movie ends in the whole neighborhood on fire. although this didnt happen, there was a wild crowd of 4,000 people and at least 35 were arrested. 

again, the power of facebook is mindblowing. 

comic sans

media has such a large impact on our lives. we dont even realize how much it can affect our actions in our everyday lives. media can have such influence on us that we dont even realize. it can be on such small things as the font we use. 

when i was picking what font to use for my first blog post i realized that i have an intense hatred towards comic sans. but why does this prejudice exist? after all, its just another font. what makes it so different than times new roman or calibri?

i traced back my hatred to this website: 9gag. according to wikipedia, 9gag is an image-based social media website which centers around user-uploaded, comical images. as i scrolled through the posts i realized that all the 9gaggers (people that post on 9gag) not just dont use comic sans but they have a insane hatred towards this font (many of the posts, like the pictures attached, portray this hatred). 

the fact that this social media website has this opinion and has spread this opinion demonstrates how media can affect our opinions and our actions. this is a simple example of how, through media, other peoples opinions and ideals can be shoved down our throats in a manner that we dont even notice. 

speaking in personal experience, because of 9gag's constant posts against comic sans, i have not used this font and i have made fun of people that do. this shows exactly the level of effect that media, like a website, can unconsciously have on our lives.