Which is better, Brand X or Brand Y?

This week’s question concerns brands and what brands we devote ourselves to.  So, why do we pick one brand over another?  Is it the quality of the product?  Does that company generally put out quality products?  That would be a good reason to be devoted to a brand.  Is it because that brand provides good value for the price you pay?  That’s another good reason.  Are there other reasons that aren’t so good, though?

Does that company have really good advertising?  Has it been implanted in your mind that if you buy Brand X you’ll be really cool but if you go for Brand Y (even if in truth if was the better brand) you wouldn’t be cool.  Do we buy a product to fulfill a use or merely to try to improve our image?

Cell phones and cell phone carriers are an example of this.  Why are you with the carrier you have and why do you have the phone you have?  Is one carrier really that much worse than another?  And once you’ve committed yourself to a brand, how easy is it to change to another, a concept called brand stickiness?  To continue the cell phone example, I currently have an iPhone.  I’ve had an iPhone model for 3 years now.  I found the phone powerful and easy to use compared to the smartphones of the era, Windows Mobile, and others.  In those three years I’ve accumulated lots of applications.  So, what if I wanted an Android phone for my next phone?  Truthfully, Android is also a good phone OS and they have a good phone selection, but then all those apps I bought would be useless.  I’d have to get new ones, but what if I went with the next iPhone model?  Then all those apps would transfer over without spending one additional cent over the cost of the phone itself.  In fact, Apple provides even more incentive to stay in the iOS ecosphere.  What if I want a tablet?  If I get an iPad I suddenly have a bunch of apps ready to run on it.

In the question of brands, just make sure you buy what will fulfill a purpose, or it’s a good product and not necessarily what brand tells you will make you cool.  Coolness comes from the inside, from who you are, not what you buy.

Media Texts and Me

This week’s question of whether there’s a media text that accurately or adequately depicts us or our community is an interesting one.  As a Christian that would mean media that hold values as given in the Bible which to be honest is hard to find in today’s media.  Any media that accurately depicts the Christian community would also have to honor God as well, something else that’s also rare in today’s media.

There is a genre even in today’s media environment that fits this criteria though, Christian media.  Christian media has evolved from short 40 minute films to be shown in church for Sunday school to full length feature films.  There are even Christian media production companies that exist to make such films.  Some of them are Sherwood Pictures which is a ministry of Sherwood Baptist Church.  They made four films so far with the fourth films, Courageous opening on September 30^th.  There’s also Five & Two Pictures and Pure Flix Entertainment.

In addition to those companies Christian films are also being released by others, even Sony.  Not that long ago they released Soul Surfer, a film about the true story of Bethany Hamilton.  She survived a shark attack when she was a teenager and the film accurately depicts her strong Christian values.  So, I’d say that yes there is a media text that accurately depicts the Christian community and it’s great that there is.

I’ve included the trailer to Sherwood Pictures new film Courageous below.  It opens Friday, September 30^th.  Enjoy!

I'll Be Right Back...

This is certainly a tricky blog post to write.  The question from our Comm 100 class is how I did on Wednesday’s quiz and what explains my performance?  There’s only one problem – I wasn’t there Wednesday.  Don’t get me wrong, I know class attendance is important.  It’s an important component of learning.  Life does happen though so I cut my first two classes that Wednesday simply because it was a hectic and stressful morning.

However to keep with the spirit of the question I believe the quiz basically asked us to identify people.  Generally speaking, famous people in the media were more recognizable than various government leaders.  The question then becomes is this a problem?  There’s two ways to look at this problem.  One is as an individual and the other is as a society in general.

Individually speaking, we should try to be better informed about life and government.  A well informed citizen makes for a well informed citizenry you might say.  As a society there’s also two ways to answer both of which we learned in class.  One answer would agree with Walter Lippmann’s position that this would just be further proof that modern life is too complicated every citizen to understand which would be why there needs to be an elite class of people that would fully informed and take care of all of this.  The second answer would agree with John Dewey’s position that it’s all right that some citizens are less informed on a subject compared to other citizens.  Those other citizens can take up the slack and you’ll still have a well informed society.  Besides, when a different subject comes up those positions might be reversed.

Another question to consider is why the media focuses on celebrities and not on so called hard news? Is it because the media doesn't care or is it that we just really want nothing more than to hear the latest gossip.  A cynical view of this can be found in Don Henley's song, "Dirty Laundry" included below in a clip from YouTube.

So, to get back to the original question of what explains my performance – it’s simple really, I haven’t found a way to violate the laws of physics and be in two places at the same time.  Until then it’s always a good idea to make it to class if possible.