Final Blog

My first computer mediated communication form was probably e-mail. I set up my first account when I was a freshman in High School. Back in those days my inbox only had spam and some emails from my older sister. During that year I went on vacation to Mexico and became very close to one of my cousins. She has grown up in Mexico but had just moved to Houston to attend school. We knew that keeping in touch through the phone would be expensive so we decided to exchange email addresses. At first I didn’t think that it would be hard but I hadn’t taken into consideration the language barrier between us. Her first language was Spanish, and although she was learning English it was hard for me to understand her. On the other hand my Spanish is not that great especially when written. My cousin had told me that she would write to me in English because she wanted to practice the language. I decided to write in Spanish but I used English when I had trouble. Using e-mail definitely hindered our communication and made it harder for us to understand one another. It was hard for me to understand what she meant sometimes and vice versa. Sometimes words and sayings would not translate very well. The context of where I was did not really affect the conversation because e-mail is private in the sense that only the person you address it to will be able to read it. I did not have to worry about others reading what I had written to her. The medium used was sort of tricky because a lot of non verbal cues and parts of the message get lost through an email. When a “communication breakdown” did occur it could have been isolated to both the medium and the message. From the beginning a language barrier already existed which affected the message and the medium also affected our understanding of the message. Through time we were able to adapt to one another’s form of writing.

Popular Culture

As much as I would like to think that my life is not totally consumed by popular culture, I know that is not true. I didn’t think I would be able to find much evidence of this in my own room, since I just moved in and there isn’t much in there. To my surprise I was wrong, and it is very evident that popular culture is very present in my life. There isn’t much in my room right now, so it was surprising to notice that most of the stuff that I do have can be categorized as popular culture. This shows the importance and the role that popular culture has in my life.
There are three types of popular culture that are easily identified in my room: music, entertainment and brands. I wouldn’t classify the music that I listen to as mainstream, I prefer to listen to underground music, but the device in which I listen to my music would fall into popular culture. The IPod has become a very dominant device in popular culture in the past years; the brand (Apple) itself has become a prominent leader in electronics. Nike is brand that is known throughout the world, it has defiantly become a part of popular culture, it is present nearly everywhere, including my room. I have a stack of boxes with the swoosh on it; this is a brand that I am dedicated to. Finally, I have a stack of tabloid magazines and fashion magazines. These magazines are my way of keeping connected and up to date with everything that is considered mainstream in the U.S. I feel that tabloids and magazines are the epitome of what popular culture is. They provide us with information of everything that is popular at the moment whether it is music, television etc. I don’t have much in my room but these three items were enough to show the influence that popular culture has on my life.
There are definitely things that I have refused to buy and therefore are not present in my room. The example that Martin and Nakayama gave about the Fighting Sioux is something that I related to. The University of Illinois had a similar problem with their mascot the “Chief” many people found it offensive to the Native American culture but others saw no problem with the use of it. I choose not to support the use of the Chief as the mascot, and therefore have never bought nor wore anything that represents the chief.
I believe that all these things fit in with my own cultural identity. I identify myself as Mexican-American. The things that I have in my room do show that I am influenced by America’s mainstream culture, but at the same time the things that I do not have are influenced by my Mexican culture. I choose not to support the chief as a mascot because as a minority I feel that it is offensive to exploit others culture for the benefit of a mascot. Popular culture does play a role in my life but at the same time I know when not to compromise my own beliefs.