Spiral of Silence

The Spiral of Silence Theory was first proposed in 1984 by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann. Noelle-Neumann propsed this theory in part to explain why Germans supported the political positions they did in the 1930-40s despite it leading to national embarrassment.

The theory claims that people are less likely to state their opinions if they believe their opinions are in the minority. It is based of the premises that: people can determine popular opinion without access to polls, people have a fear of isolation and have an understanding of what behavior will lead to isolation, and people are reluctant to express their views if they believe them to be in the minority out of fear of isolation.

This is where it comes to the "spiral" part. If people don't speak up on their perceived minority opinions, others sharing their beliefs will be less likely to speak up because they believe their beliefs to be in the minority. This creates a spiral effect, where less and less people are willing to speak up because no one is speaking up. Weird sort of paradox, isn't it?

Media Dependency Theory

Media Dependency Theory is a media effect theory first proposed in 1976 by Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Melvin Defleur. It stems from the Usage and Gratification Theory.

The UG theory is an idea proposed that society chooses what media to focus on based on what needs the media provides (information, social interaction etc). This came after a realization that perhaps media wasn't controlling society and the ways people think about things. Perhaps, instead, it is society's choice what media they utilize and how much influence they allow it to have over them.

Dependency theory, basically, is the idea that the more dependent a person becomes on the media to fulfill their needs, the more important and influential that media becomes to them.

A really excellent and interesting example of this is the effect that Google is having on our memories. Psychologist Daniel Wegner has proposed that humans have what is called transactive memory. Transactive memory is the idea that humans have sort of a shared memory. Let's say that you have a spouse. If they know what day your child's dance recital is, you yourself don't have to remember that information and vice versa. Humans basically rely on one another for shared information. You may not know when the recital is, but you know that your spouse knows and you can always ask them later.

Our society is beginning to develop this sort of dependency relationship with media such as Google. Betsy Sparrow from Columbia University conducted a series of experiments to see the effects that Google had on our memory. One of the experiments involved 60 students reading 40 trivia statements and then typing them into a computer. Sparrow found that the students remembered fewer of the statements if they were told the computer would save them than the students who were told the statements would be erased. If they knew their work could be accessed later, they didn't feel the need to remember it. “Since search engines are continually available to us, we may often be in a state of not feeling we need to encode the information internally. When we need it, we will look it up,” says Sparrow.

This a great example of Dependency Theory. People are using media like Google to fill their informational needs, and are actually beginning to remember things less and become more and more dependent on Google for that information. Media isn't forcing itself upon them, rather it's being selected and used by society.

A Little Movie!

This is what I was using the cars for! My very first attempt at After Effects. :)

Self Portrait

One of my very first projects in Illustrator! A self portrait. :) The first picture was my first attempt, the second is my second attempt. I prefer the second. I think sometimes about doing another one, just for practice. We'll see!

I submitted another piece to the Aviator, I'll let you all know if it gets published and I'll show it to you when I can. :)

Art History Cave Painting

One of the very first assignments I did for school. This was for Art History. We had to create the rock in Photoshop, and then draw a little cave painting on it keeping the style, tools they had available etc in mind. This still makes me smile, I love doing illustrations in different styles.

Aviator Cover

Today I'll show you something I'm really proud of. This is my first (and so far only) published piece! My school has a literary magazine known as The Aviator that students can submit written and drawn pieces to. This issue of the magazine had a theme of "Halloween" or "Fall" and this is the piece I chose to submit. Not only did they publish it, they chose it for their "Editor's choice" award and used it for the cover of the magazine! They also wrote an article that featured both the Aviator and myself.

Sneak Peek Part 2

Remember those cars from yesterday? Well this is what I wanted them for! :) I'm working on a tv show promo for Motion Graphics and these are some of my style frames. The show is about drifting by the by. I really wanted a gritty, grungy, fast feeling. Of course these don't feel fast because they aren't moving! But they will be, don't you fret!

A Sneak Peek

Hey guys! Here's a sneak peek of a project I'm working on. I figured I'd share it with you all while I take a break from working on it. These are two of the graphics I'll be using for a motion graphics project! This is the first time I've used Illustrator in...a long time. I would have done them in Photoshop (like I do with everything) but part of my animation requires me to zoom in really tight to each of these elements, and vectors just handle that better.

Bright Eyes Poster

I do believe this was for my History of Visual communications class. This was one of the more enjoyable projects I encountered because of just how much freedom I had. The requirements were that we had to make a band poster and it had to include the name of the band and a date/time/place. Everything else we had free reign over, even the selection of the band. Bright Eyes is my favorite so that was an easy choice. I love drawing things so I wanted to add some hand drawn elements. I wanted it to look like a poster they may actually have, and I really wanted a "collage" feel.

Art Nouveau Style Bookmark

For this class assignment we were required to create a bookmark (this is the full uncropped picture used for it) that was to be inspired by Art Nouveau. We also had to give it a personal and modern twist. I chose Mucha as my inspiration and I chose to give it a modern zombie twist. They're all the rage these days, and I'll admit to my love for drawing them. I also thought it was be an interesting contrast to the beautiful, delicate nature of Mucha's works.

Based off of stock found here.

Operations Plan

In Studio Maintenance we were required to create an Operations Plan for a metaphorical design studio, factoring in all costs and explaining how the set-up works. You'll recognize my logo in the corner :) As you can see, I'm very fond of the look of grid paper in planning documents.