Hunger Games and CoG

By: suzannecollinsbooks.com

By: http://3.bp.blogspot.com

Within the past month or so I found out that two of my favorite books are going to be made into movies. The Hunger Games is a novel by Suzanne Collins who is a great YA writer. This book is about a future dystopian America that is split into twelve districts and each year the districts send two tributes, a boy and a girl, into the Hunger Games. The 24 tributes are sent to an arena where they fight to the death and everybody in the districts is forced by the Capitol to watch. This book is full of action and strong willed characters.

The next book is part of The Mortal Instruments City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This book is about a 16 year old girl who discovers the shadow world full of shadowhunters who rid the world of demons and rouge downworlders; vamps, werewolves, faeries, and warlocks. The heroin of the story, Clary, meets a group of teenage shadowhunters at a club and needs their help to find her mother who was abducted from their apartment. This is one of my favorite books, the newest book in this series, City of Fallen Angels, came out April 5th.

Ever since I found out these two books are being turned into movies I started searching the authors official websites looking for information on casting and directors. When I found out that the actresses cast as the main character in each movie had a twitter page I dug up my old account information and started following them and any other official fan pages. I used to be against twitter because I didn't understand how it was really useful, but then I realized that I could get updates about either movies in seconds with links to different websites.

I could also get texts on my phone if anyone retweeted me or tagged me in a post. This is the best example of convergence because I could also access twitter on my phone. I also found out that Cassandra Clare has a twitter page too and it was really cool to see fans tagging her in posts or asking her questions and reading her responses. Cassandra Clare even posted on twitter about a scene that was cut out of the TV trailer for City of Fallen Angels. She tweeted that the cut scene needed a password to be viewed and fans who wanted to watch it had to follow the clues that led them to different young adult authors' pages to figure out the password.

Now I can say that I have become addicted to twitter because it's cool how you can get all this information sent to you. It's great how technology has evolved to enable us to get information so easily and on multiple devices.

Cosmo is Not for Housewives Anymore!

Then:Now: When you look at a Cosmopolitan magazine cover you notice the picture of the cover model, this is processed through the limbic brain. Your mind also processes all the text in varying fonts, colors, and sizes in the neocortex. Lastly, it appeals to the reptilian brain because the cover has 'sex' in large font.

There are a few of the eight shifts that apply to this magazine. One would be the Technological shift. It used to be that you would have to wait for the magazine to be out on newsstands before you could read it. However, now Cosmo has a website with all different kinds of articles and videos on it. Another shift would be the Personal shift. Cosmo has a Facebook page where they have frequent updates about the magazine and allow feedback from consumers.

The "Reality" Construction/Trade-offs principle applies to Cosmo magazine because there are goods and bads to this magazine. Some of the goods are that there are important articles that women should read regarding health and other various information. One bad thing that I think of is having this magazine out on newsstands next to magazines targeted to younger girls or even children. I think we can all agree that Cosmo is not the kind of magazine younger girls should be looking at. Another principle of media would be Production Techniques. A lot of production goes into creating the cover of a magazine. There is getting a model, choosing the lighting that makes the model look best, deciding on hair, makeup, clothes etc. and once the cover shot is done there is the layout design. People have to figure out what should go where so the cover doesn't look crowded and unprofessional.

So this is a video of Megan Fox's Cosmo cover shoot, and yeah we have to listen to her talk about a bunch of crap that nobody cares about, but this video does a good job of showing what kind of production techniques go into creating an amazing cover.

Cosmo uses many of the Persuasive Techniques such as 'simple solution'. On the cover of this magazine it says "The New Water Sipping Trick That Crushes Hunger", they are offering a simple solution for losing weight. This cover also uses the 'rhetorical questions' like "Great Guy, Lame Sex?". It's pretty obvious no one is expecting a real answer. Another persuasive technique is 'plain folks', this magazine is targeted to the average young woman. The biggest persuasive technique is 'beautiful people'. Every cover of Cosmo features a well known, attractive female celebrity. These are just a few of the persuasive techniques (listing them all would take too much time).

Cosmo is a great magazine that really has a lot to offer. The main topics are beauty, health, love/sex, relationships, lifestyle, and of course fashion. This is a great magazine because they are always doing something different and keep you interested. This isn't the same old Cosmo that was originally targeted to a married housewife. Cosmo redesigned itself to appeal to young, single women with topics that interest them most.

Bud Lite & Doritos. YUM!

This Sunday I did what most people in America do on the first Sunday in February and that is watch the Super Bowl. Most of my friends only watch the Super Bowl because of the legendary commercials that play. I however, actually look forward to the game. Of course that's not to say I don't enjoy the commercials that get played. I think it's kind of funny that this is the one day where people get together and voluntarily watch commercials. It seems that the past few years Bud Lite and Doritos have dominated the Super Bowl commercials with some of the best ads of the year. Last year Doritos claimed spots 1 and 2 for the best commercials. This year however, Volkswagen claimed the top spot with a child dressed up as Darth Vader.



Although this ad is very funny, especially the kids reaction when the car starts up, you really don't get much information about the car; and that is in fact what Volkswagen is trying to sell. Some of my personal favorite ads were from brands that included Doritos and Bud Lite, of course, Best Buy, Chevy, eTrade, Audi, and Home Away. But that's just to name a few. The Best Buy ad, although it wasn't that funny I did enjoy them referring to Justin Bieber as a girl... I mean that's just funny! Some of these brands had quite a few ads so lets get specific, shall we?















These are some of the funniest commercials, in my opinion. Although I do have to admit that it is a little absurd that companies are willing to pay about 3 million dollars just to get a commercial slot and then spend a couple more million dollars to make the ad, just to sell their slot at the last minute. But all that craziness aside the Super Bowl has become one of the most televised events in history partly because of the commercials that get played.

My name is Rachel Paz
1. I'm from Rockaway, New Jersey
2. I can't really think of any media experience that I had over the break.
3. One thing I like about media in the 21st century is how easy it is to reach your target market. One thing I don't like is how difficult it is to find the best media channels to reach your target.
4. For the future I hope to be working in an advertising agency like my uncle, who works for the Martin Agency, and working with fashion and other retail companies