Manufacturing conset, necessary illusions and thought control in a democratic society…
February 15, 2007 
Well personally I like Chomsky, I always have. I suppose I bonded with him over the fact that were both out of sympathy with the prevailing social currents. Many of the ideas in the movie I was trying to get at in my blog “wheres our revolution?” . We all know institutions marginalize the minority and are illegitamate in many ways so the question remains….how do we challenge the legitamacy of authority, the domination and coersion? Most importantly how do we create social action for the greater good?
Its festivus …not Guy Fox or Halloween
February 14, 2007 
Breaking News U tube sues You tube check this out….
http://mashable.com/2006/11/01/breaking-utube-sues-youtube/
So this week the news..sometimes interesting, sometimes useful and sometimes just plain jane. Instead of harping on the news as I would normally do I’ve decided to take another perspective. While I can ‘t imagine actually being a reporter or working for any establishment that brings news and media to the forfront of our culture, they have a tougher job than we give them credit for. Sorting through the mundane and trying to make the grusome tangible. The Hamolka and Bernardo trials are a perfect example of this. How do you mediate between what people need to know, want to know, should know and should probobly stay away from….
This doesn’t excuse poor reporting, but this chapter put into context the reality of the ”story crazed” reporter for me. I’m quick to dismiss whats on the news as faulty information and I guess like everyting, we need to interpret the information given critically and understand the process it goes through before it gets to us to be able to evaluate it effectively. Kind of like genetically modified food….
So the word good infront of anything doesn’t mean much subjectively, good news to some is the national inquirer and paris/brittney nickers lost… to others its politics..with the advent of the internet the news, music, entertainment, and theater have become accesible in means never before possible and its kind of cool…
Cheers
T.V. Our omnipotent, omniprevelant, omniscient little God? The spectacle of excess reaches further than wrestling….
February 5, 2007 
So what is televisions role in our lives?
If it teaches us and informs us about improtant moments and events in our lives then what is being left out? Other than the scripted comedy “Everybody hates Chris” where is the diversity and equality everybody rants and raves about but doesnt really seem to exist? I can’t think of a show that ever had an East Indian Woman as the star and even if there were how would she be presented and are these presentations realistic?
My beef with T.V. was summed in Barthes article, where he poetically states a few catch phrases that can easily draw parrellel with televison. ” What matters is not what it thinks, but what it sees”. Its almost repulsive the image that this statement creates, the bastard on the couch that grunts his requests to whoever might be listenning. Is that what we are moving towards… a regression and depletion of the neocortex, the vary structure that seems to give us unbrittled ownership of the world and everything within it? The summation of the great event, the eventual conquer of the world will fallow a race who sleeps with his eyes open, drooling and stripped of the vary essence that makes cognition matter? Western “civilization” truly is a specticle of excess. Coupled with instant gratification and a sexual obsession we’ve collectively created an interesting little melodrama of our own. And thats the big money ticket….for some reason, wether innate or learned, we have an desire to be social, and take special interest in other peoples affairs. Some of its appauling and some of it’s comical, is it educating? Do we learn about ourselves when we watch the news and our favorite shows? Do they reflect a part of us that we can’t communicate to the rest of the world or is it simply a new medium for an old past time?
Stories must have gotten many civilizations through barren cold winters and long dry summer days. The fact is we love it or it wouldn’t exist as it does. T.V. entertains and captures its audience by exploiting some of the most basic human programming, and while I could question why on average people are spending almost as much time watching T.V. as they are at work, its better to state that partaking in viewing this medium is still a choice. If the cost outweighs the benefit then why arent we ditching the tube? It must provide us with something beneficial. As for the garbage, dont put it in with the recycling.
The Internet…it really isn’t like finding something in the fridge
I left class tonight thinking about a multitude of different ideas. I’m by no means an advocate for the internet…when it first came out I thought it would cause the end of the world as we know it…maybe it will ..maybe it won’t, but as far as making a judgement on whether it is good or bad..it isn’t like finding something in the fridge from last semester.
The reality is it isn;t an entity in its own right and is therefore neither intrinsically bad or good. Interactions happen in a context and each individual approaches the internet and online communities with a certain intent and that is the threshold for judgement. We aren’t at anymore risk on the internet than we are in the “real world”. Young girls should always be taught to look out for themselves and not just on the internet or just on the street or in their homes…the same principles apply everywhere…. Don’t take a ride from a stranger….ect
How many people would respond to someone who says “how old are you …I think I could teach you a few things…” in real life or on the internet?
Although I advocated for face to face contact in my previous blog I have to clarify that it was in regards to the domination of online communities and as Paul said this internet medium can actually enhance outstanding “real life friendships”. It is also important to note on the topic of online predators that sociopathic individuals are most likely white males, in their 20’s or 30’s who are attractive, well spoken, perceived as trustworthy and often charasmatic..just the thing girls are looking for on a saturday night and hey myself included. So despite the fact that psychologists have discovered mechanisms that we use to detect cheaters how good are they? and where are we putting ourselves at the most risk….drunk in a bar, walking home from the store, at a catholic church, in a mosque, at the gym, on the internet or out in the wilderness?
Bad things happen sometimes and good things happen sometimes. How often do we forget such a simple truth? How true is it?How in control of our lives are we?
Are we victims of the very world we live in…predtermined by some omnipotent force?
Or are we ultimatly in control and can we take responsibility for the actions that either create us oppertunity, or result in our failure?
To Mothers and Fathers
Well Paul like you my mom and dad read my blog. How wonderful. I thought I’d dedicate a little blog just to them for their everlasting support and encouragement as I move trough the university experience. Unlike most of you my parents are far more technologically advanced than I am so I’ve learned a lot from them about how to navigate through the world wide web and well the whole wide world too.
So thanks Mom for reading and commenting and thanks Dad for taking my persistent and never ending “what the hell do I do!!!???”phone calls .
Love you both and miss you terribly
Can’t wait to rip some turns with you at Castle and get the complimentary daughter ski pass, lunch and dinner. Ode to the perks of being an only child!
Did we judge God when he died?
I’ve just finished Karen Evans paper on the significance of virtual communities and while interesting it raised some fundamental questions about human interaction.
First and farmost is the question of wether online communities will come to dominate social interaction. I certainly hope not. We are social beings and I dont think that text is enough to form a significant relationship. I know people will argue this to death because after all online dating is quite prevalent these days, families and friends seperated by geographical disitance stay “connected” but the context and reality of the individual has already been defined..so when does a relationship become significant and what defines it as such? Can it happen between wires?
Touch, smell, sight, sound, taste… each was and is fundamental to our survival as a species, and each can be tantalized by various stimuli. We need physical contact right from the moment we are born. It actually decreases the amount of corticosteroids (various stress hormones) in infants (and adults) to be held and coddled. Being physically close to people is how we become who we are, it allows us to be inculturated into our society. Having said that, we must also consider that the world around us (namely the technology) has changed so quickly that evolutionarily we havent had a chance to change with it. We can be a little bit greedier now as individuals as we no longer live in the tight nit social communities of the past. Thus the move towards individualism.
Is online communication so free of predjudice, discrimination, ethnocentric ideals and judgements? I have to conclude no. In all rational terms we set the parameters for this interaction to occur and we are human and fallable. Can we assumes that it is only ideas that can oppress and exclude others from various social communities and activities? Ideas, in this context become powerless.
Evans discussed how physical barriers are crossed allowing individuals to be free of constraint in their interactions with eachother, however even if the physical barriers are crossed we still interpret the aesthetics of the page, the quality of the writting and a host of other subtle nuances. The reality is that we need to be able to judge people and situations, human altruism demands it. You can change the medium but that doesn’t change the fundamental characteristics of the individual who is operating and navigating through the internets wild ride. So while I hail the internet for its easy access to people and things, nothing will ever be more spectacular to me than waking up in a dusky cabin far from the omniscent presence and hum of electricity,and going for a long ski on a champagne day. You can’t get that on the internet.
Where was John Rawls?
Is there a categorical imperitive?
Or does thic code of ethics crumbled under utilitarian confounds?
There is no universal code to fallow so what expectations should we have of the media?
Is it not our responsibility to know that all information gathered, sorted and published in one form or another in undoubtably biased by the human hand. Should we not interpret it accordingly? Are we asking the media to present us with something acceptible and entertaining or something real?
Why chase affirmation at your own cost?
Where’s our revolution?
The topic of ethics and morality always puts me in a three day tance trying to figure out exactly what it all means. I never do, so sorry to disappoint….
I did however, get into some thinking about us as consumers and individuals. I didn;t focus as much on how media is effecting us from an ethical standpoint but how we are affecting it. This is not the era of the golden mean, and although I enjoy Aristotle he would be appauled at how extreme we are in the what I call the wrong ends of the cottonfield.
So where is our revlotion? The vietnam war was not that much different than what’s going on in the US today with Afganistan and Iraq…. is the world too big, are these people undeserving of at least our voices in protest? I can only imagine what the democratic or better refered to by my wise and wonderful father as the spiritual revolution, must have been like. Parties and protestest, existentialist persuits, a sense of urgency as people demanded control of their lives and opinions refusing to be held in a plastic mold by the captains of big industry. Voices were being heard….Does our youth feel the same disinfranchisment as those who wandered before us? I feel somehow set apart because I feel that same sense of urgency, for the environment, for the war, for the AIDS epidemic that is blowing through Africa. I guess what I’m seeing around me is people who are just accepting their destiny, not fighting for more or less, and feeling victimized throughout their life course. We make oppertunities for ourselves and most of our life events are in our control. It isn’t enough to just blame the media, or the corporate enterprises, but to really grab life and make a descision about who we want to be….and take ourselves there, on a magical mystery tour…..
Have you ever watched someone else watch tv?
Its atrocious, I’m ashamed of myself…do I really spend my time slumped over, gazing endlessly at a flashing screen void of any spontaneous delight? At least when I read a use more brain cells than when I’m asleep…
So I’ll conclude this short blog with THANK GOD FOR ICONOCLASTS like Mike Moore and Al Gore. Keep us thinking about the human condition and the nonesensicle rationalizions that flow from the core of its essence. Not all media is bad, but hell most of it isn’t good.
Here we go….
Like many of you I’ve had several heartattacks since reading the syllubus and being introduced to the new world of “blogging”. Computers scare me, lets just be honest…however working through new mediums alwasy proves to be, at the very least, entertaining.
With regard to the course material thus far (more specifically the last two bullets at the top of page 4), I ask the question: ARE WE REALLY BEING HEARD and if so by whom? Does this apply to everyone? If our ideas are being expressed widely, and the common man is outraged by the same tragedies, how are those ideas integrated into corporate descision making in all facets of media?
Consider the economic imperative, the definition in itself rejects the minority voice, no matter what angle it comes from. Similarly conglomeration offers us one, often stagnant, view of our now media filtered world..
Anyone care to jump into that?
See you in class!
